CHARLEY
Felicia soon grew weary of the game of fire building and begged off.
Roger, with the aid of the ax, gathered a huge pile of grease wood, then
with Felicia beside him, wrapped in a blanket, he sat down before the
fire to wait.
The child, her deep eyes glowing like black rubies in the flickering
light, the lovely curves of her mouth drooping, leaned against Roger's
shoulder, for a little while, then she turned and looked up into his
face for a long minute. Roger returned the look, a little wonderingly.
Felicia's attractiveness still puzzled him.
"I love you very much," she said, "more than I do Ernest."
Roger smiled down at her. "But you must love our old Ernest too, even if
he has deserted us."
"Oh, I do love him, but it's you I think about, last thing at night!"
Felicia gazed up at Roger with a look of such mysterious depth that he
caught his breath. Felicia suddenly shivered.
"The desert's awful big! Oh, why do you suppose Charley didn't meet me?
I want Charley," with a sob.
Roger jumped to his feet and brought another blanket from the wagon. He
spread it before the fire and urged Felicia to lie down on it. This she
was persuaded to do only after Roger loaned his lap for a pillow and
she finally fell asleep, her head on his knee, his hand clasped against
her cheek.
Another hour slipped by. Cramped and cold, Roger tossed an occasional
branch in the fire with his free hand and speculated with uneasiness for
Ernest, as to the nature of the faint sounds that came from the
eastward. He decided that coyotes must be in the vicinity and he drew
the blanket close over Felicia's shoulders. He was strangely unlonely.
The desert silence and space about him, the low-lying stars, the faint
cloud of mountain range were not alien to him. They all were the setting
for the work toward which his whole life had moved. He knew too little
of the desert really to be fearful for Ernest, whose return he expected
any moment.
He dozed a little. A sudden sound of hoof-beats roused him. A man jumped
from his horse on the opposite side of the fire. He was a stocky fellow,
wearing blue overalls and a red sweater. Before he had given Roger more
than a quick "Hello!" another horse came up and a woman alighted. Roger
laid Felicia's head on the blanket and clambered stiffly to his feet.
The young woman gave Roger a quick glance, then ran toward the sleeping
child.
"Felicia! Baby Felicia!" she cried. "Did you think Charley had deserted
you?"
Felicia sat up with a jerk. "Charley!" she screamed. "Charley! I knew
you'd come!"
"Hello, Roger Moore!" exclaimed the stocky young man. "Are you the same
young plutocrat who used to own a swimming pool?"
Roger laughed. "The same, except that I'm no longer a plutocrat. How did
you recognize me?"
"Oh, we met Ernest Wolf meandering about the desert. Hello, baby, do you
remember brother?" kissing Felicia, who was in Charley's arms.
Charley was tall, nearly as tall as Roger, and he noticed as he turned
to shake hands with her that she held the child easily, as if she were
very strong. Then he was looking into eyes that suddenly seemed deeply
familiar.
"I don't remember much except the pool," said Charley. "How are we going
to thank you for taking care of Felicia?"
"I don't know how we are going to thank Felicia," Roger replied. "Where
is Ernest?"
Preble laughed. "He was pegging for all he was worth in the wrong
direction. We had some trouble to persuade him that he was wrong."
"That's Ernest, sure enough!" exclaimed Roger.
Preble went on more soberly. "It really isn't a laughing matter though,
a tenderfoot astray in this country. I tried to impress that upon him.
It just happened that Charley and I were out looking for our pet cow and
we ran on Wolf about five miles north of here, heading west and going
strong. He had picked up a wagon trail I made last week going for
adobe."
"Where is he now?" asked Roger.
"Oh, we left him herding the cow. We'll pick him up on the way back.
Let's get started. Lord, but you've grown, Felicia! Come here and let me
look at you."
Big brother and little sister looked at each other attentively in the
firelight. Dick Preble was still red headed and freckled, with only a
vague resemblance to his sisters.
