From the main road he drove up to the right of the house, where, under a dip of wooded slope, clustered barns, sheds, corrals, granaries, engine and machinery houses, a store, and the homes of hired men—a little village in itself.

The sounds he heard were a welcome home—the rush of swift water not twenty yards from where he stopped the car in the big courtyard, the pound of hoofs on the barn floor, the shrill whistle of a stallion that saw and recognized him, the drawling laugh of his cowboys and the clink of their spurs as they became aware of his return.

Nash, the suspected driver, was among those who hurried to meet the car.

Anderson's keen, covert glance made note of the driver's worried and anxious face.

"Nash, she'll need a lookin' over," he said, as he uncovered bundles in the back seat and lifted them out.

"All right, sir," replied Nash, eagerly. A note of ended strain was significant in his voice.

"Here, you Jake," cheerily called Anderson to a raw-boned, gaunt-faced fellow who wore the garb of a cowboy.

"Boss, I'm powerful glad to see you home," replied Jake, as he received bundle after bundle until he was loaded down. Then he grinned. "Mebbe you want a pack-boss."

"You're hoss enough for me. Come on," he said, and, waving the other men aside, he turned toward the green, shady hill above which the red and white of the house just showed.

A bridge crossed the rushing stream. Here Jake dropped some of the bundles, and Anderson recovered them. As he straightened up he looked searchingly at the cowboy. Jake's yellow-gray eyes returned the gaze. And that exchange showed these two of the same breed and sure of each other.

"Nawthin' come off, boss," he drawled, "but I'm glad you're home."

"Did Nash leave the place?" queried Anderson.

"Twice, at night, an' he was gone long. I didn't foller him because I seen he didn't take no luggage, an' thet boy has some sporty clothes. He was sure comin' back."

"Any sign of his pard—that Glidden?"

"Nope. But there's been more'n one new feller snookin' round."

"Have you heard from any of the boys with the cattle?"

"Yep. Bill Weeks rode down. He said a bunch of I.W.W.'s were campin' above Blue Spring. Thet means they've moved on down to the edge of the timber an' oncomfortable near our wheat. Bill says they're killin' our stock fer meat."

"Hum!... How many in the gang?" inquired Anderson, darkly. His early dealings with outlaw rustlers had not left him favorably inclined toward losing a single steer.

"Wal, I reckon we can't say. Mebbe five hundred, countin' all along the valley on this side. Then we hear there's more on the other... Boss, if they git ugly we're goin' to lose stock, wheat, an' mebbe some blood."

"So many as that!" ejaculated the rancher, in amaze.

"They come an' go, an' lately they're most comin'," replied Jake.

"When do we begin cuttin' grain?"

"I reckon to-morrow. Adams didn't want to start till you got back. It'll be barley an' oats fer a few days, an' then the wheat—if we can git the men."

"An' has Adams hired any?"

"Yes, a matter of twenty or so. They swore they wasn't I.W.W.'s, but Adams says, an' so do I, thet some of them are men who first claimed to our old hands thet they did belong to the I.W.W."

"An' so we've got to take a chance if we're goin' to harvest two thousand acres of wheat?"

"I reckon, boss."

"Any reports from Ruxton way?"

"Wal, yes. But I reckon you'd better git your supper 'fore I tell you, boss."

"Jake, you said nothin' had come off."

"Wal, nawthin' has around here. Come on now, boss. Miss Lenore says I was to keep my mouth shut."

"Jake, who's your boss? Me or Lenore?"

"Wal, you air. But I ain't disobeyin' Miss Lenore."

Anderson walked the rest of the way up the shady path to the house without saying any more to Jake. The beautiful white house stood clear of the grove, bright in the rays of the setting sun. A barking of dogs greeted Anderson, and then the pattering of feet. His daughters appeared on the porch. Kathleen, who was ten, made a dive for him, and Rose, who was fourteen, came flying after her. Both girls were screaming joyously. Their sunny hair danced. Lenore waited for him at the step, and as he mounted the porch, burdened by the three girls, his anxious, sadly smiling wife came out to make perfect the welcome home. No—not perfect, for Anderson's joy held a bitter drop, the absence of his only son!

"Oh, dad, what-all did you fetch me?" cried Kathleen, and she deserted her father for the bundle-laden Jake.

"And me!" echoed Rose.

Even Lenore, in the happiness of her father's return, was not proof against the wonder and promise of those many bundles.

They all went within, through a hall to a great, cozy living-room. Mrs. Anderson's very first words, after her welcoming smile, were a half-faltered:

"Any—news of—Jim?"

"Why—yes," replied Anderson, hesitatingly.

Suddenly the three sisters were silent. How closely they resembled one another then—Lenore, a budding woman; Rose, a budding girl; and Kathleen, a rosy, radiant child! Lenore lost a little of her bloom.

"What news, father?" she asked.

"Haven't you heard from him?" returned Anderson.

"Not for a whole week. He wrote the day he reached Spokane. But then he hardly knew anything except that he'd enlisted."

"I'm sure glad Jim didn't wait for the draft," replied the father. "Well, mother an' girls, Jim was gone when I got to Spokane. All I heard was that he was well when he left for Frisco an' strong for the aviation corps."

"Then he means to—to be an aviator," said Lenore, with quivering lips.

"Sure, if he can get in. An' he's wise. Jim knows engines. He has a knack for machinery. An' nerve! No boy ever had more. He'll make a crack flier."

"But—the danger!" whispered the boy's mother, with a shudder.

"I reckon there'll be a little danger, mother," replied Anderson, cheerfully. "We've got to take our chance on Jim. There's one sure bet. If he had stayed home he'd been fightin' I.W.W.'s!"

That trying moment passed. Mrs. Anderson said that she would see to supper being put on the table at once. The younger girls began untying the bundles. Lenore studied her father's face a moment.

"Jake, you run along," she said to the waiting cowboy. "Wait till after supper before you worry father."

"I'll do thet, Miss Lenore," drawled Jake, "an' if he wants worryin' he'll hev to look me up."

"Lass, I'm only tired, not worried," replied Anderson, as Jake shuffled out with jingling spurs.

"Did anything serious happen in Spokane?" she asked anxiously.

"No. But Spokane men are alive to serious trouble ahead," replied her father. "I spoke to the Chamber of Commerce—sure exploded a bomb in that camp. Then I had conferences with a good many different men. Fact is they ran me pretty hard. Couldn't have slept much, anyhow, in that heat. Lass, this is the place to live!... I'd rather die here than live in Spokane, in summer."

"Did you see the Governor?"

"Yes, an' he wasn't as anxious about the Golden Valley as the Bend country. He's right, too. We're old Westerners here. We can handle trouble. But they're not Americans up there in the Bend."

"Father, we met one American," said Lenore, dreamily.

"By George! we did!... An' that reminds me. There was a government official from Washington, come out to Spokane to investigate conditions. I forget his name. He asked to meet me an' he was curious about the Bend—its loyalty to the U.S. I told him all I knew an' what I thought. An' then he said he was goin' to motor through that wheat-belt an' talk to what Americans he could find, an' impress upon them that they could do as much as soldiers to win the war. Wheat—bread—that's our great gun in this war, Lenore!... I knew this, but I was made pretty blamed sober by that government man. I told him by all means to go to Palmer an' to have a talk with young Dorn. I sure gave that boy a good word. Poor lad! He's true blue. An' to think of him with that old German devil. Old Dorn has always had a hard name. An' this war has brought out the German cussedness."

"Father, I'm glad you spoke well of the young man," said Lenore, still dreamily.

"Hum! You never told me what you thought," replied her father, with a quick glance of inquiry at her. Lenore was gazing out of the window, away across the wheat-fields and the range. Anderson watched her a moment, and then resumed: "If I can get away I'm goin' to drive up to see Dorn again pretty soon. Do you want to go?"

Lenore gave a little start, as if the question had surprised her.

"I—I hardly think so," she replied.

"It's just as well," he said. "That'll be a hard ride.... Guess I'll clean up a little for supper."

Anderson left the room, and, while Kathleen and Rose gleefully squabbled over the bundles, Lenore continued to gaze dreamily out of the window.

* * * * *

That night Lenore went early to her room, despite the presence of some young people from a neighboring village. She locked her door and sat in the dark beside her open window.

An early moon silvered the long slopes of wheat and made the alfalfa squares seem black. A cool, faint, sweet breeze fanned her cheek. She could smell the fragrance of apples, of new-mown hay, and she could hear the low murmur of running water. A hound bayed off somewhere in the fields. There was no other sound. It was a quiet, beautiful, pastoral scene. But somehow it did not comfort Lenore.

She seemed to doubt the sincerity of what she saw there and loved so well. Moon-blanched and serene, lonely and silent, beautiful and promising, the wide acres of "Many Waters," and the silver slopes and dark mountains beyond, did not tell the truth. 'Way over the dark ranges a hideous war had stretched out a red hand to her country. Her only brother had left his home to fight, and there was no telling if he would ever come back. Evil forces were at work out there in the moonlight. There had come a time for her to be thoughtful.

Her father's asking her to ride to the Bend country had caused some strange little shock of surprise. Lenore had dreamed without thinking. Here in the darkness and silence, watching the crescent moon slowly sink, she did think. And it was to learn that she remembered singularly well the first time she had seen young Dorn, and still more vividly the second time, but the third time seemed both clear and vague. Enough young men had been smitten with Lenore to enable her to gauge the symptoms of these easy-come, easy-go attractions. In fact, they rather repelled her. But she had found Dorn's manner striking, confusing, and unforgettable. And why that should be so interested her intelligence.

It was confusing to discover that she could not lay it to the sympathy she had felt for an American boy in a difficult position, because she had often thought of him long before she had any idea who he was or where he lived.

In the very first place, he had been unforgettable for two reasons—because he had been so struck at sight of her that he had gazed unconsciously, with a glow on his face and a radiance in his eye, as of a young poet spellbound at an inspiration; and because he seemed the physical type of young man she had idealized—a strong, lithe-limbed, blond giant, with a handsome, frank face, clear-cut and smooth, ruddy-cheeked and blue-eyed.

