"Then I'll write my letter to-night and start in with the two teams at daylight," said Roger. "You finish grubbing off for the condenser, Ernest, and make a carpenter's bench. And try not to kill our visitor." But the visitor was invisible all the evening, nor had she appeared before Roger left the next morning. He was well on his way toward Archer's Springs by daylight. The wagons were empty and the horses fresh, so that he reached the railroad station by mid-afternoon and had the wagons loaded by dark ready for the return trip.
At the Chinese restaurant where he went for his supper he saw Schmidt.
"Well!" exclaimed the German. "You vas here at last, nicht wahr!"
Roger nodded. "I hear you are coming up for a visit."
"Visit? No! No! To stay. Ya! To stay!"
Roger shook his head. "Can't feed you, old man!" and then, before he knew it, he was telling the sympathetic German of the Smithsonian's dereliction.
"These American governments!" groaned Schmidt. "Vat a stupidness! In Germany such a foolishness is impossible. Vell, I come for a veek and bring my own grub. I haf a leetle money, enough to feed me. Vat I lack is vork—vork to keep me from going crazy with the heim-weh in this ocean of sand, and some one mit brain to talk to. The baggage-man—the storekeeper—the Chinaman—Gott! I know their every mind like a primer, so long have I talked to them."
There was to Roger something irresistibly likeable about Schmidt's sentimental, jovial face.
"Come ahead, then!" he said. "You'll have to bunk in the cook-tent, and bring your own bed with you, but we'll be delighted to have you with us."
Schmidt rubbed his stubby hands together. "I go at vonce and pack up," he exclaimed. "Ve vill drive by my place in the morning and pick me up," and he started for the door.