The Forbidden Trail Part 32

"I can't see why you chose such a difficult part of the world to farm in," mused Ernest.

"That's where the sport comes in," returned Charley with a smile.

Whatever discomfort d.i.c.k's surly and erratic moods may have cost her Charley gave no sign that evening of having any thought save the comfort and entertainment of her guests. Before Felicia had been sent to bed and after the men, all smoking, had listened to Von Minden's dissertation on sand storms, Charley suggested that Peter be invited in and put through his paces.

To the surprise and delight of the others, when Crazy Dutch went to the door and whistled, there was the sound of little hoof-beats on the porch, then Peter's gray head appeared enquiringly in the doorway.

"Wipe your feet and come in, Peter," said Crazy Dutch, returning to his seat by the fire.

The little donkey rubbed one hoof after the other on the straw mat before the sill, then advanced into the room. Felicia, who was in Roger's lap, trembled with excitement and pleasure.

"Now, Peter dear, here is your pipe," pulling a corncob from his pocket; "sit down and smoke it like a gentleman."

Peter took his pipe somewhat gingerly between his teeth and then with considerable difficulty backed his haunches down onto the box that Von Minden kicked over to him. There he sat gravely holding the empty pipe, his long ears moving slowly back and forth.

"All right, sweetheart, there's a bit of sugar for you. Shake hands with the ladies and gentlemen."

Like a great gray dog, Peter went from one to another, lifting his tiny hoof to be shaken. Felicia was afraid at first but ended by shaking the little unsteadily proffered hoof and kissing the little fellow's dusty forehead with a squeal of delight.

"Now you give us each a good night kiss, liebchen," ordered Von Minden, and as he indicated each person in turn, Peter followed and touched each one on the back of the neck, with his velvet nose.

"Now say good night," was the last order and Peter lifted his voice in a bray that shook the very rafters, after which he trotted out the door.

Certainly Peter and his master had never played to a more enthusiastic audience. Felicia wanted to go out and ride him then and there and Charley had to use considerable persuasion to get the excited little girl off to bed. But after this was accomplished Roger asked:

"Where did you get Peter? Will you sell him?"

Crazy Dutch darted an ugly look at Roger.

Charley cut in quickly. "Tell us where you found him, Uncle Otto. Mr.

Moore was merely showing how much he admired Peter."

"I thought he'd be so fine for Felicia," exclaimed Roger.

Von Minden grunted. Then he lighted his pipe. "I have not always been as you see me now," he said. "I was a geologist of reputation and when my health demanded a hot climate, it was natural I should come here to look for mines for a great German company. I am lucky and I have brains and I have the greatest training in the world, German training, so I find several mines and then jealousies, jealousies--jealousies--" he fell to mumbling to himself.

Charley prompted him. "So you decided to strike out for yourself, about five years ago."

"Yes, I do so. By then, you see, I had gotten to understand the desert loneliness. I loved it and I sold myself to the desert, body and soul.

All I asked was to wander about on her magnificent barren bosom. It seemed to me I was entirely happy. But one day I found a little young burro stuck in a crevice in a blind canyon. Evidently he had been abandoned by an Indian. Me, I climb down in the crevice and I tie his heels so he can't kick and with my geologist's pick and hammer I work so carefully all day till I get him out. Why such toil? Because I find when I look into Peter's deep eyes that I am lonely--lonely beyond the power of thought or word to describe. And Peter, from that day to this, has never left me, day or night."

"You are in excellent health again, Mr. von Minden," said Ernest. "Don't you plan ever to return to the Vaterland?"

"Yes! Yes!" cried Crazy Dutch, "but only when I can return with an empire in my hand for my Kaiser."

"Hoch!" said Gustav softly, "Hoch!"

"Hoch!" Roger and Ernest took up the exclamation with a laugh and a wave of their pipes, and Charley joined them, smiling. Von Minden looked deeply pleased.

"Yes! Yes!" he cried. "You all are good children, properly educated, ready to understand Germany as the citizens of no other country. You all speak German? Yes! And you all know German literature and music to be the best. Yes, ah, these great universities and high schools, they are doing their work wonderfully."

"If I fall down all together in getting my plant funded in this country, I'm going to Germany with it," said Roger abruptly.

"No, you aren't!" cried Charley, quickly; "I love Germany too, but America comes first."

Ernest rose with a sigh. "That may be, but with me, bed comes first."

"You will not be cross the next time we meet, eh?" asked Crazy Dutch as the men made their adieux.

"I'll try not to be!" replied Roger, not too enthusiastically.

