The Forbidden Trail Part 59

Roger looked from Charley to d.i.c.k in utter bewilderment. "Germany's hour of need! The hour of need of a horde of vandals.--Where's your common sense, Ern?"

"It's a Dutchman's logic, Roger, that's all!" cried Elsa. "You're just beginning to recognize it! Lord, I was brought up on it!"

"Oh, dry up, Elsa! You were always a disloyal minx," growled Ernest.

"Now, you folks are welcome to think what you please. I'm not like Roger, ready to murder a man who has a different political opinion from me. I'm going to see that Werner's given a square deal, then I'm going to quit the whole bunch of you."

"Look here, Ern, you've got to straighten this business out," insisted Roger. "Crazy Dutch and Werner and Gustav and you! It's a dirty deal, somehow. Just why did you turn on your best friend, Ernest?"

"Turn on my best friend! I like that from you, with your devil's temper. And you've turned nasty nice all of a sudden, about where you get your money, after robbing all the mines around here."

"You know I've sent a list of everything I've taken from each mine to each mine owner and asked him to send a bill!" shouted Roger.

"Huh! That may be, but when it comes to giving Mr. Werner a chance at the Solar Plant, I recalled all that and didn't suppose you'd be finicky."

Roger's drawn face burned. Felicia's clock on the mantel ticked and Charley's deep eyes did not leave Roger's clenched fists. He ground his teeth, then drew a long breath.

"That was a rotten thing to say to me, Ern, but I guess I deserved part of it. Of course, the contract with Werner's got to be broken, and I want you to chew on this. You've got to choose between Werner and me.

Our friends.h.i.+p ends unless you drop Germany."

"Oh, h.e.l.l!" grunted Ernest and he turned and disappeared into the night.

Elsa shrugged her shoulders and began to gather up the dishes. Charley followed her example mechanically. Roger and d.i.c.k lighted their pipes and stood with their backs to the empty fireplace, and no one spoke until the dishes were finished and the girls were seated with their sewing.

Then, "By Jove," said d.i.c.k. "I don't know what to suggest."

"Neither do I," echoed Roger. "But this much I know. The main point is to save Ernest. The Solar Plant is secondary. He's got to do what's right in this."

"You'll never get away with it, Roger," exclaimed d.i.c.k. "Ernest really believes in this superman stuff. He's a German."

"He's got to do what's right," repeated Roger, this time with a tired break in his voice. "I feel as if I'd never believe in a man again unless he does. What can I do, Elsa?"

Elsa shook her head. "I don't know. If you people will think back you'll realize you've all been raised on adulation of Germany. Ernest is merely the logical product of his ancestry and environment."

"How did you escape the poison, Elsa?" asked Charley.

"Overstuffed," she replied. "And I'm not alone. There's any number of us American children of German parents who've been fed up on the 'Vaterland' stuff."

"Elsa," asked d.i.c.k, suddenly, "is Ernest a spy?"

The girl turned crimson. Roger interrupted quickly: "Oh, I say, d.i.c.k, give Ernest first chance to answer that question."

"No, I'll answer it," replied Elsa. "He wasn't up to the time he came to the desert, I'm sure. He was just wonderfully prepared soil, ready for the planting of any sort of seed. What Mr. Werner did to him, I don't know."

"Do you think Werner is a spy?" asked Charley.

"Probably, of an exalted order. As I look back now, he's been using Papa and all the rest of the silly Turnverein, any way he wants to. How much they know we never shall know. My heavens, what a dirty place the world is!"

No one replied to this comment. Roger sighed deeply and a pitying glance pa.s.sed between the two girls as he dropped his head dejectedly on his hands.

"Well, let's postpone more talk until morning," said d.i.c.k. "Elsa, going to help me put the menagerie to bed?" he asked.

"Yes," replied Elsa with alacrity, adding, as she followed d.i.c.k to the door, "Don't you think Roger'd better sleep here, to-night? With Gustav in the living tent--"

Charley nodded. "I'll make up the cot on the porch." She eyed Roger's drooping head with tear-dimmed eyes, as the others went out.

Roger lifted his worn face and gave Charley a long look. She was recovering some of her tone. Her eyes were bright and though the deepened sadness of her mouth would never lessen, the despondency that had marked her face when in repose ever since Felicia's death was gone.

As Roger watched her, it seemed to him that if Charley as well as Ernest failed him, the blackness of the pit would indeed close around him. He rose suddenly and crossed the room to kneel beside her. He clasped her hands against his heart, and said slowly:

"Charley, look in my face and tell me that you realize I am a changed man! That you need never fear my temper again!"

Charley caught her lower lip which would tremble, between her teeth, and steady, wise, brown eyes gazed long into deep-set, wearied, blue eyes.

"What happened, Roger?" Charley asked, at last.

"I fully recognized my devil, for the first time, and fought him to a finish. I'm going to have many a tough struggle but you'll never see again nor will any one else, the thing little Felicia was so afraid of.

You understand and believe me, don't you?"

Charley nodded, not trusting her quivering lips to words.

Roger dropped her hands and took her face in a tender clasp.

"Charley, it's a poor, broken, futile thing just now, my life, but so help me, G.o.d, it will not always be so. And whatever it is or will be, it belongs to you. Will you take it, Charley?"

There was a long pause during which Felicia's old enemy, the alarm clock, ticked loudly. Then Charley smiled and said uncertainly:

"While I'm taking my own share of you, I think I'll take Felicia's too.

Then I'll have all of you!"

"Charley! Oh, Charley! My dearest love! My dearest!" Roger jumped up, pulled Charley to her feet and clasping the slender body in his arms laid his lips hungrily to hers. He kissed her eyes, her hair. "Charley!

Charley! I'm a selfish brute, but you'll never know what you're doing for me. You ought to have a man worth ten of me but I'm going to have you just the same. Now I can bear even Ernest's failure. Do you really love me, my darling?"

"Curiously enough, I do!" replied Charley with the old whimsical lift of her eyebrows. "Oh, you dear old single-track thinking machine, you!"

Roger held her off and looked at her wonderingly. "You mean--Oh, Charley, I have been a fool in every possible way, haven't I?"

Charley laughed, with her cheek against Roger's, her arm about his neck.

Roger held her closer still. "Well," he said huskily, "I'm through with one kind of foolishness! Charley, will you ride into Archer's Springs to-morrow and marry me?"

The girl laughed outright. "I certainly won't! Let me go, Roger. Here come Elsa and d.i.c.k."

Elsa entered the room, her head on one side, her eyes bright and questioning.

"Well, Rog?" she exclaimed breathlessly.

"Yes, Elsa," he replied. "By Jove, I can't believe it myself but Charley says she'll marry me."

"Thank the Lord for that!" sighed Elsa.