Only after meeting him out there in the desert of wheat had she felt sympathy for him. And now with intelligence and a woman's intuition, barring the old, insidious, dreamy mood, Lenore went over in retrospect all she could remember of that meeting. And the truth made her sharply catch her breath. Dorn had fallen in love with her. Intuition declared that, while her intelligence repudiated it. Stranger than all was the thrill which began somewhere in the unknown depths of her and mounted, to leave her tingling all over. She had told her father that she did not want to ride to the Bend country. But she did want to go! And that thought, flashing up, would not be denied. To want to meet a strange young man again was absolutely a new and irritating discovery for Lenore. It mystified her, because she had not had time to like Dorn. Liking an acquaintance had nothing to do with the fact. And that stunned her.

"Could it be—love at first sight?" she whispered, incredulously, as she stared out over the shadowing fields.

"For me? Why, how absurd—impossible!... I—I only remembered him—a big handsome boy with blazing eyes.... And now I'm sorry for him!"

To whisper her amaze and doubt and consternation only augmented the instinctive recurring emotion. She felt something she could not explain. And that something was scarcely owing to this young man's pitiful position between duty to his father and love for his country. It had to do with his blazing eyes; intangible, dreamlike perceptions of him as not real, of vague sweet fancies that retreated before her introspective questioning. What alarmed Lenore was a tendency of her mind to shirk this revealing analysis. Never before had she been afraid to look into herself. But now she was finding unplumbed wells of feeling, secret chambers of dreams into which she had never let the light, strange instinctive activities, more physical than mental. When in her life before had she experienced a nameless palpitation of her heart?

Long she sat there, staring out into the night. And the change in the aspect of the broad spaces, now dark and impenetrable and mysterious, seemed like the change in the knowledge of herself. Once she had flattered herself that she was an inch of crystal water; now she seemed a complex, aloof, and contrary creature, almost on the verge of tumultuous emotions.

She said her prayers that night, a girlish habit resumed since her brother had declared his intention of enlisting in the army. And to that old prayer, which her mother had prayed before her, she added an appeal of her own. Strange that young Dorn's face should flash out of gloom! It was there, and her brother's was fading.

"I wonder—will he and Jim—meet over there—on the battle-field!" she whispered. She hoped they would. Like tigers those boys would fight the Germans. Her heart beat high. Then a cold wind seemed to blow over her. It had a sickening weight. If that icy and somber wind could have been traced to its source, then the mystery of life would have been clear. But that source was the cause of war, as its effect was the horror of women. A hideous and monstrous thing existed out there in the darkness. Lenore passionately loved her brother, and this black thing had taken him away. Why could not women, who suffered most, have some word in the regulation of events? If women could help govern the world there would be no wars.

At last encroaching drowsiness dulled the poignancy of her feelings and she sank to sleep.



CHAPTER VI

Singing of birds at her window awakened Lenore. The dawn streamed in bright and sweetly fragrant. The wheat-fields seemed a rosy gold, and all that open slope called to her thrillingly of the beauty of the world and the happiness of youth. It was not possible to be morbid at dawn. "I hear! I hear!" she whispered. "From a thousand slopes far and wide!"

At the breakfast-table, when there came opportunity, she looked up serenely and said, "Father, on second thought I will go the Bend, thank you!"

Anderson laid down his knife and fork and his eyes opened wide in surprise. "Changed your mind!" he exclaimed.

"That's a privilege I have, you know," she replied, calmly.

Mrs. Anderson appeared more anxious than surprised. "Daughter, don't go. That will be a fearful ride."

"Hum! Sure glad to have you, lass," added Anderson, with his keen eyes on her.

"Let me go, too," begged Rose.

Kathleen was solemnly gazing at Lenore, with the wise, penetrating eyes of extreme youth.

"Lenore, I'll bet you've got a new beau up there," she declared.

Lenore flushed scarlet. She was less angry with her little sister than with the incomprehensible fact of a playful word bringing the blood stingingly to her neck and face.

"Kitty, you forget your manners," she said, sharply.

"Kit is fresh. She's an awful child," added Rose, with a superior air.

"I didn't say a thing," cried Kathleen, hotly. "Lenore, if it isn't true, why'd you blush so red?"

"Hush, you silly children!" ordered the mother, reprovingly.

Lenore was glad to finish that meal and to get outdoors. She could smile now at that shrewd and terrible Kitty, but recollection of her father's keen eyes was confusing. Lenore felt there was really nothing to blush for; still, she could scarcely tell her father that upon awakening this morning she had found her mind made up—that only by going to the Bend country could she determine the true state of her feelings. She simply dared not accuse herself of being in unusually radiant spirits because she was going to undertake a long, hard ride into a barren, desert country.

The grave and thoughtful mood of last night had gone with her slumbers. Often Lenore had found problems decided for her while she slept. On this fresh, sweet summer morning, with the sun bright and warm, presaging a hot and glorious day, Lenore wanted to run with the winds, to wade through the alfalfa, to watch with strange and renewed pleasure the waves of shadow as they went over the wheat. All her life she had known and loved the fields of waving gold. But they had never been to her what they had become overnight. Perhaps this was because it had been said that the issue of the great war, the salvation of the world, and its happiness, its hope, depended upon the millions of broad acres of golden grain. Bread was the staff of life. Lenore felt that she was changing and growing. If anything should happen to her brother Jim she would be heiress to thousands of acres of wheat. A pang shot through her heart. She had to drive the cold thought away. And she must learn—must know the bigness of this question. The women of the country would be called upon to help, to do their share.

She ran down through the grove and across the bridge, coming abruptly upon Nash, her father's driver. He had the car out.

"Good morning," he said, with a smile, doffing his cap.

Lenore returned his greeting and asked if her father intended to go anywhere.

"No. I'm taking telegrams to Huntington."

"Telegrams? What's the matter with the 'phone?" she queried.

"Wire was cut yesterday."

"By I.W.W. men?"

"So your father says. I don't know."

"Something ought to be done to those men," said Lenore, severely.

Nash was a dark-browed, heavy-jawed young man, with light eyes and hair. He appeared to be intelligent and had some breeding, but his manner when alone with Lenore—he had driven her to town several times—was not the same as when her father was present. Lenore had not bothered her mind about it. But to-day the look in his eyes was offensive to her.

"Between you and me, Lenore, I've sympathy for those poor devils," he said.

Lenore drew back rather haughtily at this familiar use of her first name. "It doesn't concern me," she said, coldly and turned away.

"Won't you ride along with me? I'm driving around for the mail," he called after her.

"No," returned Lenore, shortly, and hurried on out of earshot. The impertinence of the fellow!

"Mawnin', Miss Lenore!" drawled a cheery voice. The voice and the jingle of spurs behind her told Lenore of the presence of the best liked of all her father's men.

"Good morning, Jake! Where's my dad?"

"Wal, he's with Adams, an' I wouldn't be Adams for no money," replied the cowboy.

"Neither would I," laughed Lenore.

"Reckon you ain't ridin' this mawnin'. You sure look powerful fine, Miss Lenore, but you can't ride in thet dress."

"Jake, nothing but an aeroplane would satisfy me to-day."

"Want to fly, hey? Wal, excuse me from them birds. I seen one, an' thet's enough for me.... An', changin' the subject, Miss Lenore, beggin' your pardon—you ain't ridin' in the car much these days."

"No, Jake, I'm not," she replied, and looked at the cowboy. She would have trusted Jake as she would her brother Jim. And now he looked earnest.

"Wal, I'm sure glad. I heerd Nash call an' ask you to go with him. I seen his eyes when he said it.... Sure I know you'd never look at the likes of him. But I want to tell you—he ain't no good. I've been watchin' him. Your dad's orders. He's mixed up with the I.W.W.'s. But thet ain't what I mean. It's—He's—I—"

"Thank you, Jake," replied Lenore, as the cowboy floundered. "I appreciate your thought of me. But you needn't worry."

"I was worryin' a little," he said. "You see, I know men better 'n your dad, an' I reckon this Nash would do anythin'."

"What's father keeping him for?"

"Wal, Anderson wants to find out a lot about thet I.W.W., an' he ain't above takin' risks to do it, either."

The stable-boys and men Lenore passed all had an eager good morning for her. She often boasted to her father that she could run "Many Waters" as well as he. Sometimes there were difficulties that Lenore had no little part in smoothing over. The barns and corrals were familiar places to her, and she insisted upon petting every horse, in some instances to Jake's manifest concern.

"Some of them bosses are bad," he insisted.

"To be sure they are—when wicked cowboys cuff and kick them," replied Lenore, laughingly.

"Wal, if I'm wicked, I'm a-goin' to war," said Jake, reflectively. "Them Germans bother me."

"But, Jake, you don't come in the draft age, do you?"

"Jest how old do you think I am?"

"Sometimes about fourteen, Jake."

"Much obliged. Wal, the fact is I'm over age, but I'll gamble I can pack a gun an' shoot as straight an' eat as much as any young feller."

"I'll bet so, too, Jake. But I hope you won't go. We absolutely could not run this ranch without you."

"Sure I knew thet. Wal then, I reckon I'll hang around till you're married, Miss Lenore," he drawled.

Again the scarlet mantled Lenore's cheeks.

"Good. We'll have many harvests then, Jake, and many rides," she replied.

"Aw, I don't know—" he began.

But Lenore ran away so that she could hear no more.

"What's the matter with me that people—that Jake should—?" she began, and ended with a hand on each soft, hot cheek. There was something different about her, that seemed certain. And if her eyes were as bright as the day, with its deep blue and white clouds and shining green and golden fields, then any one might think what he liked and have proof for his tormenting.

"But married! I? Not much. Do I want a husband getting shot?"

The path Lenore trod so lightly led along a great peach and apple orchard where the trees were set far apart and the soil was cultivated, so that not a weed nor a blade of grass showed. The fragrance of fruit in the air, however, did not come from this orchard, for the trees were young and the reddening fruit rare. Down the wide aisles she saw the thick and abundant green of the older orchards.

At length Lenore reached the alfalfa-fields, and here among the mounds of newly cut hay that smelled so fresh and sweet she wanted to roll, and she had to run. Two great wagons with four horses each were being loaded. Lenore knew all the workmen except one. Silas Warner, an old, gray-headed farmer, had been with her father as long as she could remember.

