"Try if you want to, Dick. I don't seem to care, one way or the other."
Dick's head dropped to his chest. With a little inarticulate cry, Elsa ran across the room and pulling Dick's head over to rest on her soft breast, she kissed him on the forehead.
"I care, Dicky!" she cried. "I care! It's my whole life whether you make good or not."
Dick lifted his agonized face and stared into Elsa's tear wet eyes. A slow, twisted smile touched his lips.
"Oh, Elsa! Oh, Elsa!" he breathed. "I think you've saved my soul alive!" He turned his face against her and Elsa, clasping the gray-touched head to her, looked at the others fiercely.
"Now, who hurts Dick, hurts me!"
Roger dropped his hand on Charley's shoulder. "Then look to it that he never hurts Charley again," he said sternly.
There was a silence, broken by Gustav, who came into the kitchen with the milk pail.
"Elsa, make me the pans ready!" he called.
"Coming, Gustav," answered Elsa in her normal voice. "The rest of you sit down to supper. Gustav and I won't be a minute."
"Better wash up, Roger," said Charley. "Dick, your room is ready for you!" and she disappeared into her own bedroom.
When they finally sat down to the belated supper, Roger began at once to tell of the crop conditions and of the call on old Rabbit Tail.
"Let's see, this is Friday and he promises the gang here on Monday. I think we'd better get busy to-morrow and make the drill connections on the old Lemon. What do you think of the whole scheme, Dick?"
"I think it's perfect!" exclaimed Dick.
"Perfect if my engine works," said Roger. "But even if it doesn't, you'll still have the old Lemon and a real well. So I'll have done you no harm."
"Have you got to dismantle that condenser to move it?" asked Dick.
"Pretty thoroughly, I'm afraid. But if the Indians are any good at all--"
"If Rabbit Tail brings his pet gang," said Dick "there'll be four first class machinists in it, trained at Carlisle. Fellows who work only when they please, but Lord, they are wonders. I saw them put up an oil engine once that had been badly smashed en route. It was a poem, I tell you."
"Heaven send them then!" exclaimed Roger. "If they put this thing over for us, I'll pay for it in cold cash as soon as I get it."
"Rabbit Tail won't take money for this deal," said Charley.
"The others will, but they won't ask for it." Dick filled his pipe, and pushed his coffee cup away with a little smile for Elsa.