Susan Lenox, Her Fall and Rise

"You poor boy! Don't you suppose I know? But now that you're down here at work, you've got to be even more patient. The desert is cussed mean. You and Dick have both got to contend with the old vixen for a long time before you put your dreams through."

"Don't you worry about my impatience," replied Roger. "My middle name is patience. You'll see!"

Dick's cheerful whistle came up the trail. Charley looked at Roger as he thoughtfully relighted his pipe. His bronze black hair was ruddy in the firelight, Charley liked his hair and she liked his square jaw and deep gray eyes, though they seemed to her a little cold and selfish as were his lips. Charley had been educated with boys in the big middle western town whither the Prebles had moved. From the time that she had entered kindergarten at four until she graduated from college at twenty-two she had buffeted through life shoulder to shoulder with boys. Charley knew men and she had read Roger as clearly as though his mind were an open book. She knew that the desert would either make or ruin a man of Roger's temperament.

Dick swung open the kitchen door. Roger rose, slowly.

"You folks had better have supper with us, to-morrow night," he suggested.

The Prebles accepted with alacrity and Roger wandered slowly home across the desert. He liked the Prebles, better than he had ever liked any family but Ernest's. Patience! He'd show that tall, dark-eyed girl that his fund was limitless.

Schmidt was worth two ordinary men, in spite of the fact that he was not in full health, and that he was deliberate in all his movements. His deliberation meant that he used his head to guide his hands. What with his steady persistent following of Roger's rapid, feverish energy and of Ernest's cheerful conscientious poddering, by mid-afternoon the engine house walls were half finished. When Charley, carrying a great basket, reached them about sundown, the door frames were almost covered in.

Ernest introduced Schmidt, who laughingly showed his muddy hands.

"I never saw three people who more evidently needed baths," Charley laughed in turn. "I suppose Felicia is the worst of the lot. Where is the child?"

"Felicia!" ejaculated Roger.

"She hasn't been here to-day," exclaimed Ernest.

Charley set the basket slowly down on the sand while her face whitened. "She started down here at nine o'clock with her doll and her olla."

There was a moment's silence, then Roger cried cheerfully, "Well, don't be frightened! Nothing could have happened to her. She must have gone on an investigating trip of her own."