GUSTAV
It was late the next afternoon when Dick drove slowly along the trail.
The three men were flat on their backs under the absorber, patching
leaks, when they heard the squeak of the wagon and the soft tread of
horses' hoofs in the sand. They made no attempt to greet him.
The next morning, however, Roger plodded up to the ranch house to
consult with Dick about the moving of the oil. Although it was close to
eight o'clock, Dick was just finishing breakfast. He was cheerful and
talkative.
"Don't try to use horses," he urged. "There's old Rabbit Tail lives ten
miles over the range. He's got a bunch of little wild burros and he does
packing for the miners when there is any. He'll pack that oil for you."
Roger brightened up, then shook his head. "I can't pay him. The
Smithsonian folks aren't coming up to the scratch and I've got to finish
this job without funds. I've about twenty-five dollars in hand and two
hundred more in sight. I thought perhaps I could exchange work with you.
Help you to re-seed and then to increase your irrigating capacity here."
"Gosh, that's hard luck!" exclaimed Dick. "Did you hear that, Charley,
about Roger's money?"
Charley, who had been busy in the kitchen, came in now with a fresh cup
of coffee for Roger in one hand and an extra chair in the other. Had
Roger's mind been less concentrated on the problem in hand he might have
noted the fine ease with which she swung the chair up to the table for
him before either he or Dick could proffer help. Charley was so slender
that one did not easily recognize the splendid strength she sometimes
displayed.
"Yes, I heard," said Charley with a look of sympathy at the restless
fire in Roger's deep gray eyes. "I guess we're all up against it and
will have to cultivate patience. Perhaps Rabbit Tail will trust you,
Roger."
"I call him Roger dear, and he likes it. Why don't you too, Charley?"
interrupted Felicia, coming in from the porch where she had been
building an adobe doll house.
The abstracted look left Roger's face for a moment. "Yes, why don't you,
Charley?" he asked with a grin that made his face look bright.
Charley laughed. "If it will make you look human, like that," she
exclaimed, "I will call you anything you wish, Roger dear!"
Roger's grin faded to an expression that was curiously tense. Dick, who
had been giving only half attention to this exchange, now said: "Rabbit
Tail won't trust you. He's had too many dealings with the whites, poor
devil. We'll have to break a trail to the mine and use our team. Just
let me get that alfalfa in again, Roger, and I'll help you out."
"I can pay you up in days' work as far as the use of your time and team
go," said Roger. "What I'll always be in your debt for is the advice
and backing you give me."
Dick grunted. "I'm glad my four years' hell down here is of value to
some one. I'll let you know when I've finished re-seeding."
"I want to help on that," insisted Roger. "Our international debt is
getting too one-sided."
"Well, I'll be mighty grateful to you," sighed Dick. "I'll take your
help on the re-seeding, but I'll be still more appreciative if you'll
take a look at my gasoline engine to-morrow morning. I've spun that fly
wheel until my hope of salvation's gone. And I've got to wet that field
down."
"I'll get at it now," said Roger.
With Felicia trailing at his heels, Roger made his way to the shed
beside the spring. The engine and pump were both old. Roger tinkered for
a half hour, Felicia standing by to hand him the wrench or the oil can
on demand.
"Do you love me, Roger?" the child asked, as Roger tugged at a rusty oil
cup screw.
"I certainly do. Do you love me?"
"Yes. Do you love Charley?"
"Well, I'm fond of Charley. I've known her a long time, you know."
"But you aren't fonder of her than you are of me?" insisted Felicia.
"Certainly not! You're my best sweetheart. Now the oil can, Felicia."
The little girl stared at Roger, with speculative eyes. "Charley says
you're very interesting. What is an interesting man, Roger?"
"One who knows how to start a gas engine, chicken," exclaimed Charley,
coming into the shed. "Mercy, Felicia, are you always as personal as
this?"
"Felicia is nothing if not feminine." Roger tugged at the fly wheel and
grinned at Charley who made a little grimace.
"Roger likes it!" exclaimed Felicia. "He belongs to me, Charley. He
likes me bettern you, he says so."
"Well, it is like this, Charley--" began Roger elaborately.
Charley cut him off with a wave of her hand. "Nothing can explain away
that blow, Roger." Then she went on, soberly. "Do you suppose the old
lemon will pull us through our first crop?"
