"Don't scold Gustav," cried Felicia.
"I won't," replied Roger, grimly, and the child sped up the path to the porch.
"Roger! I did not mean nodings to hurt you! Vy, you ver like my own son. I vas having a plan to help you. Please, Roger, listen--Bitte sehr!"
Roger was a little pale and his lips were stiff but he had himself well in hand.
"Look here, Gustav, you know you sneaked on me, don't you?"
"Yes, but it vas to help you. I vas an inventor, Roger. I haf many ideas."
"Oh! That was it, was it?" He looked at Gustav's sweaty face, usually so placid, now distorted with pain and anxiety. "Well, all right, old man! I guess I was a bit hasty. But I want you to give me your word of honor to take no more notes and under no circumstances to give any one any information about my work."
Gustav's face cleared as if by magic. He shook Roger's proffered hand heartily. "I promise. Absolute, I promise. Thank you; thank you much, Roger."
"Right-o--come on now, let's go to supper," and the two swung up the trail, and into the adobe, where, after a glance at their faces, their waiting friends greeted them hilariously.
"The alfalfa has come through, Roger," shouted Dick. "I guess the worst is over for me, all right. I'll take an order right now for five tons of alfalfa from you, Charley."
"Better let Felicia order," replied Charley. "I understand that Mr. von Minden is going to find a burro for her, the exact twin of Peter."
"And he's going to learn to do everything Peter does," added Felicia, "and Ernest says I must name him Re-peater. Please let's have supper."
Gustav made a poor fist at eating. His arm gave him a great deal of pain and it was finally decided that Ernest should take the patient team and that night drive Gustav to the doctor. They made the start immediately after supper and did not return until the third day following. Gustav was one-armed for some time but managed to make himself indispensable, nevertheless.
As summer advanced, a new working schedule that precluded labor in the middle of the day was inaugurated. The more intense the heat grew, the more intense, it seemed to Roger, grew the weird beauty of the desert. The midnight stars seemed hardly to have blossomed before dawn turned the desert world to a delicate transparent yellow, deepening at the zenith to blue and on the desert floor to orange. As the sun rose, the yellow changed suddenly to scarlet and for a few moments earth and sky quivered in a lambent red fire. When the sun had shot clear of the mountains, details of landscape and contrasts of color were accented. Clear black of peaks, crimson of canyons, purple of rifts in the ranges, bright moss green of cactus dots on the yellow desert floor. And always to the west that far melting loveliness of blue and gold and black that was the River Range. And always the quivering, parching air that burned against the body like a furnace blast.