"Whar you goin', lass?" he called, as he halted to wipe his red face with a huge bandana. "It's too hot to run the way you're a-doin'."

"Oh, Silas, it's a grand morning!" she replied.

"Why, so 'tis! Pitchin' hay hyar made me think it was hot," he said, as she tripped on. "Now, lass, don't go up to the wheat-fields."

But Lenore heard heedlessly, and she ran on till she came to the uncut alfalfa, which impeded her progress. A wonderful space of green and purple stretched away before her, and into it she waded. It came up to her knees, rich, thick, soft, and redolent of blossom and ripeness. Hard tramping it soon got to be. She grew hot and breathless, and her legs ached from the force expended in making progress through the tangled hay. At last she was almost across the field, far from the cutters, and here she flung herself, to roll and lie flat and gaze up through the deep azure of sky, wonderingly, as if to penetrate its secret. And then she hid her face in the fragrant thickness that seemed to force a whisper from her.

"I wonder—how will I feel—when I see him—again.... Oh, I wonder!"

The sound of the whispered words, the question, the inevitableness of something involuntary, proved traitors to her happy dreams, her assurance, her composure. She tried to burrow under the hay, to hide from that tremendous bright-blue eye, the sky. Suddenly she lay very quiet, feeling the strange glow and throb and race of her blood, sensing the mystery of her body, trying to trace the thrills, to control this queer, tremulous, internal state. But she found she could not think clearly; she could only feel. And she gave up trying. It was sweet to feel.

She rose and went on. Another field lay beyond, a gradual slope, covered with a new growth of alfalfa. It was a light green—a contrast to the rich darkness of that behind her. At the end of this field ran a swift little brook, clear and musical, open to the sky in places, and in others hidden under flowery banks. Birds sang from invisible coverts; a quail sent up clear flutelike notes; and a lark caroled, seemingly out of the sky.

Lenore wet her feet crossing the brook, and, climbing the little knoll above, she sat down upon a stone to dry them in the sun. It had a burn that felt good. No matter how hot the sun ever got there, she liked it. Always there seemed air to breathe and the shade was pleasant.

From this vantage-point, a favorite one with Lenore, she could see all the alfalfa-fields, the hill crowned by the beautiful white-and-red house, the acres of garden, and the miles of orchards. The grazing and grain fields began behind her.

The brook murmured below her and the birds sang. She heard the bees humming by. The air out here was clear of scent of fruit and hay, and it bore a drier odor, not so sweet. She could see the workmen, first those among the alfalfa, and then the men, and women, too, bending over on the vegetable-gardens. Likewise she could see the gleam of peaches, apples, pears and plums—a colorful and mixed gleam, delightful to the eye.

Wet or dry, it seemed that her feet refused to stay still, and once again she was wandering. A gray, slate-colored field of oats invited her steps, and across this stretch she saw a long yellow slope of barley, where the men were cutting. Beyond waved the golden fields of wheat. Lenore imagined that when she reached them she would not desire to wander farther.

There were two machines cutting on the barley slope, one drawn by eight horses, and the other by twelve. When Lenore had crossed the oat-field she discovered a number of strange men lounging in the scant shade of a line of low trees that separated the fields. Here she saw Adams, the foreman; and he espied her at the same moment. He had been sitting down, talking to the men. At once he rose to come toward Lenore.

"Is your father with you?" he asked.

"No; he's too slow for me," replied Lenore. "Who are these men?"

"They're strangers looking for jobs."

"I.W.W. men?" queried Lenore, in lower voice.

"Surely must be," he replied. Adams was not a young, not a robust man, and he seemed to carry a burden of worry. "Your father said he would come right out."

"I hope he doesn't," said Lenore, bluntly. "Father has a way with him, you know."

"Yes, I know. And it's the way we're needing here in the Valley," replied the foreman, significantly.

"Is that the new harvester-thresher father just bought?" asked Lenore, pointing to the huge machine, shining and creeping behind the twelve horses.

"Yes, that's the McCormack and it's a dandy," returned Adams. "With machines like that we can get along without the I.W.W."

"I want a ride on it," declared Lenore, and she ran along to meet the harvester. She waved her hand to the driver, Bill Jones, another old hand, long employed by her father. Bill hauled back on the many-branched reins, and when the horses stopped the clattering, whirring roar of the machine also ceased.

"Howdy, miss! Reckon this 's a regular I.W.W. hold-up."

"Worse than that, Bill," gaily replied Lenore as she mounted the platform where another man sat on a bag of barley. Lenore did not recognize him. He looked rugged and honest, and beamed upon her.

"Watch out fer yer dress," he said, pointing with grimy hand to the dusty wheels and braces so near her.

"Let me drive, Bill?" she asked.

"Wal, now, I wisht I could," he replied, dryly. "You sure can drive, miss. But drivin' ain't all this here job."

"What can't I do? I'll bet you—"

"I never seen a girl that could throw anythin' straight. Did you?"

"Well, not so very. I forgot how you drove the horses.... Go ahead. Don't let me delay the harvest."

Bill called sonorously to his twelve horses, and as they bent and strained and began to bob their heads, the clattering roar filled the air. Also a cloud of dust and thin, flying streams of chaff enveloped Lenore. The high stalks of barley, in wide sheets, fell before the cutter upon an apron, to be carried by feeders into the body of the machine. The straw, denuded of its grain, came out at the rear, to be dropped, while the grain streamed out of a tube on the side next to Lenore, to fall into an open sack. It made a short shift of harvesting.

Lenore liked the even, nodding rhythm of the plodding horses, and the way Bill threw a pebble from a sack on his seat, to hit this or that horse not keeping in line or pulling his share. Bill's aim was unerring. He never hit the wrong horse, which would have been the case had he used a whip. The grain came out in so tiny a stream that Lenore wondered how a bag was ever filled. But she saw presently that even a tiny stream, if running steadily, soon made bulk. That was proof of the value of small things, even atoms.

No marvel was it that Bill and his helper were as grimy as stokers of a furnace. Lenore began to choke with the fine dust and to feel her eyes smart and to see it settle on her hands and dress. She then had appreciation of the nature of a ten-hour day for workmen cutting eighteen acres of barley. How would they ever cut the two thousand acres of wheat? No wonder many men were needed. Lenore sympathized with the operators of that harvester-thresher, but she did not like the dirt. If she had been a man, though, that labor, hard as it was, would have appealed to her. Harvesting the grain was beautiful, whether in the old, slow method of threshing or with one of these modern man-saving machines.

She jumped off, and the big, ponderous thing, almost gifted with intelligence, it seemed to Lenore, rolled on with its whirring roar, drawing its cloud of dust, and leaving behind a litter of straw.

It developed then that Adams had walked along with the machine, and he now addressed her.

"Will you be staying here till your father comes?" he asked.

"No, Mr. Adams. Why do you ask?"

"You oughtn't come out here alone or go back alone.... All these strange men! Some of them hard customers! You'll excuse me, miss, but this harvest is not like other harvests."

"I'll wait for my father and I'll not go out of sight," replied Lenore. Thanking the foreman for his thoughtfulness, she walked away, and soon she stood at the edge of the first wheat-field.

The grain was not yet ripe but near at hand it was a pale gold. The wind, out of the west, waved and swept the wheat, while the almost imperceptible shadows followed.

A road half overgrown with grass and goldenrod bordered the wheat-field, and it wound away down toward the house. Her father appeared mounted on the white horse he always rode. Lenore sat down in the grass to wait for him. Nodding stalks of goldenrod leaned to her face. When looked at closely, how truly gold their color! Yet it was not such a gold as that of the rich blaze of ripe wheat. She was admitting to her consciousness a jealousy of anything comparable to wheat. And suddenly she confessed that her natural love for it had been augmented by a subtle growing sentiment. Not sentiment about the war or the need of the Allies or meaning of the staff of life. She had sensed young Dorn's passion for wheat and it had made a difference to her.

"No use lying to myself!" she soliloquized. "I think of him!.. I can't help it... I ran out here, wild, restless, unable to reason... just because I'd decided to see him again—to make sure I—I really didn't care.... How furious—how ridiculous I'll feel—when—when—"

Lenore did not complete her thought, because she was not sure. Nothing could be any truer than the fact that she had no idea how she would feel. She began sensitively to distrust herself. She who had always been so sure of motives, so contented with things as they were, had been struck by an absurd fancy that haunted because it was fiercely repudiated and scorned, that would give her no rest until it was proven false. But suppose it were true!

A succeeding blankness of mind awoke to the clip-clop of hoofs and her father's cheery halloo.

Anderson dismounted and, throwing his bridle, he sat down heavily beside her.

"You can ride back home," he said.

Lenore knew she had been reproved for her wandering out there, and she made a motion to rise. His big hand held her down.

"No hurry, now I'm here. Grand day, ain't it? An' I see the barley's goin'. Them sacks look good to me."

Lenore waited with some perturbation. She had a guilty conscience and she feared he meant to quiz her about her sudden change of front regarding the Bend trip. So she could not look up and she could not say a word.

"Jake says that Nash has been tryin' to make up to you. Any sense in what he says?" asked her father, bluntly.

"Why, hardly. Oh, I've noticed Nash is—is rather fresh, as Rose calls it," replied Lenore, somewhat relieved at this unexpected query.

"Yes, he's been makin' eyes at Rose. She told me," replied Anderson.

"Discharge him," said Lenore, forcibly.

"So I ought. But let me tell you, Lenore. I've been hopin' to get Nash dead to rights."

"What more do you want?" she demanded.

"I mean regardin' his relation to the I.W.W.... Listen. Here's the point. Nash has been tracked an' caught in secret talks with prominent men in this country. Men of foreign blood an' mebbe foreign sympathies. We're at the start of big an' bad times in the good old U.S. No one can tell how bad. Well, you know my position in the Golden Valley. I'm looked to. Reckon this I.W.W. has got me a marked man. I'm packin' two guns right now. An' you bet Jake is packin' the same. We don't travel far apart any more this summer."

Lenore had started shudderingly and her look showed her voiceless fear.

