d glanced at them hurriedly.

"Hold on! Be cool, Roger! Give Gustav a chance to explain."

"Explain! Explain what? Just how he stole these? Tear those papers up,
Ernest, and take this Dutchman out of my sight. Get him out, I tell
you."

Ernest hesitated. In all the years he had known Roger he never had seen
him in a passion like this. Felicia flew over to Charley who stood with
wide troubled eyes on Roger's distorted face. The child was white and
trembling.

"Ernest!" thundered Roger.

With a glance at Gustav, Ernest began to tear up the papers.

"Roger! Please! Bitte! I can explain," began Gustav.

"Don't speak to me. I've heard vague stories of how German manufacturers
get their ideas. This, I know: in the morning, you'll start for Archer's
Springs, you skunk!"

"Oh, Rog!" protested Ernest.

"How dare you protest, Ernest?" Roger turned on his friend furiously.
"You know what that engine means to me. You know the difficulty of
patent protection and now this dirty hound--"

"Here! That I von't take from any man," cried Gustav. "You vas acting
like a fool, Roger."

Roger lunged forward with his right fist swinging. But before Ernest
could interfere, Charley had caught the clenched fist with both her
hands, and was clinging to it with all her fine strength.

"Oh, Roger!" she cried. "Oh, Roger! Roger!"

Roger dropped his arm and stared at her for a moment. Her eyes, so like
Felicia's, so unlike them, returned his furious gaze, unflinching.
Suddenly, he grew pale and without a word, turned on his heel and left
the tent.

He made his way to the engine house. Ernest had covered the engine with
a tent fly, but Roger did not even glance at the idol of his heart. He
made his way back where the roof still offered some protection from the
storm and sat down on an empty box. An hour, then another slipped by,
the sand sifting heavily on Roger as he crouched motionless, his head in
his hands.

At the end of the first hour, the storm had lessened perceptibly and by
the time the second had passed, the westering sun was flashing through
the dusty windows. Voices outside did not rouse Roger, but when Charley
slipped in through the sagging door, he looked up. The girl returned his
look soberly and sat down on a pile of adobe brick near him.

Roger looked at her curiously. No one, excepting his mother, had ever
before checked one of his flights of fury, midway. Sometimes, as in the
episode with young Hallock, he had be