The Forbidden Trail Part 48

Later in the day, it was decided that Gustav must drive d.i.c.k, who was in great pain, into Archer's Springs to the doctor. Charley absolutely refused to see d.i.c.k or to offer any suggestions.

Just as the wagon with d.i.c.k perching on the cot at the bottom was ready to start for the camp Ernest called:

"Oh, Gustav, be sure to find out about the Smithsonian's visitor and wire to Was.h.i.+ngton the reason for our failure to meet him."

Roger, who was standing in the living tent, caught his breath. Through his grief for Felicia merged realization that his great opportunity had come and gone. For the first time in three days he turned to the engine house.

CHAPTER XIV

WAs.h.i.+NGTON

After the wagon was a receding dust-cloud on the trail, Charley went back up to the adobe, where Elsa was to stay on with her, and Ernest to sleep at night.

Outwardly life a.s.sumed its old routine. Gustav returned on the third day and reported that d.i.c.k was established at Doc Evans' house and that the Doc said "he'd have d.i.c.k about again in two or three weeks if no new complication set in." He also brought a letter from the Smithsonian man, Arlington, somewhat caustically deploring the fact that Roger had not been sufficiently interested to meet him and closing with the remark that he would not be in the neighborhood again for another six months.

Gustav brought with him, too, the refilled drums of sulphur dioxide.

Roger handed the letter, without comment, to Ernest and went back into the engine house. He did not go up to the ranch for supper that evening as he had been doing, but the following morning which was Sunday, he appeared for breakfast. He was looking haggard and old but he greeted his friends cheerfully.

"Got any victuals for a broken down inventor?" he asked Charley.

She smiled faintly as she set a place for Roger at the table.

"You certainly look the part, Rog," said Ernest. "It's a good thing you've got friends with business heads."

"With what?" exclaimed Roger.

"Don't be cynical!" cried Elsa. "We sat up half the night working out a wonderful scheme for you. We--"

"Yes," Ernest interrupted eagerly, "we all went over the situation and we've made up our minds to a mode of action. You are such an impractical old chump, Rog! It's ridiculous for you to waste your time trying to make an engine out of a junk pile while the main idea of your invention, the real selling part, is neglected." He stopped to b.u.t.ter a biscuit.

Roger sipped his coffee and waited for Ernest to continue. "Now then, Elsa has a little money, enough to take me to Was.h.i.+ngton and back. It's her idea that I take that and go to see the Smithsonian people. There's not the slightest sense in your going. You're no salesman and I am. You remember it was I who landed Austin in the first place."

"I remember," said Roger quietly.

There was a long silence. Roger thought of the tiny food supply and of the months of experimentation that must go on before the Sun Plant would show efficiency.

"I hate to see Elsa putting money into this thing," he said slowly, "but at most I can always take a job and pay her back."

"Of course you can!" exclaimed Elsa.

"I know I can get money from the Smithsonian," said Ernest, "and we'll repay her at once."

Roger looked at Charley. "What do you advise?" he asked.

"I wouldn't hesitate for an instant," she replied. "Elsa feels just as I would--that the work must be finished."

"I know I can land the Smithsonian," reiterated Ernest, "and we'll repay Elsa at once."

"You needn't hurry," exclaimed Elsa. "As long as I have no money, I can't go home!"

Roger looked from Ernest to Elsa, then out the door across the desert to where the Sun Plant lay in the burning, quivering blue air.

"We'll try it out, Ern," he said. "You know how grateful I am to you both."

Ernest nodded. "n.o.body's using the horses, so I'll drive in and leave the team at Hackett's. If d.i.c.k gets well before I come back he can drive himself out. Otherwise it will be waiting for me. Elsa, do you think you could fix up a clean collar and s.h.i.+rt for me?"

"If she can't, I can," offered Charley.

"Take anything you can find of mine," Roger's face was more cheerful than it had been for days. "I'll get the reports and drawings ready for you."

So, by the united efforts of the two households, Ernest was made ready for a flying trip to civilization. He was so happy and excited over the trip that he really lifted some of the sadness that had hung so heavily over the ranch house. After his departure, Gustav slept at the ranch, in order to do the ch.o.r.es while Roger remained at the Plant.

Ever since he had reached the desert Roger had been conducting heat tests and while he was able under perfectly controlled conditions to produce higher temperatures than those of the tables he had used for so many years, his average readings under the absorber gla.s.s were less than he had counted on. And so he was at work on a new type, low pressure engine, for which his average temperatures would produce ample heat.

Ernest took little stock in his new idea. "It may take fifty years to work it out," he had said the day he left for Was.h.i.+ngton. "Increase your absorption area and let it go at that. Better men than you have spent their lives on the low pressure idea and failed."

"I tell you," Roger had insisted, "that with a few changes of this present engine, I'll produce _the_ low pressure engine of to-day."

"Well, go to it, old man! In the meantime, I'll fetch you some money so you can buy all the parts needed, and not have to continue your awful career of mountain brigand. The devilish thing about you inventors is that you putter so. My G.o.d, you drive me crazy! I do honestly believe that if it weren't for fear of starvation, you'd be puttering here for ten years."

"You're getting to be nothing better than a common scold, Ern," returned Roger with a laugh. "I'll be glad to get you out of the camp. Run along now and do your little errand."

With a routine established for caring for the two households, Roger bent all his splendid mind and energies on re-making the engine. Charley, coming to the camp one afternoon, as she or Elsa often did to cheer Roger's long day, watched him as he worked with infinite care to adjust a gauge he had taken apart.

"One of the many things that break me up," she said, "is that you missed the visit from the Smithsonian man."

"As it turns out," replied Roger, stoutly, "I didn't miss anything. I found when I got to work again that my safety device was inadequate and I've been all this time evolving a new one. If I'd run the engine as it was, I might have had a nasty blow-up and I've made one or two other changes, too, that are important."

"The engine doesn't look so very different to me," said Charley.

Roger chuckled. "Her whole insides have been made over really, by just a few changes. When Dean Erskine gets the new parts made and down here, I'll be O. K. I sent the design up to him when Ernest went in and some new parts ought to be here in a couple of weeks, now. I told Ern to have Hackett deliver them on arrival. It's too complicated to explain to you but I had another corking good idea the day that d.i.c.k went. I'm glad Arlington won't get here for six months."

Charley's eyes filled with sudden tears. "You're a lamb, Roger," she murmured.

"Where's Gustav?" asked Roger, quickly.

"He's puttering with the Lemon. If you need him, I'll go up for him."

"No, you won't. It seems to me that you need water on the alfalfa badly.

The second field is getting pretty yellow."

Charley sighed. "I know it! Roger, that well just isn't adequate. I've told d.i.c.k so fifty times. He should have begun work on a driven well, long ago, but he's simply hipped on the powers of this present well. I think that the old thing is going dry."

"You do?" Roger's tone was startled. "Here, there's no hurry on this job. I'm just waiting really for the new parts. Let's go up and have a look at your whole water outfit."