THE NEW DAY
Roger, climbing the steps to the Science Building on the day that he was
thirty years old, wondered if his working life was to end as it had
begun within its ugly walls.
The building stood at the western edge of the campus. It was a Gothic,
Jacobean, Victorian composite, four stories high, built of yellow
sandstone, marble and brick. It boasted a round dome, rising from a
Gothic main roof and a little pagoda-like tower on each of the mansard
roofs that crowned the two wings. There had been a time when to Roger
the Science Building had been beautiful. But he saw its ugliness now and
laughed about it with Ernest.
On this December afternoon, Roger stayed late in the laboratory with
twenty seniors who for some weeks had been carrying on strength tests of
varying mixtures of concrete. The sun was low in the west and the
corners of the huge old room were dark. But a red glow from the west
window filled its center, turning the concrete briquettes piled on the
table in the middle of the room to gold.
Roger stood by the table, examining the students' reports on the
fractured briquettes. His black hair, with the sunset full upon it, was
like molten bronze. Roger's face had changed in the years since his
undergraduate days. His figure was the same, six feet of lean muscle;
his eyes were as blue and his face as thin and intellectual as when as a
small boy he had dreamed of an underground railway. But there had grown
subtly into his face a look of grimness and unhappiness that robbed it
of the youth it still should have retained.
A shock headed student came to the table with a briquette.
"How does the thesis go, Hallock?" asked Roger.
"Slow, just now, Mr. Moore."
"What's the trouble?"
"Oh, the best of the information is in German and I'm rotten at
scientific German."
"You've taken the required work in German, haven't you, Hallock?"
"Squeezed through by a hair's breadth," the boy answered with a grin.
Roger grunted. "Neglected it, of course, when you've been told time and
time again that a reading knowledge of scientific German is essential to
research success. I wonder why an undergraduate has to be a fool?"
"I'm not a fool," contradicted Hallock flatly.
"Any man's a fool who's working his way through college and fails to get
the most he can out of every course offered him. I know, because I
worked my way through my last two years, neglected my German and had to
make it up after I graduated. That thesis will make or mar you as far as
your first job goes. Who'd you have your second year German with? If I
were you, I'd take a semester of it over again."
"I'd rather never get a diploma than go back to old Rosenthal."
"Mr. Rosenthal," corrected Roger sharply. "Speak respectfully of an
instructor."
"Aw," exclaimed Hallock, now evidently angry, "why should I speak
respectfully of a beer-guzzling Dutchman who sneers at the girls in the
class every time they recite?"
There was sudden silence in the room. Hallock was evidently relieving an
accumulation of irritation. "If I had been Miss Anderson this morning
I'd have slapped his fat face for him."
"Be careful, Hallock! I can't permit you to talk this way to me about a
member of the faculty."
"Then you're no better than he!" shouted Hallock. "The damned Dutch run
this college and I'm sick of it."
There was a sudden murmur of agreement from the highly edified audience
now grouped behind Hallock. This was an old sore that had existed in
Roger's own days under Rosenthal.
"Pshaw, I know all about Mr. Rosenthal's peccadillos, Hallock," he said.
"But he's a teacher and scholar of the first water. Girls always take
general remarks personally. Miss Anderson had better forget it, whatever
it was. Girl hysteria, probably."
Hallock suddenly began to cry with rage. "Hysteria, damn you, don't you
insult her too!" Then, as an angry sneer appeared on Roger's face, he
unexpectedly leaned over the table and punched Roger on the nose.
Roger vaulted over the table and with a rapid clip laid Hallock flat.
The boy was on his feet in a moment, crying, but game. The edified
audience held the two apart.
"You don't know what the Dutch slob said! You don't know," sobbed
Hallock.
Roger did not speak. In fact he could not. He stood white and trembling
for some time, a scarlet trickle of blood running from one nostril. His
struggle for control was so obvious that even Hallock perceived it and
was silent. With the other lads he stood in embarrassment while the
laboratory clock ticked and the end of the winter sunset filled the
room.
It seemed to Roger that the fight was as difficult now as it had been
years before, when he had struck his mother's soothing hand from his
shoulder and later had kissed that same hand and had wept his heart out
with his cheek upon it. In the brief moment as he stood with clenched
fists and bowed head, waiting for the red mist to give way to his normal
vision it seemed as if all his life passed in review before him tinged
with the hot glare of his mental and spiritual tempests. Then, as many,
many times before, he seemed to feel the gentle hand, that he had
struck, laid softly on his forehead. He heaved a great sigh and looked
up.
"The class is dismissed," he said. "Hallock, hold a snowball to your
chin as you go home."
When the class had left the room, Roger washed his face at the sink in
the corner, wiping his hands on a towel that was gray with age. Then, he
dropped the towel and stood leaning against the table, head bowed, arms
folded.