"Four years since we left you, little Felicia. Charley, she looks just
as you did at her age, only not so tall. I don't see how Aunt Mary could
have been such a fool as to have sent her a week ahead of time."
"Aunt Mary never managed anything correctly in her life, bless her
heart," replied the older sister. "Help hitch up, Dicky. We're only five
miles from home, Mr. Moore."
They were ready for the trail in a few minutes. Felicia delayed the
start by refusing to be separated from Charley and finally Charley's
horse was hitched to the tailboard of the wagon and Charley mounted the
high wagon seat. Felicia, established between Roger and her sister, was
in a state of great excitement and at first monopolized the
conversation. But after a time, she quieted down and by the time they
overtook Ernest, she was asleep, her head against Roger's arm, her hand
clasping one of Charley's. Nor did the greetings waken her.
"Well, Ern, old chap, how's the North Pole?" called Roger.
"You go to thunder!" replied Ernest with a laugh. He tied the cow in the
place of Charley's pony and mounting the pony rode ahead with Preble.
Roger wanted a number of questions answered. Where had the Prebles gone
after leaving Eagle's Wing and what had they done in the interim, were
his opening queries.
"We went to a little town, near St. Louis," answered Charley, "and
Father did well. Dick and I both went to college. What in the world are
you doing out here, Mr. Moore?"
"For heaven's sake don't 'mister' me, old friends and neighbors as we
are. Why, we lived on your old farm till Father and Mother died!"
"Did you indeed? And what brought you out here? Mining?"
"No, some experimenting in irrigating for the government."
"Heaven send that you're successful!" exclaimed the girl. "Dick is going
to get some alfalfa in this winter, and I know that our well won't take
care of it. But he _will_ go ahead."
"Felicia is startlingly like you, as a child. I have just one picture of
you in my mind--standing on the edge of the pool, ready to dive, but
looking around at me and laughing. Felicia laughs just that way."
"Poor baby, coming all this way alone! But there seemed nothing else to
be done. We couldn't afford to go back for her nor could Aunt Mary come
on with her."
"She got along famously and made friends with every one," said Roger.
"Jove, isn't it wonderful, running on you people out here!"
"It's going to be wonderful for us, I know," returned Charley.
The wagon rumbled and bumped, and then Charley asked:
"Where is your camp to be?"
"We don't know, except we're to take up some government land adjacent to
yours. But your name isn't on our survey map."
"No, we have the old Ames claim," replied Charlotte. "You must plan to
stay with us until your camp is set up."
"You're very kind," said Roger.
"It's a God-send to have neighbors coming to us," the girl went on.
Roger made no reply and the road becoming unbelievably rough, Charley
gave her attention to holding Felicia on the seat and nothing more was
said until Preble called back,
"Careful through this gate, Moore! Wait till I get a light."
"We're home," said Charley. "Wake up, Felicia dear."
Dick appeared in a moment with a lighted candle stuck within and on the
side of an empty can. It threw a long finger of light on the gate posts
of a corral.
"We call those candle-lanterns, 'lightning bugs,' down here," explained
Charley. "'Bugs,' for short."
"I want one for myself," exclaimed Felicia, suddenly. "Only very small,
so's my doll can use it."
"You shall have a dozen if you want them, baby!" cried Dick, lifting her
down carefully over the wagon wheel.
The men unhitched and attended to the horses, then followed a short,
winding trail up to the lighted doorway. They entered a long, low room,
with adobe walls a muddy yellowish color. The floor was of rough plank
with a single Navajo blanket of gray and black before a little adobe
fireplace. There were half a dozen camp chairs in the room, a couch in a
corner, covered with a blue Indian rug, a homemade table in the middle,
several pelts and shelves of books in the walls and more books and an
alarm clock on the mantel shelf. It was a crude room, but one felt its
harmony of tone and homelike quality at once.
