"Homely and hot, but I don"t care as long as I"m where Charley is. I don"t remember her, but I know how I"m going to feel about her." Here she took a long look into Roger"s gray eyes. "I guess I"d like to sit in your lap," she suggested.
Roger lifted her to his knees and she settled back comfortably in the hollow of his arm. A flooding sense of tenderness surprised him into silence.
"You are deserting me," protested Ernest.
"No, I"m not," returned little Felicia Preble. "I like you very much but I feel as if I"d like to sit in Roger"s lap."
And in Roger"s lap she sat, while the racing purple shadows on the yellow desert gradually grew black, until the yellow turned to lavender, and both gradually merged into a twilight that was silvered by star-glow before the last crimson disappeared in the west. She sat there long after Ernest went inside to read, in the same quiet that enwrapped Roger. It was a strange quiet for Roger; a quiet of sweetness and content that he had not known since his mother"s death. With that warm, supple little body pressed against him, his mind for once left his work and paused to ponder on the loneliness of the past sixteen years and on the thrilling promise of the desert star-glow. No human being can be completely sane who does not pause at intervals to express the tenderness that marks humans from animals. But Roger did not know this.
It was six o"clock in the morning when the train pulled in to Archer"s Springs and Ernest, Roger and Felicia alighted. They stood for a moment in silence after the train pulled out. They were apparently the only persons awake in the world.
"Where"s Charley?" asked Felicia suddenly.
The station door opened and the baggage man, in blue overalls and jumper, appeared. He was frankly interested in the new arrivals and answered Ernest"s question promptly.
"Preble? Sure! d.i.c.k Preble was here the first of the week. Told me he"d be in next week to meet the little girl. How"d you come a week early, sissy?"
Felicia"s lip was quivering. "I don"t know! Aunt Mary put me on the train and said Charley would meet me."
"Can we telephone them?" asked Ernest.
The baggage man grinned. "Telephone? Boys, come here a minute."
He led them to the other side of the concrete station where the view was un.o.bstructed by the train shed, and pointed northeast.
"Take a look," he suggested.
The station platform ended in yellow sand. Across an open s.p.a.ce were some one-story buildings; beyond these an indefinite level of sand that melted, at what distance one could not say, into a line of mountains that were black and crimson and at last snow-capped against the translucent blue of the morning sky.
"This road," said the baggage man, "goes along pretty good for eight or ten miles north, then it"s nothing but a wagon track trail. If you follow it for twenty-five miles you reach Preble"s mine. He says he"s trying dry farming this spring. There ain"t a living human being, except a few Injuns, between there and here. Sabez? And they ain"t a brute thing but coyotes, and lizards and maybe wild burros, and so they ain"t no call for a telephone."
Roger looked at the group of buildings across the way. "Is this all there is to Archer"s Springs?"
"Sure, and it"s a pretty good little old town, don"t forget it. All the miners in the range south of here trade here. You"d better go across the street to the Chinaman"s and get some breakfast."
Preble"s claim lay twenty-five miles northeast. So did the government land where the Solar plant was to be built. Roger and Ernest discussed the matter at breakfast and decided to carry Felicia along with them on the morrow when they started for their own camp.
"And think how surprised Charley will be when you drop in on her, Felicia," suggested Ernest.
Felicia blinked back the tears and began to nibble her breakfast.
"It"s a darn big desert and a darn small town," said Roger. "I wonder if Austin was right in telling us we could outfit here. Let"s ask the baggage man."
The obliging baggage man pointed out the largest of the sheet-iron, adobe buildings across the way. "Best trading in a hundred miles," he said.
With Felicia dancing between them, the two made their way to Hackett"s Supply House. The exterior was not promising, but within was everything the desert dwellers could need. Working from Austin"s list they were soon supplied with tents, working outfit and tent boards. Hackett, a stout, slow-speaking man, was not staggered even when Roger asked him to deliver the goods.
"Expect a lot of freight in a couple of weeks, you say? All right, I"ll send you up with a team and when your freight comes in you can drive it back again. You can board the horses at Preble"s."
Their purchases were complete by noon, but Hackett would not let them start until morning. "No use," he said, "for tenderfeet to try camping on a short trip and it would be hard on the little girl. Get a dawn start and make the trip in one shift."
So they whiled away the afternoon by a tramp over the desert, and after supper turned Felicia over to the landlady at Delmonico"s, the adobe hotel, which was clean if it was meager. They were sitting in the office, which boasted a rusty sheet-iron stove, a desk, and a hanging lamp, when a thin, middle-aged man came slowly in the door and walked hesitatingly up to Ernest.
"My name is Schmidt," he said. "I saw you at supper. Mr. Werner, he wrote me you vas coming and asked me to do vat I could for you."
Ernest and Roger shook hands delightedly.
"I come here for my health," Schmidt went on, "and maybe I help you. I vork for my board."
"We"ll see how things are after we get settled," said Roger, carefully.
"Have a cigar and tell me how you came to know Mr. Werner."
"I clerked by a bank he vas interested in," replied Schmidt, settling himself with the cigar. Roger and Ernest liked him at once, from his stiff brown pompadour and kindly blue eyes behind his spectacles to his strong, capable looking hands. Before they parted for the night it was agreed that Schmidt would come back with them when they came in for the freight. Austin had warned them that help was almost impossible to get in the desert and this seemed a wise thing to do.
The sun had not risen the next morning when the three climbed aboard the heavily laden wagon and started along the trail Hackett had carefully described for them.
It was not a smooth trail. Even the first eight or ten miles, mentioned with pride by the baggage man, were cut with draws and strewed with heavy rocks. But the air was like a northern May. The cactus was full of singing northern birds preparing for their spring migration. The horses plodded steadily without urging. The mountains lifted in colors ever more marvelous and the Adventure seemed to Roger satisfactory beyond expression.
"I think it"s beautiful, Ern," he said at last.
"Gad, I don"t," replied Ernest, wiping sand out of his eyes.
"I do!" cried Felicia, jouncing up and down on the wagon seat between the men. She was powdered white with sand. "Charley will c"lapse when she sees me."
The horses were used to desert going. The tenderfoot drivers let them have their own way. Hackett had tried to describe certain landmarks along the route so that they could gauge the distance covered, but with small effect on Ernest and Roger. All points of the desert looked alike to them. They only knew that if they followed the trail north long enough, they would strike Prebles" late that night.
Just at sundown, however, Roger pulled in the horses. "That trail"s getting awfully faint," he said.
"Sand"s drifted like snow across it," agreed Ernest. "In fact, there hasn"t been any trail for the last mile. But we can"t miss our way. That white peak with three points is at right angles anyhow to us, as it ought to be."
Roger started the horses on, but after a short time stopped again.
"I"m not going on till we locate the trail," he announced.
"What are you going to do? Not stay here all night," protested Ernest.
"You bet I am. Ernest, we"re off the track right now. We won"t be able to find the trail until daylight."
Ernest"s obstinate chin set. "I"m for going on."
Roger flushed in the fading light. "I"m the leader of this expedition and I say stop."
"Pshaw! I didn"t think you were so timid, Roger," exclaimed Ernest.
"I"ll go on foot and find the trail."
"Don"t be a fool, Ernest," cried Roger.
But if a quick temper was Roger"s besetting sin, pig-headedness was Ernest"s. He jumped down from the wagon and disappeared into the dusk.