ver, never do again."

"How do you mean, dangerous?" asked Felicia. "Did I make you feel badly,
Charley?"

"You made me sick at heart with fear, Felicia," replied Charley.

Felicia gave a great sob. "Oh, I wouldn't do that for anything!"

"I move," said Roger, "that we go on over to the Sun Plant and that the
two ladies talk this over after supper. And I'll carry Felicia
pig-a-back."

The motion was unanimously carried. Ernest went up to help Dick with the
chores and Roger and Gustav prepared supper while Charley sat on the
bench with Felicia in her lap, and directed operations. The pot of beans
and the biscuit she had brought in the basket made the meal-getting a
simple matter. Mrs. von Minden was almost human, that evening. She sat
with the young people during their meal and for an hour afterward, once
rising, unexpectedly, to kiss Charley.

Felicia went to sleep when half way through supper, just after she had
given Roger his present.

"It's a little clock," she said, holding out a small steam gauge, rusty
and battered. "I found it in one of the sheds up on the mountain, where
I stopped to rest."

Roger looked at it curiously. "That was an expensive gauge in its day,"
he said. "How do you suppose she happened to find it?"

"Harder not to find it," replied Dick. "The ranges are full of deserted
mines. They took out all the free gold, then tried to work out the rest,
found it too expensive, went broke and walked out. There's enough fine
machinery up in the mountains to make you believe what folks say around
here, that more money goes into the ground than ever comes out of it."

Roger looked at Dick thoughtfully. "I'm glad to know that," he said.
"Felicia's given me a sure-enough present, haven't you, little girl?"

But Felicia, her head burrowed against Dick's willing shoulder was fast
asleep.

"When do you expect to cut your first crop, Dick?" asked Ernest.

"If the alfalfa gets a toe hold before the first of May I'll get a crop
this summer. The dust storms don't begin till May. They all blow down
from the north or west and I'm sure that that draw between here and the
field will protect me. I shall start cottonwoods and arrow-weed wind
breaks as soon as I turn the water in. Hackett is getting some young
trees for me."

"Isn't farming a terrible thing--terrible," said Mrs. von Minden
suddenly. Then she closed her eyes and began to speak rapidly. "When we
first came out here Otto wanted me to run a ranc