The Forbidden Trail - Honoré Willsie (top 10 books of all time .txt) 📗

tent and the living tent and then his eye caught Qui-tha's tall figure already diminished by distance, moving rapidly westward toward the River Range.

"By Jove," he exclaimed, "that's cool! I wonder if he took anything with him but the peroxide bottle?"

A quick inventory showed nothing missing, and with a sigh Roger returned to the well.

It was slow work, filling the bucket, clambering out to hoist it, then down again. But at noon, when the sun shone full into the well, Roger noticed a sudden darkening of the brown rock at the bottom. He seized a pick and worked rapidly. Water! Not a gushing spring, but a steady increase of moisture that, as he dug on, became a trickle, then a slowly rising pool about his ankles.

No discoverer of a noble river ever felt prouder than Roger as, after he had hoisted out the bucket and tools, he stood at the well's edge gazing far down at the dirty pool.

He was standing so, a tall figure, his face streaked with dirt and sweat but with satisfaction radiating from every line of his thin tanned face, when, "Hello!" called a man's voice behind him.

Roger turned with a jerk. A little gray-headed man and a little gray burro were standing by the work tent.

"Perhaps I could get something to eat here," said the stranger.

"Certainly," returned Roger, not too enthusiastically. He did not know desert hospitality, excepting what he had met at the Preble ranch. The man turned promptly to the burro.

"I'll take off your pack, Peter, if you see to it that you don't stray."

The burro looked at his master with the gaze of a wise old dog and, relieved of his pack, moved slowly to the shade of the living tent. Roger, looking his guest over, from faded overalls and blue flannel shirt to battered sombrero, led the way into the cook tent.

"Whew!" said the stranger. "Sun's getting higher. Noons are hot. When did you reach these parts?"

"A couple of weeks ago. My name's Moore,—Roger Moore."

The man nodded. "Mine's Otto von Minden. I'm an engineer. Been in the desert country ten years."

Roger was moving about, making coffee and slicing bacon. "What are you doing, prospecting?" he asked.

Von Minden jerked a quick look at Roger from a pair of small brown eyes. "Yes, I'm prospecting. What are you doing?"

"Experimenting with solar heat. This is the place to get it if this noon is a promise of more to come."

"Heat!" cried the stranger with sudden excitement. "Heat! God! What I have known of heat. Blistering, burning, blinding! Nights when the very star rays scorch and the moon's a caldron of white lava. Ten years of it, Moore, ten years!"

Roger looked at his guest with interest. "You aren't an American? There's just a little accent in your speech."

"Me? No. I'm German born and bred. What are you going to do with your solar heat?"

"Harness it," replied Roger, "and see if I can make it work for me."

"There's a fool born every minute," said Von Minden.

"You're quite right," returned Roger, cheerfully.

There was no further conversation until Roger had put the coffee, bacon and cold biscuits with a can of pie-fruit on the table. Von Minden fell to voraciously. His table manners were very bad, his hands were dirty but there was something about him that interested Roger.

"I've had great trouble getting water," he said. "Just struck it, this noon. 'Twill be enough for drinking and my condenser, I guess, but nothing for irrigation."

"Can't do anything with a dug well, here," grunted the guest. "Better drive one."

"Is the sand really fertile in this region?" asked Roger.

"Fertile? Friend, there's an empire waiting to be born, right here, if only they can get water and fuel."

"If we can get the fuel we can pump the water," said Roger. "You're right! There is an empire here. Mineral resources beyond the dreams of avarice, four or five crops a year of food-stuffs. Why, man, millions of people could come in here and be self-sustaining."

"What do you mean by 'in here'?" Von Minden spoke sharply.

Roger hesitated. "I mean really something pretty big. A cheap fuel would open up Arizona, New Mexico, Southern California and Northern old Mexico as no one can conceive who's not studied the subject. If I can put over my experiment, I shall add to the potential wealth of this country as no single individual has ever done. I'm going to get some one's ear at Washington, some day, if it's not till I'm a doddering old man. We ought to have Mexico, you know, because when the inland empire begins to grow, we'll overflow into Mexico. But we never can have her, of course. We can only hope that she'll grow into a real nation we can neighbor with, like Canada."

"Ah hah! And how're you going to bring about this millennium?" asked Von Minden.

But Roger, whose outburst to a stranger had been unprecedented, had nothing more to say on the subject.

"Will your burro eat table scraps?" he inquired.

"Yes, especially bacon rinds. Oh, Peter, come here, liebchen!" he called.

There was a sound of little light footfalls in the sand and Peter's wise gray face appeared in the doorway.

"Come here, sweetheart." The little burro crowded carefully around the table end until his head rested on Von Minden's shoulder. One by one, the old prospector handed up the bacon rinds and biscuits to him and Peter chewed sedately, flopping his ears back and forth.

"You are a good little boy. Now run along out," as the last rind disappeared and the burro trotted sedately out to browse industriously among the roots of the cactus.