"Put your suit cases in here," said Dick, leading the way through an
open door into a candle-lighted room. It was a barren little place, but
there was a comfortable cot on either side of the room and a packing box
between that was half washstand, half bureau. Charley appeared in the
door:
"Supper'll be ready as soon as the kettle boils," she announced. "Little
Felicia is in bed and fast asleep. Dick, you'd better go milk that poor
cow."
Dick started off obediently and Ernest sat down on his cot.
"I'll wait till the kettle boils. Gee, I walked a thousand miles. Roger,
go out and help with the supper, you lazy brute."
Charley laughed. "There's nothing to do unless you want to start a fire
in the fireplace."
Roger followed her to the kitchen, where she pointed to a brimming
wood-box. He looked with interest at the immaculate kitchen. The walls
were whitewashed, the floor scoured to a silvery purity, the stove was
shining.
"What a bully camp you have!" he exclaimed, pausing with his arm full of
kindling to look at Charley. For the first time, as she stood watching
the teakettle with the lamplight full upon her, he got a clear view of
his hostess.
She was slender but not thin. Her shoulders were broad and square and
her chest was deep and she was slim-hipped like an athletic boy. She
gave Roger a curious impression of strength, very unusual to connect
with a girl. Yet for all her height and vigor, she was very lovely. Her
hair was darker than Felicia's, a wiry, burnished bronze, in a braided
mass about her head. Her face was long, with a well-cut short nose and
an oval chin. There were lovely curves in her scarlet, drooping lips.
Her eyes were large, a melting brown that was almost black. It was the
child Felicia's face, but with a depth of sweetness, a patience and
pride in lips and eyes, acquired by what difficulties of living, Roger
could not have told, even had he had sufficient understanding of women
to have noted the existence of those qualities. He did, however, see her
wonderful resemblance to Felicia.
"You are like Felicia, grown up, all of a sudden," he said. "It's hard
to rid myself of that illusion. Ernest and I have had a bully time with
that small girl."
"I'm so glad to have her here that--well, when you have been in the
desert longer, you'll realize what human beings can mean to each other,"
said Charley. "There! The kettle's boiling. Fly with your wood."
Roger flew. Dick came in with the milk and the four sat down to a supper
of baked beans, tea and canned apples. It was a pleasant meal, but Roger
and Ernest, weary beyond words, were delighted when it was finished and
they could tumble into bed.
Roger was wakened the next morning by the alarm clock in the dining
room. Ernest jumped up at once and Roger lighted the candle.
"Six o'clock," he said. "Well, our new job has begun, Ern."
There was a great rattling of the stove lids in the kitchen, above
Dick's whistle, then through the windows a light dawning toward the
corral. By the time that Roger and Ernest had shaved and were hurrying
down the little trail, the red glow in the east had made the "Bug"
unnecessary. All the horses were munching alfalfa and Dick was
whistling in the cow-shed.
The two men stood a moment at the corral gate and looked about them.
The house faced the west. It had been carefully placed on a broad ledge
of the mountain, a few feet above the desert level, yet the few feet
were enough to give a complete view of the valley that swept forty miles
to the west into the range that held the Colorado within bounds. The
sandy levels of the desert swept to the very foot of the mountain, and
Dick had fenced in about twenty-five acres. It was not yet under
cultivation, but a scraper half-filled with sand near the corral fence
testified to Dick's intentions. There were practically no farm
buildings: just the cow-shed, with a sheet-iron roof and a canvas
covered shelter in a corner of the corral. Shed and corral were on the
desert level and a good two hundred feet from the house. As they stood
in silence, Dick came up with his pail of milk.
"Great view, isn't it? I'm going to have twenty-five acres of alfalfa
here by June."
"I thought you were mining," said Ernest.
"I came to the desert to dry-farm but I got sidetracked with turquoise
mining up the mountain yonder. Nothing in that, but alfalfa is thirty
dollars a ton and we get five crops a year."
"Which way does the government land lie?" asked Roger.