"You needn't tell your mother," he went on, more intimately. "I can trust you an' ... To come back to Nash. He an' this Glidden—you remember, one of those men at Dorn's house—they are usin' gold. They must have barrels of it. If I could find out where that gold comes from! Probably they don't know. But I might find out if men here in our own country are hatchin' plots with the I.W.W."

"Plots! What for?" queried Lenore, breathlessly.

"To destroy my wheat, to drive off or bribe the harvest-hands, to cripple the crop yield in the Northwest; to draw the militia here; in short, to harass an' weaken an' slow down our government in its preparation against Germany."

"Why, that is terrible!" declared Lenore.

"I've a hunch from Jake—there's a whisper of a plot to put me out of the way," said Anderson, darkly.

"Oh—good Heavens! You don't mean it!" cried Lenore, distractedly.

"Sure I do. But that's no way for Anderson's daughter to take it. Our women have got to fight, too. We've all got to meet these German hired devils with their own weapons. Now, lass, you know you'll get these wheatlands of mine some day. It's in my will. That's because you, like your dad, always loved the wheat. You'd fight, wouldn't you, to save your grain for our soldiers—bread for your own brother Jim—an' for your own land?"

"Fight! Would I?" burst out Lenore, with a passionate little cry.

"Good! Now you're talkin'!" exclaimed her father.

"I'll find out about this Nash—if you'll let me," declared Lenore, as if inspired.

"How? What do you mean, girl?"

"I'll encourage him. I'll make him think I'm a wishy-washy moonstruck girl, smitten with him. All's fair in war!... If he means ill by my father—"

Anderson muttered low under his breath and his big hand snapped hard at the nodding goldenrod.

"For my sake—to help me—you'd encourage Nash—flirt with him a little—find out all you could?"

"Yes, I would!" she cried, deliberately. But she wanted to cover her face with her hands. She trembled slightly, then grew cold, with a sickening disgust at this strange, new, uprising self.

"Wait a minute before you say too much," went on Anderson. "You're my best-beloved child, my Lenore, the lass I've been so proud of all my life. I'd spill blood to avenge an insult to you.... But, Lenore, we've entered upon a terrible war. People out here, especially the women, don't realize it yet. But you must realize it. When I said good-by to Jim, my son, I—I felt I'd never look upon his face again!... I gave him up. I could have held him back—got exemption for him. But, no, by God! I gave him up—to make safety and happiness and prosperity for—say, your children, an' Rose's, an' Kathleen's.... I'm workin' now for the future. So must every loyal man an' every loyal woman! We love our own country. An' I ask you to see as I see the terrible danger to that country. Think of you an' Rose an' Kathleen bein' treated like those poor Belgian girls! Well, you'd get that an' worse if the Germans won this war. An' the point is, for us to win, every last one of us must fight, sacrifice to that end, an' hang together."

Anderson paused huskily and swallowed hard while he looked away across the fields. Lenore felt herself drawn by an irresistible power. The west wind rustled through the waving wheat. She heard the whir of the threshers. Yet all seemed unreal. Her father's passion had made this place another world.

"So much for that," resumed Anderson. "I'm goin' to do my best. An' I may make blunders. I'll play the game as it's dealt out to me. Lord knows I feel all in the dark. But it's the nature of the effort, the spirit, that'll count. I'm goin' to save most of the wheat on my ranches. An' bein' a Westerner who can see ahead, I know there's goin' to be blood spilled.... I'd give a lot to know who sent this Nash spyin' on me. I'm satisfied now he's an agent, a spy, a plotter for a gang that's marked me. I can't prove it yet, but I feel it. Maybe nothin' worth while—worth the trouble—will ever be found out from him. But I don't figure that way. I say play their own game an' take a chance.... If you encouraged Nash you'd probably find out all about him. The worst of it is could you be slick enough? Could a girl as fine an' square an' high-spirited as you ever double-cross a man, even a scoundrel like Nash? I reckon you could, considerin' the motive. Women are wonderful.... Well, if you can fool him, make him think he's a winner, flatter him till he swells up like a toad, promise to elope with him, be curious, jealous, make him tell where he goes, whom he meets, show his letters, all without ever sufferin' his hand on you, I'll give my consent. I'd think more of you for it. Now the question is, can you do it?"

"Yes," whispered Lenore.

"Good!" exploded Anderson, in a great relief. Then he began to mop his wet face. He arose, showing the weight of heavy guns in his pockets, and he gazed across the wheat-fields. "That wheat'll be ripe in a week. It sure looks fine.... Lenore, you ride back home now. Don't let Jake pump you. He's powerful curious. An' I'll go give these I.W.W.'s a first dose of Anderson."

He turned away without looking at her, and he hesitated, bending over to pluck a stem of goldenrod.

"Lass—you're—you're like your mother", he said, unsteadily. "An' she helped me win out durin' my struggle here. You're brave an' you're big."

Lenore wanted to say something, to show her feeling, to make her task seem lighter, but she could not speak.

"We're pards now—with no secrets", he continued, with a different note in his voice. "An' I want you to know that it ain't likely Nash or Glidden will get out of this country alive."



CHAPTER VII

Three days later, Lenore accompanied her father on the ride to the Bend country. She sat in the back seat of the car with Jake—an arrangement very gratifying to the cowboy, but received with ill-concealed displeasure by the driver, Nash. They had arranged to start at sunrise, and it became manifest that Nash had expected Lenore to sit beside him all during the long ride. It was her father, however, who took the front seat, and behind Nash's back he had slyly winked at Lenore, as if to compliment her on the evident success of their deep plot. Lenore, at the first opportunity that presented, shot Nash a warning glance which was sincere enough. Jake had begun to use keen eyes, and there was no telling what he might do.

The morning was cool, sweet, fresh, with a red sun presaging a hot day. The big car hummed like a droning bee and seemed to cover the miles as if by magic. Lenore sat with face uncovered, enjoying the breeze and the endless colorful scene flashing by, listening to Jake's amusing comments, and trying to keep back thought of what discovery might await her before the end of this day.

Once across the Copper River, they struck the gradual ascent, and here the temperature began to mount and the dust to fly. Lenore drew her veils close and, leaning comfortably back, she resigned herself to wait and to endure.

By the flight of a crow it was about a hundred miles from Anderson's ranch to Palmer; but by the round-about roads necessary to take the distance was a great deal longer. Lenore was well aware when they got up on the desert, and the time came when she thought she would suffocate. There appeared to be intolerable hours in which no one spoke and only the hum and creak of the machine throbbed in her ears. She could not see through her veils and did not part them until a stop was made at Palmer.

Her father got out, sputtering and gasping, shaking the dust in clouds from his long linen coat. Jake, who always said he lived on dust and heat, averred it was not exactly a regular fine day. Lenore looked out, trying to get a breath of air. Nash busied himself with the hot engine.

The little country town appeared dead, and buried under dust. There was not a person in sight nor a sound to be heard. The sky resembled molten lead, with a blazing center too bright for the gaze of man.

Anderson and Jake went into the little hotel to get some refreshments. Lenore preferred to stay in the car, saying she wanted only a cool drink. The moment the two men were out of sight Nash straightened up to gaze darkly and hungrily at Lenore.

"This's a good a chance as we'll get," he said, in an eager, hurried whisper.

"For what?" asked Lenore, aghast.

"To run off," he replied, huskily.

Lenore had proceeded so cleverly to carry out her scheme that in three days Nash had begun to implore and demand that she elope with him. He had been so much of a fool. But she as yet had found out but little about him. His right name was Ruenke. He was a socialist. He had plenty of money and hinted of mysterious sources for more.

At this Lenore hid her face, and while she fell back in pretended distress, she really wanted to laugh. She had learned something new in these few days, and that was to hate.

"Oh no! no!" she murmured. "I—I can't think of that—yet."

"But why not?" he demanded, in shrill violence. His gloved hand clenched on the tool he held.

"Mother has been so unhappy—with my brother Jim—off to the war. I—I just couldn't—now. Harry, you must give me time. It's all so—so sudden. Please wait!"

Nash appeared divided between two emotions. Lenore watched him from behind her parted veil. She had been astonished to find out that, side by side with her intense disgust and shame at the part she was playing, there was a strong, keen, passionate interest in it, owing to the fact that, though she could prove little against this man, her woman's intuition had sensed his secret deadly antagonism toward her father. By little significant mannerisms and revelations he had more and more betrayed the German in him. She saw it in his overbearing conceit, his almost instant assumption that he was her master. At first Lenore feared him, but, as she learned to hate him she lost her fear. She had never been alone with him except under such circumstances as this; and she had decided she would not be.

"Wait?" he was expostulating. "But it's going to get hot for me."

"Oh!... What do you mean?" she begged. "You frighten me."

"Lenore, the I.W.W. will have hard sledding in this wheat country. I belong to that. I told you. But the union is run differently this summer. And I've got work to do—that I don't like, since I fell in love with you. Come, run off with me and I'll give it up."

Lenore trembled at this admission. She appeared to be close upon further discovery.

"Harry, how wildly you talk!" she exclaimed. "I hardly know you. You frighten me with your mysterious talk.... Have—a—a little consideration for me."

Nash strode back to lean into the car. Behind his huge goggles his eyes gleamed. His gloved hand closed hard on her arm.

"It is sudden. It's got to be sudden," he said, in fierce undertone. "You must trust me."

"I will. But you must confide in me," she replied, earnestly. "I'm not quite a fool. You're rushing me—too—too—"

Suddenly he released her, threw up his hand, then quickly stepped back to the front of the car. Jake stood in the door of the hotel. He had seen that action of Nash's. Then Anderson appeared, followed by a boy carrying a glass of water for Lenore. They approached the car, Jake sauntering last, with his curious gaze on Nash.

"Go in an' get a bite an' a drink," said Anderson to the driver. "An' hurry."

Nash obeyed. Jake's eyes never left him until he entered the door. Then Jake stepped in beside Lenore.

"Thet water's wet, anyhow," he drawled.

"We'll get a good cold drink at Dorn's," said Anderson. "Lass, how are you makin' it?"

"Fine," she replied, smiling.

"So I seen," significantly added Jake, with a piercing glance at her.

