CHAPTER XI
DICK'S SICKNESS
All day Monday, Roger and his two helpers sweated to prepare for the plant's first trial. Roger would let no one touch the engine but himself, but Ernest and Gustav puttered with the condenser and the pump and at dawn started the oil circulating through the absorber. All day long the burning desert sun poured its heat through the glass into the oil which caught and imprisoned it for Roger's purpose, until the storage pit was full. Roger had set the time of trial as nine o'clock in the evening in order to prove the night as well as the day power of his plant. The Prebles appeared shortly before the hour.
"Everything O. K.?" asked Dick, with a creditable effort at being off-hand.
"One never knows till afterward," replied Roger. "Come into the engine house. No room for you, Peter, old man."
There were three "bugs" lighted over the engine. Ernest and Gustav were both smoking violently. Dick was chewing gum. Elsa and Charley said nothing but watched every movement on the part of the men.
"Come here, Felicia," said Roger, biting at his cold pipe. "You see this little valve? All right. Now, as I've told you many times, I hope that when you turn this, that the sun which shone to-day will turn the big fly wheel round. When I give the wheel a twist, you turn the valve clear over."
"Yes, Roger," replied Felicia, her little fingers quivering as she grasped the valve.
"Now!" exclaimed Roger, tugging at the fly-wheel.