"You'll do nothing of the kind, Gustav," exclaimed Roger. "You're far from home and you may need all your borrowing power for yourself--not but what I appreciate your offer, old man!" "I've got a little--my fare home and about a hundred beside," offered Elsa. "Keep it, old girl," Roger's voice was husky. "By Jove, I may be poor in everything else, but I'm rich in friends. Ern, what do you think of my suggestion?" "Well, I hate debt worse than anything in the world. But we're in this thing up to our necks and I'm willing to try anything that's honest. If Hackett knows the whole story--" "He knows it now, I guess, but I'll give him all the details. I may as well go in to-day and get a yes or no at once." "I'll go," said Ernest. "I'd like to and you'd better not lose a day." Roger nodded in a relieved manner. "Listen! There goes the Lemon!" exclaimed Elsa. "I do hope she goes to-day." "Put! Put!" came over the desert. "Put! Put! Put!" "I guess she's launched and I've got a clear day for work." Roger rose as he spoke. "Dick's having a struggle to get enough water for that second five acres of his. He insists that he's going ahead with the next five, though." "Elsa, want to go into Archer's with me?" asked Ernest. "Sorry, Ern, but I'm going to help Charley can pumpkins to-day. She planted some for luck up by the engine house where the pump leaks, you remember, and the crop is wonderful." "Oh, well, if you prefer pumpkins to me and Archer's Springs, I've nothing to say," groaned Ernest. "I'll go," offered Gustav. "I haf letters and other things." Ernest accepted the offer with alacrity. He was beginning to recover some of his old spirits but he had not been himself since Charley's refusal. Roger had never known Ernest to take one of his affairs quite so hard before. He dreaded to be alone and was often moody: a rare state of mind for easy going Ernest. The two men made a quick and successful trip to Archer's, for Hackett agreed to sell them food to the sum of two hundred dollars. He didn't see how a mortgage could be given but he was willing to take Roger's personal note for ninety days. This Roger gave with some misgivings but with a sigh of relief that the day of starvation had been put off once more. Then he gave his whole mind to his engine problem. He was planning some changes in his engine that were fundamental and that were really the outcome of his early trip through the ranges in the search for window glass. He worked at his redesigning with a single minded passion that set him apart from the others. All of them except Felicia found him tense and at times irritable. As August came in, the beauty of the desert seemed to increase daily. The heat, whilst it added to one's sense of the desert's cruelty, added at the same time to the unreality and to the mystery of silence and of distances that are so large a part of the desert's fascination.