Lenore realized then that she would have to confide in Jake or run the risk of having violence done to Nash. So she nodded wisely at the cowboy and winked mischievously, and, taking advantage of Anderson's entering the car, she whispered in Jake's ear: "I'm finding out things. Tell you—later."

The cowboy looked anything but convinced; and he glanced with narrowed eyes at Nash as that worthy hurried back to the car.

With a lurch and a leap the car left Palmer behind in a cloud of dust. The air was furnace-hot, oppressive, and exceedingly dry. Lenore's lips smarted so that she continually moistened them. On all sides stretched dreary parched wheat-fields. Anderson shook his head sadly. Jake said: "Ain't thet too bad? Not half growed, an' sure too late now."

Near at hand Lenore saw the short immature dirty-whitish wheat, and she realized that it was ruined.

"It's been gettin' worse, Jake," remarked Anderson. "Most of this won't be cut at all. An' what is cut won't yield seedlings. I see a yellow patch here an' there on the north slopes, but on the most part the Bend's a failure."

"Father, you remember Dorn's section, that promised so well?" asked Lenore.

"Yes. But it promised only in case of rain. I look for the worst," replied Anderson, regretfully.

"It looks like storm-clouds over there," said Lenore, pointing far ahead.

Through the drifting veils of heat, far across the bare, dreamy hills of fallow and the blasted fields of wheat, stood up some huge white columnar clouds, a vivid contrast to the coppery sky.

"By George! there's a thunderhead!" exclaimed Anderson. "Jake, what do you make of that?"

"Looks good to me," replied Jake, who was always hopeful.

Lenore bore the hot wind and the fine, choking dust without covering her face. She wanted to see all the hills and valleys of this desert of wheat. Her heart beat a little faster as, looking across that waste on waste of heroic labor, she realized she was nearing the end of a ride that might be momentous for her. The very aspect of that wide, treeless expanse, with all its overwhelming meaning, seemed to make her a stronger and more thoughtful girl. If those endless wheat-fields were indeed ruined, what a pity, what a tragedy! Not only would young Dorn be ruined, but perhaps many other toiling farmers. Somehow Lenore felt no hopeless certainty of ruin for the young man in whom she was interested.

"There, on that slope!" spoke up Anderson, pointing to a field which was yellow in contrast to the surrounding gray field. "There's a half-section of fair wheat."

But such tinges of harvest gold were not many in half a dozen miles of dreary hills. Where were the beautiful shadows in the wheat? wondered Lenore. Not a breath of wind appeared to stir across those fields.

As the car neared the top of a hill the road curved into another, and Lenore saw a dusty flash of another car passing on ahead.

Suddenly Jake leaned forward.

"Boss, I seen somethin' throwed out of thet car—into the wheat," he said.

"What?—Mebbe it was a bottle," replied Anderson, peering ahead.

"Nope. Sure wasn't thet.... There! I seen it again. Watch, boss!"

Lenore strained her eyes and felt a stir of her pulses. Jake's voice was perturbing. Was it strange that Nash slowed up a little where there was no apparent need? Then Lenore saw a hand flash out of the side of the car ahead and throw a small, glinting object into the wheat.

"There! Seen it again," said Jake.

"I saw!... Jake, mark that spot.... Nash, slow down," yelled Anderson.

Lenore gathered from the look of her father and the cowboy that something was amiss, but she could not guess what it might be. Nash bent sullenly at his task of driving.

"I reckon about here," said Jake, waving his hand.

"Stop her," ordered Anderson, and as the car came to a halt he got out, followed by Jake.

"Wal, I marked it by thet rock," declared the cowboy.

"So did I," responded Anderson. "Let's get over the fence an' find what it was they threw in there."

Jake rested a lean hand on a post and vaulted the fence. But Anderson had to climb laboriously and painfully over the barbed-wire obstruction. Lenore marveled at his silence and his persistence. Anderson hated wire fences. Presently he got over, and then he divided his time between searching in the wheat and peering after the strange car that was drawing far away.

Lenore saw Jake pick up something and scrutinize it.

"I'll be dog-goned!" he muttered. Then he approached Anderson. "What is thet?"

"Jake, you can lambaste me if I ever saw the likes," replied Anderson. "But it looks bad. Let's rustle after that car."

As Anderson clambered into his seat once more he looked dark and grim.

"Catch that car ahead," he tersely ordered Nash. Whereupon the driver began to go through his usual motions in starting.

"Lenore, what do you make of this?" queried Anderson, turning to show her a small cake of some gray substance, soft and wet to the touch.

"I don't know what it is," replied Lenore, wonderingly. "Do you?"

"No. An' I'd give a lot—Say, Nash, hurry! Overhaul that car!"

Anderson turned to see why his order had not been obeyed. He looked angry. Nash made hurried motions. The car trembled, the machinery began to whir—then came a tremendous buzzing roar, a violent shaking of the car, followed by sharp explosions, and silence.

"You stripped the gears!" shouted Anderson, with the red fading out of his face.

"No; but something's wrong," replied Nash. He got out to examine the engine.

Anderson manifestly controlled strong feeling. Lenore saw Jake's hand go to her father's shoulder. "Boss," he whispered, "we can't ketch thet car now." Anderson resigned himself, averted his face so that he could not see Nash, who was tinkering with the engine. Lenore believed then that Nash had deliberately stalled the engine or disordered something, so as to permit the escape of the strange car ahead. She saw it turn off the long, straight road ahead and disappear to the right. After some minutes' delay Nash resumed his seat and started the car once more.

From the top of the next hill Lenore saw the Dorn farm and home. All the wheat looked parched. She remembered, however, that the section of promising grain lay on the north slope, and therefore out of sight from where she was.

"Looks as bad as any," said Anderson. "Good-by to my money."

Lenore shut her eyes and thought of herself, her inward state. She seemed calm, and glad to have that first part of the journey almost ended. Her motive in coming was not now the impelling thing that had actuated her.

When next the car slowed down she heard her father say, "Drive in by the house."

Then Lenore, opening her eyes, saw the gate, the trim little orchard with its scant shade, the gray old weatherbeaten house which she remembered so well. The big porch looked inviting, as it was shady and held an old rocking-chair and a bench with blue cushions. A door stood wide open. No one appeared to be on the premises.

"Nash, blow your horn an' then hunt around for somebody," said Anderson. "Come, get out, Lenore. You must be half dead."

"Oh no. Only half dust and half fire," replied Lenore, laughing, as she stepped out. What a relief to get rid of coat, veils, bonnet, and to sit on a shady porch where a faint breeze blew! Just at that instant she heard a low, distant rumbling. Thunder! It thrilled her. Jake brought her a cold, refreshing drink, and she sent him back after another. She wet her handkerchief and bathed her hot face. It was indeed very comfortable there after that long hot ride.

"Miss Lenore, I seen thet Nash pawin' you," said the cowboy, "an' by Gosh! I couldn't believe my eyes!"

"Not so loud! Jake, the young gentleman imagines I'm in love with him," replied Lenore.

"Wall, I'll remove his imagining'," declared Jake, coolly.

"Jake, you will do nothing."

"Ahuh! Then you air in love with him?"

Lenore was compelled to explain to this loyal cowboy just what the situation meant. Whereupon Jake swore his amaze, and said, "I'm a-goin' to lick him, anyhow, fer thet!" And he caught up the tin cup and shuffled away.

Footsteps and voices sounded on the path, upon which presently appeared Anderson and young Dorn.

"Father's gone to Wheatly," he was saying. "But I'm glad to tell you we'll pay twenty thousand dollars on the debt as soon as we harvest. If it rains we'll pay it all and have thirty thousand left."

"Good! I sure hope it rains. An' that thunder sounds hopeful," responded Anderson.

"It's been hopeful like that for several days, but no rain," said Dorn. And then, espying Lenore, he seemed startled out of his eagerness. He flushed slightly. "I—I didn't see—you had brought your daughter."

He greeted her somewhat bashfully. And Lenore returned the greeting calmly, watching him steadily and waiting for the nameless sensations she had imagined would attend this meeting. But whatever these might be, they did not come to overwhelm her. The gladness of his voice, as he had spoken so eagerly to her father about the debt, had made her feel very kindly toward him. It might have been natural for a young man to resent this dragging debt. But he was fine. She observed, as he sat down, that, once the smile and flush left his face, he seemed somewhat thinner and older than she had pictured him. A shadow lay in his eyes and his lips were sad. He had evidently been working, upon their arrival. He wore overalls, dusty and ragged; his arms, bare to the elbow, were brown and muscular; his thin cotton shirt was wet with sweat and it clung to his powerful shoulders.

Anderson surveyed the young man with friendly glance.

"What's your first name?" he queried, with his blunt frankness.

"Kurt," was the reply.

"Is that American?"

"No. Neither is Dorn. But Kurt Dorn is an American."

"Hum! So I see, an' I'm powerful glad.... An' you've saved the big section of promisin' wheat?"

"Yes. We've been lucky. It's the best and finest wheat father ever raised. If it rains the yield will go sixty bushels to the acre."

"Sixty? Whew!" ejaculated Anderson.

Lenore smiled at these wheat men, and said: "It surely will rain—and likely storm to-day. I am a prophet who never fails."

"By George! that's true! Lenore has anybody beat when it comes to figurin' the weather," declared Anderson.

Dorn looked at her without speaking, but his smile seemed to say that she could not help being a prophet of good, of hope, of joy.

"Say, Lenore, how many bushels in a section at sixty per acre?" went on Anderson.

"Thirty-eight thousand four hundred," replied Lenore.

"An' what'll you sell for?" asked Anderson of Dorn.

"Father has sold at two dollars and twenty-five cents a bushel," replied Dorn.

"Good! But he ought to have waited. The government will set a higher price.... How much will that come to, Lenore?"

Dorn's smile, as he watched Lenore do her mental arithmetic, attested to the fact that he already had figured out the sum.

"Eighty-six thousand four hundred dollars," replied Lenore. "Is that right?"

"An' you'll have thirty thousand dollars left after all debts are paid?" inquired Anderson.

"Yes, sir. I can hardly realize it. That's a fortune—for one section of wheat. But we've had four bad seasons.... Oh, if it only rains to-day!"

