"I can't carry it in the pocket of my shirt, I perspire so!" protested Roger. "Why not shift it to Hackett right now?"
"So be it!" returned Ernest, wearily. "Must I hold your hand while you do it! Say, did you move my clothes up here?"
"Our living tent is just the other side of the old tool house," replied Roger. "Come along, old man, and get rid of your store clothes. You look like a tenderfoot."
"Farewell to decency again!" groaned Ernest.
"When you come back, supper will be ready," called Elsa.
Hackett was sitting in the shade of the engine house and Roger reached an understanding with him very quickly. He undertook to act not only as Roger's banker but as his purchasing agent as well, and Roger undertook to furnish him with a list of tools and machinery before his return to Archer's Springs at dawn.
Gustav was waiting impatiently during the interview, and when Roger said with a sigh: "Well, I guess that covers everything, Mr. Hackett," Gustav put in quickly: "Did Ernest tell you there is var in Europe. The Vaterland, England, France, Belgium. Mein Gott, you should see the papers they brought."
"Good heavens! War! You don't mean it! Not a real one," cried Roger.
"Yes, more or less real! Of course, Germany will be in Paris any time now, and that will end it," said Ernest.
"But what is it all about? War! I can't believe it." Roger looked over the breathless, shimmering desert to the far calm blue of the River Range.
"Nobody knows exactly who started it or why," said Hackett. "Looks to me though as if Germany was trying to hog Belgium."
"Belgium deserves to be hogged," exclaimed Ernest, who had changed his clothes, "after her Congo history."
"But if it is var, I must get back to the Vaterland," cried Gustav.
"Oh, as to that," returned Ernest, "I saw Werner in New York and he said for you to stay here till you heard from him. He plans to be down this way, this fall."
Gustav grinned. "That vas good. I don't vant to go, sure."
"Were you in New York?" asked Roger vaguely. "War in Europe! I can't realize it."
"Why try?" suggested Ernest. "It'll be over before you succeed. What's a war in Europe to us, anyhow? Let's go in to supper."
War was indeed a vague and shadowy affair to the little desert community: quite overshadowed by the importance of Ernest's successful trip. Roger did brood a good deal for a day or so over the disclosures in the bundle of newspapers, then the excitement of the testing of the plant swallowed everything else in life.