Susan Lenox, Her Fall and Rise

"Would you go help Indian squaw so she no have do hard work?" queried the Indian.

Roger scratched his head.

"Charley Preble, she heap strong, like a man. Work no hurt her. No hurt Injun squaw. Let 'em work."

Roger had nothing more to say. But the fact that Charley worked so hard bothered both men, though Ernest, with his unconsciously German attitude toward women, was much less troubled about the matter than Roger. Roger, for all his neglect of the gentler sex for the past few years, had that attitude toward women, half of tenderness, half of good fellowship, that is characteristic of the best American men. And although he laughed at Ernest's sentimental mooning about Charley, he really was more concerned over the girl's hard life than was his friend.

She was still to him Felicia, grown up, and Felicia was still the little Charley Preble of the swimming pool. It was a confusion of personalities that might easily have grown into romance had not Roger been too completely and honestly preoccupied with his work.

The next afternoon the hoist broke and leaving Ernest and Qui-tha to patch it up, Roger plodded up to the alfalfa field.

The valley sloped very gradually from the mountains. Dick was working with a scraper, carefully throwing line after line of the shallowest possible terraces at right angles to the valley's slope. The irrigating ditch which was to carry the water that was to flow gently over the terraces was already finished.

Charley, who had been driving the horses while Dick handled the scraper, sat on a heap of stones beside the fence. She was very brown, yet in spite of her rough work she looked well. Her khaki blouse, her short skirt and high laced boots were smart and her broad soft hat, though covered with dust, was picturesque and becoming. Roger dropped on the rocks beside her, with a sigh.

"Tired?" asked Charley. "Aren't you off duty early?"

"I came up to labor with you," replied Roger, his blue eyes very clear in his tanned face. "You're working too hard."

"What would you have me do? Sit on the front porch and watch Dicky work? That's not my idea of a pioneer's mate."

"But can you stand it?" asked Roger.

"It's no harder than golf and tennis and a swim all in one day. I've done that many a time. And I'm as eager as Dick is to reclaim this desert. I'm almost if not quite as interested in this as you are in your work."

"I didn't mean to intrude or criticize," began Roger.

"You didn't do either. I appreciate your interest, and I'm just trying to make you see that the pioneer women aren't all dead yet. Some day there'll be pepper trees and peach trees along that ditch, and for miles and miles round here, the green of alfalfa."