folks
have done for me, it makes me sick not to be able to do everything for
you. But I swear I'm right up against it. Some day I'll make it all up
to you and Ern. See if I don't. If you can keep homesick old Ern bucked
up you'll be doing your bit. Your father need have had no fear. Ern'll
be back in the University when this is done contented to teach the rest
of his life."

"I know it. And how about you, Roger?"

"Me? Oh, I've struck my gait down here. I'm going to follow heat
problems round the world, see if I don't."

He looked off over the desert with a glow in his face that the girl
never had seen there before. She gave a wistful little sigh, and began
to unroll the kitchen apron she had brought under her arm.

"Run along while I try to make the place fit for white people to live
in," she said.

It was a comfort to have a woman about the camp. The three men testified
to this at supper time as they ate the meal she had prepared in an
immaculate kitchen. That evening after Roger had taken Elsa back up to
the ranch, Ernest decided he would accompany Gustav into Archer's to get
some khaki for Elsa and to endeavor to locate some sulphur dioxide by
telegraph. Elsa announced that although she would sleep and take
breakfast at the ranch she would spend the day at the Plant as
housekeeper.

It was perhaps four o'clock the next afternoon, that Roger, at work in
the engine house, saw Felicia half running, half plodding through the
sand. Elsa, sewing in the living tent, saw her at the same time.

"What can they mean by letting her come out in this awful heat?" she
called to Roger.

Roger made no reply but shouted to Felicia, "Don't run, child! It's too
hot!"

Felicia's answer was to quicken her pace. With a sudden sense of
apprehension Roger went to meet her. Felicia was sobbing when he reached
her. He lifted her in his arms.

"What is it, sweetheart?"

Felicia was almost beyond words. "Dicky--he's--sick again! And--he
yelled at me--and slapped me, and he knocked Charley over with his fist.
And I ran away--to you--"

Roger's lips stiffened. Elsa had joined them and as he set Felicia down,
he said hurriedly, "Take her into the tent. Cool her down gradually.
Keep her there till I come."

And he set off as fast as he dared in the burning sun. As he neared the
ranch house, he could hear Dick's incoherent shouts and as he ran up the
trail, Dick appeared on the porch.

"Get out of here, Roger!" he roared, thickl