"I don't know, Charley. One never does about a gasoline engine. There's
always more life in an old one though than one realizes. If this does
fail you, however, I'll be in running shape in two months' time with my
solar engine. Don't forget that."
"When do you expect to make your first actual test?" asked Charley.
"Well, the engine will be here almost any time now. If the Dean has done
a good construction job, I ought to be able to make a tentative
connection in six weeks' time."
"How do you mean a good job?" asked Charley.
"Well, this is the first full size fifty horse power engine that we've
built. You see, I've had no money and we've worked from models, though I
did build one ten horse power engine. That worries me a little, but I'm
sure that any defects that appear will be easily remedied. Now then,
this old mule ought to begin to kick!"
Roger turned the fly wheel again and an obstinate Put! Put! Put! came
from the engine, then a long pause, during which the audience of three
waited anxiously, then a steady Put! Put! Put! Put! Put! that promised
to last as long as did the gasoline.
"If the old thing could just realize all that depends on its behaving
itself!" exclaimed Charley. "Roger, let's throw in the pump, I really
believe it's going to run!"
And run it did, during the entire day, with only three stops for repair.
Roger worked until late afternoon with Dick and the next day Gustav took
his place. The damage done by the dust storm to the absorber was now
completely remedied and Roger and Ernest began work on a shallow
concrete trough on which the condenser was to be erected. By the time
this was completed, Dick's second sowing was finished and he announced
himself ready for road building.
At first, Roger felt violently resentful at the thought of having to
build a road. It seemed to him that after all his years of patient
persistency, fate at the last was playing him a scurvy trick. She had
brought his goal within sight, only to beset it with delays and
difficulties whose very paltriness it seemed to him he could not endure.
And a feverish little flame of impatience began to glow within him that
was not to be extinguished for many months. However when, pick in hand,
he actually began with the others to break the road, a sudden elation
swept over him. After all, primitive as this work might be, it was
empire building of the most fundamental sort. And, in spite of his
anxieties and impatience, Roger did his share of the road building with
right good will.
They began work in the range back of the ranch, taking advantage of
draw and canyon whenever possible, even when this demanded a long
detour. Sometimes, the canyon bottoms were astonishingly level. At other
times boulders and crevices would block them until they had made free
use of dynamite. They had all sorts of minor mishaps. Dick was not an
expert either in road grading or blasting, although he was far ahead of
the Sun Planters in his information about both.
In running the road up the side of Snake Peak he used too heavy a charge
and brought down a land slide which it took them a day to clear. On a
previous day he had blasted too close to the wagon and a bowlder had
smashed the rear axle. He took extraordinarily narrow chances with the
steepness of grade but in spite of the Sun Planters' prophecies they did
not lose either horses or wagon down canyon or mountain side. Ernest,
however, slipped on top of one of the finished sections and rolled two
hundred feet before he could stop himself.
When, after two weeks' steady labor, Dick pronounced the road good
enough, the others looked at him aghast. "You'll break your wagon and
your horses' necks, to say nothing of losing the oil!" protested Ernest.
Dick only laughed. "This is a boulevard compared with some of the desert
routes I've taken. With just a few drums of oil lashed on at a time,
we'll make it."
And make it he did, though nearly another week was consumed in the
doing, and four drums of the oil were lost in different draws and
canyons. After the road was finished, the transporting of the oil was
turned over to Ernest and Dick while Roger and Gustav began the
erecting of the condenser. Ernest was now quite reconciled to the use of
the oil for Hackett had received a telegram from the owner in San
Francisco that the deal was more than satisfactory to him.
Roger and Gustav worked well together. The self-controlled German,
evidently accustomed to hard grind and overwork in an office job, was
not in the least ruffled by Roger's impatient ways. And he distinctly
enjoyed the vim and imagination that were characteristic of Roger's work
even when it involved the seemingly simple task of cutting and threading
condenser pipe. For cutting and threading condenser pipe so that it
shall be leak proof is not a simple job at all.
April came to the desert with a noon temperature of a hundred degrees in
the shade. Imperceptibly the daily breeze stiffened to a noon gale.
There were no sand storms however for six weeks and the second alfalfa
crop caught toe hold and grew, an amazing patch of green on the thirsty
yellow sand.
