"I want to go through Von Minden's papers. If I'd done a thorough job on that in the beginning, all the trouble might have been obviated."
"I don't know about that," said Charley. "It couldn't have been foreseen that Ernest would get in touch with Werner."
"Will you help me?" asked Roger. "I want to get through before Werner comes."
"Are you feeling fairly calm for the interview, dear?" Charley smoothed Roger's hair back, caressingly.
"Calm!" Roger suddenly caught the girl to him in a passionate embrace. "Calm! I don't want to be calm when I think of you and all you are to me. Oh, my darling, my darling!"
With Dick and Elsa's help, the Von Minden papers had been thoroughly gone over by mid-afternoon.
It was well on toward four o'clock before Ernest appeared with his unwelcome guest. Dick had descried a dust-cloud on the Archer's Springs trail about three o'clock and they all had seen a buckboard with two figures in it drive into the Sun Camp.
"Werner must have come," said Roger, only half succeeding in keeping his voice casual.
Dick nodded. "Hackett was telling me that he'd finally made up his mind to get a tin Lizzy. These old-time cowboys do certainly hate to give up their horses, don't they? But when the Chinaman said that he was going to buy a jitney for the miners, poor Hackett had to give in. Of course, he'll still have to use his horses and the pack-train for mountain work."
Roger grunted absentmindedly and stored Von Minden's box in the kitchen, as Hackett drove Werner and Ernest up to the corral.