The Forbidden Trail Part 40

There were three "bugs" lighted over the engine. Ernest and Gustav were both smoking violently. d.i.c.k was chewing gum. Elsa and Charley said nothing but watched every movement on the part of the men.

"Come here, Felicia," said Roger, biting at his cold pipe. "You see this little valve? All right. Now, as I've told you many times, I hope that when you turn this, that the sun which shone to-day will turn the big fly wheel round. When I give the wheel a twist, you turn the valve clear over."

"Yes, Roger," replied Felicia, her little fingers quivering as she grasped the valve.

"Now!" exclaimed Roger, tugging at the fly-wheel.

There was a moment's breathless silence. Then very slowly and sedately, the fly wheel began to revolve, gathered speed and shortly was chugging away steadily. A little cheer rose from Roger's audience. He grinned.

"Now Ern, let's throw in the pump." A belt, connecting the engine with the pump outside, was quickly slipped in place. The engine slowed down.

But a moment later the sound of water pouring over the condenser pipes was heard above the chugging of the engine and pump.

Gustav and Ernest fell on each other's necks. "It works!" squealed Felicia. "It works and I helped make it, I did." Peter, his head as far in at one of the windows as a very short neck would carry it, brayed.

Roger watched the pressure gauge and scratched his head thoughtfully.

Charley and Felicia slipped outside to inspect the pump, and Charley called: "Does anybody smell anything?" At the same moment Felicia shrieked.

"Oh! oh, Roger! There's a terrible leak out here!"

Roger shut off the engine and followed by the others, he darted to the condenser. The odor of sulphur dioxide filled the night.

"By Jove, it's big enough to lose my charge!" groaned Roger. "Bring bugs, everybody."

Felicia, "bug" and oil can in hand, was running over the pipes at the top before the others had arrived.

"Here it is, Roger! Oh, an awful one. There!"

The leak was in a pipe joint at the top of the stack. The odor grew almost unbearable. For half an hour the men wrestled with it, turn about, and at last succeeded in stopping it. Other minor leaks occurred but all were located and controlled. Finally Roger announced all safe and lighted his pipe. In the flash of the match, his face showed tense and dripping with sweat, his eyes bloodshot from the gas fumes.

"Darn the leaks!" exclaimed Elsa.

"Well, it's what we'll have to expect as long as I can't afford to buy bent pipe or an acetylene welding outfit," said Roger. "But after all, the leaks are the least of my troubles."

"What is troubling you?" asked Charley quickly.

"There isn't as much power there as my calculations had indicated there would be."

"I told you that you were running pretty close on your absorption area,"

exclaimed Ernest. "You see your temperature readings have been lower right along down here than that table we had up in the laboratory for this region."

"But I don't want to increase the absorption area in order to get more power. It's a clumsy solution. It makes the plant too large and too high priced. The solution to the problem lies in making that engine more efficient." Roger sighed.

"Now don't change your engine design, Roger!" cried Ernest. "That is a peach and has been for years."

"Yes, I know," replied Roger. "But there's a possibility that you and the Dean and I have been too complacent about that engine."

"Gee, but you're a regular pessimist, Rog!" exclaimed d.i.c.k.

"No, I'm not. No inventor is. I'm just open minded. And don't think I'm blue, either. If I weren't so heckled and worried by the time and money element I'd be having the time of my life. Wouldn't I, Felicia, honey?"

There was no answer. Felicia, with the oil can hugged tight against her middy, was curled up on the work bench, fast asleep.

"Well, it seems to me I'd better take my family home," said d.i.c.k.

"Where's the rest of my harem? Elsa! Charley! Come with papa."

By eleven o'clock the camp was quiet. Roger prowled about the condenser a bit, covered the engine with canvas and then went to bed. It had been a hard day and none of the three men were wakened by the smell of sulphur dioxide that began to hang over the camp at midnight. The dawn wind blew most of it away, but when Gustav rose to get breakfast, he sniffed suspiciously and called Roger. They traced a leak in the lower tier. Half the charge had evaporated during the night.

"At least two weeks before we get more and a chunk out of the precious grub money," groaned Ernest at breakfast.

"Patience! Patience!" exclaimed Gustav. "I'll start to Archer's Spring mit the empty drums to-morrow."

Roger, who had been bolting his breakfast in silence, suddenly set down his coffee cup. Patience! He had told Charley that he was a patient man.

Yet every muscle of his body at the moment was twitching with impatience. He acknowledged this to himself, then said aloud:

"No use getting nervous, boys, I'm not. You get the new charge, Gustav.

I'll leave that in your hands and think no more about it. I'm going over my heat tables again."

"I'll help you check over," said Ernest.

"If you don't mind I'd rather grind for a few days on it alone. I can think better that way. Then I'll go over the results with you."

"All right," returned Ernest, with his usual good nature. "Gustav and I'll offer our services to d.i.c.k to-day on his new field. Do increase your absorbing area, Roger!"

Roger shook his head. "That's an awkward and expensive solution. The answer's in the engine!"

He began to figure on an old envelope. When this was covered, he continued his calculations on the margin of an old newspaper spread over the work house table. Long after Gustav and Ernest had gone about their day's business Elsa found him here, sweating in the stifling glare from the sun and sand, hair disheveled, s.h.i.+rt open at the 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. I should judge that it was about 190 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."