The ranch house engine misbehaved, regularly, but Roger developed what
Charley called actual genius for tinkering and somehow the five acres
were watered. When the morning stillness was broken by the first uneven
Put! Put! of the engine, the Sun Planters would pause in their work and
listen intently. If, after due patience, the Put! Put! developed into a
steady throb, they resumed work. But if after a spasm or two, silence
reigned again, Roger would pull his hat over his eyes and start for the
ranch, and eventually that day, water would be given the parching
fields. In the meantime, Dick began to prepare a second five-acre patch
for late sowing.
Early in the month Roger received a check from the Dean for one hundred
and sixty dollars. He resolved to put all but a few dollars of this into
a supply of food and with Charley's help, he made a list that Gustav
filled at Hackett's. There was provision for over three months in this
list and Roger felt sure that this period of time would see the
completion of the plant.
A curt letter had come to Roger from the Smithsonian Institution saying
merely that his case was being investigated and that in due time a
report and decision would reach him. With this, Roger was obliged to be
content. He had little faith, however, that the Institution would go on
with Austin's undertaking and he resolved to push ahead with all speed,
taking advantage of what was left of the golden opportunity Austin had
offered him.
Late in April, the engine reached Archer's Springs. Hackett, who was
properly equipped for heavy freighting, as poor willing Dick was not,
undertook to haul the engine to the camp. He was entirely willing, he
told Roger, to wait for his pay.
"No great loss," he said, "if I don't get it. But I got confidence in
you and though your idea do seem awful nutty, if anything comes of it, I
ain't going to have it said I done something to set back our community
here. We got a great state and a great county and I'm here to promote
'em both."
So the dismantled engine was landed, without too great difficulty, in
the waiting engine house and as soon as the condenser was finished, the
three men began to set up this child of Roger's heart and brain. But
after the heavy work was done Roger would let no one attempt adjusting
the parts but himself. He set Ernest and Gustav to digging the oil pit
for the storing of the sun-heated oil and spent his days and part of his
nights in the engine house.
As the weeks slipped into May, many were the surmises as to what had
become of the Von Mindens. The madam's tent stood just as she had left
it and the burros she had left behind ranged about the desert, near the
Preble corral, coming home each night for the good feed Dick gave them.
Almost every day Felicia came to the plant. Her love for Roger and
Roger's for her was an accepted thing now between the two households.
Only Charley could draw the child away from the abstracted, hard-driven
young engineer and Dick showed his innate generosity in that though he
adored the little girl he did not harbor a grudge because Felicia so
frankly declared her preference for Roger.
After the condenser was finished Felicia took a deep interest in helping
Roger to find leaks in the system. Roger taught her to squirt oil from
an oil can over the different points and to interpret bubbles rising
from the resulting oil flow as leaks. It was the quaintest sight in the
world to see the slender little figure in blue overalls, brown head
running over with short curls, crawling like a little lizard over the
greasy pipes while Roger followed with pipe wrench, cold chisel and peen
hammer. After Roger began work on the engine, Felicia became a sort of
plumber's assistant and a clever one, at that.
Sometimes Charley came late in the afternoon to take Felicia home. She
would perch on the edge of the work bench and talk to Roger about the
work in a voice and with an unself-conscious manner so like her small
sister's that Roger, his restless mind on the problems of his work,
often confused the two girls in his thoughts and answered or directed
them indiscriminately. And Charley would chuckle as she watched him.
The day in May that the men began a test for oil leaks in the absorber
dawned with a promise of ferocious heat. Felicia appeared as usual but
admitted that she had come over Charley's protest.
"We'll have to leave off work at eleven, and not begin again until three
as Dick suggested, if this heat keeps up," observed Ernest.
"Then we'll begin work at dawn," said Roger, with a sigh. "Every minute
counts, old man."
About nine o'clock Charley came panting down the trail.
"Felicia must come home at once," she cried. "There's a big sand storm
coming. Dick is getting the stock under cover as fast as he can."
The men dropped their tools hurriedly and looked up the valley. A great
gray cloud was approaching so rapidly that as they gazed they caught the
sound of its increasing roar. The sky, which had been sapphire of an
unusual translucence that morning, turned all in a moment to a sullen
red gray. There was a dry rattle of lizards and horned toads scuttling
into the roots of grease wood and cactus.