Lenore turned her cheek to the faint west wind. And then she looked long at the slowly spreading clouds, white and beautiful, high up near the sky-line, and dark and forbidding down along the horizon.

"I knew a girl who could feel things move when no one else could," said Lenore. "I'm sensitive like that—at least about wind and rain. Right now I can feel rain in the air."

"Then you have brought me luck," said Dorn, earnestly. "Indeed I guess my luck has turned. I hated the idea of going away with that debt unpaid."

"Are you—going away?" asked Lenore, in surprise.

"Yes, rather," he replied, with a short, sardonic laugh. He fumbled in a pocket of his overalls and drew forth a paper which he opened. A flame burned the fairness from his face; his eyes darkened and shone with peculiar intensity of pride. "I was the first man drafted in this Bend country.... My number was the first called!"

"Drafted!" echoed Lenore, and she seemed to be standing on the threshold of an amazing and terrible truth.

"Lass, we forget," said her father, rather thickly.

"Oh, but—why?" cried Lenore. She had voiced the same poignant appeal to her brother Jim. Why need he—why must he go to war? What for? And Jim had called out a bitter curse on the Germans he meant to kill.

"Why?" returned Dorn, with the sad, thoughtful shadow returning to his eyes. "How many times have I asked myself that?... In one way, I don't know.... I haven't told father yet!... It's not for his sake.... But when I think deeply—when I can feel and see—I mean I'm going for my country.... For you and your sisters."

Like a soldier then Lenore received her mortal blow facing him who dealt it, and it was a sudden overwhelming realization of love. No confusion, no embarrassment, no shame attended the agony of that revelation. Outwardly she did not seem to change at all. She felt her father's eyes upon her; but she had no wish to hide the tumult of her heart. The moment made her a woman. Where was the fulfilment of those vague, stingingly sweet dreamy fancies of love? Where was her maiden reserve, that she so boldly recognized an unsolicited passion? Her eyes met Dorn's steadily, and she felt some vital and compelling spirit pass from her to him. She saw him struggle with what he could not understand. It was his glance that wavered and fell, his hand that trembled, his breast that heaved. She loved him. There had been no beginning. Always he had lived in her dreams. And like her brother he was going to kill and to be killed.

Then Lenore gazed away across the wheat-fields. The shadows came waving toward her. A stronger breeze fanned her cheeks. The heavens were darkening and low thunder rolled along the battlements of the great clouds.

"Say, Kurt, what do you make of this?" asked Anderson. Lenore, turning, saw her father hold out the little gray cake that Jake had found in the wheat-field.

Young Dorn seized it quickly, felt and smelled and bit it.

"Where'd you get this?" he asked, with excitement.

Anderson related the circumstance of its discovery.

"It's a preparation, mostly phosphorus," replied Dorn. "When the moisture evaporates it will ignite—set fire to any dry substance.... That is a trick of the I.W.W. to burn the wheat-fields."

"By all that's ——!" swore Anderson, with his jaw bulging. "Jake an' I knew it meant bad. But we didn't know what."

"I've been expecting tricks of all kinds," said Dorn. "I have four men watching the section."

"Good! Say, that car turned off to the right back here some miles.... But, worse luck, the I.W.W.'s can work at night."

"We'll watch at night, too," replied Dorn.

Lenore was conscious of anger encroaching upon the melancholy splendor of her emotions, and the change was bitter.

"When the rain comes, won't it counteract the ignition of that phosphorus?" she asked, eagerly, for she knew that rain would come.

"Only for the time being. It 'll be just as dry this time to-morrow as it is now."

"Then the wheat's goin' to burn," declared Anderson, grimly. "If that trick has been worked all over this country you're goin' to have worse 'n a prairie fire. The job on hand is to save this one section that has a fortune tied up in it."

"Mr. Anderson, that job looks almost hopeless, in the light of this phosphorus trick. What on earth can be done? I've four men. I can't hire any more, because I can't trust these strangers. And how can four men—or five, counting me, watch a square mile of wheat day and night?"

The situation looked hopeless to Lenore and she was sick. What cruel fates toyed with this young farmer! He seemed to be sinking under this last crowning blow. There in the sky, rolling up and rumbling, was the long-deferred rain-storm that meant freedom from debt, and a fortune besides. But of what avail the rain if it was to rush the wheat to full bursting measure only for the infernal touch of the foreigner?

Anderson, however, was no longer a boy. He had dealt with many and many a trial. Never was he plunged into despair until after the dread crisis had come to pass. His red forehead, frowning and ridged with swelling blood-vessels, showed the bent of his mind.

"Oh, it is hard!" said Lenore to Dorn. "I'm so sorry! But don't give up. While there's life there's hope!"

He looked up with tears in his eyes.

"Thank you.... I did weaken. You see I've let myself believe too much—for dad's sake. I don't care about the money for myself.... Money! What good will money be to me—now? It's over for me.... To get the wheat cut—harvested—that's all I hoped.... The army—war—France—I go to be—"

"Hush!" whispered Lenore, and she put a soft hand upon his lips, checking the end of that bitter speech. She felt him start, and the look she met pierced her soul. "Hush!... It's going to rain!... Father will find some way to save the wheat!... And you are coming home—after the war!"

He crushed her hand to his hot lips.

"You make me—ashamed. I won't give—up," he said, brokenly. "And when I'm over—there—in the trenches, I'll think—"

"Dorn, listen to this," rang out Anderson. "We'll fool that I.W.W. gang....It's a-goin' to rain. So far so good. To-morrow you take this cake of phosphorus an' ride around all over the country. Show it an' tell the farmers their wheat's goin' to burn. An' offer them whose fields are already ruined—that fire can't do no more harm—offer them big money to help you save your section. Half a hundred men could put out a fire if one did start. An' these neighbors of yours, some of them will jump at a chance to beat the I.W.W.... Boy, it can be done!"

He ended with a big fist held aloft in triumph.

"See! Didn't I tell you?" murmured Lenore, softly. It touched her deeply to see Dorn respond to hope. His haggard face suddenly warmed and glowed.

"I never thought of that," he burst out, radiantly. "We can save the wheat.... Mr. Anderson, I—I can't thank you enough."

"Don't try," replied the rancher.

"I tell you it will rain," cried Lenore, gaily. "Let's walk out there—watch the storm come across the hills. I love to see the shadows blow over the wheat."

Lenore became aware, as she passed the car, that Nash was glaring at her in no unmistakable manner. She had forgotten all about him. The sight of his jealous face somehow added to her strange exhilaration.

They crossed the road from the house, and, facing the west, had free prospect of the miles of billowy hills and the magnificent ordnance of the storm-clouds. The deep, low mutterings of thunder seemed a grand and welcome music. Lenore stole a look at Dorn, to see him, bareheaded, face upturned, entranced. It was only a rain-storm coming! Down in the valley country such storms were frequent at this season, too common for their meaning to be appreciated. Here in the desert of wheat rain was a blessing, life itself.

The creamy-white, rounded edge of the approaching clouds came and coalesced, spread and mushroomed. Under them the body of the storm was purple, lit now and then by a flash of lightning. Long, drifting veils of rain, gray as thin fog, hung suspended between sky and earth.

"Listen!" exclaimed Dorn.

A warm wind, laden with dry scent of wheat, struck Lenore's face and waved her hair. It brought a silken, sweeping rustle, a whispering of the bearded grain. The soft sound thrilled Lenore. It seemed a sweet, hopeful message that waiting had been rewarded, that the drought could be broken. Again, and more beautiful than ever before in her life, she saw the waves of shadow as they came forward over the wheat. Rippling, like breezes over the surface of a golden lake, they came in long, broken lines, moving, following, changing, until the whole wheat-field seemed in shadowy motion.

The cloud pageant rolled on above and beyond. Lenore felt a sweet drop of rain splash upon her upturned face. It seemed like a caress. There came a pattering around her. Suddenly rose a damp, faint smell of dust. Beyond the hill showed a gray pall of rain, coming slowly, charged with a low roar. The whisper of the sweeping wheat was swallowed up.

Lenore stood her ground until heavy rain drops fell thick and fast upon her, sinking through her thin waist to thrill her flesh; and then, with a last gay call to those two man lovers of wheat and storms, she ran for the porch.

There they joined her, Anderson puffing and smiling, Dorn still with that rapt look upon his face. The rain swept up and roared on the roof, while all around was streaked gray.

"Boy, there's your thirty-thousand-dollar rain!" shouted Anderson.

But Dorn did not hear. Once he smiled at Lenore as if she were the good fairy who had brought about this miracle. In his look Lenore had deeper realization of him, of nature, and of life. She loved rain, but always, thenceforth, she would reverence it. Fresh, cool fragrance of a renewed soil filled the air. All that dusty gray hue of the earth had vanished, and it was wet and green and bright. Even as she gazed the water seemed to sink in as it fell, a precious relief to thirsty soil. The thunder rolled away eastward and the storm passed. The thin clouds following soon cleared away from the western sky, rain-washed and blue, with a rainbow curving down to bury its exquisite hues in the golden wheat.



CHAPTER VIII

The journey homeward held many incalculable differences from the uncertain doubts and fears that had tormented Lenore on the outward trip.

For a long time she felt the warm, tight clasp of Dorn's hand on hers as he had said good-by. Very evidently he believed that was to be his last sight of her. Lenore would never forget the gaze that seemed to try to burn her image on his memory forever. She felt that they would meet again. Solemn thoughts revolved in her mind; still, she was not unhappy. She had given much unsought, but the return to her seemed growing every moment that she lived.

The dust had been settled by the rain for many miles; however, beyond Palmer there began to show evidences that the storm had thinned out or sheered off, because the road gradually grew dry again. When dust rose once more Lenore covered her face, although, obsessed as she was by the deep change in herself, neither dust nor heat nor distance affected her greatly. Like the miles the moments sped by. She was aware through closed eyes when darkness fell. Stops were frequent after the Copper River had been crossed, and her father appeared to meet and question many persons in the towns they passed. Most of his questioning pertained to the I.W.W. And even excited whispering by her father and Jake had no power to interest her. It was midnight when they reached "Many Waters" and Lenore became conscious of fatigue.

