The Forbidden Trail Part 29

"But why are you going back to him, Mrs. von Minden?"

"I have a message for him from the Yogis."

"I know him pretty well," Charley went on, carefully, "and he's been very kind to me. But he's never mentioned you. He's quick and queer, he's been alone so much, and very quick with his gun."

"He won't touch me," answered Mrs. von Minden. "He's afraid of me, the German bully."

"Tut, madam, tut!" exclaimed Gustav. "Germans no more mistreat their vomen than other peoples."

Madam opened her eyes. "Tell that to some one who hasn't been married to one."

"There are brutes in all nations," said Ernest. "You certainly have had more than your share of trouble."

"Hah!" the gaunt face in the rocking chair was scornful, "I merely told you my ranching experience. I've mined with Otto, too, and prospected and herded sheep and cattle and run a boarding house."

"Mrs. von Minden, you can't be very comfortable in this rough camp,"

pleaded Charley. "Do come up to my comfortable house. I'd love to have a woman visitor."

"You're very kind, my child, but I must stay here. I've been so ordered."

"We'd better be starting back, Charley," suggested d.i.c.k. "Felicia is getting sounder asleep every minute."

And so the party ended.

The erection of the engine house went on briskly. Before even Roger's impatience could have demanded it, the sheet iron roof was on and Schmidt began to putter with the doors and windows. The completed building was not unpicturesque. The dull yellow-gray walls were topped by a roof of red corrugated iron, with deeply projecting eaves.

Roger had bought the sheet iron from d.i.c.k, who had used considerable of this material in the buildings round his turquoise mine. Ernest and Gustav toiled up to the mine one morning and at night returned with a good supply of the sheet iron. Roger made a concrete base for the engine, at one end of the building. Gustav made two doors, one for either end, by nailing the corrugated iron onto a wooden frame. A work bench and shelves erected by Ernest completed the work on the engine house except for the hanging of the doors.

The three workmen were pleased with their job and sat contemplating it in great contentment, one evening after supper.

"The engine should be here next month," said Roger.

"That is to be of your design?" asked Gustav.

Roger nodded. "The Dean of our old college is getting it made for us. He began work on it as soon as we closed the deal with Austin. If he doesn't hustle we'll be ready for it before he is. We'll begin work on the absorber, to-morrow."

"I must uphang my door to-morrow," said Gustav. "Vat place did you put the hinges?"

"Hinges! By Jove, we haven't a hinge to our names!" exclaimed Ernest.

"d.i.c.k will have to help us out again."

But for once d.i.c.k failed them. "It's too bad," he told Ernest the next day, "but I've been meaning to get hinges every time I've gone to town.

But I forgot. You'll have to use some stout leather, the way I do."

"Well, let me have some leather, then," begged Ernest

"Sorry, old chap, but there's not a sc.r.a.p of leather an inch long around this place. You see I sole Charley's and my shoes, and I've robbed all the mines around here of belting to do it with and that doesn't mean that I've had much belting either. Lots of other people have had the same idea I've had. But take a day off and go up to the Sun's Luck, five miles up that trail yonder and I think you'll find a few pieces."

Ernest groaned, then laughed. "d.i.c.k, poor old Roger will faint at the idea of more delay, and for hinges! We'd better let the doors go till some of us go into Archer's."

d.i.c.k shook his head. "Ern, you get those doors up, and up right. I'm betting on there not being a real sand storm for six weeks yet, but if one should come, and you have any delicate apparatus in the engine house, you'll regret not having sand proof doors and windows. And to tell the truth, Charley and Felicia are both nearly bare foot."

"So am I," said Ernest, "and Rog is too."

"What's a day in the desert?" laughed d.i.c.k. "Go on and bring down some leather for the crowd, Ern."

And go he did, although Roger protested until Ernest mentioned the matter of Charley's and Felicia's shoes. Then he gave a ready consent.

Ernest returned by mid-afternoon with perhaps a yard of belting, the half of which he gave to d.i.c.k, much to that hard worked gentleman's delight.

