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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Desert of Wheat, by Zane Grey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Desert of Wheat
+
+Author: Zane Grey
+
+Release Date: November 21, 2003 [EBook #10201]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DESERT OF WHEAT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, David Kline and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+ZANE GREY
+
+
+
+THE DESERT
+
+of
+
+WHEAT
+
+1919
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Late in June the vast northwestern desert of wheat began to take on a
+tinge of gold, lending an austere beauty to that endless, rolling,
+smooth world of treeless hills, where miles of fallow ground and miles
+of waving grain sloped up to the far-separated homes of the heroic men
+who had conquered over sage and sand.
+
+These simple homes of farmers seemed lost on an immensity of soft gray
+and golden billows of land, insignificant dots here and there on distant
+hills, so far apart that nature only seemed accountable for those broad
+squares of alternate gold and brown, extending on and on to the waving
+horizon-line. A lonely, hard, heroic country, where flowers and fruit
+were not, nor birds and brooks, nor green pastures. Whirling strings of
+dust looped up over fallow ground, the short, dry wheat lay back from
+the wind, the haze in the distance was drab and smoky, heavy with
+substance.
+
+A thousand hills lay bare to the sky, and half of every hill was wheat
+and half was fallow ground; and all of them, with the shallow valleys
+between, seemed big and strange and isolated. The beauty of them was
+austere, as if the hand of man had been held back from making green his
+home site, as if the immensity of the task had left no time for youth
+and freshness. Years, long years, were there in the round-hilled,
+many-furrowed gray old earth. And the wheat looked a century old. Here
+and there a straight, dusty road stretched from hill to hill, becoming a
+thin white line, to disappear in the distance. The sun shone hot, the
+wind blew hard; and over the boundless undulating expanse hovered a
+shadow that was neither hood of dust nor hue of gold. It was not
+physical, but lonely, waiting, prophetic, and weird. No wild desert of
+wastelands, once the home of other races of man, and now gone to decay
+and death, could have shown so barren an acreage. Half of this wandering
+patchwork of squares was earth, brown and gray, curried and disked, and
+rolled and combed and harrowed, with not a tiny leaf of green in all the
+miles. The other half had only a faint golden promise of mellow harvest;
+and at long distance it seemed to shimmer and retreat under the hot sun.
+A singularly beautiful effect of harmony lay in the long, slowly rising
+slopes, in the rounded hills, in the endless curving lines on all sides.
+The scene was heroic because of the labor of horny hands; it was sublime
+because not a hundred harvests, nor three generations of toiling men,
+could ever rob nature of its limitless space and scorching sun and
+sweeping dust, of its resistless age-long creep back toward the desert
+that it had been.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here was grown the most bounteous, the richest and finest wheat in all
+the world. Strange and unfathomable that so much of the bread of man,
+the staff of life, the hope of civilization in this tragic year 1917,
+should come from a vast, treeless, waterless, dreary desert!
+
+This wonderful place was an immense valley of considerable altitude
+called the Columbia Basin, surrounded by the Cascade Mountains on the
+west, the Coeur d'Alene and Bitter Root Mountains on the east, the
+Okanozan range to the north, and the Blue Mountains to the south. The
+valley floor was basalt, from the lava flow of volcanoes in ages past.
+The rainfall was slight except in the foot-hills of the mountains. The
+Columbia River, making a prodigious and meandering curve, bordered on
+three sides what was known as the Bend country. South of this vast area,
+across the range, began the fertile, many-watered region that extended
+on down into verdant Oregon. Among the desert hills of this Bend
+country, near the center of the Basin, where the best wheat was raised,
+lay widely separated little towns, the names of which gave evidence of
+the mixed population. It was, of course, an exceedingly prosperous
+country, a fact manifest in the substantial little towns, if not in the
+crude and unpretentious homes of the farmers. The acreage of farms ran
+from a section, six hundred and forty acres, up into the thousands.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Upon a morning in early July, exactly three months after the United
+States had declared war upon Germany, a sturdy young farmer strode with
+darkly troubled face from the presence of his father. At the end of a
+stormy scene he had promised his father that he would abandon his desire
+to enlist in the army.
+
+Kurt Dorn walked away from the gray old clapboard house, out to the
+fence, where he leaned on the gate. He could see for miles in every
+direction, and to the southward, away on a long yellow slope, rose a
+stream of dust from a motor-car.
+
+"Must be Anderson--coming to dun father," muttered young Dorn.
+
+This was the day, he remembered, when the wealthy rancher of Ruxton was
+to look over old Chris Dorn's wheat-fields. Dorn owed thirty-thousand
+dollars and interest for years, mostly to Anderson. Kurt hated the debt
+and resented the visit, but he could not help acknowledging that the
+rancher had been lenient and kind. Long since Kurt had sorrowfully
+realized that his father was illiterate, hard, grasping, and growing
+worse with the burden of years.
