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

Morris chair, thought, as he had thought many times before, that it was a head that should have belonged to an artist rather than to a dry goods merchant. The chords merged into a quiet melody. Ernest buried his head in the evening paper. Roger let his pipe go out and his face settled into lines that added ten years to his age.

The subdued clatter of dishes from the kitchen finally ceased and Elsa came through the room. Her father stopped her as she passed and put his arm about her waist.

"Sweetheart, don't be cross with me," he said. "It's just that Papa so loves to have his little girl with him."

Elsa put her hand on his gray head and looked down into his face but said nothing.

"Come now," he went on, "sing a little song of forgiveness with me."

Still with his arm about her he played with one hand and sang as he played:

"Du, du! liegst mir im Herzen!
Du, du! liegst mir im Sinn!
Du! du! machst mir viel Schmerzen
Weiss nicht wie gut ich dir bin."

There was a sudden ring at the doorbell and with a little laugh that was half a sob, Elsa hurried to let Uncle Hugo in. He was tall, thin and blonde, yet his resemblance to Mamma Wolf, his sister, was unmistakable.

"So! We make a little music to-night," he boomed in a rich bass, "and the audience is set," bowing ironically to Roger, still in the clouds, and Ernest, his head still in the paper. "Where is the Mütterchen?"

"Coming in a minute," called Mamma, from the dining room. "I can hear. Go ahead."

Elsa sat down at the piano. Papa Wolf opened his 'cello case. Uncle Hugo put his silver flute to his lips and played a tentative sweet note. In a moment the strains of Schubert's Serenade, exquisitely rendered, filled the quiet house. Roger relighted his pipe and let it go out. Whenever over her shoulder, Elsa cast a quick glance at him, his gaze was fastened intently on the ceiling.

For an hour the music continued without interruption. Then the doorbell rang again and Ernest went to answer it.

"Come into the den so we won't disturb the concert," Roger heard him say. "Rog, come in here, will you?"

Roger obediently made his way into a little room off the dining room, devoted to the men of the household. A short smooth-shaven, sandy-haired man was standing by the reading table. Roger and he shook hands.

"I've been talking to Dr. Austin a good deal about your solar heat apparatus, Rog," said Ernest, "and he's got a proposition to make. Let's sit down and talk it out."

He pushed a jar of tobacco toward Austin and the three men, eyeing one another with frank interest, settled themselves in the easy chairs which Ernest indicated with a nod.

"I think Ernest said that you represent the Smithsonian Institute," Roger said. "What do you want to do? Put my engine in your museum?" This with a short laugh.

Austin shook his head. "I see you are about as ignorant as the rest of the world as to the real nature of our work. Confess now!"

Ernest smiled. "I suppose I've been reading papers and reports from the Smithsonian for ten years, but until I met you, Mr. Austin, I was certainly vague about who or what the work represented. Go ahead and give Moore the explanation you gave me, will you?"

"Well," began Austin, "an Englishman named Smithson left his estate to his nephew named Hungerford with the stipulation that if Hungerford died without heirs, the state was to go to found the Smithsonian Institution in America. Hungerford obligingly died without issue. It was in 1835, I think, and after a great deal of red tape, about half a million dollars was turned over to the American Congress to go to work with.

"Of course, Congress did considerable false stepping but finally the Institution was organized with the avowed purpose of increasing and diffusing knowledge. Rather a large program, eh! It was proposed to carry this program out by stimulating talented men to make original researches by offering prizes, by appropriating every year a sum of money for particular researches and by every year publishing reports on the progress of difficult branches of knowledge.

"The original bequest has been increased until now the Institution has use of the income on a million dollars. You'll be surprised to know how much real work has been done by this very little advertised branch of our government. For example, out of the system of weather observation developed by the Institution grew the United States Weather Bureau. The United States Ethnological Research is all done by us—as witness the monumental studies of our American Indians. Powell's great explorations were fathered by the Smithsonian and so were Langley's experiments in flying machines as well as his studies of solar heat."

"My word!" exclaimed Roger, "so they were!"

"When I was in the northern part of the state, last summer, studying certain Indian mounds, I ran across one of your fellow instructors who mentioned your work in heat engineering. I've always been much interested in that line of research, so when I came West again I tried to get in touch with you."

"I'm not hard to reach, surely," said Roger.

"Oh, yes, you are," returned Austin.

"It was this way, Rog," Ernest's lazy, gentle voice interrupted. "I kept Dr. Austin away from you until I felt that there was some hope. I didn't want you to have another disappointment."

"As I got your idea from Mr. Wolf, it seems to me that the Smithsonian might be glad to back you in further experiments," said Austin.

Roger's thin face flushed as it was apt to do when his work was under discussion. "This is mighty kind of you, Dr. Austin, but my work has gone beyond the experimental stage. I'm ready to erect Solar Power Plants if I can find the money."

