"Heat!" cried the stranger with sudden excitement. "Heat! God! What I have known of heat. Blistering, burning, blinding! Nights when the very star rays scorch and the moon's a caldron of white lava. Ten years of it, Moore, ten years!"
Roger looked at his guest with interest. "You aren't an American? There's just a little accent in your speech."
"Me? No. I'm German born and bred. What are you going to do with your solar heat?"
"Harness it," replied Roger, "and see if I can make it work for me."
"There's a fool born every minute," said Von Minden.
"You're quite right," returned Roger, cheerfully.
There was no further conversation until Roger had put the coffee, bacon and cold biscuits with a can of pie-fruit on the table. Von Minden fell to voraciously. His table manners were very bad, his hands were dirty but there was something about him that interested Roger.
"I've had great trouble getting water," he said. "Just struck it, this noon. 'Twill be enough for drinking and my condenser, I guess, but nothing for irrigation."
"Can't do anything with a dug well, here," grunted the guest. "Better drive one."
"Is the sand really fertile in this region?" asked Roger.
"Fertile? Friend, there's an empire waiting to be born, right here, if only they can get water and fuel."
"If we can get the fuel we can pump the water," said Roger. "You're right! There is an empire here. Mineral resources beyond the dreams of avarice, four or five crops a year of food-stuffs. Why, man, millions of people could come in here and be self-sustaining."
"What do you mean by 'in here'?" Von Minden spoke sharply.
Roger hesitated. "I mean really something pretty big. A cheap fuel would open up Arizona, New Mexico, Southern California and Northern old Mexico as no one can conceive who's not studied the subject. If I can put over my experiment, I shall add to the potential wealth of this country as no single individual has ever done. I'm going to get some one's ear at Washington, some day, if it's not till I'm a doddering old man. We ought to have Mexico, you know, because when the inland empire begins to grow, we'll overflow into Mexico. But we never can have her, of course. We can only hope that she'll grow into a real nation we can neighbor with, like Canada."
"Ah hah! And how're you going to bring about this millennium?" asked Von Minden.
But Roger, whose outburst to a stranger had been unprecedented, had nothing more to say on the subject.
"Will your burro eat table scraps?" he inquired.