The gloaming increased. A cheerful whistle sounded in the hall and
Ernest came in.
"Well, old top? Ready to go home?"
"Ern, do you know a girl named Anderson?"
"Yes, very pretty. Engaged to young Hallock, they say. What about her?
Don't tell me you've begun to be interested again in petticoats."
"I had the deuce of a row with Hallock, just now," said Roger.
"Change your clothes as you tell me about it," suggested Ernest. "It's
late."
Roger obediently started for the closet, talking from the door as he
dressed. Ernest lighted his pipe and listened thoughtfully under the
electric light he had turned on. He was a shorter man than Roger and
stockily built. He was still very fair, with soft yellow hair already
receding from a broad forehead. His eyes were beautiful, a deep violet,
soft dreaming eyes that men as well as women trusted instinctively.
"I'm sure you've seen Miss Anderson," he said when Roger had finished.
"She's a funny foolish little thing. Just the kind to attract an
unsocialized grind like Hallock. I guess there was a good deal of a row
in Rosenthal's class this morning. One of the seniors told me. Rosenthal
said to Miss Anderson--say, Rog, you're not listening."
Roger picked up his hat. "I don't care what Rosenthal said. He always
was a boor. The point with me is that I've lost my temper in the
classroom for the last time. Come on, Ern."
They were crossing the snowy campus before Ernest spoke. Then he laid
his hand on his friend's arm.
"The fool kid brought it on himself. I can see how he got worked up. You
can be exasperating and he gave you what he'd like to have given
Rosenthal. Nevertheless, no man can take a crack on the chin with a
thank you, Roger."
Roger did not reply. They turned into River Street where the street
lights flashed through the bare branches of the elms. An occasional
sleigh jingled by. Lights glowed from pleasant windows where children
were silhouetted against the curtains. Ernest stopped before the big,
comfortable Wolf house.
"Come in to supper, Roger."
"I'll not be good company, Ern," but Roger's voice was wistful.
"Come along! Mother doesn't mind your grouches, and I guess the rest of
us can endure one more."
Roger turned up the brick path that led to the door.
"Hello, boys!" Elsa called, as the front door slammed. "You're late!"
Elschen at twenty-nine was still very pretty in an unobtrusive way. Her
yellow hair was thick and curly. Her eyes were like Ernest's and her
skin was fair, with a velvety flush in her delicately rounded cheeks.
"Supper's ready," she went on. "Papa just came in. Don't keep him
waiting, children."
Roger and Ernest went quickly into the dining room where Papa Wolf was
just sitting down. He nodded to them over his spectacles, then helped
himself to a slice of meat.
"Where's Mamma?" asked Ernest, passing the bread to Roger.
"Here, liebchen!" Mamma Wolf came in, carrying a steaming coffee pot.
She set it down, then hurried round the table to kiss first Ernest, then
Roger.
"You know Rog can't eat without you, Muetterchen," laughed Ernest.
"He doesn't get his manners from the Germans," snapped Elsa.
"Never mind! I've gotten the only home life I've known in eight years
from them," returned Roger. He and Mamma Wolf exchanged an affectionate
glance.
"Pass the biscuits, Elsa," said Papa Wolf.
"Going anywhere to-night, Elsa?" asked Ernest.
"Yes, we have choir practice every night from now to Christmas."
"The carols are beautiful!" exclaimed Mamma Wolf. "I heard them last
night when I stopped by the church for Elsa. Ernest, pass your papa the
preserves and put the cake where he can reach it. It's fresh, Papa,
never fear. I only finished frosting it as you came in." Mamma Wolf
looked at her husband a little anxiously.
"That Smithsonian man telephoned you again this afternoon, Ernest," said
Elsa. "He wanted to call this evening and I told him to come along."
"I wonder what he wants," mused Roger. "He's been hanging round for a
long time."
"Pass the biscuits, Ernest," from Papa Wolf. "The cake is very bad,
Mamma."
"Oh, Papa, is it? And I took such trouble!" The distress in the gentle
voice made Roger scowl.
"In America, Papa," Elsa's voice was mocking, "where you have lived for
some forty years, it is not considered courteous to criticize the food
at the table."
"Hush, Elschen! Papa can say what he wishes, always, to me. Is it not
so, Karl?"
Papa Wolf pushed away his plate, wiped his mustache and leaned back in
his chair with a smile and a sigh of repletion.
"You spoil us all, Mamma!" he exclaimed. "Elsa, Uncle Hugo comes
to-night and we will have a little music. You will give up choir
practice, just for once."
Ernest glanced at his sister apprehensively. She flushed resentfully.
"But I must go, Papa!" she cried. "I take the salary the church pays me.
I must sing well."
"Laughing and flirting with the new bass is not practice," returned
Papa. "You stay at home to-night, Elschen."