+
+"If we had rain now--or soon--that section of Bluestem would square
+father," soliloquized young Dorn, as with keen eyes he surveyed a vast
+field of wheat, short, smooth, yellowing in the sun. But the cloudless
+sky, the haze of heat rather betokened a continued drought.
+
+There were reasons, indeed, for Dorn to wear a dark and troubled face as
+he watched the motor-car speed along ahead of its stream of dust, pass
+out of sight under the hill, and soon reappear, to turn off the main
+road and come toward the house. It was a big, closed car, covered with
+dust. The driver stopped it at the gate and got out.
+
+"Is this Chris Dorn's farm?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," replied Kurt.
+
+Whereupon the door of the car opened and out stepped a short, broad man
+in a long linen coat.
+
+"Come out, Lenore, an' shake off the dust," he said, and he assisted a
+young woman to step out. She also wore a long linen coat, and a veil
+besides. The man removed his coat and threw it into the car. Then he
+took off his sombrero to beat the dust off of that.
+
+"Phew! The Golden Valley never seen dust like this in a million
+years!... I'm chokin' for water. An' listen to the car. She's boilin'!"
+
+Then, as he stepped toward Kurt, the rancher showed himself to be a
+well-preserved man of perhaps fifty-five, of powerful form beginning to
+sag in the broad shoulders, his face bronzed by long exposure to wind
+and sun. He had keen gray eyes, and their look was that of a man used to
+dealing with his kind and well disposed toward them.
+
+"Hello! Are you young Dorn?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Kurt, stepping out.
+
+"I'm Anderson, from Ruxton, come to see your dad. This is my girl
+Lenore."
+
+Kurt acknowledged the slight bow from the veiled young woman, and then,
+hesitating, he added, "Won't you come in?"
+
+"No, not yet. I'm chokin' for air an' water. Bring us a drink," replied
+Anderson.
+
+Kurt hurried away to get a bucket and tin cup. As he drew water from the
+well he was thinking rather vaguely that it was somehow
+embarrassing--the fact of Mr. Anderson being accompanied by his
+daughter. Kurt was afraid of his father. But then, what did it matter?
+When he returned to the yard he found the rancher sitting in the shade
+of one of the few apple-trees, and the young lady was standing near, in
+the act of removing bonnet and veil. She had thrown the linen coat over
+the seat of an old wagon-bed that lay near.
+
+"Good water is scarce here, but I'm glad we have some," said Kurt; then
+as he set down the bucket and offered a brimming cupful to the girl he
+saw her face, and his eyes met hers. He dropped the cup and stared. Then
+hurriedly, with flushing face, he bent over to recover and refill it.
+
+"Ex-excuse me. I'm--clumsy," he managed to say, and as he handed the cup
+to her he averted his gaze. For more than a year the memory of this very
+girl had haunted him. He had seen her twice--the first time at the close
+of his one year of college at the University of California, and the
+second time on the street in Spokane. In a glance he had recognized the
+strong, lithe figure, the sunny hair, the rare golden tint of her
+complexion, the blue eyes, warm and direct. And he had sustained a shock
+which momentarily confused him.
+
+"Good water, hey?" dissented Anderson, after drinking a second cup. "Boy
+that's wet, but it ain't water to drink. Come down in the foot-hills an'
+I'll show you. My ranch 's called 'Many Waters,' an' you can't keep your
+feet dry."
+
+"I wish we had some of it here," replied Kurt, wistfully, and he waved a
+hand at the broad, swelling slopes. The warm breath that blew in from
+the wheatlands felt dry and smelled dry.
+
+"You're in for a dry spell?" inquired Anderson, with interest that was
+keen, and kindly as well.
+
+"Father says so. And I fear it, too--for he never makes a mistake in
+weather or crops."
+
+"A hot, dry spell!... This summer?... Hum!... Boy, do you know that
+wheat is the most important thing in the world to-day?"
+
+"You mean on account of the war," replied Kurt. "Yes, I know. But father
+doesn't see that. All he sees is--if we have rain we'll have bumper
+crops. That big field there would be a record--at war prices.... And he
+wouldn't be ruined!"
+
+"Ruined?... Oh, he means I'd close on him.... Hum!... Say, what do you
+see in a big wheat yield--if it rains?"
+
+"Mr. Anderson, I'd like to see our debt paid, but I'm thinking most of
+wheat for starving peoples. I--I've studied this wheat question. It's
+the biggest question in this war."
+
+Kurt had forgotten the girl and was unaware of her eyes bent steadily
+upon him. Anderson had roused to the interest of wheat, and to a deeper
+study of the young man.
+
+"Say, Dorn, how old are you?" he asked.
+
+"Twenty-four. And Kurt's my first name," was the reply.
+
+"Will this farm fall to you?"
+
+"Yes, if my father does not lose it."
+
+"Hum!... Old Dorn won't lose it, never fear. He raises the best wheat in
+this section."
+
+"But father never owned the land. We have had three bad years. If the
+wheat fails this summer--we lose the land, that's all."