Dick grinned. "Look in any direction! You'll have no trouble locating
yourselves. Let's go in to breakfast."
Charley and Felicia were sitting at the breakfast table and the meal was
quickly eaten.
"What do you two do first?" asked Charley as Ernest finished his second
cup of coffee.
"Locate the camp site and set up housekeeping, so as not to intrude on
you any longer," replied Ernest.
"Shucks! You wouldn't talk that way if you'd lived here a few years,"
exclaimed Dick.
"You're the first human beings," remarked Charley, "except Dick and a
few Indians and old Von Minden that I've seen in six months."
"But don't you ever go to town?" asked Roger.
"Not often. It's a hard trip and some one has to stay with the stock."
Dick looked at Charley with quick reproach. "You know it's always
something urgent that takes me in, Charley. And you nearly always refuse
to go."
"Nearly always, yes, Dick," replied Charley.
Dick shrugged his shoulders and there was a moment's silence which
Ernest broke.
"When are you coming to see us, Felicia?"
"Every day, Ernest," replied the child.
"Mr. Ernest," corrected Charley.
"No! No! We're old friends," protested Ernest.
"And Roger's a friend too," added Felicia. "A dearest friend."
Ernest grinned. "Felicia! How can you forsake me so! Here's Roger, a
notorious woman-hater, and you wasting your young affections on him,
when you might have me with a turn of your finger."
"You shut up, Ernest!" exclaimed Roger. "Don't pay any attention to him,
Felicia."
"I won't," replied the child. "But I'll keep right on liking him, next
to you."
"I see some work ahead for me!" ejaculated Dick.
Charley refilled Dick's coffee cup and smiled at him.
"I'll bet on you, Dicky," she said. "We'll have supper at six, Roger.
I've put up a lunch for you two men."
"By Jove," said Ernest, "we'll have to supply water to this ranch for
nothing, Rog."
"Right!" answered Roger, rising. "Come ahead, old man."
It was not yet eight when they drove out of the corral, along the line
of fence that edged Dick's prospective alfalfa field. There was a
monument, Dick said, at the southwest corner of the field that would
start them on their way. Neither man spoke for some time, then Ernest
remarked in his gentle voice:
"Extraordinarily lovely girl!"
Roger grunted.
Ernest flushed. "Honestly, Roger, you are the limit! She's too fine a
woman to be turned off with a grunt."
"Who's turning her off?" demanded Roger. "I don't see why you're always
accusing me of hating women. I don't hate 'em. I'm keen about them and
you know how I ran after them until I had to cut them out and attend to
business. But now, my scheme of life can't include them. You waste
enough time and thought every year on petticoats to have made you
president of the university. Now, I'm trying to concentrate on one
thing, solar heat. It's a full job for any man, that's all. If you want
to get up a case on Charlotte Preble, go to it. She's too big for my
taste, even if I had time to think about her."
Ernest groaned and once more silence fell until he roused himself to
ask: "Would that be a monument yonder?"
They pulled up before a heap of stones, the marker of a mining claim, so
familiar to the desert dweller, and spread the government map on their
knees.
"Let's see," said Roger. "Here's Preble's claim, and next him, west, is
the Mellish claim, and beyond that, still west, is government land.
Simple enough if the sand hasn't drifted on their monuments."
It was not difficult. They passed the Mellish workings, a great hole in
the ground, with a deserted shack beside the windlass. A short distance
on, they located his monument and quickly found themselves on government
land.
"Well," sighed Ernest, "it certainly is God-forsaken!"
They looked about them. Far to the west lay a jagged line of blue
mountains, against a blue sky. To the east, the barren tortured peaks of
Coyote Range, brown and black in the blazing morning sun, so near that
they could see the smoke rising from Charley's kitchen chimney, so far
that the adobe looked like a doll house against the range. Between them
and Coyote Range lay the desert valley, a rich yellow, thick dotted with
fantastic growths of cactus and cat's claw.
"Lord, I think it's great!" Roger drew a deep breath. "Let's unload, old
man."
