"I've got a little credit still at Hackett's," said Roger. "I think Gustav had better go in to Archer's in the morning. I think my freight must be there from the Dean and we should be hearing from Ernest."
Dick, smoking in the doorway, nodded, then repeated the remark that he had made on the average of once an hour ever since Friday. "There isn't a well like mine in a radius of a hundred miles."
Gustav brought back two weeks' food supply, the freight from the Dean and letters from Ernest. They were very noncommittal but cheerful. He had cleared up the misunderstanding with the Smithsonian Institution, but as yet had no money and did not know when he could get back.
"Well," said Roger, "we've got grub for a week or so. I'm not quite sure whose grub it is. These two camps seem to me to have become helplessly entangled."
"Who cares!" said Elsa.
"Not you, young woman," returned Charley, dryly. She still seemed indifferent to Dick but there was no mistaking her warm enthusiasm over Elsa as a sister.
"I'm going to cut the first five acres to-morrow," said Dick. "That will solve the most pressing problems. The second field is dead. I'm going to plow it under. But I should worry. That's the best well in a radius of a hundred miles."
"Well, I'll assemble my engine." Roger tamped down the tobacco in his pipe. "The Lord send that it goes together right."
"Amen to that," said Charley, while the others nodded.
Another two weeks passed in unremitting industry, but by the second Saturday night, Roger with a sigh of unutterable satisfaction announced himself ready for a test of the plant on Monday. It was mid-September now, and it seemed as if the heat were a little less intense. The nights, at any rate, were not so parching. In spite of the sadness that would not lift, the little community was experiencing some of the contentment that comes from hard work and sympathetic companionship.