The Forbidden Trail

There was no marriage certificate. The entire box was filled with notes in German in a microscopic hand. Roger read excerpts of it. Von Minden seemed to have made an exhaustive study of the resources of this section of the desert and of the north of Mexico.

"He had some sort of a huge irrigation scheme in his head," Roger said. "He's got some letters copied in here and a lot of stuff. We ought to turn this over to a German consul, somewhere and let him notify the proper relations."

"That a good idea," agreed Dick. "He used to tell Charley and me strange things when he was off his head. Once he said he was charting this region for the Kaiser. The poor old lunatic."

"His ideas were not so crazy as they might be," protested Roger. "I've some dreams myself for this country, you know."

"What are they, Rog?" asked Dick. "I know in only the vaguest way."

"If I can irrigate your twenty-five acres with my little plant, don't you see that I have proven that I am able to tap unlimited cheap power. The possibilities of this country with cheap power are staggering. I don't blame Von Minden for calling it a kingdom. That's just what it might be, with the mountains of the west range and the Rockies to the east forming natural boundaries. It seems as if a kingdom really could be self-supporting in here. If only I can harness the sun to a cheap apparatus that any one can buy and operate! Why all these ranges would be studded with going mines. Every valley would be green with growing crops. I hardly dare let my imagination go on it. Our little old U. S. has got a wonderful unborn commonwealth down here."

"Well, your dreaming is a lot more practical than his, anyhow," said Dick. "More power to your elbow, old man, I say."

"I won't forget what you people have done for me!" Roger returned the papers to the dispatch box.

They found the crude grave intact, the next morning. They were able with the aid of the pick to make a shallow trough in the rock. They built this up with stone and the last chapter of the Von Minden story was ended. They reached home at dusk.

Ernest and Roger sat before the tent alone that night while Gustav wrote a letter in the cook house. The heat did not seem to have lessened much with the going down of the sun. The stars low-hung over the engine house seemed to glow with fire and the darkness was like a hot blanket over the sand. Ernest was unusually silent. He sat with his pipe unlighted, staring at the stars so long that Roger said, at last: "Homesick, Ern?"