throat. Elsa looked
almost cool in comparison in her soft white blouse and one of Charley's
khaki skirts.

"Well, Roger," she exclaimed, "hasn't your cook the decency to wash the
breakfast dishes for you?"

"It does look rotten, doesn't it?" said Roger, staring vaguely around
the kitchen. "But the cook seems to be on a strike and I forgot to clean
things up."

"If you'll get out of the way, I'll do it." Elsa began to roll up her
sleeves.

"It's too hot now. Wait until late afternoon," suggested Roger, glancing
from his papers out to the yellow waves of heat dancing from sand to
deep blue of sky.

"I can stand the heat if Charley can," returned Elsa. "She's baking
bread and cookies. The thermometer on the porch says 112 deg.. I should
judge that it was about 190 deg. in her kitchen. Rog, do you know that she's
a highly educated girl? Why do you suppose she's throwing her life away
down here, cut off from everything?"

Roger looked up from his figures with a little sigh of resignation.

"What did you say, Elsa?"

Elsa smiled but repeated her inquiry.

"She's not wasting her life," replied Roger. "This is really a superb
country and she takes to pioneering like a fine boy. This is about the
last big adventure there is in America, this desert pioneering."

"Like a boy!" sniffed Elsa. "Roger, you're hopeless! She's just the most
womanly woman I ever met--and one of the saddest. She's got some trouble
on her mind."

"Aw shucks, Elsa! Don't try to make Charley out temperamental. She's not
and that's why she's such a pal to us fellows. Wholesome and clean-cut
and direct, that's Charley."

"Oh, well, have it your own way, stupid! Only, go on over to the living
tent while I clean up here." This with a curious glance at Roger's
preoccupied eyes; those fine, steady, clear-seeing eyes, that saw so
much and so little of life.

"Just one thing more, Roger," she said. He paused in the doorway and
looked at her with a smile. "Yes, ma'am."

"Ernest told me on the way out about your money troubles. I don't want
you to worry about the cost of keeping me. I can pay my way. I had to
come against Papa's wishes, of course, but I had my own little chunk of
savings and Mamma had a little. And I just made up my mind I was going
to get away from home for a while if it was the last act of my life. And
I know I can do lots of things to make you all comfortable."

"I'm as glad as I can be to have you here, Elsa. And after all you