Elsa glanced at Ernest, who shrugged his shoulders. Then she gave a long
look at her father with eyes that were black with anger.
"Papa, I'm going to choir practice," she insisted.
Her father brought his fist down on the table. "Am I or am I not master
in my own house?" he shouted. "Elsa, what you have needed was a German
upbringing. You will stay at home to-night and make music with Hugo and
me."
"Papa," said Elsa slowly, "I am twenty-nine years old and I can't endure
this sort of thing much longer. Mother and I are just unpaid servants
for--"
"Elsa! Bitte! Bitte sehr!" exclaimed Mother Wolf.
Elsa's dark look went to her mother, then to Roger, who was still
scowling. Her lips trembled. She shrugged her shoulders and rising began
to clear the table.
The three men went into the library and lighted their pipes. Papa Wolf,
having with much difficulty persuaded his meerschaum to draw, parted his
coat-tails and settled himself on the piano stool. Then he threw his
head back while he touched a few quiet chords. He had a beautiful,
massive head. Roger, ensconced in a deep Morris chair, thought, as he
had thought many times before, that it was a head that should have
belonged to an artist rather than to a dry goods merchant. The chords
merged into a quiet melody. Ernest buried his head in the evening paper.
Roger let his pipe go out and his face settled into lines that added ten
years to his age.
The subdued clatter of dishes from the kitchen finally ceased and Elsa
came through the room. Her father stopped her as she passed and put his
arm about her waist.
"Sweetheart, don't be cross with me," he said. "It's just that Papa so
loves to have his little girl with him."
Elsa put her hand on his gray head and looked down into his face but
said nothing.
"Come now," he went on, "sing a little song of forgiveness with me."
Still with his arm about her he played with one hand and sang as he
played:
"Du, du! liegst mir im Herzen!
Du, du! liegst mir im Sinn!
Du! du! machst mir viel Schmerzen
Weiss nicht wie gut ich dir bin."
There was a sudden ring at the doorbell and with a little laugh that was
half a sob, Elsa hurried to let Uncle Hugo in. He was tall, thin and
blonde, yet his resemblance to Mamma Wolf, his sister, was unmistakable.
"So! We make a little music to-night," he boomed in a rich bass, "and
the audience is set," bowing ironically to Roger, still in the clouds,
and Ernest, his head still in the paper. "Where is the Muetterchen?"
"Coming in a minute," called Mamma, from the dining room. "I can hear.
Go ahead."
Elsa sat down at the piano. Papa Wolf opened his 'cello case. Uncle Hugo
put his silver flute to his lips and played a tentative sweet note. In a
moment the strains of Schubert's Serenade, exquisitely rendered, filled
the quiet house. Roger relighted his pipe and let it go out. Whenever
over her shoulder, Elsa cast a quick glance at him, his gaze was
fastened intently on the ceiling.
For an hour the music continued without interruption. Then the doorbell
rang again and Ernest went to answer it.
"Come into the den so we won't disturb the concert," Roger heard him
say. "Rog, come in here, will you?"
Roger obediently made his way into a little room off the dining room,
devoted to the men of the household. A short smooth-shaven, sandy-haired
man was standing by the reading table. Roger and he shook hands.
"I've been talking to Dr. Austin a good deal about your solar heat
apparatus, Rog," said Ernest, "and he's got a proposition to make. Let's
sit down and talk it out."
He pushed a jar of tobacco toward Austin and the three men, eyeing one
another with frank interest, settled themselves in the easy chairs which
Ernest indicated with a nod.
"I think Ernest said that you represent the Smithsonian Institute,"
Roger said. "What do you want to do? Put my engine in your museum?" This
with a short laugh.
Austin shook his head. "I see you are about as ignorant as the rest of
the world as to the real nature of our work. Confess now!"
Ernest smiled. "I suppose I've been reading papers and reports from the
Smithsonian for ten years, but until I met you, Mr. Austin, I was
certainly vague about who or what the work represented. Go ahead and
give Moore the explanation you gave me, will you?"
"Well," began Austin, "an Englishman named Smithson left his estate to
his nephew named Hungerford with the stipulation that if Hungerford died
without heirs, the state was to go to found the Smithsonian Institution
in America. Hungerford obligingly died without issue. It was in 1835, I
think, and after a great deal of red tape, about half a million dollars
was turned over to the American Congress to go to work with.
"Of course, Congress did considerable false stepping but finally the
Institution was organized with the avowed purpose of increasing and
diffusing knowledge. Rather a large program, eh! It was proposed to
carry this program out by stimulating talented men to make original
researches by offering prizes, by appropriating every year a sum of
money for particular researches and by every year publishing reports on
the progress of difficult branches of knowledge.