+
+"Are you an--American?" queried Anderson, slowly, as if treading on
+dangerous ground.
+
+"I am," snapped Kurt. "My mother was American. She's dead. Father is
+German. He's old. He's rabid since the President declared war. He'll
+never change."
+
+"That's hell. What 're you goin' to do if your country calls you?"
+
+"Go!" replied Kurt, with flashing eyes. "I wanted to enlist. Father and
+I quarreled over that until I had to give in. He's hard--he's
+impossible.... I'll wait for the draft and hope I'm called."
+
+"Boy, it's that spirit Germany's roused, an' the best I can say is, God
+help her!... Have you a brother?"
+
+"No. I'm all father has."
+
+"Well, it makes a tough place for him, an' you, too. Humor him. He's
+old. An' when you're called--go an' fight. You'll come back."
+
+"If I only knew that--it wouldn't be so hard."
+
+"Hard? It sure is hard. But it'll be the makin' of a great country.
+It'll weed out the riffraff.... See here, Kurt, I'm goin' to give you a
+hunch. Have you had any dealin's with the I.W.W.?"
+
+"Yes, last harvest we had trouble, but nothing serious. When I was in
+Spokane last month I heard a good deal. Strangers have approached us
+here, too--mostly aliens. I have no use for them, but they always get
+father's ear. And now!... To tell the truth, I'm worried."
+
+"Boy, you need to be," replied Anderson, earnestly. "We're all worried.
+I'm goin' to let you read over the laws of that I.W.W. organization.
+You're to keep mum now, mind you. I belong to the Chamber of Commerce in
+Spokane. Somebody got hold of these by-laws of this so-called labor
+union. We've had copies made, an' every honest farmer in the Northwest
+is goin' to read them. But carryin' one around is dangerous, I reckon,
+these days. Here."
+
+Anderson hesitated a moment, peered cautiously around, and then,
+slipping folded sheets of paper from his inside coat pocket, he
+evidently made ready to hand them to Kurt.
+
+"Lenore, where's the driver?" he asked.
+
+"He's under the car," replied the girl
+
+Kurt thrilled at the soft sound of her voice. It was something to have
+been haunted by a girl's face for a year and then suddenly hear her
+voice.
+
+"He's new to me--that driver--an' I ain't trustin' any new men these
+days," went on Anderson. "Here now, Dorn. Read that. An' if you don't
+get red-headed--"
+
+Without finishing his last muttered remark, he opened the sheets of
+manuscript and spread them out to the young man.
+
+Curiously, and with a little rush of excitement, Kurt began to read. The
+very first rule of the I.W.W. aimed to abolish capital. Kurt read on
+with slowly growing amaze, consternation, and anger. When he had
+finished, his look, without speech, was a question Anderson hastened to
+answer.
+
+"It's straight goods," he declared. "Them's the sure-enough rules of
+that gang. We made certain before we acted. Now how do they strike you?"
+
+"Why, that's no labor union!" replied Kurt, hotly. "They're outlaws,
+thieves, blackmailers, pirates. I--I don't know what!"
+
+"Dorn, we're up against a bad outfit an' the Northwest will see hell
+this summer. There's trouble in Montana and Idaho. Strangers are
+driftin' into Washington from all over. We must organize to meet
+them--to prevent them gettin' a hold out here. It's a labor union,
+mostly aliens, with dishonest an' unscrupulous leaders, some of them
+Americans. They aim to take advantage of the war situation. In the
+newspapers they rave about shorter hours, more pay, acknowledgment of
+the union. But any fool would see, if he read them laws I showed you,
+that this I.W.W. is not straight."
+
+"Mr. Anderson, what steps have you taken down in your country?" queried
+Kurt.
+
+"So far all I've done was to hire my hands for a year, give them high
+wages, an' caution them when strangers come round to feed them an' be
+civil an' send them on."
+
+"But we can't do that up here in the Bend," said Dorn, seriously. "We
+need, say, a hundred thousand men in harvest-time, and not ten thousand
+all the rest of the year."
+
+"Sure you can't. But you'll have to organize somethin'. Up here in this
+desert you could have a heap of trouble if that outfit got here strong
+enough. You'd better tell every farmer you can trust about this I.W.W."
+
+"I've only one American neighbor, and he lives six miles from here,"
+replied Dorn. "Olsen over there is a Swede, and not a naturalized
+citizen, but I believe he's for the U.S. And there's--"
+
+"Dad," interrupted the girl, "I believe our driver is listening to your
+very uninteresting conversation."
+
+She spoke demurely, with laughter in her low voice. It made Dorn dare to
+look at her, and he met a blue blaze that was instantly averted.
+
+Anderson growled, evidently some very hard names, under his breath; his
+look just then was full of characteristic Western spirit. Then he got
+up.
+
+"Lenore, I reckon your talk 'll be more interesting than mine," he said,
+dryly. "I'll go see Dorn an' get this business over."
