to-morrow."

"I must uphang my door to-morrow," said Gustav. "Vat place did you put
the hinges?"

"Hinges! By Jove, we haven't a hinge to our names!" exclaimed Ernest.
"Dick will have to help us out again."

But for once Dick failed them. "It's too bad," he told Ernest the next
day, "but I've been meaning to get hinges every time I've gone to town.
But I forgot. You'll have to use some stout leather, the way I do."

"Well, let me have some leather, then," begged Ernest

"Sorry, old chap, but there's not a scrap of leather an inch long around
this place. You see I sole Charley's and my shoes, and I've robbed all
the mines around here of belting to do it with and that doesn't mean
that I've had much belting either. Lots of other people have had the
same idea I've had. But take a day off and go up to the Sun's Luck, five
miles up that trail yonder and I think you'll find a few pieces."

Ernest groaned, then laughed. "Dick, poor old Roger will faint at the
idea of more delay, and for hinges! We'd better let the doors go till
some of us go into Archer's."

Dick shook his head. "Ern, you get those doors up, and up right. I'm
betting on there not being a real sand storm for six weeks yet, but if
one should come, and you have any delicate apparatus in the engine
house, you'll regret not having sand proof doors and windows. And to
tell the truth, Charley and Felicia are both nearly bare foot."

"So am I," said Ernest, "and Rog is too."

"What's a day in the desert?" laughed Dick. "Go on and bring down some
leather for the crowd, Ern."

And go he did, although Roger protested until Ernest mentioned the
matter of Charley's and Felicia's shoes. Then he gave a ready consent.
Ernest returned by mid-afternoon with perhaps a yard of belting, the
half of which he gave to Dick, much to that hard worked gentleman's
delight.

The days passed swiftly. Ernest was less homesick after Schmidt's
arrival and the intelligent German's industry and interest in the work
completely won Roger's heart. When the week of his visit was up, Roger
resolved that he would find a way to feed three instead of two if he had
to start the camp to eating desert mice. He wrote now to the Dean,
asking him to sell his laboratory equipment. Dick took the letter to
town.

The absorber was not as ambitious a structure as the engine house.
Nevertheless, it took twice as long to build as Roger had thought it
would. The foundations consisted of a shallow trou