"The original bequest has been increased until now the Institution has
use of the income on a million dollars. You'll be surprised to know how
much real work has been done by this very little advertised branch of
our government. For example, out of the system of weather observation
developed by the Institution grew the United States Weather Bureau. The
United States Ethnological Research is all done by us--as witness the
monumental studies of our American Indians. Powell's great explorations
were fathered by the Smithsonian and so were Langley's experiments in
flying machines as well as his studies of solar heat."
"My word!" exclaimed Roger, "so they were!"
"When I was in the northern part of the state, last summer, studying
certain Indian mounds, I ran across one of your fellow instructors who
mentioned your work in heat engineering. I've always been much
interested in that line of research, so when I came West again I tried
to get in touch with you."
"I'm not hard to reach, surely," said Roger.
"Oh, yes, you are," returned Austin.
"It was this way, Rog," Ernest's lazy, gentle voice interrupted. "I kept
Dr. Austin away from you until I felt that there was some hope. I didn't
want you to have another disappointment."
"As I got your idea from Mr. Wolf, it seems to me that the Smithsonian
might be glad to back you in further experiments," said Austin.
Roger's thin face flushed as it was apt to do when his work was under
discussion. "This is mighty kind of you, Dr. Austin, but my work has
gone beyond the experimental stage. I'm ready to erect Solar Power
Plants if I can find the money."
"Rog, you're not ready!" cried Ernest, with unusual vehemence. "You've
no idea of the troubles you'll be up against when you try actually to
erect a working plant, in a hot country."
"I'm not afraid," returned Roger shortly. "One thing is certain, I'm not
going on experimenting any longer."
"My understanding of your device is, that it is practical only in
tropical or semi-tropical climates," said Austin.
"This first device is, yes," answered Roger shortly. "If I can ever get
this one launched, I shall take up other climates."
Austin eyed Roger keenly for a moment, then he said suddenly,
"Why don't you let me see your plans? We might possibly have something
to say that would interest you."
"Oh, of course! I wish I had some of them here. And it's too late to go
up to the laboratory to-night."
"Wait a moment, Roger! Wait a moment," exclaimed Ernest. "Praying that
we'd get to this point to-night, I brought down a set of drawings." He
unlocked a drawer of the table and pulled out a roll of paper.
Roger spread some of the sheets on the table and the black, the yellow
and the sandy heads bent over them.
"This," began Roger, "is the general ground plan of a plant designed to
produce about 50 horse power. This detail here, which looks like a
design for a glassed-in hot bed for early cabbage, is the heat absorber.
It consists of a trough lined with some insulating material, covered
with two layers of ordinary window glass. Under this window glass I flow
crude oil, which absorbs the sun's heat as it comes through the glass. I
get some remarkable temperatures, right here in Eagle's Wing. Here is a
month's thermometer readings during July."
Austin studied the table thoughtfully. "The heated oil is the fuel for
a low pressure engine. What engine do you use?"
"One of my own design. Here are the drawings."
Austin bent over these with absorbed interest and for an hour Roger
answered his questions. At the end of this time, Austin lighted his
pipe, which had gone out, and took a turn or two up and down the room.
Then he paused suddenly in front of Roger and said, "Why don't you go
down into Arizona and put up a small pumping plant as an experiment for
the Smithsonian? I know this is not the large way, the commercial way,
but I am convinced that this is the careful, practical way. Your friend
Wolf tells me that the most popular reason given by the business houses
you've visited for turning you down has been that you've never actually
erected a working plant. Why not try it for us? Then you'll be in a
position to talk business."
Roger, his face a still deeper red, looked from Austin to Ernest and
back again. He relighted his pipe with fingers that shook.
"How big a plant?" he asked huskily.
"Big enough to irrigate about twenty-five acres of desert for alfalfa.
I'm convinced that when you actually undertake to put such a plant in
operation, you'll realize that there are details to be remade that you
never dreamed of, on paper."
Roger did not speak for a moment. Five years ago he would have refused
such an offer as this, without hesitation. It was very different, this,
from turning out say a thousand units in six months. Yet, so long had
hope been deferred that Roger hesitated, not for lack of enthusiasm for
Austin's offer, but because the sudden joy that rose within him made it
difficult to speak. Finally he turned to Ernest, who was watching him
with a look of inexpressible satisfaction in his beautiful eyes.
"Will you go with me, Ern?"
"The family will kick, but I'm going," answered Ernest.
"What are the terms, Dr. Austin?" asked Roger.
"We'll buy all machinery and apparatus and pay for labor and living up
to ten thousand dollars."
Roger could not believe that his sterile years of endeavor and
disappointment were to bring forth even this small fruit. He laid his
pipe down, picked it up, then said, "I can't tell you what this
opportunity means to me. It's--it's my work, you see, and--and--"
"That's all right," Austin spoke hastily. "When can you start? I know
exactly the spot in Arizona that we would wish you to go to--Archer's
Springs. Have you a map of Arizona?"