"He really seems to understand," exclaimed Roger delightedly.

"He knows!" cried Von Minden. "And now, tell me about this solar heat. How are you going to harness it?"

Roger shook his head. "That I won't tell you now. But if you'll come back in three months' time, I'll show you the plant."

"You're afraid of me, eh? Well, perhaps that's a good idea. Afraid of me! Afraid of poor old Von Minden! There was a time when—ach! Well—perhaps you'll let me have a nap here on a bench. Then Peter and I'll go on up into the ranges."

"Make yourself at home," replied Roger.

Von Minden stretched his short length on the bench and closed his eyes. Before Roger had finished the dishes he was snoring. The little burro was standing in the shade of the living tent when Roger came out of the cook shelter. He looked pathetically small and thin and Roger, who had taken a great fancy to him, brought him a pail of water, and scratched his head and talked to him before going on into the tent. Here he was shortly absorbed in sorting his blue prints. He was studying the ground plan of the absorber, when an uncanny sense of being watched made him look over his shoulder. Von Minden, a sawed-off shot-gun aimed at Roger's back, was standing in the doorway.

"You will come down here and open up the world's best empire, will you—for America, eh? Not yet, my friend!" Von Minden's voice was husky and unsteady.

Roger did not move. In fact, he was incapable of moving.

"Look here," he began. Then as in a mist he saw Peter's gray head appear at his master's elbow and Peter himself, with his pack on his back, thrust his way past his master into the tent, just as Von Minden pulled the trigger. The shot seemed to hit everything in the tent but Roger. The mist before Roger's eyes turned to red and he made a spring for his guest. But Von Minden turned and fled, Peter after him, straight eastward across the desert toward the Coyote Range. They ran with surprising speed. Roger delayed long enough to get Ernest's rifle out of his trunk. By the time he had loaded it, after searching frantically several minutes for the box of cartridges, Von Minden and his little burro were far beyond rifle shot.

Roger started after them, hot foot, swearing viciously as he ran. As he saw the little German turn into the ranch trail a sudden fear for the two girls mingled with his anger. But Von Minden did not stop at the ranch house. As Roger reached the alfalfa field, burro and man veered to the right, around the adobe and rapidly on up the mountain trail, where they were quickly lost to view.

Roger saw Charley come hastily out of the house, followed by Felicia and when, panting and shaken with rage, he reached the house, they were still looking curiously toward the mountain trail.

"What's the trouble, Roger?" called Charley.

"He shot at me, the damned hound! Tried to kill me!"

He would have passed on up the mountain trail, but Charley had hurried down the trail and interrupted him quietly, with a steady hand on his arm.

"It's only Crazy Dutch!" she said. "You mustn't mind him!"

"Mind him!" shouted Roger. "I tell you he tried to kill me."

"You should have kept his gun for him until he was ready to go. That's what we always do. And as for his taking a pot shot at you, why, that's all in the day's work in this part of the country."

She smiled as she spoke, looking levelly into his eyes from her splendid height. Felicia caught his sleeve.

"We were coming down to call on you, Roger, and now you've spoiled it," she said.

"Sit down on the steps and cool off a little," suggested Charley. "You know you can always kill Crazy Dutch if you want to. He's always around. He's really a dear old man when you come to know him. He's helped me out here many a time when Dick's been sick or away." She was smiling still more broadly as she led Roger to the steps. He felt as if he were being hypnotized.

"But he tried to kill me," he repeated feebly, as Charley stood his rifle in a corner of the porch and sent Felicia for a cup of water.

"Poor child! Did he try to kill you?" Charley patted his arm as if he were a small boy. "Sit down in the shade here. I know you think we're all crazy down here and I guess we are. But you'll get fond of poor Crazy Dutch yourself. Dick loves him and he tried to shoot Dicky, when they first knew each other."

The red mist cleared suddenly from Roger's vision. He drank deeply of the water Felicia brought him and looked at Charley curiously. She was the first person since his mother had died who had been able to ease his outbursts of temper. Felicia was still aggrieved. She looked at Roger reproachfully.

"We were coming down to call on you and now you've spoiled it."

Roger jumped to his feet with a laugh. "I'll go home at once. Come along."

"No, we've got to dress up. It's going to be a regular call," said the child.

"We were coming down about half past four to bring you back to supper with us," said Charley.

Roger was suddenly conscious of the fact that he had a day's beard on his face. He started down the trail, hastily, after retrieving his gun.

"I'll be glad to see you ladies whenever you call," he said, "but I'm not going to promise not to shoot Crazy Dutch if he comes round again."

The call, which was made with due ceremony at the hour mentioned, was a great success. Roger, fresh shaved, and quite recovered from the shock of Von Minden's visit, played host with just enough formality to delight Felicia. Charley was deeply interested in the plans for the Sun Plant. It was the first time Roger had explained his general scheme of solar heating to her and he was surprised by her eager intelligence.

The sun was setting when they started back to the ranch house, with Felicia chatting like a magpie. Roger did the milking and