"You mustn't try to go home, Charley," exclaimed Roger.
"But I must! Dick and his alfalfa! He _can't_ be alone!"
But Dick was destined to spend the day in solitude. With a very Niagara
of sound the sand storm struck the camp. Charley and Felicia ran for
the living tent where the men shortly joined them. They closed the flaps
and settled to a day of discomfort. The engine house would have been
more comfortable than the tent but it was too cumbered with machinery
now to be used as a sitting room. There was no work that could be done
indoors. The heat was stifling, a hundred and six the thermometer over
the washstand trunk reported. The tent rocked and bellied, bellied and
flapped with reverberations like drum-beats. Felicia was frightened at
first and hid her head in Charley's lap. Charley herself was
white-lipped, less, Ernest thought, from fear of the storm than from
that vague apprehension about Dick that never seemed to leave her.
For a time Roger sat scowling with impatience, then Felicia's fear moved
him and calling the child to him he began to tell her of the old
swimming pool. The others listened and laughed and when Felicia begged
for more, Gustav told a charming tale of his own Bavarian childhood. And
he and Ernest sang together some tender folk songs which Felicia
insisted on learning. While Gustav and Ernest undertook this pleasant
task Charley and Roger talked.
At Charley's request, Roger brought out his blue prints and explained
the plant to her. He felt his impatience lifting as he talked.
Explaining his work always seemed to increase his critical vision. New
ideas came flooding, and he pulled out his note book, feeling that after
all the day was not entirely wasted.
So, in spite of the bitter taste of alkali in their mouths and its sting
in their eyes, in spite of the breathless burning heat, the morning
passed cheerfully. They even managed to satisfy their hunger with canned
beef and canned brown bread. They had washed down the last of the
unsavory lunch with the tepid, nauseously alkaline water from the olla
when a gust of wind of tremendous proportions tore open the door flap
and filled the room with a blinding swirl of sand. At the same moment
there was a fearful crash from without, followed by the sound of
breaking glass. Leaving Charley to refasten the door flap, the three men
bolted toward the absorber.
The sand cloud was so dense that they could distinguish little until in
actual contact with the edge of the trough. Then the trouble was
obvious. A part of the sheet iron roof had blown off the engine house,
and lay in a great twisted heap on the absorber. Roger immediately
crawled under the trough. The heavy metal had pierced the floor of the
absorber and oil was pouring out in a thin but steady stream. He pawed
his way out hurriedly.
"Go shut the oil off, Ernest," he shouted, "and get pails to catch that
oil. Why the devil did some one leave the valve open? Gustav, give me a
hand with this mess. Why didn't we have sense enough to fasten it
securely? If we don't move it, it may blow the length of the trough."
Roger plunged hastily up among the panes of broken glass, Gustav
following. After a moment of effort the guilty mass of sheet iron was
shoved over onto the sand. Just at the last a particularly vicious blast
of wind twisted it violently against Gustav's bare arm.
"Du lieber Gott!" he roared. "Be careful yet!"
"Now let's cover the engine," shouted Roger, giving no heed to Gustav's
cry.
"Hell mit the engine! Look!" Gustav thrust his left hand in Roger's
face. The sleeve was dripping blood. Roger seized Gustav's arm tightly
above the elbow. "Come over to the tent, Gustav," he said.
Stumbling blindly through the sand drifts the two men reached the tent,
where just as they crept inside the flap, Gustav fainted. Charley ran
forward and before Roger could protest had helped lift Gustav to his
cot.
"I don't think it's so bad. He never can stand the sight of blood," said
Roger.
They stripped back the sleeve as Roger spoke. A gash several inches long
in Gustav's upper arm had laid bare the bone. Felicia began to cry.
"I've got a first aid kit, somewhere," said Roger, running to dig wildly
through the trunks, emerging in a moment with a black box, from which he
produced a tourniquet. They applied this quickly.
"Now, is there some alcohol here?" asked Charley. "We will wash it off
with that until we can boil some water. Felicia, you go put all the
things back nicely in the boys' trunks, and don't pay any attention to
us."
