The Forbidden Trail Part 62

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, because that's the first thing he asked me for, this afternoon.

All our stuff that Austin had, his widow burned with his other papers.

She said he told her to if anything happened to him. And you know I brought yours back, as I promised. What Gustav may have sent him I don't know, but evidently not satisfactory drawings or he wouldn't have been so keen to get more!"

"I wonder about the new engine," mused Roger. "Well, I have little fear of that. Gustav isn't enough of an engineer to guess what he doesn't see. He couldn't make a drawing of the idea of that engine to save his neck. And Dean Erskine's got the only plan I ever finished of it."

"I'm sure you're safe on that," insisted Ernest.

"I think I am," agreed Roger, "and now, Ernest, I want to know how I can square up with you for my attack on you the other night."

Ernest looked up at Roger and the sullen look which even his tears had not washed out lifted a little.

"You mean--?" he asked.

"I mean that I had no business attacking you as I did. It was a rotten trick and I'm ashamed and sorry. My temper has been a brutal thing and you've always put up with it. If we can clear this thing up, I'm going to do better by you, Ern."

There was a curious look in Ernest's beautiful eyes. "Do you know, I hoped for twenty years you'd get to see yourself in that light," he spoke thoughtfully. "What you've just said does away with any resentment I may have had about your temper, Roger. As for the other thing--" He paused.

"Ern, how could you do it?" asked Roger huskily.

"Before heaven, Roger, I did it solely for love of you. And you know I was brought up on admiration of Germany. I honestly thought that we could make you see it as I do. I've been seeing for days what a skunk trick it must have looked to you, but this obstinate streak in me wouldn't let me give up until Werner slanged America. Rog, I'll make it up to you somehow so you'll trust me again! See if I don't!"

"I'll trust you fast enough, old man, if you'll a.s.sure me that you're through with this superman stuff. Are you an American or a German, Ern?"

With a smile of extraordinary sweetness, Ernest put a hand on Roger's shoulder and said in a voice of utter sincerity, "I'm whatever you are, Roger. Thy country shall be my country and thy G.o.d, my G.o.d. After all, what is a man's country but the place of his loves and his friends.h.i.+ps?

And America has all of mine, Roger, all of mine."

The two men stood in silence after this until Roger said, brokenly, "Thank you, Ernest, you've made a new man of me."

"And now," said Ernest, briskly, "being considerably worse in debt than ever, the question before the house is whom do we do next?"

"I don't know! I swear I don't," Roger sighed, as he took one of Ernest's cigarettes.

Ernest gave a scornful laugh. "He doesn't know! the poor little woolly lamb! He doesn't know! with a plant such as is now established in the Prebles' backyard! Why, man, I could sell that to an Egyptian mummy."

Roger laughed and at the sound d.i.c.k called in through the open door,

"For the love of heaven, put us out of our misery! What's happened?

We've been sweating blood!"

Both men hurried out to the porch. Seated in a solemn row on the steps were Charley, d.i.c.k and Elsa.

Ernest looked at Roger pleadingly. "You tell them, Rog. I want to attend to something in the tent."

Roger sat down beside Charley and told the story. When it was finished, d.i.c.k said, "Are you sure he's not German, Roger?"

"Certainly he's not any longer!" exclaimed Elsa. "The strongest thing in Ernest's life is his love for Roger. He'll never give any woman what he's given Roger. That love has saved Ernest and will keep him safe. Oh, I'm so thankful! So thankful!"

"Don't cry, Elsa! I've had all the emotion I can stand in one day,"

cried Roger.

"I wouldn't waste a tear on either of you," returned Elsa, stoutly as she wiped her eyes. "Come along, d.i.c.ky belovedest. You're the only one who treats me with respect. I'm going to cook you the most perfect biscuits ever invented for supper."

Ernest came into supper that night and after the first moment of embarra.s.sment, the meal resolved itself into a frank discussion of ways and means, quite as if nothing had happened. Roger flatly refused to take d.i.c.k's possible loan.

"You keep that for a rainy day fall back," he said. "You and Elsa aren't going to have smooth sledding for a long time yet."

"How about you and Charley?" returned d.i.c.k. "Don't forget you've got a woman to provide for now!"

"Thanks for reminding me," smiled Roger. "She's an extravagant minx too and accustomed to luxury."

"Well, something will turn up, see if it doesn't," said Ernest. "In the meantime, there's considerable work to be done before Roger can claim that he's irrigating twenty-five acres of alfalfa. I'll guarantee that something will turn up before he's able to do that."

"Looks to me as if I were going to cash in pretty heavily on this business," said d.i.c.k. "Well, I'll supply you alfalfa for the rest of your lives."

"Thank you for nothing," returned Charley, sweetly.

CHAPTER XVIII

PAPA WOLF

October came in with a decided diminution of heat and with an accented brilliancy in sky and sand. The work of getting the remainder of the twenty-five acres into alfalfa went on rapidly. And in spite of the money uncertainty, there was the lift of hopefulness and happiness in the atmosphere of the ranch.

The alfalfa grew amazingly. One morning Elsa electrified the ranch by announcing that the second field now in blossom was full of wild bees.

No one believed her. Every one decamped at once to the field. It was quite true. Far and wide swept the burning barrens of the desert. But close about corral and pumping plant crowded the unbelievable verdure of alfalfa with the fringed green lines of cottonwoods on its borders silhouetted against the sullen yellow sand. And wild bees, drunk with rapturous surprise, buzzed thick in the heavy blossoms. Whence they came no one could guess. d.i.c.k was willing to wager that there was nothing else within a hundred miles on which a bee might feed.

It was early morning. Roger and Charley allowed the others to drift back to their various occupations while they remained to watch the field.

Seated side by side on a rock heap, Roger's arm around Charley's shoulders, they listened to the humming of the bees.

"If you weren't here, it would make me homesick," said Roger. "I can shut my eyes and see the old Preble farm and my mother in her phlox bed, calling to me to drive the bees away. I wonder if a fellow ever gets over his heartache for his mother."

"Not the right kind of a fellow for the right kind of a mother," replied Charley, lifting Roger's hand against her cheek. "The price we pay for any kind of love is pain."

"I hope when yours and my time comes to go we can go together," said Roger, "and that we won't have to start until our work is done. Queer how life's values s.h.i.+ft. When I came down here, the thing I wanted most in life was to make a success of heat engineering. I thought it was impossible for me to reach an equal degree of desire about anything else. And now, while I want just as much as ever to go on with my profession, successfully, I want a thousand times more to be your husband and to be the right kind of a husband. I never have pipe-dreamed much about marriage, though I've done my share of flirting in my day.

But for the first time in my life I realize that Bobby Burns knew what human life is in its innermost essence when he said:

"'To make a happy fireside clime for wean and wife, That's the true purpose and sublime, of human life!'"

Charley did not speak but she turned and looked into Roger's blue eyes with her own bespeaking a depth of feeling that was beyond words. Roger, looking at the splendid brow above the brown eyes, kissed it reverently and then gazing at the beautiful curving mouth, he crushed his lips to Charley's. Then again they sat watching the bees in the alfalfa.

Charley noted before Roger the sound of hoof beats and looking round, beheld Hackett's two seated buckboard crawling slowly toward them.

"Who on earth now!" exclaimed Roger. "It can't be--yes, by Jove it is Dean Erskine--and--and Mamma and Papa Wolf! Oh, Elsa and d.i.c.k are going to have real trouble now!"