+
+"I'd rather go with you," hurriedly replied Kurt; and then, as though
+realizing a seeming discourtesy in his words, his face flamed, and he
+stammered: "I--I don't mean that. But father is in bad mood. We just
+quarreled.--I told you--about the war. And--Mr. Anderson,--I'm--I'm a
+little afraid he'll--"
+
+"Well, son, I'm not afraid," interrupted the rancher. "I'll beard the
+old lion in his den. You talk to Lenore."
+
+"Please don't speak of the war," said Kurt, appealingly.
+
+"Not a word unless he starts roarin' at Uncle Sam," declared Anderson,
+with a twinkle in his eyes, and turned toward the house.
+
+"He'll roar, all right," said Kurt, almost with a groan. He knew what an
+ordeal awaited the rancher, and he hated the fact that it could not be
+avoided. Then Kurt was confused, astounded, infuriated with himself over
+a situation he had not brought about and could scarcely realize. He
+became conscious of pride and shame, and something as black and hopeless
+as despair.
+
+"Haven't I seen you--before?" asked the girl.
+
+The query surprised and thrilled Kurt out of his self-centered thought.
+
+"I don't know. Have you? Where?" he answered, facing her. It was a
+relief to find that she still averted her face.
+
+"At Berkeley, in California, the first time, and the second at Spokane,
+in front of the Davenport," she replied.
+
+"First--and--second?... You--you remembered both times!" he burst out,
+incredulously.
+
+"Yes. I don't see how I could have helped remembering." Her laugh was
+low, musical, a little hurried, yet cool.
+
+Dorn was not familiar with girls. He had worked hard all his life, there
+among those desert hills, and during the few years his father had
+allowed him for education. He knew wheat, but nothing of the eternal
+feminine. So it was impossible for him to grasp that this girl was not
+wholly at her ease. Her words and the cool little laugh suddenly brought
+home to Kurt the immeasurable distance between him and a daughter of one
+of the richest ranchers in Washington.
+
+"You mean I--I was impertinent," he began, struggling between shame and
+pride. "I--I stared at you.... Oh, I must have been rude.... But, Miss
+Anderson, I--I didn't mean to be. I didn't think you saw me--at all. I
+don't know what made me do that. It never happened before. I beg your
+pardon."
+
+A subtle indefinable change, perceptible to Dorn, even in his confused
+state, came over the girl.
+
+"I did not say you were impertinent," she returned. "I remembered seeing
+you--notice me, that is all."
+
+Self-possessed, aloof, and kind, Miss Anderson now became an
+impenetrable mystery to Dorn. But that only accentuated the distance she
+had intimated lay between them. Her kindness stung him to recover his
+composure. He wished she had not been kind. What a singular chance that
+had brought her here to his home--the daughter of a man who came to
+demand a long-unpaid debt! What a dispelling of the vague thing that had
+been only a dream! Dorn gazed away across the yellowing hills to the dim
+blue of the mountains where rolled the Oregon. Despite the color, it was
+gray--like his future.
+
+"I heard you tell father you had studied wheat," said the girl,
+presently, evidently trying to make conversation.
+
+"Yes, all my life," replied Kurt. "My study has mostly been under my
+father. Look at my hands." He held out big, strong hands, scarred and
+knotted, with horny palms uppermost, and he laughed. "I can be proud of
+them, Miss Anderson.... But I had a splendid year in California at the
+university and I graduated from the Washington State Agricultural
+College."
+
+"You love wheat--the raising of it, I mean?" she inquired.
+
+"It must be that I do, though I never had such a thought. Wheat is so
+wonderful. No one can guess who does not know it!... The clean, plump
+grain, the sowing on fallow ground, the long wait, the first tender
+green, and the change day by day to the deep waving fields of gold--then
+the harvest, hot, noisy, smoky, full of dust and chaff, and the great
+combine-harvesters with thirty-four horses. Oh! I guess I do love it
+all.... I worked in a Spokane flour-mill, too, just to learn how flour
+is made. There is nothing in the world so white, so clean, so pure as
+flour made from the wheat of these hills!"
+
+"Next you'll be telling me that you can bake bread," she rejoined, and
+her laugh was low and sweet. Her eyes shone with soft blue gleams.
+
+"Indeed I can! I bake all the bread we use," he said, stoutly. "And I
+flatter myself I can beat any girl you know."
+
+"You can beat mine, I'm sure. Before I went to college I did pretty
+well. But I learned too much there. Now my mother and sisters, and
+brother Jim, all the family except dad, make fun of my bread."
+
+"You have a brother? How old is he?"
+
+"One brother--Jim, we call him. He--he is just past twenty-one." She
+faltered the last few words.
+
+Kurt felt on common ground with her then. The sudden break in her voice,
+the change in her face, the shadowing of the blue eyes--these were
+eloquent.
+
+"Oh, it's horrible--this need of war!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Yes," he replied, simply. "But maybe your brother will not be called."