Nash crowded in front of Jake as she was about to step out, and assisted her. He gave her arm a hard squeeze and fiercely whispered in her ear, "To-morrow!"

The whisper was trenchant with meaning and thoroughly aroused Lenore. But she gave no sign and moved away.

"I seen strangers sneakin' off in the dark," Jake was whispering to Anderson.

"Keep your eyes peeled," replied Anderson. "I'll take Lenore up to the house an' come back."

It was pitch black up the path through the grove and Lenore had to cling to her father.

"Is there—any danger?" she whispered.

"We're lookin' for anythin'," replied Anderson, slowly.

"Will you be careful?"

"Sure, lass. I'll take no foolish risks. I've got men watchin' the house an' ranch. But I'd better have the cowboys down. There's Jake—he spots some prowlin' coyotes the minute we reach home."

Anderson unlocked and opened the door. The hall was dark and quiet. He turned on the electric light. Lenore was detaching her veil.

"You look pale," he said, solicitously. "No wonder. That was a ride. But I'm glad we went. I saved Dorn's wheat."

"I'm glad, too, father. Good-night!"

He bade her good-night, and went out, locking the door. Then his rapid footsteps died away. Wearily Lenore climbed the stairs and went to her room.

* * * * *

She was awakened from deep slumber by Kathleen, who pulled and tugged at her.

"Lenorry, I thought you was dead, your eyes were shut so tight," declared the child. "Breakfast is waiting. Did you fetch me anything?"

"Yes, a new sister," replied Lenore, dreamily.

Kathleen's eyes opened wide. "Where?"

Lenore place a hand over her heart.

"Here."

"Oh, you do look funny.... Get up, Lenorry. Did you hear the shooting last night?"

Instantly Lenore sat up and stared.

"No. Was there any?"

"You bet. But I don't know what it was all about."

Lenore dispelled her dreamy state, and, hurriedly dressing, she went down to breakfast. Her father and Rose were still at the table.

"Hello, big eyes!" was his greeting.

And Rose, not to be outdone, chirped, "Hello, old sleepy-head!"

Lenore's reply lacked her usual spontaneity. And she felt, if she did not explain, the wideness of her eyes. Her father did not look as if anything worried him. It was a way of his, however, not to show stress or worry. Lenore ate in silence until Rose left the dining-room, and then she asked her father if there had been shooting.

"Sure," he replied, with a broad smile. "Jake turned his guns loose on them prowlin' men last night. By George! you ought to have heard them run. One plumped into the gate an' went clear over it, to fall like a log. Another fell into the brook an' made more racket than a drownin' horse. But it was so dark we couldn't catch them."

"Jake shot to frighten them?" inquired Lenore.

"Not much. He stung one I.W.W., that's sure. We heard a cry, an' this mornin' we found some blood."

"What do you suppose these—these night visitors wanted?"

"No tellin'. Jake thinks one of them looked an' walked like the man Nash has been meetin'. Anyway, we're not takin' much more chance on Nash. I reckon it's dangerous keepin' him around. I'll have him drive me to-day—over to Vale, an' then to Huntington. You can go along. That'll be your last chance to pump him. Have you found out anythin'?"

Lenore told what had transpired between her and the driver. Anderson's face turned fiery red.

"That ain't much to help us," declared, angrily. "But it shows him up.... So his real name's Ruenke? Fine American name, I don't think! That man's a spy an' a plotter. An' before he's another day older I'm goin' to corner him. It's a sure go I can't hold Jake in any longer."

To Lenore it was a further indication of her father's temper that when they went down to enter the car he addressed Nash in cool, careless, easy speech. It made Lenore shiver. She had heard stories of her father's early career among hard men.

Jake was there, dry, caustic, with keen, quiet eyes that any subtle, clever man would have feared. But Nash's thought seemed turned mostly inward.

Lenore took the front seat in the car beside the driver. He showed unconscious response to that action.

"Jake, aren't you coming?" she asked, of the cowboy.

"Wal, I reckon it'll be sure dull fer you without me. Nobody to talk to while your dad fools around. But I can't go. Me an' the boys air a-goin' to hang some I.W.W.'s this mawnin', an' I can't miss thet fun."

Jake drawled his speech and laughed lazily as he ended it. He was just boasting, as usual, but his hawklike eyes were on Nash. And it was certain that Nash turned pale.

Lenore had no reply to make. Her father appeared to lose patience with Jake, but after a moment's hesitation decided not to voice it.

Nash was not a good nor a careful driver under any circumstances, and this morning it was evident he did not have his mind on his business. There were bumps in the orchard road where the irrigation ditches crossed.

"Say, you ought to be drivin' a hay-wagon," called Anderson, sarcastically.

At Vale he ordered the car stopped at the post-office, and, telling Lenore he might be detained a few moments, he went in. Nash followed, and presently came back with a package of letters. Upon taking his seat in the car he assorted the letters, one of which, a large, thick envelope, manifestly gave him excited gratification. He pocketed them and turned to Lenore.

"Ah! I see you get letters—from a woman," she said, pretending a poison sweetness of jealousy.

"Certainly. I'm not married yet," he replied. "Lenore, last night—"

"You will never be married—to me—while you write to other women. Let me see that letter!... Let me read it—all of them!"

"No, Lenore—not here. And don't speak so loud. Your father will be coming any minute.... Lenore, he suspects me. And that cowboy knows things. I can't go back to the ranch."

"Oh, you must come!"

"No. If you love me you've got to run off with me to-day."

"But why the hurry?" she appealed.

"It's getting hot for me."

"What do you mean by that? Why don't you explain to me? As long as you are so strange, so mysterious, how can I trust you? You ask me to run off with you, yet you don't put confidence in me."

Nash grew pale and earnest, and his hands shook.

"But if I do confide in you, then will you come with me?" he queried, breathlessly.

"I'll not promise. Maybe what you have to tell will prove—you—you don't care for me."

"It 'll prove I do," he replied, passionately.

"Then tell me." Lenore realized she could no longer play the part she had assumed. But Nash was so stirred by his own emotions, so carried along in a current, that he did not see the difference in her.

"Listen. I tell you it's getting hot for me," he whispered. "I've been put here—close to Anderson—to find out things and to carry out orders. Lately I've neglected my job because I fell in love with you. He's your father. If I go on with plans—and harm comes to him—I'll never get you. Is that clear?"

"It certainly is," replied Lenore, and she felt a tightness at her throat.

"I'm no member of the I.W.W.," he went on. "Whatever that organization might have been last year, it's gone wild this year.... There are interests that have used the I.W.W. I'm only an agent, and I'm not high up, either. I see what the government will do to the I.W.W. if the Northwest leaves any of it. But just now there're plots against a few big men like your father. He's to be ruined. His crops and ranches destroyed. And he's to be killed. It's because he's so well known and has so much influence that he was marked. I told you the I.W.W. was being used to make trouble. They are being stirred up by agitators, bribed and driven, all for the purpose of making a great disorder in the Northwest."

"Germany!" whispered Lenore.

"I can't say. But men are all over, and these men work in secret. There are American citizens in the Northwest—one right in this valley—who have plotted to ruin your father."

"Do you know who they are?"

"No, I do not."

"You are for Germany, of course?"

"I have been. My people are German. But I was born in the U.S. And if it suits me I will be for America. If you come with me I'll throw up this dirty job, advise Glidden to shift the plot from your father to some other man—"

"So it's Glidden!" exclaimed Lenore.

Nash bit his lip, and for the first time looked at Lenore without thinking of himself. And surprise dawned in his eyes.

"Yes, Glidden. You saw him speak to me up in the Bend, the first time your father went to see Dorn's wheat. Glidden's playing the I.W.W. against itself. He means to drop out of this deal with big money....Now I'll save your father if you'll stick to me."

Lenore could no longer restrain herself. This man was not even big in his wickedness. Lenore divined that his later words held no truth.

"Mr. Ruenke, you are a detestable coward," she said, with quivering scorn. "I let you imagine—Oh! I can't speak it!... You—you—"

"God! You fooled me!" he ejaculated, his jaw falling in utter amaze.

"You were contemptibly easy. You'd better jump out of this car and run. My father will shoot you."

"You deceitful—cat!" he cried, haltingly, as anger overcame his astonishment. "I'll—"

Anderson's big bulk loomed up behind Nash. Lenore gasped as she saw her father, for his eyes were upon her and he had recognized events.

"Say, Mister Ruenke, the postmaster says you get letters here under different names," said Anderson, bluntly.

"Yes—I—I—get them—for a friend," stammered the driver, as his face turned white.

"You lyin' German pup!... I'll look over them letters!" Anderson's big hand shot out to clutch Nash, holding him powerless, and with the other hand he searched Nash's inside coat pockets, to tear forth a packet of letters. Then Anderson released him and stepped back. "Get out of that car!" he thundered.

Nash made a slow movement, as if to comply, then suddenly he threw on the power. The car jerked forward.

Anderson leaped to get one hand on the car door, the other on Nash. He almost pulled the driver out of his seat. But Nash held on desperately, and the car, gaining momentum, dragged Anderson. He could not get his feet up on the running-board, and suddenly he fell.

Lenore screamed and tore frantically at the handle of the door. Nash struck her, jerked her back into the seat. She struggled until the car shot full speed ahead. Then it meant death for her to leap out.

"Sit still, or you'll kill yourself." shouted Nash, hoarsely.

Lenore fell back, almost fainting, with the swift realization of what had happened.



CHAPTER IX

Kurt Dorn had indeed no hope of ever seeing Lenore Anderson again, and he suffered a pang that seemed to leave his heart numb, though Anderson's timely visit might turn out as providential as the saving rain-storm. The wheat waved and rustled as if with renewed and bursting life. The exquisite rainbow still shone, a beautiful promise, in the sky. But Dorn could not be happy in that moment.

This day Lenore Anderson had seemed a bewildering fulfilment of the sweetness he had imagined was latent in her. She had meant what was beyond him to understand. She had gently put a hand to his lips, to check the bitter words, and he had dared to kiss her soft fingers. The thrill, the sweetness, the incomprehensible and perhaps imagined response of her pulse would never leave him. He watched the big car until it was out of sight.

