"You"re not good enough for her, Roger," said d.i.c.k, coming across the room with right hand outstretched but a grim face. "But when I think about Elsa taking me--"
He did not finish the sentence but Roger nodded understandingly and the two men, regarding each other seriously over a long hand clasp, laid at that moment the foundation of a close friendship that was to last them to the end of their lives.
"Poor old Ernest!" Roger broke the silence with a sigh.
"Try not to think about him to-night, Roger," Charley laid a gentle hand on his arm. "You are so fearfully tired, I"m going to fix the porch couch and you must go to bed at once."
Roger was glad to stretch out on the cot and close his weary eyes. But he could not sleep. The thrilling joy of Charley"s welcome, the burning soft touch of her lips on his and with this, the sick sense of loss in the constantly recurring thought of Ernest combined to make sleep long in coming. He heard d.i.c.k, then Elsa call good night. He heard the subdued clatter of Charley in the kitchen making her breakfast preparations, and after a few minutes the sound of Felicia"s alarm clock being wound for the night.
"Charley!" he called softly.
In a moment Charley"s lovely head was outlined against the lamplight as she paused in the door.
"Haven"t you been asleep, Roger dear?"
"Charley, how could Ernest have done it? I can"t sleep for thinking about it."
Charley came over to his cot and sitting down on the edge of it, lifted Roger"s hot hand against her cheek. "You must realize that he thinks he loves the "Vaterland" and that he is doing the best thing for the world in placing loyalty to Germany first."
"Then he should be shot as a traitor," said Roger. "I can"t believe that he thinks so crooked. Why, he"s got a mind that"s as pellucid as that spring Peter found in Lost Canyon."
Charley smoothed his hair back from his forehead. "Poor old Roger! You may have been selfish toward your friends, but you certainly loved them.
Try to go to sleep now, dearest. You"ll need a clear head if you"re going to save Ernest and the Solar Plant. Aren"t the stars beautiful? I never lose my awe of their nearness in the desert."
"They were wonderful over in the River Canyon," said Roger, relaxing with a long breath at Charley"s touch on his forehead, while he clung closely to her other hand. "Do you really love me, Charley, my sweetheart?"
Suddenly the girl slipped to her knees beside the cot and buried her face against his on the pillows. "Oh, Roger! Roger! Just as much and more than Felicia did and for nearly as long."
"And I you," replied Roger, brokenly, "only I was such a self-centered fool I didn"t know it. Don"t kneel there, Charley, you"re tired and must go to bed."
"Oh, Roger! Roger! I"ve wanted you so! And the years have been so hard!
Never leave me, dear! Don"t make me go now! Let me watch here beside you till you sleep, just as you did for me that night Felicia died."
"I"ll never leave you, you darling! Even my work shall never drive me from you. We"ll put things through together from now on. Oh, Charley! I don"t deserve it!"
"I know you don"t!" this with a chuckle that was half a sob, "but somehow even old Peter can"t bear to be separated from you."
"Bless his old gray head! Charley, let me tell you about Peter and the river." Roger began eagerly but before his story was half finished his sentences were broken and finally ended abruptly. Roger was fast asleep.
Charley, with a soft kiss on his hair, rose from the cramped position on her knees and went into the house. In a short time the adobe was in darkness and Peter, with a wisp of alfalfa on which he chewed meditatively, hanging from his mouth, leaned his gray head on the corral bars and eyed the stars unblinkingly.
CHAPTER XVII
THE BLACK BOX
Roger was awakened the next morning by the sound of d.i.c.k uncrating the new pump. He rose at once feeling quite himself. He had his belated breakfast alone, with Charley hovering in attendance.
"Ernest and Gustav are down at the old camp as usual," she reported.
"What are you going to do to-day, Roger?"
"I want to go through Von Minden"s papers. If I"d done a thorough job on that in the beginning, all the trouble might have been obviated."
"I don"t know about that," said Charley. "It couldn"t have been foreseen that Ernest would get in touch with Werner."
"Will you help me?" asked Roger. "I want to get through before Werner comes."
"Are you feeling fairly calm for the interview, dear?" Charley smoothed Roger"s hair back, caressingly.
"Calm!" Roger suddenly caught the girl to him in a pa.s.sionate embrace.
"Calm! I don"t want to be calm when I think of you and all you are to me. Oh, my darling, my darling!"
With d.i.c.k and Elsa"s help, the Von Minden papers had been thoroughly gone over by mid-afternoon.
It was well on toward four o"clock before Ernest appeared with his unwelcome guest. d.i.c.k had descried a dust-cloud on the Archer"s Springs trail about three o"clock and they all had seen a buckboard with two figures in it drive into the Sun Camp.
"Werner must have come," said Roger, only half succeeding in keeping his voice casual.
d.i.c.k nodded. "Hackett was telling me that he"d finally made up his mind to get a tin Lizzy. These old-time cowboys do certainly hate to give up their horses, don"t they? But when the Chinaman said that he was going to buy a jitney for the miners, poor Hackett had to give in. Of course, he"ll still have to use his horses and the pack-train for mountain work."
Roger grunted absentmindedly and stored Von Minden"s box in the kitchen, as Hackett drove Werner and Ernest up to the corral.
Herr Werner, badly sunburned and dusty, seemed unfeignedly glad to have reached the ranch. He greeted Elsa and Charley effusively, shook hands with d.i.c.k and showed Roger a mixture of cordiality and deference in manner that was irreproachable.
Left alone in the living room with Roger and Ernest, he came to the point at once:
"Wolf tells me, Mr. Moore, that you have been much angered at his selling the solar device to me."
"I certainly have been and I haven"t the least idea of letting the thing go through," replied Roger. "A considerable part of the money you advanced has been spent but I shall spend no more of it and my friend Preble can arrange a loan that will cover what has been spent."
"You know, of course," Werner took an audible sip of lemonade, "that a bargain is a bargain and that the contract Wolf signed is binding."
"Ordinarily, yes," said Roger, "but I have an idea that before I"m through with you, you"ll be glad to let go."
"For heaven"s sake, Roger!" cried Ernest irritably, throwing his cigarette in the fireplace, and taking a quick turn up and down the room, "don"t start a row."
"If you mean not to lose my temper, I can promise that," returned Roger, "but Germany can never have my solar apparatus."
"How"re you going to help yourself?" asked Ernest, with an ugly edge to his voice.
"There are ways! Mr. Werner, Von Minden was a part of Germany"s great system, was he not, for exploiting America? He was one of your agents and his job was to outline the desert empire Germany plans to take over.
But being German, like Ernest"s father who never will take the human element into consideration, you didn"t count on the desert"s sending your poor tool crazy, so he blabbed. Gustav is your watch-dog and spy, keeping you in touch at present with all my doings. Your own activities, outside of these minor ones, I imagine, center round the banking and educational interests of America. You"ve seen to it that our high schools and universities produce students that admire Germany. I must say that you have been highly successful up to now. But the superman stuff is a bit thick, Mr. Werner. It makes our American gorge rise in our throats."
Roger fingered his cold pipe, swallowed several times, looked out the open door where he could see Charley at the bars, rubbing Peter"s head, then went on:
"What you"ve done to Ernest is obvious. He"s the sweetest tempered, most easily influenced chap in the world. You caught him in New York after he"d failed with the Smithsonian--probably after some spy in the Smithsonian had put you wise, and fed him up with the superman idea and he, poor mut, fell for it."