The days pa.s.sed swiftly. Ernest was less homesick after Schmidt's arrival and the intelligent German's industry and interest in the work completely won Roger's heart. When the week of his visit was up, Roger resolved that he would find a way to feed three instead of two if he had to start the camp to eating desert mice. He wrote now to the Dean, asking him to sell his laboratory equipment. d.i.c.k took the letter to town.

The absorber was not as ambitious a structure as the engine house.

Nevertheless, it took twice as long to build as Roger had thought it would. The foundations consisted of a shallow trough raised from the ground on four by four supports. It covered several hundred square feet and sloped very gently to carry the flow of oil. It was covered with double layers of window sash. The task of laying this was considerable and in spite of the men's best efforts, the breakage was large enough to use up practically all the reserve gla.s.s. But the most trying task of all was that of making the great trough leak proof with asphaltum. Even after the rest of the job was done and the huge cold frame lay gleaming mightily in the desert sun, the men still puttered with leaks in the trough, which they tested by pouring water over in lieu of the oil which would ultimately form the flow.

Roger and Ernest were at work on this task one morning when Gustav returned with a barrel of water from the ranch. Before driving back with the team he came excitedly round the corner of the engine house.

"The alfalfa vas up already!" he shouted. "A little shadow of green on yellow sand. Lieber Gott! vat a country! And the kleine Felicia almost eating it like a little rabbit. And d.i.c.k talks like it vas golt. And he vas vorried. He says a sand storm vas coming to-day. Look!"

Gustav pointed down the valley to the south. A gray blue haze, not unlike a sea fog, was slowly advancing.

"Fasten up the tents. I go back mit the horses," said Gustav, disappearing as abruptly as he had arrived.

"If any one thinks a little thing like a sand storm can stop work on the plant, he's mistaken," grunted Roger. "Anyhow d.i.c.k said one wasn't due for six weeks."

Ernest looked from the approaching gray cloud to Roger's obstinate mouth, shrugged his shoulders and daubed another brush full of hot asphaltum over a crack.

Suddenly a hot blast of air took their hats off. The tent gave a boom.

The window-sash resting against the engine house wall fell with a tinkling crack. Without a word the two men ran to close the tent. When they had finished, the whole world was a swirling dust cloud through which they could not perceive each other when ten feet apart.

"Make for the engine house!" roared Ernest. "I'll fetch the old lady."

He was better than his word for he brought not only the madam, but her rocking chair and a book. Certainly no one could have accused their visitor of being a trial. She took the storm with the utmost philosophy and spoke scarcely a hundred words until the storm was over.

When he had stowed Mrs. von Minden and her rocker inside Ernest slammed the door shut and turned the b.u.t.ton. "If Gustav tries to get back through this, he'll lose his way, without fail," said Roger.

"How long do you suppose it'll last?" asked Ernest.

"The Lord knows! Have you got any tobacco with you?" Roger sat down on a box of window gla.s.s and took out his pipe. For half an hour they sat listening to the howl of the wind while Madam read.

"Evidently it doesn't intend to quit for a while," said Roger finally.

"Guess I'll make up my diary and write some letters. I understand now why d.i.c.k was so insistent on this adobe. You take a look at the cook tent and I'll see if the house tent is still standing while I get some paper."

The wind increased in violence until long past noon. They retrieved some canned stuff from the kitchen tent and ate it with their mouths full of the sand that sifted through the cracks of the doors and windows. Madam satisfied herself with crackers. It was very hot, even in the adobe.

About three o'clock Roger wiped the sweat out of his eyes and paused--pipe poised:

"It's letting up, Ern," he said.

Ernest paused to listen. There was a perceptible lull in the uproar, and the lull increased until at five o'clock they emerged from their shelter. The air had miraculously cleared. The sky was a deep, rich violet and the desert, lighted by the westering sun, was a beaten gold and remodeled to unfamiliar lines. Well known cat's-claw and cactus clumps had disappeared. A sand drift a foot in length covered the well curb. A drift that touched the thatch lay against the east side of the cook tent and had spilled within, half burying the tables and benches.

Within the living tent, sand lay thick on trunks and cots. But the tents had withstood the day's siege, stolidly.