They worked without stopping except for lunch, until five o'clock. With
ax and shovel they cleared away cactus and drifts of sand for a level
space on which to set up their living tent. Austin had given them plans
for this. They laid a rough floor and raised around this a four foot
wainscoating. They used no tent pole, but stretched their canvas on a
frame of two by fours, above the wainscoating. The result was a pleasant
airy compartment with headroom even for Roger. They had not finished
their tent when suppertime arrived. But they took Dick's word that tools
and supplies would be unmolested.
"We may have trouble locating water," said Ernest as they started the
team homeward. "Austin thought we'd strike it most anywhere in the
valley, you remember, but Dick says Mellish never reached it."
"I'll bet we find water if we go deep enough." Roger lighted his pipe
with the sense of comfort of a man whose back is aching from honest
toil. "Dick's information is only hearsay. He's got a good spring there
at the corral and he told me there was considerable water in the lower
workings of the old mine up in the range. We'll dig till we reach water
if we have to tap Hades. And the Lord send that we don't have to waste
much time on a detail like that!"
"Right-O! Those must be buzzards circling toward the mountains. Rog,
what do you suppose the folks at home are doing about now?"
"Thinking about us. It's pretty early to be homesick, old boy."
Ernest smiled in his gentle way. His eyes looked bluer than ever in his
parboiled face. "Don't worry about me, old man. I'm not getting cold
feet, only your folks were pioneers and mine were not. We Germans are
gregarious."
"Shucks!" replied Roger. "Some of the best pioneers in this country were
Germans. And you aren't German, anyhow. You're an American. Buck up,
Ernest!"
"I will! See what's coming!" Ernest pointed with a laugh to a tiny
figure flying toward them along the trail.
"I came further than I dared to come!" screamed Felicia, "but you were
so slow. And Charley's got a great big supper for you. Dicky shot some
quail. And oh, I've missed you both so!" This last as she climbed up on
the wheel and Ernest lifted her to the seat.
"Now, everything's all right," said Ernest.
Eight o'clock the next morning found Roger and Ernest finishing the
living tent. By noon the kitchen tent, which really was a fly resting on
four poles, was up, and the gasoline stove installed. It required the
remainder of the day to knock together a rough table, two long benches
and to prepare supper. And at eight o'clock that night both men were
glad to go to bed.
The next day they began work on the well. The ultimate success of the
plant rested on the premise that not too far below the surface of the
valley there was water. Dick was pessimistic on the subject. He came
down one evening to view progress when, after three days of toil, the
boys had dug to the depth of about ten feet. The three men lighted their
pipes and squatted in the sand by the well hole.
"I don't see why you don't establish your plant up in the range and use
your power for mining," said Dick. "You'll never strike water here."
"Unless we can develop irrigation plants, the idea would be just a toy
here," replied Roger. "There's bound to be water here, if we go deep
enough. You tell me the lower levels of the mines up in the ranges on
both sides are wet."
"Yes, they are," agreed Dick. "Why don't you fellows get an Indian to
help you on this kind of work?"
"Where would we get one?" asked Ernest doubtfully.
"Oh, one is liable to mooch along the desert any time."
"Are they good workmen?" Roger's voice was absentminded as he scowled at
the well.
"Some of them are wonders, but they are no good, unless you get a bunch
of them under a chief. Then they're O. K."
Roger groaned. Ernest laughed. "Remember, Rog," he said, "what Austin
told us about the unexpected problems in the building of a desert
plant."
"You'll get plenty of those," agreed Dick. "Well, I'll be going back. If
I see an Indian, I'll send him to you. In the meantime, remember that
I'm your first purchaser of water, though my well's a regular gusher and
will take care of more than the twenty-five acres I can get in this
winter."
"Don't be so sure," Roger chuckled. "You may come and apologize to our
well and ask for a drink yet."
Dick joined in the laugh at this suggestion and started homeward and the
two Sun Planters went to bed.