Felicia was quickly absorbed in this altogether fascinating task, while
Charley's skillful fingers made a temporary bandage for Gustav's arm. He
was conscious now and offered a sick protest against Charley's
suggestion:
"Let's cut this shirt off him, Roger. It's saturated with blood. I'll
sew it up for him later."
Gustav sat up and before he could do more, Roger and Charley had
removed his shirt. To their surprise they found he was wearing two, the
second shirt having a particularly huge pocket, full of papers that were
blood saturated.
"Don't touch that, don't!" cried Gustav. Then catching sight of the
blood stains, he fainted again.
"Who'd think old Gustav was such a perfect lady," chuckled Roger. "Here,
let's get him cleaned up now before he comes to, again."
They pulled off the second shirt, and put on one of Roger's fresh ones.
Then while Charley gave Gustav some water, Roger took the papers from
the bloody pockets of the second shirt.
"I'll wipe these off before the blood sets," he said. Then his eye
caught a memorandum in German "Low pressure engine--new detail. Moore."
Roger quickly opened the paper. It was about six inches square and was a
copy of a detail of one of Roger's patent drawings.
"I'll be damned!" muttered Roger, his face flushing darkly.
He ran through other sheets. There were more drawings and some carefully
written notes on Roger's general scheme for heat utilization. He was
reading these very deliberately when Ernest came in.
"Whew, what a country!" began Ernest, then he stopped with a gasp.
Gustav, who was sitting up again, groaned weakly.
"I vas a chicken-fool, eh, Miss Charley?"
Roger crossed to the bed with a stride. "Look here, Schmidt," he said,
"the sooner you get your things together and get out of here, the better
I'll like it."
Gustav stood up. His jaw dropped. Then his eye fell on the papers in
Roger's hand.
"I told you not to take off the shirt from me!" he cried.
"What's the matter, Rog?" asked Ernest.
"Matter? Matter? Why, this fellow is a thief. He's been stealing my
ideas. Go on now! Get out of here!"
Ernest took the blood-stained papers and glanced at them hurriedly.
"Hold on! Be cool, Roger! Give Gustav a chance to explain."
"Explain! Explain what? Just how he stole these? Tear those papers up,
Ernest, and take this Dutchman out of my sight. Get him out, I tell
you."
Ernest hesitated. In all the years he had known Roger he never had seen
him in a passion like this. Felicia flew over to Charley who stood with
wide troubled eyes on Roger's distorted face. The child was white and
trembling.
"Ernest!" thundered Roger.
With a glance at Gustav, Ernest began to tear up the papers.
"Roger! Please! Bitte! I can explain," began Gustav.
"Don't speak to me. I've heard vague stories of how German manufacturers
get their ideas. This, I know: in the morning, you'll start for Archer's
Springs, you skunk!"
"Oh, Rog!" protested Ernest.
"How dare you protest, Ernest?" Roger turned on his friend furiously.
"You know what that engine means to me. You know the difficulty of
patent protection and now this dirty hound--"
"Here! That I von't take from any man," cried Gustav. "You vas acting
like a fool, Roger."
Roger lunged forward with his right fist swinging. But before Ernest
could interfere, Charley had caught the clenched fist with both her
hands, and was clinging to it with all her fine strength.
"Oh, Roger!" she cried. "Oh, Roger! Roger!"
Roger dropped his arm and stared at her for a moment. Her eyes, so like
Felicia's, so unlike them, returned his furious gaze, unflinching.
Suddenly, he grew pale and without a word, turned on his heel and left
the tent.
He made his way to the engine house. Ernest had covered the engine with
a tent fly, but Roger did not even glance at the idol of his heart. He
made his way back where the roof still offered some protection from the
storm and sat down on an empty box. An hour, then another slipped by,
the sand sifting heavily on Roger as he crouched motionless, his head in
his hands.
At the end of the first hour, the storm had lessened perceptibly and by
the time the second had passed, the westering sun was flashing through
the dusty windows. Voices outside did not rouse Roger, but when Charley
slipped in through the sagging door, he looked up. The girl returned his
look soberly and sat down on a pile of adobe brick near him.
Roger looked at her curiously. No one, excepting his mother, had ever
before checked one of his flights of fury, midway. Sometimes, as in the
episode with young Hallock, he had been able to check himself, but this
was not frequent.
