The Forbidden Trail

"How do you know they can't know?" asked the little woman sharply. "Older and wiser people than you believe otherwise. One thing is sure, that the only real thing you can do for your parents now is to carry on what they began. Life is short and there's no time to waste, Roger dear, no time to waste."

"Are you getting tired of me here?" asked Roger quickly.

Mother Wolf's pretty blue eyes filled with tears. "Do you have to be unkind, Roger?" she asked.

"Forgive me!" he exclaimed. "I know you'd let me live here if you thought it would be good for me."

There was silence. The coal range glowed and the snow without sifted endlessly past the window. Suddenly Roger rose and putting on his overcoat and cap went out into the storm.

Dean Erskine was in the little office off the junior laboratory. Roger had not seen him since the day of his father's funeral, but he kept his voice and manner casual.

"Good afternoon, Dean Erskine. How many hours am I behind in lab work?"

The Dean too was off hand. "I've lost count, Roger."

"It's sort of sniveling baby work, anyhow," said Roger. "I did it all once; up in the corn crib."

"I know that," said Erskine. "That's why I've let you neglect it so outrageously. I had hopes too that you'd wake up and ask to do other things. But it seemed that you preferred experimenting with Welsh rarebits at Hepburn Hall and marshmallow sundaes at Allen's."

Roger had the grace to blush. He grinned sheepishly, then said soberly: "I'm through with all that now."

"Oh, it has its place in a normal man's life! Only you seem to have crowded several years of it into two. If you're not in training I don't mind if you smoke. Only close that door into the classroom."

The Dean pulled out an outrageous old pipe. Roger closed the door, then lighted a cigarette. The two smoked in the silence of old friendship for a while, then Roger said, "Dean, what do you know about solar heat?"

The Dean looked at him suspiciously. "The usual things. Why?"

"I'm not trying to trip you," exclaimed Roger. "I've read all I can find on it, and that's darned little. You know those arrangements of mirrors in an umbrella-like frame, focussing the sun's rays on a point at the center, where the steam boiler is located?"

"Yes," said the Dean.

"Well, I don't believe the fellows that are working along that idea are right. The mechanism is hopelessly complicated, unwieldy and expensive."

Erskine nodded, his gaze on Roger's dreaming eyes.