The Forbidden Trail

"And how is your guest?" asked Roger. "I've been telling Schmidt about her. He's heard of Von Minden at Archer's. And it seems she outfitted there. Claimed to have come up from Phoenix and said she had an engagement with us."

"Well, she was invisible, practically until noon to-day. Then she brought her rocking chair here where Dick and I were at work and concentrated on us all the afternoon."

"Concentrated? Vat iss concentrated?" asked Gustav.

"Well, she rocks in the chair, holding the pink umbrella till Dick lashed it to the chair back for her. She keeps her eyes closed and doesn't speak, though she did explain that she was talking to her mother, who is on the seventh plane, concerning the successful erection of the engine house. Dick seems quite smitten by her. He gazes on her and gazes as if fascinated, then he goes off behind the living tent and laughs."

"My God, what a country!" groaned Roger.

"I've got a bed fixed up for you in the cook tent, Schmidt," said Ernest. "You'll be safe if none of Mrs. von Minden's spirit friends bother you. She told me that she heard them playing the accordion in the cook tent last night."

"I love music," was Schmidt's response, and the three men went laughing to bed. Roger wakened in the night but once. Through the open tent flap he beheld Mrs. von Minden rocking silently in the starlight before her tent.

"She's going to get on my nerves," he murmured and fell asleep again.

Dawn was just breaking over the mountains the next morning when Roger entered the cook tent. He was greeted by Gustav, who was purple with the cold but grinning cheerfully, and the smell of coffee.

"It vas not so soft, sleeping on Frau Nature's heart in the desert, nicht wahr!" he exclaimed. "Coyotes vere eating the garbage last night mit gulps and snortings and I slept not. It vas not the music I had been promised. So I make the breakfast early."

"I didn't sleep well myself the first night or two," said Roger. "Desert silence makes a lot of noise to a town-bred man. Hey!"--going to the door--"Ern! You lazy Dutchman! The new cook'll leave if you don't get up for your breakfast."

Gustav and Roger were half through the meal when Ernest appeared. "Mud-pie making is hard work," he groaned, sliding stiffly onto the bench beside Roger.

"I certainly hate to make adobe brick when every day counts so," said Roger. "Let's use sheet iron."

"It'll be better to take Dick's advice," insisted Ernest. "He says the dust storms are frightful here and the heat worse. The adobe shelter will be grateful on many counts."