+
+"Called! Why, he refused to wait for the draft! He went and enlisted.
+Dad patted him on the back.... If anything happens to him it'll kill my
+mother. Jim is her idol. It'd break my heart.... Oh, I hate the very
+name of Germans!"
+
+"My father is German," said Kurt. "He's been fifty years in
+America--eighteen years here on this farm. He always hated England. Now
+he's bitter against America.... I can see a side you can't see. But I
+don't blame you--for what you said."
+
+"Forgive me. I can't conceive of meaning that against any one who's
+lived here so long.... Oh, it must be hard for you."
+
+"I'll let my father think I'm forced to join the army. But I'm going to
+fight against his people. We are a house divided against itself."
+
+"Oh, what a pity!" The girl sighed and her eyes were dark with brooding
+sorrow.
+
+A step sounded behind them. Mr. Anderson appeared, sombrero off, mopping
+a very red face. His eyes gleamed, with angry glints; his mouth and chin
+were working. He flopped down with a great, explosive breath.
+
+"Kurt, your old man is a--a--son of a gun!" he exclaimed, vociferously;
+manifestly, liberation of speech was a relief.
+
+The young man nodded seriously and knowingly. "I hope, sir--he--he--"
+
+"He did--you just bet your life! He called me a lot in German, but I
+know cuss words when I hear them. I tried to reason with him--told him I
+wanted my money--was here to help him get that money off the farm, some
+way or other. An' he swore I was a capitalist--an enemy to labor an' the
+Northwest--that I an' my kind had caused the war."
+
+Kurt gazed gravely into the disturbed face of the rancher. Miss Anderson
+had wide-open eyes of wonder.
+
+"Sure I could have stood all that," went on Anderson, fuming. "But he
+ordered me out of the house. I got mad an' wouldn't go. Then--by George!
+he pulled my nose an' called me a bloody Englishman!"
+
+Kurt groaned in the disgrace of the moment. But, amazingly, Miss
+Anderson burst into a silvery peal of laughter.
+
+"Oh, dad!... that's--just too--good for--anything! You met your--match
+at last.... You know you always--boasted of your drop of English
+blood.... And you're sensitive--about your big nose!"
+
+"He must be over seventy," growled Anderson, as if seeking for some
+excuse to palliate his restraint. "I'm mad--but it was funny." The
+working of his face finally set in the huge wrinkles of a laugh.
+
+Young Dorn struggled to repress his own mirth, but unguardedly he
+happened to meet the dancing blue eyes of the girl, merry, provocative,
+full of youth and fun, and that was too much for him. He laughed with
+them.
+
+"The joke's on me," said Anderson. "An' I can take one.... Now, young
+man, I think I gathered from your amiable dad that if the crop of wheat
+was full I'd get my money. Otherwise I could take over the land. For my
+part, I'd never do that, but the others interested might do it, even for
+the little money involved. I tried to buy them out so I'd have the whole
+mortgage. They would not sell."
+
+"Mr. Anderson, you're a square man, and I'll do--" declared Kurt.
+
+"Come out an' show me the wheat," interrupted Anderson. "Lenore, do you
+want to go with us?"
+
+"I do," replied the daughter, and she took up her hat to put it on.
+
+Kurt led them through the yard, out past the old barn, to the edge of
+the open slope where the wheat stretched away, down and up, as far as
+the eye could see.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+"We've got over sixteen hundred acres in fallow ground, a half-section
+in rye, another half in wheat--Turkey Red--and this section you see, six
+hundred and forty acres, in Bluestem," said Kurt.
+
+Anderson's keen eyes swept from near at hand to far away, down the
+gentle, billowy slope and up the far hillside. The wheat was two feet
+high, beginning to be thick and heavy at the heads, as if struggling to
+burst. A fragrant, dry, wheaty smell, mingled with dust, came on the
+soft summer breeze, and a faint silken rustle. The greenish, almost blue
+color near at hand gradually in the distance grew lighter, and then
+yellow, and finally took on a tinge of gold. There was a living spirit
+in that vast wheat-field.
+
+"Dorn, it's the finest wheat I've seen!" exclaimed Anderson, with the
+admiration of the farmer who aspired high. "In fact, it's the only fine
+field of wheat I've seen since we left the foot-hills. How is that?"
+
+"Late spring and dry weather," replied Dorn. "Most of the farmers'
+reports are poor. If we get rain over the Bend country we'll have only
+an average yield this year. If we don't get rain--then flat failure."
+
+Miss Anderson evinced an interest in the subject and she wanted to know
+why this particular field, identical with all the others for miles
+around, should have a promise of a magnificent crop when the others had
+no promise at all.
+
+"This section lay fallow a long time," replied Dorn. "Snow lasted here
+on this north slope quite a while. My father used a method of soil
+cultivation intended to conserve moisture. The seed wheat was especially
+selected. And if we have rain during the next ten days this section of
+Bluestem will yield fifty bushels to the acre."