"Rog, you're not ready!" cried Ernest, with unusual vehemence. "You've no idea of the troubles you'll be up against when you try actually to erect a working plant, in a hot country."

"I'm not afraid," returned Roger shortly. "One thing is certain, I'm not going on experimenting any longer."

"My understanding of your device is, that it is practical only in tropical or semi-tropical climates," said Austin.

"This first device is, yes," answered Roger shortly. "If I can ever get this one launched, I shall take up other climates."

Austin eyed Roger keenly for a moment, then he said suddenly,

"Why don't you let me see your plans? We might possibly have something to say that would interest you."

"Oh, of course! I wish I had some of them here. And it's too late to go up to the laboratory to-night."

"Wait a moment, Roger! Wait a moment," exclaimed Ernest. "Praying that we'd get to this point to-night, I brought down a set of drawings." He unlocked a drawer of the table and pulled out a roll of paper.

Roger spread some of the sheets on the table and the black, the yellow and the sandy heads bent over them.

"This," began Roger, "is the general ground plan of a plant designed to produce about 50 horse power. This detail here, which looks like a design for a glassed-in hot bed for early cabbage, is the heat absorber. It consists of a trough lined with some insulating material, covered with two layers of ordinary window glass. Under this window glass I flow crude oil, which absorbs the sun's heat as it comes through the glass. I get some remarkable temperatures, right here in Eagle's Wing. Here is a month's thermometer readings during July."

Austin studied the table thoughtfully. "The heated oil is the fuel for a low pressure engine. What engine do you use?"

"One of my own design. Here are the drawings."

Austin bent over these with absorbed interest and for an hour Roger answered his questions. At the end of this time, Austin lighted his pipe, which had gone out, and took a turn or two up and down the room. Then he paused suddenly in front of Roger and said, "Why don't you go down into Arizona and put up a small pumping plant as an experiment for the Smithsonian? I know this is not the large way, the commercial way, but I am convinced that this is the careful, practical way. Your friend Wolf tells me that the most popular reason given by the business houses you've visited for turning you down has been that you've never actually erected a working plant. Why not try it for us? Then you'll be in a position to talk business."

Roger, his face a still deeper red, looked from Austin to Ernest and back again. He relighted his pipe with fingers that shook.

"How big a plant?" he asked huskily.

"Big enough to irrigate about twenty-five acres of desert for alfalfa. I'm convinced that when you actually undertake to put such a plant in operation, you'll realize that there are details to be remade that you never dreamed of, on paper."

Roger did not speak for a moment. Five years ago he would have refused such an offer as this, without hesitation. It was very different, this, from turning out say a thousand units in six months. Yet, so long had hope been deferred that Roger hesitated, not for lack of enthusiasm for Austin's offer, but because the sudden joy that rose within him made it difficult to speak. Finally he turned to Ernest, who was watching him with a look of inexpressible satisfaction in his beautiful eyes.

"Will you go with me, Ern?"

"The family will kick, but I'm going," answered Ernest.

"What are the terms, Dr. Austin?" asked Roger.

"We'll buy all machinery and apparatus and pay for labor and living up to ten thousand dollars."

Roger could not believe that his sterile years of endeavor and disappointment were to bring forth even this small fruit. He laid his pipe down, picked it up, then said, "I can't tell you what this opportunity means to me. It's—it's my work, you see, and—and—"

"That's all right," Austin spoke hastily. "When can you start? I know exactly the spot in Arizona that we would wish you to go to—Archer's Springs. Have you a map of Arizona?"

"Yes, some of the Geological Survey maps," said Ernest, opening up a chart case.

"Here's the spot." Austin put his pencil on the map. "It's about twenty miles north of the railroad, a mining country, but we've always believed that the valleys here could blossom if we could get water to them. The Reclamation Service never expects to get in there."

"I know that," said Roger eagerly, "and yet a cheap power would make an inland empire of that section."

"Have you ever seen it?" asked Austin.

"No, Chicago has been my uttermost limit of travel so far. But I've studied hot countries and their resources for ten years."

"My idea is," said Austin, "that we buy all our supplies at St. Louis. I'll go that far with you. You can buy the essentials for making camp at Archer's Springs and by the time you are ready for it, freight will have brought the rest. I believe there is an excellent trading store at Archer's Springs where you can buy a camp outfit. I'll wire down and find out."

"Jove, Rog, doesn't that sound great!" exclaimed Ernest.

"When shall we plan to start?" asked Roger.

"Why not at once, so as to get the plant running by Spring, when the real heat comes on?" Austin looked from one eager face to the other.

"We both are teaching, you know," said Ernest. "I thought next June—"

"Next June!" shouted Roger. "This is the first of December, Dr. Austin. We'll have found substitutes and be ready to travel immediately after the Christmas recess."

Ernest winced. "That's crowding things! But—well, you're the boss of the expedition, Rog. I'll be with you."

"Fine!" Austin rubbed his hands together. "We'll start our purchase list now, eh?"

The concert, which had proceeded