under the
lone mesquite tree which stood at one end of the adobe cabin. It was
really very simple, as he explained it, and he assured her, in his
scientific terminology, that it would be cool. He went to the spring and
showed her where she could have Vic dig out the bank and fit in a rock
shelf for butter. He assured her that she was fortunate in having a
living spring so near the house. It was, he said, of incalculable
importance in that country to have cold, pure water always at hand.

When he discovered that she was a stenographer, and that she had her
typewriter with her, he was immensely pleased, so pleased that his eyes
shone with delight.

"Ah! now I see why the fates drove me forth upon the highway this
morning," said he. "Do you know that I have a large volume of work for an
expert typist, and that I have thus far felt that my present isolation in
the desert wastes was an almost unsurmountable obstacle to having the
work done in a satisfactory manner? I have been engaged upon a certain
work on sociological problems and how they have developed with the growth
of civilization. You will readily apprehend that great care must be
exercised in making the copy practically letter perfect. Furthermore, I
find myself constantly revising the manuscript. I should want to
supervise the work rather closely, and for that reason I have not as yet
arranged for the final typing.

"Now if you care to assume the task, I can assure you that I shall feel
tremendously grateful, besides making adequate remuneration for the labor
involved."

That is the way he put it, and that is how it happened that Helen May let
herself in for the hardest piece of work she had ever attempted since she
sold gloves at Bullocks' all day and attended night school all the
evening, learning shorthand and typewriting and bookkeeping, and
permitting the white plague to fasten itself upon her while she bent to
her studies.

She let herself in for it because she believed she had plenty of time,
and because Holman Sommers was in no hurry for the manuscript, which he
did not expect to see completed for a year or so, since a work so erudite
required much time and thought, being altogether different from current
fiction, which requires none at all.

Helen May was secretly aghast at the pile of scrawled writing interlined
and crossed out, with marginal notes and footnotes and references and
what not; but she let herself in for the job of typing his book for