"Yes, some of the Geological Survey maps," said Ernest, opening up a
chart case.
"Here's the spot." Austin put his pencil on the map. "It's about twenty
miles north of the railroad, a mining country, but we've always believed
that the valleys here could blossom if we could get water to them. The
Reclamation Service never expects to get in there."
"I know that," said Roger eagerly, "and yet a cheap power would make an
inland empire of that section."
"Have you ever seen it?" asked Austin.
"No, Chicago has been my uttermost limit of travel so far. But I've
studied hot countries and their resources for ten years."
"My idea is," said Austin, "that we buy all our supplies at St. Louis.
I'll go that far with you. You can buy the essentials for making camp at
Archer's Springs and by the time you are ready for it, freight will have
brought the rest. I believe there is an excellent trading store at
Archer's Springs where you can buy a camp outfit. I'll wire down and
find out."
"Jove, Rog, doesn't that sound great!" exclaimed Ernest.
"When shall we plan to start?" asked Roger.
"Why not at once, so as to get the plant running by Spring, when the
real heat comes on?" Austin looked from one eager face to the other.
"We both are teaching, you know," said Ernest. "I thought next June--"
"Next June!" shouted Roger. "This is the first of December, Dr. Austin.
We'll have found substitutes and be ready to travel immediately after
the Christmas recess."
Ernest winced. "That's crowding things! But--well, you're the boss of
the expedition, Rog. I'll be with you."
"Fine!" Austin rubbed his hands together. "We'll start our purchase list
now, eh?"
The concert, which had proceeded during the evening without
interruption, now stopped abruptly, just as the clock struck ten.
"How about deferring that until to-morrow?" asked Roger. "I've a number
of lists in my desk at the Science Building that will help us."
"That's a good idea," Austin rose as he spoke. "Will you both take
dinner with me at the hotel to-morrow evening and we can give the
evening to this?"
"We'll be there," replied Roger, following Austin to the door. When he
returned, Ernest was locking up the drawings. "Well, Ern, old boy, it's
not big business, but thanks to you, it's a real start in that
direction, anyhow. How can I thank you?"
"By helping me to break the news to the family. It's most deucedly short
notice. We'll have some trouble in finding substitutes for our classroom
work."
"I'm sure Benson and Ames will be only too glad of the chance," Roger
spoke decidedly. "I thought of them this afternoon. I swear I was in
earnest in saying I was through with teaching. And now this! It's like a
double answer to prayer."
"Boys!" called Elsa, "the beer is waiting."
Ernest was well into his second stein and his third cheese sandwich
before, in response to repeated kicks from Roger, he made his
announcement. There was a moment's silence, broken by Elsa.
"Lucky dogs! Take me along!"
"But, Ernest, you cannot go," protested Papa Wolf. "Let Roger go if he
wishes. I have nothing to say to that. But, my son, with the chance for
a full professorship in a great university--no!"
Roger sighed. He was sorry for Ernest, but he never could understand his
docile relationship to his father. Ernest came back, pluckily enough.
"I think I ought to go, Papa. It will be a fine experience and I will
come back to teaching with a new interest."
"But why waste time? Why waste time?" cried his father. "You are nearly
thirty. Instead of playing in the desert for a year, you should be
marrying and starting a home."
"It won't be play, Mr. Wolf," said Roger. "It'll be bitter hard work,
but it will add considerably to Ernest's reputation."
"Pah! Pah! _Was ist's!_" snorted the older man. "You are a good boy,
Roger, but you are full of foolishness. You are bad for Ernest."
"Pshaw, Papa, don't talk like a goose," protested Elsa, her cheeks
crimson. "All the initiative Ernest's got, Roger gave him. Why not let
Ernest see a little of life before he settles down forever? Let him have
just one adventure, for goodness sake."
"Will you be still, Elsa?" asked her father sternly.
"Hush, Elschen," whispered Mamma Wolf.
"Roger should be settling down and finding a wife for himself," Papa
Wolf went on. "He'd soon get over his absentminded ways."
Ernest suddenly laughed. "Why, Papa, Roger looks on women about the way
you look on inventors."
"Dry up, Ern," said Roger.
"What sort of a thing is it, this desert machine?" asked Uncle Hugo.
"It's a method of utilizing solar heat for power," replied Roger.
"Ah, yes, the big umbrella-like things. I've seen them in the pictures."
"Not at all," corrected Roger crossly.
Ernest spoke suddenly, very firmly but without raising his gentle voice.
"I'm sorry to go against your wishes, Papa, but I'm going, just the
same."
His father's mouth opened in astonishment. There was silence for a
moment, broken by a sob from Mamma Wolf. Then Papa Wolf roared: "So
that's it! You are of age. But disobedience I will not countenance. If
you go, never again can you live in my house."
