The Forbidden Trail, Honoré Willsie [digital e reader TXT] 📗

work in this country is to keep an eye on all the resources of America, particularly of the Southwest. They like to keep in touch with the Germans coming to this country and help them to a profitable living. Seems that Von Minden really was quite an engineering pioneer before he went bug."

"You never did say, Ern," Roger's voice was casual, "how you happened to run on Werner."

"Didn't run on him at all," replied Ernest irritably. "I went up to see him on my way home. He told us to call on him if we ever were in New York. And I wasn't coming back to this God forsaken hole without seeing Broadway. Where is the mysterious black box, Rog?"

"I'd rather send the papers to a German Consul, Ern. Now that they're in a state of war, over there, it might be more regular."

"I promised Werner he should have them. Don't be a stick in the mud, Rog, and try to put anything regular over on me after all your high-handed predatory methods down here."

Roger flushed. "I haven't taken a thing that won't be paid for to the last dollar."

"Well, I'm not going to quarrel with you about Von Minden's box. I invited Werner down here to inspect the plant and you can fight it out with him. He'll fall dead when he sees the new engine."

"I'm not sure that I want him down here," Roger scowled, thoughtfully. "I have no patents as yet and I had an unpleasant experience with Von Minden, another with Gustav and I'm not altogether crazy about trying out a third German."

Gustav gulped his coffee and walked out of the room.

Ernest suddenly flushed deeply, but said nothing.

"I thought you were keen about Germans," said Elsa.

"I always have been, and I still am. And yet, ever since I've heard about this war—I don't know. I feel uneasy. Hang it! Germany had no business hogging across Belgium as she did. It was a dirty trick, just like the one, by Jove, Von Minden tried to play on me! Gustav, another German, take notice, tried to steal from me, too!"

There was an awkward silence, then Ernest said a little belligerently: "Germany must fulfill her destiny, no matter who suffers."

"What is her destiny?" asked Charley, curiously.

"To rule the world. The Vaterland is superman. It's coming into its own, now!"

"Superman fiddlesticks!" exclaimed Charley.

"Seems to me you picked up a lot of silly rot on this trip East, Ern," said Roger. "Who is this Werner, anyhow? I'll have you remember, old man, when it comes to a choice, I'm all American, as I believe you are, eh?"

Slowly Ernest's face darkened. Slowly he rose from his chair. No one had ever before seen the look of passion in Ernest's beautiful eyes that now blazed there.

"There's not a drop of blood in my veins, thank God, that's not German. I say to you 'Deutschland über alles,' and all that Ernest Wolf can do to bring it about, shall be done."

"And I tell you," Elsa cried suddenly, as she crossed the room to face Ernest, "that I am all American and I hate Germany and all her works. I think you've acted like a fool, Ernest."

"Be quiet, Elsa!" roared Ernest, in exactly his father's voice.

"I'll not be quiet! I'm an American girl, not a German Fräulein. I say that you've got to cut out all this superman stuff and tell Roger where you got that money."

"Do you suppose I'm afraid to tell him? I was just waiting for Werner to come to satisfy Roger," shouted Ernest. He turned to Roger. "I got that money from Werner. Your Solar Heat Device is sold to the German Government."

There was a sudden hush in the room. Roger sat hunched in his chair. Charley and Elsa glanced at each other apprehensively.

Dick cleared his throat and spoke for the first time. "Easy, now Roger!"

Roger did not seem to hear him. "How do you mean, you've sold me to the German government?"

"What I say. The Smithsonian people turned me down cold and when I told my troubles to Werner, he offered to help me out. Germany's crazy to develop this neck of the woods. And crazier still to get fellows like you and me to using their influence among the educators and scientists of this country in favor of German culture."

Roger's face was like stone. "How do you mean, sold my device to the German government?" he repeated.

"What I say!" roared Ernest. "I sold it for fifty thousand dollars. I've checks for the rest here in my pocket, but I knew you'd get your back up, so I was waiting for Werner. Now listen, Roger, you've the chance of a lifetime. You've often said you were going to Germany if this country failed you, and it did."

Roger looked around the room in a dazed way, then back at Ernest. "You sold my invention—the work of my life—without my knowledge or permission? Ernest, it can't be true. Why, you're my best friend!"

"Certainly I am."

"And you sold it to a stranger. Sold me out. Why I'd as soon you sold a child of mine. Damn it, are you Germans born crooked?" He rose slowly. "You picked my brains and sold the contents. You sneaked on me! And I thought you were my friend! You've lied to me ever since you came home. Why did you lie——" his voice rising now uncontrollably. "Why did you lie, you skunk?"

Ernest's face turned purple. He leaned across the table and struck Roger in the mouth.

"No one can say that to me!" he shouted.