As if the desert were determined to show them early in the game a fair
sample of its lesser annoyances, when Ernest entered the cook tent the
next morning he found it fairly wrecked. All the canned goods had been
rolled off the shelves and the labels had disappeared. Flour, sugar,
crackers were knocked about in the sand. Ernest roared for Roger, who
came on a run.
"Looks as if a burro had been here from the tracks," exclaimed Roger.
"Two or three burros, I should judge," said Ernest. "Why, Rog, the
beggars have eaten all the can labels! We'll never know whether we're
opening tomatoes or beans. That flour's useless, and so's the sugar.
Look at the coffee! I told you not to leave it in a sack. Oh, hang it
all! What a country!"
"Let's see where the little devils went." Roger started out of the tent.
The small hoof tracks were not difficult to find. Beyond the confines of
the camp, the sand lay like untracked snow. When they picked up the
trail, it led directly to the Coyote Range.
Ernest suddenly spoke cheerfully. "We'll have to go up and ask Charley
for some breakfast. It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good!"
"We'll have to shave if we're going up there and that takes time,"
protested Roger.
"What are you going to eat? No sugar, no flour, no coffee!"
"Let's be quick about it, then," said Roger, hurrying into the living
tent.
The Prebles laughed, but they were very sympathetic and blamed
themselves for not warning the boys that stray burros and coyotes were a
menace to any stores left unprotected.
"String some wire about six inches apart around your four poles and
weave yucca stalks in and out. It makes a bully cool wall and keeps the
varmints out," said Dick.
"My heavens, man! I haven't time to do raffia work," cried Roger, half
laughing, half serious.
"I'll do it for you," said Felicia. "I can weave like I did in school.
And if I do that, Charley won't make me have lessons with her every
day."
"Oh, won't I!" returned Charley. "Roger, you get the wires up. That
won't take but a few minutes and when old Fanny Squaw comes along in a
week or so to sell ollas I'll send her down to cut and weave yucca for
you. It can't cost you more than four bits. In the meantime, I can let
you have some supplies to tide you over till some one goes to town."
"You see what it means to have brains in the family," said Dick.
"It's lucky some one in this bunch possesses them," laughed Roger. "By
the way, how do there come to be stray burros in the mountains?"
"Miners die or desert them and they go wild," replied Dick. "I must try
to catch and tame one for Felicia, after the alfalfa is in. Which
reminds me that I must get on the job. I've got your barrel of water
ready in the wagon, so come along."
The start was late that day and they had not gone down a foot when they
struck rock. Another trip had to be made to the Prebles to procure some
sticks of dynamite from Dick's little store at the neglected turquoise
mine. And still no sign of water.
The evenings were lonely. At first the two went frequently to the ranch
house, as Dick, sweating in his barren alfalfa fields, insisted that the
house be called. But everybody was too tired for social effort. Dick was
grading and plowing all day long and Charley, after her housework was
finished, often drove for him in the field. The mid-day heat and the
unwonted labor made Ernest and Roger glad to go to bed early. After they
had eaten supper and cleared up the dishes, they would build a little
fire in the sand outside the living tent and for an hour sit before it.
Even on chilly evenings the fire had to be small, for the firewood was
bought from Dick's none too great supply. He in turn bought from an
Indian who cut mesquite far up in the ranges and toted it by burro pack
to the corral.
Ernest, sitting thus, would pluck at his banjo and sing to the stars,
finding ease thus for his homesick heart. Roger sat in silent
contemplation, now of the fire, now of the stars. In spite of his
impatience over petty details, he was happier than he had been since his
undergraduate days. The marvelous low-lying stars, the little glow of
fire on Ernest's pleasant face, the sweet tenor voice and the mellow
plunking of the banjo were a wonderful background for his happy dreams.
Roger still believed that a man's work could fill every desire of his
mind and soul.
"I have so loved thee,"
(sang Ernest one evening),
"But cannot, cannot hold thee.
