Roger dropped a dollar into her slender brown palm. The squaw flashed white teeth at him and a younger woman pressed forward holding up an olla no bigger than a teacup, a duplicate in design of the one he had just bought. "I'll take that for Felicia," he murmured. "How much?" "Two bits." He tossed her the quarter. "You make 'em camp up there?" asked the old squaw. "Yes," replied Roger. "Come and call on us, ladies." "We bring 'em baskets, maybe," replied the squaw. Roger nodded and started the horses on, looking back from time to time for pure pleasure in the beauty of those scarlet fluttering capes. They reached the camp about ten o'clock and were vociferously welcomed by Ernest, who, before taking the horses up to the corral, insisted on showing them his day's work. "Nothing doing on the carpenter's bench," he said, flashing the "lightning bug" toward the site of the engine house. "Look here. Dick came over right after breakfast and we were hard at this all day." All the lumber in the camp had been requisitioned to make adobe molds. "We mixed the adobe with that clutter of broken hay that the glass came in," explained Ernest. "Dick says the Mexicans use stable scrapings, but I couldn't stomach that. You see you just peg the boards up in the sand, a foot apart and pack them full of the adobe. That'll be the thickness of the house. Then when the strips are dried, we'll cut them the length we want. Two days more work will give us all we need." "Vat a country!" exclaimed Gustav. Ernest and Roger laughed. "I take it Dick is O. K. again," said Roger. "Quite himself. Said Charley was used up, but she came down late this afternoon with Felicia and she said she was feeling fine. Felicia made those little bricks yonder. Charley has put her into overalls. She's simply ravishing in them." "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."