+
+"Fifty bushels!" ejaculated Anderson.
+
+"Bluestem? Why do you call it that when it's green and yellow?" queried
+the girl.
+
+"It's a name. There are many varieties of wheat. Bluestem is best here
+in this desert country because it resists drought, it produces large
+yield, it does not break, and the flour-mills rate it very high.
+Bluestem is not good in wet soils."
+
+Anderson tramped along the edge of the field, peering down, here and
+there pulling a shaft of wheat and examining it. The girl gazed with
+dreamy eyes across the undulating sea. And Dorn watched her.
+
+"We have a ranch--thousands of acres--but not like this," she said.
+
+"What's the difference?" asked Dorn.
+
+She appeared pensive and in doubt.
+
+"I hardly know. What would you call this--this scene?"
+
+"Why, I call it the desert of wheat! But no one else does," he replied.
+
+"I named father's ranch 'Many Waters.' I think those names tell the
+difference."
+
+"Isn't my desert beautiful?"
+
+"No. It has a sameness--a monotony that would drive me mad. It looks as
+if the whole world had gone to wheat. It makes me think--oppresses me.
+All this means that we live by wheat alone. These bare hills! They're
+too open to wind and sun and snow. They look like the toil of ages."
+
+"Miss Anderson, there is such a thing as love for the earth--the bare
+brown earth. You know we came from dust, and to dust we return! These
+fields are human to my father. And they have come to speak to me--a
+language I don't understand yet. But I mean--what you see--the growing
+wheat here, the field of clods over there, the wind and dust and glare
+and heat, the eternal sameness of the open space--these are the things
+around which my life has centered, and when I go away from them I am not
+content."
+
+Anderson came back to the young couple, carrying some heads of wheat in
+his hand.
+
+"Smut!" he exclaimed, showing both diseased and healthy specimens of
+wheat. "Had to hunt hard to find that. Smut is the bane of all
+wheat-growers. I never saw so little of it as there is here. In fact, we
+know scarcely nothin' about smut an' its cure, if there is any. You
+farmers who raise only grain have got the work down to a science. This
+Bluestem is not bearded wheat, like Turkey Red. Has that beard anythin'
+to do with smut?"
+
+"I think not. The parasite, or fungus, lives inside the wheat."
+
+"Never heard that before. No wonder smut is the worst trouble for
+wheat-raisers in the Northwest. I've fields literally full of smut. An'
+we never are rid of it. One farmer has one idea, an' some one else
+another. What could be of greater importance to a farmer? We're at war.
+The men who claim to know say that wheat will win the war. An' we lose
+millions of bushels from this smut. That's to say it's a terrible fact
+to face. I'd like to get your ideas."
+
+Dorn, happening to glance again at Miss Anderson, an act that seemed to
+be growing habitual, read curiosity and interest, and something more, in
+her direct blue eyes. The circumstance embarrassed him, though it tugged
+at the flood-gates of his knowledge. He could talk about wheat, and he
+did like to. Yet here was a girl who might be supposed to be bored.
+Still, she did not appear to be. That warm glance was not politeness.
+
+"Yes, I'd like to hear every word you can say about wheat," she said,
+with an encouraging little nod.
+
+"Sure she would," added Anderson, with an affectionate hand on her
+shoulder. "She's a farmer's daughter. She'll be a farmer's wife."
+
+He laughed at this last sally. The girl blushed. Dorn smiled and shook
+his head doubtfully.
+
+"I imagine that good fortune will never befall a farmer," he said.
+
+"Well, if it should," she replied, archly, "just consider how I might
+surprise him with my knowledge of wheat.... Indeed, Mr. Dorn, I am
+interested. I've never been in the Bend before--in your desert of wheat.
+I never before felt the greatness of loving the soil--or caring for
+it--of growing things from seed. Yet the Bible teaches that, and I read
+my Bible. Please tell us. The more you say the more I'll like it."
+
+Dorn was not proof against this eloquence. And he quoted two of his
+authorities, Heald and Woolman, of the State Agricultural Experiment
+Station, where he had studied for two years.
+
+"Bunt, or stinking smut, is caused by two different species of
+microscopic fungi which live as parasites in the wheat plant. Both are
+essentially similar in their effects and their life-history. _Tilletia
+tritici_, or the rough-spored variety, is the common stinking smut of
+the Pacific regions, while _Tilletia foetans_, or the smooth-spored
+species, is the one generally found in the eastern United States.
+
+"The smut 'berries,' or 'balls,' from an infected head contain millions
+of minute bodies, the spores or 'seeds' of the smut fungus. These
+reproduce the smut in somewhat the same way that a true seed develops
+into a new plant. A single smut ball of average size contains a
+sufficient number of spores to give one for each grain of wheat in five
+or six bushels. It takes eight smut spores to equal the diameter of a
+human hair. Normal wheat grains from an infected field may have so many
+spores lodged on their surface as to give them a dark color, but other
+grains which show no difference in color to the naked eye may still
+contain a sufficient number of spores to produce a smutty crop if seed
+treatment is not practised.
