do that."

"Looks to me as if I were going to cash in pretty heavily on this
business," said Dick. "Well, I'll supply you alfalfa for the rest of
your lives."

"Thank you for nothing," returned Charley, sweetly.

CHAPTER XVIII

PAPA WOLF

October came in with a decided diminution of heat and with an accented
brilliancy in sky and sand. The work of getting the remainder of the
twenty-five acres into alfalfa went on rapidly. And in spite of the
money uncertainty, there was the lift of hopefulness and happiness in
the atmosphere of the ranch.

The alfalfa grew amazingly. One morning Elsa electrified the ranch by
announcing that the second field now in blossom was full of wild bees.
No one believed her. Every one decamped at once to the field. It was
quite true. Far and wide swept the burning barrens of the desert. But
close about corral and pumping plant crowded the unbelievable verdure of
alfalfa with the fringed green lines of cottonwoods on its borders
silhouetted against the sullen yellow sand. And wild bees, drunk with
rapturous surprise, buzzed thick in the heavy blossoms. Whence they came
no one could guess. Dick was willing to wager that there was nothing
else within a hundred miles on which a bee might feed.

It was early morning. Roger and Charley allowed the others to drift back
to their various occupations while they remained to watch the field.
Seated side by side on a rock heap, Roger's arm around Charley's
shoulders, they listened to the humming of the bees.

"If you weren't here, it would make me homesick," said Roger. "I can
shut my eyes and see the old Preble farm and my mother in her phlox bed,
calling to me to drive the bees away. I wonder if a fellow ever gets
over his heartache for his mother."

"Not the right kind of a fellow for the right kind of a mother," replied
Charley, lifting Roger's hand against her cheek. "The price we pay for
any kind of love is pain."

"I hope when yours and my time comes to go we can go together," said
Roger, "and that we won't have to start until our work is done. Queer
how life's values shift. When I came down here, the thing I wanted most
in life was to make a success of heat engineering. I thought it was
impossible for me to reach an equal degree of desire about anything
else. And now, while I want just as much as ever to go on with my
profession, successfully, I want a thousand times more to be your
husband and to be the right kind of a husband.