"Why did you do that? Why did you interfere?" he asked abruptly.
"I couldn't stand by and see you make a mess of your life," replied
Charley, "just as things seemed to be going well."
"Going well!" repeated Roger sardonically. "Why, I've been sitting here
for hours, bringing myself to the realization of the fact that my life
is a hopeless mess. I can't trust any one. I can't get help. I can't do
it all alone. I'm going to quit this game and get a job."
"Roger," said Charley slowly, "do you want to know what's the matter
with you, aside from your temper? You're completely work- and
self-centered. You don't take human beings into your calculations at
all. And you won't be a real success until you get to studying and
liking people as well as you do machinery. If you'd given about a tenth
of the thought to Gustav that you have, say, to stopping the leaks in
the condenser, and then if you'd used the same patience with him to-day
that you would to a big leak in the pipes, you'd be farther ahead on
your job and a good deal bigger man. Roger, the more I see of you the
more I'm convinced that your failure is a good deal less the result of
other people's indifference than it is of your own temperamental
peculiarities and weaknesses."
Roger's face flushed again. "What business have you got talking this way
to me?" he blurted out, angrily.
"Every business in the world," returned Charley serenely. "I like you,
and your work is very important. Anything I can do to help get it
across, I'm going to do, regardless of your feelings. I have an idea
that no one has really helped you since your mother died--that is, with
your temper."
The anger died out of Roger's eyes. Once again he seemed to feel that
faint and heavenly touch upon his forehead. It did not seem to him
possible that what this girl said of him was true. And yet there was in
the depths of her steady brown eyes a sort of ageless wisdom that made
him feel awkward and immature. An ageless wisdom, with the sweetness and
purity of the child Felicia's gaze. Lovely drooping lips that were
Felicia's, and yet were, because of their sad patience, not Felicia's,
but belonged to a woman who reminded him of his mother.
Roger continued to stare at Charley as if he never had seen her before.
After a moment he said in a half-whisper, "By Jove, I believe you _are_
a friend to me--with nerve enough to tell me the truth as you see it,
which Ernest never had. And he's been my only friend. Perhaps you're
right, perhaps part of the fault has been with myself. O Lord, Charley!
I do need some one to tell me the truth, I certainly do."
Charley put out her hand to lay it on Roger's shoulder.
"Poor child!" she said, softly.
In a moment, Roger was a little boy again, back at his mother's side. "O
God!" he whispered, and throwing himself forward on his knees, buried
his head in Charley's lap. She laid her hand on his head with the touch
that had been his mother's. "Poor lonely child," she said again. And for
the first time in nearly ten years, Roger burst into tears.
Charley, smoothing his heavy black hair, said nothing more until Roger
sheepishly raised his head and pulled out a very dirty handkerchief.
Then she said in a very matter-of-fact voice, "By the way, as soon as
the storm let up a little, I had Ernest take Gustav up to the ranch. I
can take care of him up there and I didn't want Dick to be alone any
longer."
"Where's Felicia?" asked Roger.
"She's asleep in the tent, I must wake her up and take her home now. The
storm is over."
"Leave her with me a little while," said Roger. "I'll bring her home."
"All right, come up for supper. Ernest and Dick will help me get it."
Roger nodded and Charley started along the drifted trail to the ranch
while Roger went to the tent. Felicia slept on while he shaved and put
the tent in order. Then he stooped over the cot and raised her.
"Suppertime, little sweetheart," he said.
Felicia woke with a start. "Don't be cross, Roger," she exclaimed after
blinking at him for an instant.
"I couldn't be cross with you, Felicia," Roger lifted her in his arms
and held her against his heart.
"Never, Roger?"
"Never, Felicia. You must never be afraid of me, even when I scold other
people. Because I love you very much, Felicia."
The child threw her arms around Roger's neck and they both looked off to
the ranch house, where the windows glowed red in the sunset. There was
something infinitely soothing to Roger in Felicia's embrace and he held
her until she wriggled impatiently and announced that she was hungry.
"We'll head for supper," he said, and putting her down he took her hand
and they started through the sand for the ranch and Charley. Gustav was
waiting for them at the edge of the corral.
"Felicia, you run on up to the house and tell Charley I'll be there in a
minute," said Roger.