"Oh, Karl!" cried Mamma Wolf.
Elsa sniffed audibly. "What a tempest over a little thing! Uncle Hugo,
have some more beer?"
"I must be going," said Hugo, taking the beer nevertheless.
"So must I," exclaimed Roger, rising hastily. "Then it's settled,
Ernest?"
Ernest leaned over to take another sandwich. "It's settled. Don't cry,
Muetterchen. I'll bring you home a horned toad and you can make me a bed
and serve my meals in the garage."
Roger took Mamma Wolf's hand and kissed her cheek. "Good night, dear,"
he whispered.
Mamma Wolf smiled bravely and clung to his fingers for a moment. "You
have made me sad, Roger, but I can't help loving you!"
Roger kissed her again. "I'm not going to let you be sad long. I'll
bring Ernie back to you safe and sound. Well, I'm off to bed! Good
night, Elsa!" and he was gone with a bang of the front door.
The days to Christmas flew by with unbelievable speed. Papa Wolf washed
his hands of the whole adventure, as Elsa continued to call it, and
refused to allow any mention of it in his hearing. This was Ernest's
first insurrection, and his father seemed to have no tool but silence
with which to combat it. Christmas eve and Christmas day were celebrated
with all the usual beautiful German customs. It seemed to Roger that he
enjoyed them more each year, and this year, with the novel sense of
achievement in his heart, the joy of the day was unalloyed.
Although Papa Wolf was obdurate about the adventure, his big heart could
not permit him to allow him to let Austin spend Christmas day in a
hotel. When he learned that Austin had a wife and child in Washington,
nothing would do but that the Smithsonian man should share in a home
Christmas. Papa Wolf provided another guest also, a stranger named
Adolph Werner. He was a German banker, traveling across America on
business, and the Wolf family was instructed to treat him with great
deference. Stout and bespectacled, he proved a delightful guest and Dr.
Austin displayed a gift for comic songs that brought the house down.
The two guests discovered that they both had studied for several years
in Munich and a great meeting of spirits followed, materially assisted
by Papa Wolf, Uncle Hugo and a bowl of Glueh Wein. And when it was still
further discovered that Werner's next stopping place was St. Louis, he
was invited at once to join the Sun Planters, as Elsa had dubbed them.
He accepted at once and on New Year's Day, with Elsa and her mother
weeping and Papa Wolf blinking back tears but sternly refusing to say
good-by, the party pulled out of the little Eagle's Wing station. Herr
Werner proved to be a delightful traveling companion and he became so
much interested in the details of the experiment that he insisted that
he be invited to visit the plant; an invitation that was given most
cordially by Roger.
Thanks to Dr. Austin's experienced presence, the purchases in St. Louis
were made in record time and at the end of the second week in January,
Roger and Ernest set forth alone for the desert country.
It was their first trip west of the Mississippi and both men were
absorbed in watching the changes of scenery as the train whirled from
one state to the next. Albuquerque was an hour behind when Ernest came
into the smoking compartment where Roger was engaged in drawing on the
back of an old envelope.
"Say, Rog, I know you aren't interested in the sex, but there's the most
unusual little girl on the train. She's seven years old and traveling
all alone. Her name is Felicia. She got in at Kansas City. They checked
her through like a pup. She's going out to join her brother and sister
on a mining claim near Archer's Springs."
Roger did not stop his pencil. "Seems as if we'd have neighbors," he
said.
"I hope this is a sample of Archer's Springs girls!" said Ernest.
"Honestly, Roger, she's a lovely kid. Come on back and see her. I'm
going to take her out on the observation platform with me."
Roger grunted, and Ernest, with a grin, left him in peace. It was an
hour later when Roger, having forgotten about the child, but wanting to
ask Ernest a question, made his way to the observation platform. It was
so exceedingly dusty that Ernest and his little friend had it to
themselves.
"Here she is, little Felicia!" cried Ernest. "And here he is, big
Roger!"
The little girl looked up at Roger. He returned the look with a
surprised interest. He did not know much about little girls, but it
seemed to him that she must be rather unusual. She had large brown eyes
of astounding depth and softness. She was tall for her seven years, tall
and graceful, in a short soiled blue gingham dress, and socks wrinkling
down on stubby Oxford ties. Her hair was brown, curly and short. There
were lovely curves in her scarlet drooping lips, and a fine arch in her
head, above the ears.
She made a little curtsey and shook hands in the limp manner of
childhood. Roger smiled at her, and sat down.
"Ernest, what was the size of the glass you and Dr. Austin were finally
able to get?"
"Eight by twelve. Felicia, tell Mr. Moore where you're going."
"Out to live with Charley and Dick," said the child obediently.