Roger rushed around the table and seized Ernest by the throat. "Now I'm going to kill you," he said between his teeth.

Dick, shouting for Gustav, fought to break Roger's hold. Gustav came rushing over the porch.

When Roger next was fully conscious of himself he was climbing from the desert up onto a broad mesa. The sun was sinking behind the mountains into which the mesa merged. When he reached the crest of the mesa, Roger paused, shaken and breathless. There was the scramble of little footsteps behind him and Roger turned to look. Peter, packless and breathing hard, was following him. Roger drew his shirt sleeves across his eyes. He knew that Gustav and Dick had pulled him away from Ernest. How much he had injured Ernest he did not know, nor, for the present, did he care. He recalled that, with Ernest motionless on the floor, the others had united in denouncing him, that Charley had turned on him with furious eyes. Then he had fled. Not toward Archer's Springs where he was known. But with a vague idea of crossing the Colorado into California, he had turned westward.

He was fleeing not from fear nor from cowardice. He was fleeing because with the discovery of Ernest's duplicity, the entire edifice of his life had tumbled into ruins. A great loathing of the desert, of the work he had attempted there, but most of all, a red hate for Ernest, carried him across the many burning miles of desert to the foothills of the River Range. A blind desire to get away from it all, to lose himself forever, to forget all that he had ever been or known, but above everything to get away from Ernest was for the time being the motive force of his existence.

He was carrying a bag of grub and his two gallon canteen which still was heavy with water. For a moment Roger considered some method of transferring his burden to the burro's little back. But Peter was so small, so winded, that he gave up the idea and trudged on to the west. Peter fell in after him and two scarcely discernible specks on the immense floor of the mesa they moved toward the black mountain top lifting before them. There was no sound save that of their own footsteps. There was no verdure here except the martial figures of the great cacti, those soldiers of the waste, that guard the eternal solitudes. There was no wind. Only a breathless sense of brooding in the remote wonder of the sky. The desert is a hard country; a country to try out the mettle of a man and leave it all dross or pure gold.

It was starlight when Roger and Peter reached the top of the range. Beyond dimly lay another range.

Roger resolved to camp for the night in the valley below. Peter was reluctant to go farther. In fact for the last hour, Roger had been obliged to lead him. The way down was very precipitous and they had not covered a third of it when Roger slipped and fell. He did not lose his grip on the lead rope and at the sudden jerk the little burro pitched forward after Roger. But Peter got his balance immediately and threw himself back on his shoulders, bracing his feet against the roots of a giant cactus and stood fast.

Roger dangled helplessly over a black drop for a few seconds, then with the aid of the lead rope he crawled up to the root of another cactus where he lay for a moment. Then he started on downward, zig-zagging carefully this time as one should descend a trailless mountain.

Roger slept fitfully in the sand at the bottom of the valley, waking and rising at the first peep of dawn. Peter had fared rather well. There were grass tufts growing at the roots of the great cacti, around about. Roger ate a cold breakfast. He found a rough hollow in a rock, where he gave Peter a small drink of water, then he started on. But, although he cursed the little burro roundly, Peter again was reluctant to move westward, and Roger had again to take hold of the lead rope.

All day long, he continued the march westward. This range was like the Coyote Range, though there were more passes through the ridges, so that had he been able to find a trail, he could have moved rapidly. But the way underfoot was inconceivably rough and by noon Roger's shoes were cut and his feet bruised and bleeding. But he never for a moment considered turning back. He was through—through with the old work which had brought him only disappointment, through with the old affections which had only played him false. Even Peter who had come with him voluntarily was now trying to turn back.

It was late afternoon when they reached a low mountain shoulder. As they breasted its crest, Peter raised his tail and brayed, starting forward at a trot. Roger followed to the mountain edge. The valley of the Colorado lay before him, a narrow valley here, with a range of mountains on the opposite side lifting brilliant peaks against the afternoon sky. The valley was sandy and the river looked shallow and slow moving, with arrow-weed growing along its edge.

Peter led the way down. Roger had been fortunate in the time he chose for his crossing. The river was at its lowest level, sliding lazily over the sand. As Roger descended the mountain he found water marks where at flood, the river had filled the valley and gnawed deep into the vitals of the range. He followed the burro across the sand to the water's edge. Peter buried his nose in the stream, then rolled himself joyfully in the moist sand, snorting and blowing. Roger stood staring at the little fellow. Then as Peter began to crop the coarse grass which grew in sparse clumps among the straight stalks of the arrow-weed, Roger gathered together some bits of drift wood for his supper fire.

He fried some bacon, made coffee, and seated himself in the sand. Peter dropped his soft nose over Roger's shoulders, and ate the bacon rinds one by one, then crowding still closer, tried to nibble at the cracker Roger was devouring.

"Hang you, Pete,