When they had crawled into their cots, an hour later, Roger said: "Ern, do you realize that we haven't a drop of crude oil for the absorber flow?"

"Sure, I do," replied Ernest. "I've been wondering for days what we would do about it, but until I had a suggestion, I didn't want to bring the matter up."

"How much money do you think the Dean can get for the laboratory equipment?" asked Roger.

"Well, I hope at least two hundred dollars. But you know how those things go."

"We'll have to save every cent of that for grub," mused Roger. "d.i.c.k told me that over on Snake Peak there is a mine that closed down four years ago and that their engine was an oil burner. He says there hasn't been a watchman there for a year. There's a chance that they have left some oil."

"How'll you pay for it?" asked Ernest.

"Pay for it!" grunted Roger. "Wait till I find it, will you? You and Gustav clean up after the storm to-morrow and go on with the absorber.

I'll take a tramp up to Snake Peak."

He was on his way before sun-up, the next morning, a canteen of water over his shoulder and a lunch in his pocket. He moved as rapidly as the heavy walking permitted, driven by a sense of impatience to which he gave no name. But subconsciously he realized that forever behind that beauty of the desert to which, like Von Minden, he felt he might gladly sell himself, loomed the menace of the desert's brutality which he was not equipped to fight and which he could overcome only by the extraordinary precision and swiftness of his work.

The sun was not half an hour high when Roger reached the top of the mountain behind the ranch. Here he gazed eastward across the low ranges to a peak which dominated all the crests around it, a jagged, black and brown monster, its top crimson now in the morning glow.

Roger stood breathing deeply, hat in hand, the sun turning his bronze hair red, his thin strong body erect against the morning sky. He could see no trail, so he determined to reach Snake Peak by a direct cross line. The peak would be lost to view when he reached the valley below so he sighted a lonely cedar on the crest of the opposite range and began to climb downward. It was stiff going. The p.r.i.c.kly pear cactus and the ollas grew thick and the ground was covered with broken rock that made short work of his already well-worn shoes.

When Roger reached the lonely cedar the sun was two hours high. He had thought to make it in twenty minutes. He dropped, trembling with weariness in the shadow of a little tree, drank deeply of the canteen and gave himself ten minutes of rest, lying flat on his back, his eyes on the magnificent expanse of the heavens.

The ten minutes up, he crossed the narrow ridge and after a moment found a landmark on the opposite crest, a single black rock against a lavender outcropping. Again he plunged into the narrow valley below him falling, sliding and swearing, then scrambling and clambering with knee and elbow and broken nail, until after another hour's interval, he cast himself down on the lavender outcropping.

Snake Peak was now just across the canyon and he could see clearly the gray white of the tailing dump that marked the mine. It was well after eleven when in a fury of impatience he reached his final goal.

The loneliness of the untouched wilderness is not so great as that of the deserted habitation. Roger had not felt the desert's solitude until he dropped on a bench outside the cook house and began to examine the lost endeavor about him. There were bunk houses and office buildings, shaft and engine houses, aerial tramways and car tracks, all the many and costly appurtenances of desert mining. Sand lay thick over everything. The silence was complete save for the flopping of the torn canvas that had been fastened over a hoist.

A sense of profound depression settled upon Roger. He dropped his head in his hands with a groan. A dream, vastly better financed than his own, had come to naught in the face of the distances and the difficulties of the desert. Was there any greater h.e.l.l, he wondered than to be hounded by a creative desire for which there was no outlet; to have stored within one's brain gifts indispensable to humanity's best development, of which humanity would take heed only after the creator had been crucified by desperate handicaps and indifference.

As Roger brooded, his eyes fell on the engine house and a carefully locked shed beside it. His face brightened. He got stiffly to his feet and plodded up to the window of the engine house, raised it and clambered within. A great engine shrouded with greasy canvas lay in the dusky room. It was a gas-producer type, in excellent condition. Roger went over it as tenderly and eagerly as a horseman goes over a thoroughbred racer. Then he went through the open door into the shed adjoining. It was full of oil drums, some of them empty but with a sufficient number filled to more than satisfy Roger's needs.

He suddenly began to whistle cheerfully, went over the engine again and was still whistling when he climbed out of the window and sat down on the bench to eat his lunch. When he had finished eating he lighted his pipe and sat smoking at ease. Life was not so bad, by Jove! One could make the desert his if one had resourcefulness and courage. As soon as d.i.c.k's horses were rested after their return from Archer's Springs, they must start hauling oil. Of course, though, that beastly re-seeding would have to be done first. Roger's shoulders twitched impatiently and he started abruptly homeward.

The sun had set, when weary beyond words, he reached the Sun Plant.