"Have they been there long?" asked Roger, lighting his pipe.
"Ever since Mother died. They left me with Aunt May. But now I'm going
out to be with Charley. Dear, dearest Charley, that's what Aunt May
says."
"Charley must be your favorite brother," commented Roger, a trifle
absentmindedly as he tried to define the disconcerting attraction
Felicia had for him.
"Ho! How silly you are!" laughed the little girl. "Charley's my big only
sister. Her whole name is Charlotte Emerson Preble and she looks just
like me. Aunt May says so."
"Preble!" exclaimed both the men.
"Charley Preble!" Roger went on. "Ern, don't you remember the pretty
little girl who used to play with us?"
"Of course I do. That's why Felicia has been puzzling us so. We were
just kids, but seems to me Charley looked exactly as she does."
"Did sister Charley ever talk to you about Eagle's Wing?" asked Roger.
"I don't recollect Charley. She went out to take care of Dick when I was
so little. Charley's awful good. She'll take such care of me as never
was on sea or land. Aunt May says so. And I'll love her more than I do
God."
"Was Dick sick? I remember him as a big, husky boy, don't you, Ern?"
Ernest shook his head. "I don't remember him. You were the one who used
to go out to Prebles' to play."
"Dicky was sick," Felicia piped on. "Dicky's like Dad. He'll never
amount to much, Aunt May says."
"Look at the queer kind of cactus we're beginning to pass, Felicia,"
interrupted Roger, hastily.
Felicia leaned against his knee. No little girl ever had done so before
and Roger looked at her curiously.
"The desert's awful homely, isn't it?" she said.
"It certainly is," agreed Ernest, lighting a fresh cigar.
For a moment the three stared at the unending wastes of brown and
gray-green, belled over by a cloudless sapphire sky.
"Homely and hot, but I don't care as long as I'm where Charley is. I
don't remember her, but I know how I'm going to feel about her." Here
she took a long look into Roger's gray eyes. "I guess I'd like to sit in
your lap," she suggested.
Roger lifted her to his knees and she settled back comfortably in the
hollow of his arm. A flooding sense of tenderness surprised him into
silence.
"You are deserting me," protested Ernest.
"No, I'm not," returned little Felicia Preble. "I like you very much but
I feel as if I'd like to sit in Roger's lap."
And in Roger's lap she sat, while the racing purple shadows on the
yellow desert gradually grew black, until the yellow turned to lavender,
and both gradually merged into a twilight that was silvered by star-glow
before the last crimson disappeared in the west. She sat there long
after Ernest went inside to read, in the same quiet that enwrapped
Roger. It was a strange quiet for Roger; a quiet of sweetness and
content that he had not known since his mother's death. With that warm,
supple little body pressed against him, his mind for once left his work
and paused to ponder on the loneliness of the past sixteen years and on
the thrilling promise of the desert star-glow. No human being can be
completely sane who does not pause at intervals to express the
tenderness that marks humans from animals. But Roger did not know this.
It was six o'clock in the morning when the train pulled in to Archer's
Springs and Ernest, Roger and Felicia alighted. They stood for a moment
in silence after the train pulled out. They were apparently the only
persons awake in the world.
"Where's Charley?" asked Felicia suddenly.
The station door opened and the baggage man, in blue overalls and
jumper, appeared. He was frankly interested in the new arrivals and
answered Ernest's question promptly.
"Preble? Sure! Dick Preble was here the first of the week. Told me he'd
be in next week to meet the little girl. How'd you come a week early,
sissy?"
Felicia's lip was quivering. "I don't know! Aunt Mary put me on the
train and said Charley would meet me."
"Can we telephone them?" asked Ernest.
The baggage man grinned. "Telephone? Boys, come here a minute."
He led them to the other side of the concrete station where the view was
unobstructed by the train shed, and pointed northeast.
"Take a look," he suggested.
The station platform ended in yellow sand. Across an open space were
some one-story buildings; beyond these an indefinite level of sand that
melted, at what distance one could not say, into a line of mountains
that were black and crimson and at last snow-capped against the
translucent blue of the morning sky.
"This road," said the baggage man, "goes along pretty good for eight or
ten miles north, then it's nothing but a wagon track trail. If you
follow it for twenty-five miles you reach Preble's mine. He says he's
trying dry farming this spring. There ain't a living human being, except
a few Injuns, between there and here. Sabez? And they ain't a brute
thing but coyotes, and lizards and maybe wild burros, and so they ain't
no call for a telephone."
Roger looked at the group of buildings across the way. "Is this all
there is to Archer's Springs?"
"Sure, and it's a pretty good little old town, don't forget it. All the
miners in the range south of here trade here. You'd better go across the
street to the Chinaman's and get some breakfast."
