Ernest took little stock in his new idea. "It may take fifty years to work it out," he had said the day he left for Washington. "Increase your absorption area and let it go at that. Better men than you have spent their lives on the low pressure idea and failed."
"I tell you," Roger had insisted, "that with a few changes of this present engine, I'll produce the low pressure engine of to-day."
"Well, go to it, old man! In the meantime, I'll fetch you some money so you can buy all the parts needed, and not have to continue your awful career of mountain brigand. The devilish thing about you inventors is that you putter so. My God, you drive me crazy! I do honestly believe that if it weren't for fear of starvation, you'd be puttering here for ten years."
"You're getting to be nothing better than a common scold, Ern," returned Roger with a laugh. "I'll be glad to get you out of the camp. Run along now and do your little errand."
With a routine established for caring for the two households, Roger bent all his splendid mind and energies on re-making the engine. Charley, coming to the camp one afternoon, as she or Elsa often did to cheer Roger's long day, watched him as he worked with infinite care to adjust a gauge he had taken apart.
"One of the many things that break me up," she said, "is that you missed the visit from the Smithsonian man."
"As it turns out," replied Roger, stoutly, "I didn't miss anything. I found when I got to work again that my safety device was inadequate and I've been all this time evolving a new one. If I'd run the engine as it was, I might have had a nasty blow-up and I've made one or two other changes, too, that are important."
"The engine doesn't look so very different to me," said Charley.
Roger chuckled. "Her whole insides have been made over really, by just a few changes. When Dean Erskine gets the new parts made and down here, I'll be O. K. I sent the design up to him when Ernest went in and some new parts ought to be here in a couple of weeks, now. I told Ern to have Hackett deliver them on arrival. It's too complicated to explain to you but I had another corking good idea the day that Dick went. I'm glad Arlington won't get here for six months."
Charley's eyes filled with sudden tears. "You're a lamb, Roger," she murmured.