+
+"When living smut spores are introduced into the soil with the seed
+wheat, or exist in the soil in which smut-free wheat is sown, a certain
+percentage of the wheat plants are likely to become infected. The smut
+spore germinates and produces first a stage of the smut plant in the
+soil. This first stage never infects a young seedling direct, but gives
+rise to secondary spores, or sporida, from which infection threads may
+arise and penetrate the shoot of a young seedling and reach the growing
+point. Here the fungus threads keep pace with the growth of the plant
+and reach maturity at or slightly before harvest-time.
+
+"Since this disease is caused by an internal parasite, it is natural to
+expect certain responses to its presence. It should be noted first that
+the smut fungus is living at the expense of its host plant, the wheat,
+and its effect on the host may be summarized as follows: The consumption
+of food, the destruction of food in the sporulating process, and the
+stimulating or retarding effect on normal physiological processes.
+
+"Badly smutted plants remain in many cases under-size and produce fewer
+and smaller heads. In the Fife and Bluestem varieties the infected heads
+previous to maturity exhibit a darker green color, and remain green
+longer than the normal heads. In some varieties the infected heads stand
+erect, when normal ones begin to droop as a result of the increasing
+weight of the ripening grain.
+
+"A crop may become infected with smut in a number of different ways.
+Smut was originally introduced with the seed, and many farmers are still
+planting it every season with their seed wheat. Wheat taken from a
+smutty crop will have countless numbers of loose spores adhering to the
+grains, also a certain number of unbroken smut balls. These are always a
+source of danger, even when the seed is treated with fungicides before
+sowing.
+
+"There are also chances for the infection of a crop if absolutely
+smut-free seed is employed. First, soil infection from a previous smutty
+crop; second, soil infection from wind-blown spores. Experiments have
+shown that separated spores from crushed smut balls lose their effective
+power in from two to three months, provided the soil is moist and loose,
+and in no case do they survive a winter.
+
+"It does not seem probable that wheat smut will be controlled by any
+single practice, but rather by the combined use of various methods: crop
+rotation; the use of clean seed; seed treatment with fungicides;
+cultural practices and breeding; and selection of varieties.
+
+"Failure to practise crop rotation is undoubtedly one of the main
+explanations for the general prevalence of smut in the wheat-fields of
+eastern Washington. Even with an intervening summer fallow, the smut
+from a previous crop may be a source of infection. Experience shows that
+a fall stubble crop is less liable to smut infection than a crop
+following summer fallow. The apparent explanation for this condition is
+the fact that the summer fallow becomes infected with wind-blown spores,
+while in a stubble crop the wind-blown spores, as well as those
+originating from the previous crop, are buried in plowing.
+
+"If clean seed or properly treated seed had been used by all farmers we
+should never have had a smut problem. High per cents. of smut indicate
+either soil infection or imperfect treatment. The principle of the
+chemical treatment is to use a poison which will kill the superficial
+spores of the smut and not materially injure the germinating power of
+the seed. The hot-water treatment is only recommended when one of the
+chemical 'steeps' is not effective.
+
+"Certain cultural practices are beneficial in reducing the amount of
+smut in all cases, while the value of others depends to some extent upon
+the source of the smut spores. The factors which always influence the
+amount of smut are the temperature of the soil during the germinating
+period, the amount of soil moisture, and the depth of seeding. Where
+seed-borne spores are the only sources of infection, attention to the
+three factors mentioned will give the only cultural practices for
+reducing the amount of smut.
+
+"Early seeding has been practised by various farmers, and they report a
+marked reduction in smut.
+
+"The replowing of the summer fallow after the first fall rains is
+generally effective in reducing the amount of smut.
+
+"Very late planting--that is, four or five weeks after the first good
+fall rains--is also an effective practice. Fall tillage of summer
+fallow, other than plowing, seems to be beneficial.
+
+"No smut-immune varieties of wheat are known, but the standard varieties
+show varying degrees of resistance. Spring wheats generally suffer less
+from smut than winter varieties. This is not due to any superior
+resistance, but rather to the fact that they escape infection. If only
+spring wheats were grown our smut problem would largely disappear; but a
+return to this practice is not suggested, since the winter wheats are
+much more desirable. It seems probable that the conditions which prevail
+during the growing season may have considerable influence on the per
+cent of smut in any given variety."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Dorn finished his discourse, to receive the thanks of his
+listeners, they walked back through the yard toward the road. Mr.
+Anderson, who led the way, halted rather abruptly.
+
+"Hum! Who're those men talkin' to my driver?" he queried.
+
+Dorn then saw a couple of strangers standing near the motor-car, engaged
+in apparently close conversation with the chauffeur. Upon the moment
+they glanced up to see Mr. Anderson approaching, and they rather
+hurriedly departed. Dorn had noted a good many strangers lately--men
+whose garb was not that of farmers, whose faces seemed foreign, whose
+actions were suspicious.