Fading like a dream the shadows fold thee,
Slowly thy perfect beauty fades away,
Good-by, sweet day! Good-by, sweet day!"
There was the soft thud of a footstep in the sand and an Indian appeared
in the soft glow of the fire. Ernest broke off his song, abruptly. The
newcomer was of indeterminate age, with black hair falling nearly to
his waist over a bright red flannel shirt. He wore black trousers
girdled at the waist by a broad twist of blue silk. His feet were bare.
"How!" he said, nodding and smiling. "I hear music way out. Come see
maybe white medicine man."
"Good evening," returned Ernest. "Sit down by the fire."
"How'd you like a job?" asked Roger. "Did Mr. Preble send you?"
"No job!" The Indian shook his head. "Sick!"
"Is that so?" Roger's voice was sympathetic. "My friend's a good
medicine man. Where are you sick?"
"In my tooth!" The visitor opened a capacious mouth, displaying a badly
ulcerated gum.
"That's easy! Get the peroxide bottle and a teaspoon, Ern. We'll fix him
up, poor duck. What's your name, old man?"
"Qui-tha," replied the Indian.
"All right, Qui-tha. Now you take a teaspoonful of this and hold it in
the front of your mouth, see!"
Qui-tha looked closely into the faces of the two men, then with touching
docility he did as Roger bade him. In a moment he was blowing foam
violently into the fire. The two men looked at each other a little
aghast.
"You should have held it in your mouth, Qui-tha!" cried Ernest.
The Indian reached for the teaspoon and poured himself another dose.
This he held in his mouth for a moment, gazing at his physicians
solemnly the while. Then he again blew foam into the fire.
"Heap strong medicine," he said. "Fine, strong medicine. Never saw such
strong medicine. You good medicine men. Qui-tha stay work for you. You
let keep bottle."
"Sure," replied Ernest, "only be very careful of it. Don't use it up too
fast."
Qui-tha nodded. "You give blanket. Qui-tha sleep here by fire."
And sleep he did, rolled up even as to his head, his feet to the dying
embers, while his hosts, undressing by candle light, grinned at each
other in silent amusement. When Dick came down with the triweekly
barrel of water he was astonished to see Qui-tha slowly weaving yucca
stalks into the wire that now bound the poles of the cook tent.
"For heaven's sake, Qui-tha, you old bum, you've always refused to work
for me!" he shouted.
The Indian grinned, then explained very seriously. "These white men heap
smart. Make strong medicine. Qui-tha work one week, pay white medicine
men."
Ernest called Dick into the living tent and made him an explanation
while Qui-tha looked inquiringly at Roger at the sound of Dick's
laughter.
"Do, for the love of all of us, keep feeding him peroxide until he's
cajoled into giving me a hand in the field. Won't Charley be amused by
this?"
But Qui-tha was not to be cajoled. He prolonged his promised week to
two, but would serve only his two medicine men. He was a most erratic
workman, but what he did, he did exceedingly well. The cook tent with
its woven sides of faded green was a structure of real beauty. Qui-tha
consumed a week in the doing of this job, and ate all of three dozen
cans of tomatoes, for which he displayed what Ernest called an
abandoned passion. After he had finished with the cook tent, he sat for
a day at the edge of the well, watching the two white men at their back
breaking toil, then he silently undertook to man the bucket hoist for
them. At frequent intervals he would refuse to hoist for a time and
would urge Roger and Ernest to rest with him.
"Why work all time, uh? Wind no blow all time. Sun no shine all time.
You no dig all time, uh? Sit with Qui-tha and smoke and think."
"He's got a lot of horse sense, Roger, after all, hasn't he?" said
Ernest one day after the Indian had laughed at them for their mad
driving at the waterless well.
Roger straightened his tired back. "Fine, for an Indian! I like to hear
him laugh. On things that don't demand our white sophistication, do you
notice what a good sense of humor he has?"