The afternoon was only half advanced and there were numberless tasks to do. He decided he could think and plan while he worked. As he was about to turn away he espied another automobile, this one coming from the opposite direction to that Anderson had taken. The sight of it reminded Dorn of the I.W.W. trick of throwing phosphorus cakes into the wheat. He was suspicious of that car. It slowed down in front of the Dorn homestead, turned into the yard, and stopped near where Dorn stood. The dust had caked in layers upon it. Someone hailed him and asked if this was the Dorn farm. Kurt answered in the affirmative, whereupon a tall man, wearing a long linen coat, opened the car door to step out. In the car remained the driver and another man.

"My name is Hall," announced the stranger, with a pleasant manner. "I'm from Washington, D.C. I represent the government and am in the Northwest in the interest of the Conservation Commission. Your name has been recommended to me as one of the progressive young wheat-growers of the Bend; particularly that you are an American, located in a country exceedingly important to the United States just now—a country where foreign-born people predominate."

Kurt, somewhat startled and awed, managed to give a courteous greeting to his visitor, and asked him into the house. But Mr. Hall preferred to sit outdoors on the porch. He threw off hat and coat, and, taking an easy chair, he produced some cigars.

"Will you smoke?" he asked, offering one.

Kurt declined with thanks. He was aware of this man's penetrating, yet kindly scrutiny of him, and he had begun to wonder. This was no ordinary visitor.

"Have you been drafted?" abruptly queried Mr. Hall.

"Yes, sir. Mine was the first number," replied Kurt, with a little pride.

"Do you want exemption?" swiftly came the second query.

It shocked Dorn, then stung him.

"No," he said, forcibly.

"Your father's sympathy is with Germany, I understand."

"Well, sir, I don't know how you understand that, but it's true—to my regret and shame."

"You want to fight?" went on the official.

"I hate the idea of war. But I—I guess I want to fight. Maybe that's because I'm feeling scrappy over these I.W.W. tricks."

"Dorn, the I.W.W. is only one of the many phases of war that we must meet," returned Mr. Hall, and then for a moment he thoughtfully drew upon his cigar.

"Young man, I like your talk. And I'll tell you a secret. My name's not Hall. Never mind my name. For you it's Uncle Sam!"

Whereupon, with a winning and fascinating manner that seemed to Kurt at once intimate and flattering, he began to talk fluently of the meaning of his visit, and of its cardinal importance. The government was looking far ahead, preparing for a tremendous, and perhaps a lengthy, war. The food of the country must be conserved. Wheat was one of the most vital things in the whole world, and the wheat of America was incalculably precious—only the government knew how precious. If the war was short a wheat famine would come afterward; if it was long, the famine would come before the war ended. But it was inevitable. The very outcome of the war itself depended upon wheat.

The government expected a nation-wide propaganda by the German interests which would be carried on secretly and boldly, in every conceivable way, to alienate the labor organizations, to bribe or menace the harvesters, to despoil crops, and particularly to put obstacles in the way of the raising and harvesting, the transporting and storing of wheat. It would take an army to protect the nation's grain.

Dorn was earnestly besought by this official to compass his district, to find out who could be depended upon by the United States and who was antagonistic, to impress upon the minds of all his neighbors the exceeding need of greater and more persistent cultivation of wheat.

"I accept. I'll do my best," replied Kurt, grimly. "I'll be going some the next two weeks."

"It's deplorable that most of the wheat in this section is a failure," said the official. "But we must make up for that next year. I see you have one magnificent wheat-field. But, fact is, I heard of that long before I got here."

"Yes? Where?" ejaculated Kurt, quick to catch a significance in the other's words.

"I've motored direct from Wheatly. And I'm sorry to say that what I have now to tell you is not pleasant.... Your father sold this wheat for eighty thousand dollars in cash. The money was seen to be paid over by a mill-operator of Spokane.... And your father is reported to be suspiciously interested in the I.W.W. men now at Wheatly."

"Oh, that's awful!" exclaimed Kurt, with a groan. "How did you learn that?"

"From American farmers—men that I had been instructed to approach, the same as in your case. The information came quite by accident, however, and through my inquiring about the I.W.W."

"Father has not been rational since the President declared war. He's very old. I've had trouble with him. He might do anything."

"My boy, there are multitudes of irrational men nowadays and the number is growing.... I advise you to go at once to Wheatly and bring your father home. It was openly said that he was taking risks with that large sum of money."

"Risks! Why, I can't understand that. The wheat's not harvested yet, let alone hauled to town. And to-day I learned the I.W.W. are working a trick with cakes of phosphorus, to burn the wheat."

Kurt produced the cake of phosphorus and explained its significance to the curious official.

"Cunning devils! Who but a German would ever have thought of that?" he exclaimed. "German science! To such ends the Germans put their supreme knowledge!"

"I wonder what my father will say about this phosphorus trick. I just wonder. He loves the wheat. His wheat has taken prizes at three world's fairs. Maybe to see our wheat burn would untwist that twist in his brain and make him American."

"I doubt it. Only death changes the state of a real German, physical, moral, and spiritual. Come, ride back to Glencoe with me. I'll drop you there. You can hire a car and make Wheatly before dark."

Kurt ran indoors, thinking hard as he changed clothes. He told the housekeeper to tell Jerry he was called away and would be back next day. Putting money and a revolver in his pocket, he started out, but hesitated and halted. He happened to think that he was a poor shot with a revolver and a fine one with a rifle. So he went back for his rifle, a small high-power, repeating gun that he could take apart and hide under his coat. When he reached the porch the official glanced from the weapon to Kurt's face and said, with a flash of spirit:

"It appears that you are in earnest!"

"I am. Something told me to take this," responded Kurt, as he dismounted the rifle. "I've already had one run-in with an I.W.W. I know tough customers when I see them. These foreigners are the kind I don't want near me. And if I see one trying to fire the wheat I'll shoot his leg off."

"I'm inclined to think that Uncle Sam would not deplore your shooting a little higher.... Dorn, you're fine! You're all I heard you were! Shake hands!"

Kurt tingled all over as he followed the official out to the car and took the seat given him beside the driver. "Back to Glencoe," was the order. And then, even if conversation had been in order, it would scarcely have been possible. That driver could drive! He had no fear and he knew his car. Kurt could drive himself, but he thought that if he had been as good as this fellow he would have chosen one of two magnificent services for the army—an ambulance-driver at the front or an aeroplane scout.

On the way to Glencoe several squads of idling and marching men were passed, all of whom bore the earmarks of the I.W.W. Sight of them made Kurt hug his gun and wonder at himself. Never had he been a coward, but neither had he been one to seek a fight. This suave, distinguished government official, by his own significant metaphor, Uncle Sam gone abroad to find true hearts, had wrought powerfully upon Kurt's temper. He sensed events. He revolved in mind the need for him to be cool and decisive when facing the circumstances that were sure to arise.

At Glencoe, which was reached so speedily that Kurt could scarcely credit his eyes, the official said; "You'll hear from me. Good-by and good luck!"

Kurt hired a young man he knew to drive him over to Wheatly. All the way Kurt brooded about his father's strange action. The old man had left home before the rain-storm. How did he know he could guarantee so many bushels of wheat as the selling-price indicated? Kurt divined that his father had acted upon one of his strange weather prophecies. For he must have been absolutely sure of rain to save the wheat.

Darkness had settled down when Kurt reached Wheatly and left the car at the railroad station. Wheatly was a fairly good-sized little town. There seemed to be an unusual number of men on the dark streets. Dim lights showed here and there. Kurt passed several times near groups of conversing men, but he did not hear any significant talk.

Most of the stores were open and well filled with men, but to Kurt's sharp eyes there appeared to be much more gossip going on than business. The town was not as slow and quiet as was usual with Bend towns. He listened for war talk, and heard none. Two out of every three men who spoke in his hearing did not use the English language. Kurt went into the office of the first hotel he found. There was no one present. He glanced at an old register lying on the desk. No guests had registered for several days.

Then Kurt went out and accosted a man leaning against a hitching-rail.

"What's going on in this town?"

The man stood rather indistinctly in the uncertain light. Kurt, however, made out his eyes and they were regarding him suspiciously.

"Nothin' onusual," was the reply.

"Has harvesting begun in these parts?"

"Some barley cut, but no wheat. Next week, I reckon."

"How's the wheat?"

"Some bad an' some good."

"Is this town a headquarters for the I.W.W.?"

"No. But there's a big camp of I.W.W.'s near here. Reckon you're one of them union fellers?"

"I am not," declared Kurt, bluntly.

"Reckon you sure look like one, with thet gun under your coat."

"Are you going to hire I.W.W. men?" asked Kurt, ignoring the other's observation.

"I'm only a farm-hand," was the sullen reply. "An' I tell you I won't join no I.W.W."

Kurt spared himself a moment to give this fellow a few strong proofs of the fact that any farm-hand was wise to take such a stand against the labor organization. Leaving the fellow gaping and staring after him, Kurt crossed the street to enter another hotel. It was more pretentious than the first, with a large, well lighted office. There were loungers at the tables. Kurt walked to the desk. A man leaned upon his elbows. He asked Kurt if he wanted a room. This man, evidently the proprietor, was a German, though he spoke English.

"I'm not sure," replied Kurt. "Will you let me look at the register?"

The man shoved the book around. Kurt did not find the name he sought.

"My father, Chris Dorn, is in town. Can you tell me where I'll find him?"

"So you're young Dorn," replied the other, with instant change to friendliness. "I've heard of you. Yes, the old man is here. He made a big wheat deal to-day. He's eating his supper."

Kurt stepped to the door indicated, and, looking into the dining-room, he at once espied his father's huge head with its shock of gray hair. He appeared to be in earnest colloquy with a man whose bulk matched his own. Kurt hesitated, and finally went back to the desk.

"Who's the big man with my father?" he asked.

"He is a big man, both ways. Don't you know him?" rejoined the proprietor, in a lower voice.

"I'm not sure," answered Kurt. The lowered tone had a significance that decided Kurt to admit nothing.

"That's Neuman from Ruxton, one of the biggest wheat men in Washington."

Kurt repressed a whistle of surprise. Neuman was Anderson's only rival in the great, fertile valley. What were Neuman and Chris Dorn doing with their heads together?