Preble's claim lay twenty-five miles northeast. So did the government
land where the Solar plant was to be built. Roger and Ernest discussed
the matter at breakfast and decided to carry Felicia along with them on
the morrow when they started for their own camp.
"And think how surprised Charley will be when you drop in on her,
Felicia," suggested Ernest.
Felicia blinked back the tears and began to nibble her breakfast.
"It's a darn big desert and a darn small town," said Roger. "I wonder if
Austin was right in telling us we could outfit here. Let's ask the
baggage man."
The obliging baggage man pointed out the largest of the sheet-iron,
adobe buildings across the way. "Best trading in a hundred miles," he
said.
With Felicia dancing between them, the two made their way to Hackett's
Supply House. The exterior was not promising, but within was everything
the desert dwellers could need. Working from Austin's list they were
soon supplied with tents, working outfit and tent boards. Hackett, a
stout, slow-speaking man, was not staggered even when Roger asked him to
deliver the goods.
"Expect a lot of freight in a couple of weeks, you say? All right, I'll
send you up with a team and when your freight comes in you can drive it
back again. You can board the horses at Preble's."
Their purchases were complete by noon, but Hackett would not let them
start until morning. "No use," he said, "for tenderfeet to try camping
on a short trip and it would be hard on the little girl. Get a dawn
start and make the trip in one shift."
So they whiled away the afternoon by a tramp over the desert, and after
supper turned Felicia over to the landlady at Delmonico's, the adobe
hotel, which was clean if it was meager. They were sitting in the
office, which boasted a rusty sheet-iron stove, a desk, and a hanging
lamp, when a thin, middle-aged man came slowly in the door and walked
hesitatingly up to Ernest.
"My name is Schmidt," he said. "I saw you at supper. Mr. Werner, he
wrote me you vas coming and asked me to do vat I could for you."
Ernest and Roger shook hands delightedly.
"I come here for my health," Schmidt went on, "and maybe I help you. I
vork for my board."
"We'll see how things are after we get settled," said Roger, carefully.
"Have a cigar and tell me how you came to know Mr. Werner."
"I clerked by a bank he vas interested in," replied Schmidt, settling
himself with the cigar. Roger and Ernest liked him at once, from his
stiff brown pompadour and kindly blue eyes behind his spectacles to his
strong, capable looking hands. Before they parted for the night it was
agreed that Schmidt would come back with them when they came in for the
freight. Austin had warned them that help was almost impossible to get
in the desert and this seemed a wise thing to do.
The sun had not risen the next morning when the three climbed aboard the
heavily laden wagon and started along the trail Hackett had carefully
described for them.
It was not a smooth trail. Even the first eight or ten miles, mentioned
with pride by the baggage man, were cut with draws and strewed with
heavy rocks. But the air was like a northern May. The cactus was full of
singing northern birds preparing for their spring migration. The horses
plodded steadily without urging. The mountains lifted in colors ever
more marvelous and the Adventure seemed to Roger satisfactory beyond
expression.
"I think it's beautiful, Ern," he said at last.
"Gad, I don't," replied Ernest, wiping sand out of his eyes.
"I do!" cried Felicia, jouncing up and down on the wagon seat between
the men. She was powdered white with sand. "Charley will c'lapse when
she sees me."
The horses were used to desert going. The tenderfoot drivers let them
have their own way. Hackett had tried to describe certain landmarks
along the route so that they could gauge the distance covered, but with
small effect on Ernest and Roger. All points of the desert looked alike
to them. They only knew that if they followed the trail north long
enough, they would strike Prebles' late that night.
Just at sundown, however, Roger pulled in the horses. "That trail's
getting awfully faint," he said.
"Sand's drifted like snow across it," agreed Ernest. "In fact, there
hasn't been any trail for the last mile. But we can't miss our way. That
white peak with three points is at right angles anyhow to us, as it
ought to be."
Roger started the horses on, but after a short time stopped again.
"I'm not going on till we locate the trail," he announced.
"What are you going to do? Not stay here all night," protested Ernest.
"You bet I am. Ernest, we're off the track right now. We won't be able
to find the trail until daylight."
Ernest's obstinate chin set. "I'm for going on."
Roger flushed in the fading light. "I'm the leader of this expedition
and I say stop."
"Pshaw! I didn't think you were so timid, Roger," exclaimed Ernest.
"I'll go on foot and find the trail."
"Don't be a fool, Ernest," cried Roger.
But if a quick temper was Roger's besetting sin, pig-headedness was
Ernest's. He jumped down from the wagon and disappeared into the dusk.
Felicia and Roger waited for a time patiently. Then Roger shouted, half
a dozen times, "Ernest!" There was no answer.
"Darn chump!" muttered Roger. "Come on, Felicia, let's make a fire of
grease wood so he can find us."
They built the fire and an hour passed, then two, but Ernest did not
appear.