"By Jove, I wish he'd go up and help the Prebles. I think it's a fright
for Charley to be working in the fields," exclaimed Ernest.
Roger nodded. "Guess I'll try him on that angle." He clambered out of
the well and squatted by Qui-tha on the ever-increasing pile of sand and
stone by the well edge.
"Do you see that white girl up there in the field, driving the horse?"
pointing over the lifting desert to the distant figure, difficult to see
now as the sun sank.
"Yes," replied the Indian.
"Won't you go up and help so the girl can go back to the house and do a
woman's work?"
The Indian puffed thoughtfully at his cigarette. "Why?" he asked,
finally.
"Because they need help. They'll pay you."
"Would you go help Indian squaw so she no have do hard work?" queried
the Indian.
Roger scratched his head.
"Charley Preble, she heap strong, like a man. Work no hurt her. No hurt
Injun squaw. Let 'em work."
Roger had nothing more to say. But the fact that Charley worked so hard
bothered both men, though Ernest, with his unconsciously German attitude
toward women, was much less troubled about the matter than Roger. Roger,
for all his neglect of the gentler sex for the past few years, had that
attitude toward women, half of tenderness, half of good fellowship, that
is characteristic of the best American men. And although he laughed at
Ernest's sentimental mooning about Charley, he really was more concerned
over the girl's hard life than was his friend.
She was still to him Felicia, grown up, and Felicia was still the little
Charley Preble of the swimming pool. It was a confusion of personalities
that might easily have grown into romance had not Roger been too
completely and honestly preoccupied with his work.
The next afternoon the hoist broke and leaving Ernest and Qui-tha to
patch it up, Roger plodded up to the alfalfa field.
The valley sloped very gradually from the mountains. Dick was working
with a scraper, carefully throwing line after line of the shallowest
possible terraces at right angles to the valley's slope. The irrigating
ditch which was to carry the water that was to flow gently over the
terraces was already finished.
Charley, who had been driving the horses while Dick handled the scraper,
sat on a heap of stones beside the fence. She was very brown, yet in
spite of her rough work she looked well. Her khaki blouse, her short
skirt and high laced boots were smart and her broad soft hat, though
covered with dust, was picturesque and becoming. Roger dropped on the
rocks beside her, with a sigh.
"Tired?" asked Charley. "Aren't you off duty early?"
"I came up to labor with you," replied Roger, his blue eyes very clear
in his tanned face. "You're working too hard."
"What would you have me do? Sit on the front porch and watch Dicky work?
That's not my idea of a pioneer's mate."
"But can you stand it?" asked Roger.
"It's no harder than golf and tennis and a swim all in one day. I've
done that many a time. And I'm as eager as Dick is to reclaim this
desert. I'm almost if not quite as interested in this as you are in your
work."
"I didn't mean to intrude or criticize," began Roger.
"You didn't do either. I appreciate your interest, and I'm just trying
to make you see that the pioneer women aren't all dead yet. Some day
there'll be pepper trees and peach trees along that ditch, and for miles
and miles round here, the green of alfalfa."
"If you get enough water," murmured Roger.
"If we get enough water," agreed Charley.
They both paused and looked from Dick, sweating behind the horses, to
the unending yellow of the desert against which Dick and the horses
looked like pygmies. Finally Charley said with a sudden chuckle,
"Roger, one thing I do remember is your spitfire rages--very vaguely,
but they must have been rather devastating to have made an impression on
my baby mind."
Roger's smile was a little twisted. "Nice thing to remember of me. Where
is your tact, woman!"
"Mercy! You aren't sensitive about it after all these years? I thought
it funny that your baby temper and the pool were all I could rake up out
of our past."
"Where is Felicia?" asked Roger, abruptly.
"She went up to the spring to fill my little canteen with water."
"Thank heaven," said Roger, "that she can't rake up my past. I'm going
to stroll up to meet her." And he doffed his hat and was off, feeling
that somehow he had not made great headway.