+
+"I'll bet a hundred they're I.W.W.'s," declared Anderson. "Take my
+hunch, Dorn."
+
+The strangers passed on down the road without looking back.
+
+"Wonder where they'll sleep to-night?" muttered Dorn.
+
+Anderson rather sharply asked his driver what the two men wanted. And
+the reply he got was that they were inquiring about work.
+
+"Did they speak English?" went on the rancher.
+
+"Well enough to make themselves understood," replied the driver.
+
+Dorn did not get a good impression from the shifty eyes and air of
+taciturnity of Mr. Anderson's man, and it was evident that the blunt
+rancher restrained himself. He helped his daughter into the car, and
+then put on his long coat. Next he shook hands with Dorn.
+
+"Young man, I've enjoyed meetin' you, an' have sure profited from same,"
+he said. "Which makes up for your dad! I'll run over here again to see
+you--around harvest-time. An' I'll be wishin' for that rain."
+
+"Thank you. If it does rain I'll be happy to see you," replied Dorn,
+with a smile.
+
+"Well, if it doesn't rain I won't come. I'll put it off another year,
+an' cuss them other fellers into holdin' off, too."
+
+"You're very kind. I don't know how I'd--we'd ever repay you in that
+case."
+
+"Don't mention it. Say, how far did you say it was to Palmer? We'll have
+lunch there."
+
+"It's fifteen miles--that way," answered Dorn. "If it wasn't for--for
+father I'd like you to stay--and break some of my bread."
+
+Dorn was looking at the girl as he spoke. Her steady gaze had been on
+him ever since she entered the car, and in the shade of her hat and the
+veil she was adjusting her eyes seemed very dark and sweet and
+thoughtful. She brightly nodded her thanks as she held the veil aside
+with both hands.
+
+"I wish you luck. Good-by," she said, and closed the veil.
+
+Still, Dorn could see her eyes through it, and now they were sweeter,
+more mysterious, more provocative of haunting thoughts. It flashed over
+him with dread certainty that he had fallen in love with her. The shock
+struck him mute. He had no reply for the rancher's hearty farewell. Then
+the car lurched away and dust rose in a cloud.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+With a strange knocking of his heart, high up toward his throat, Kurt
+Dorn stood stock-still, watching the moving cloud of dust until it
+disappeared over the hill.
+
+No doubt entered his mind. The truth, the fact, was a year old--a
+long-familiar and dreamy state--but its meaning had not been revealed to
+him until just a moment past. Everything had changed when she looked out
+with that sweet, steady gaze through the parted veil and then slowly
+closed it. She had changed. There was something intangible about her
+that last moment, baffling, haunting. He leaned against a crooked old
+gate-post that as a boy he had climbed, and the thought came to him that
+this spot would all his life be vivid and poignant in his memory. The
+first sight of a blue-eyed, sunny-haired girl, a year and more before,
+had struck deep into his unconscious heart; a second sight had made her
+an unforgettable reality: and a third had been the realization of love.
+
+It was sad, regrettable, incomprehensible, and yet somehow his inner
+being swelled and throbbed. Her name was Lenore Anderson. Her father was
+one of the richest men in the state of Washington. She had one brother,
+Jim, who would not wait for the army draft. Kurt trembled and a hot rush
+of tears dimmed his eyes. All at once his lot seemed unbearable. An
+immeasurable barrier had arisen between him and his old father--a
+hideous thing of blood, of years, of ineradicable difference; the broad
+acres of wheatland so dear to him were to be taken from him; love had
+overcome him with headlong rush, a love that could never be returned;
+and cruelest of all, there was the war calling him to give up his home,
+his father, his future, and to go out to kill and to be killed.
+
+It came to him while he leaned there, that, remembering the light of
+Lenore Anderson's eyes, he could not give up to bitterness and hatred,
+whatever his misfortunes and his fate. She would never be anything to
+him, but he and her brother Jim and many other young Americans must be
+incalculable all to her. That thought saved Kurt Dorn. There were other
+things besides his own career, his happiness; and the way he was placed,
+however unfortunate from a selfish point of view, must not breed a
+morbid self-pity.
+
+The moment of his resolution brought a flash, a revelation of what he
+owed himself. The work and the thought and the feeling of his last few
+weeks there at home must be intensified. He must do much and live
+greatly in little time. This was the moment of his renunciation, and he
+imagined that many a young man who had decided to go to war had
+experienced a strange spiritual division of self. He wondered also if
+that moment was not for many of them a let-down, a throwing up of
+ideals, a helpless retrograding and surrender to the brutalizing spirit
+of war. But it could never be so for him. It might have been had not
+that girl come into his life.
+
+The bell for the midday meal roused Kurt from his profound reverie, and
+he plodded back to the house. Down through the barnyard gate he saw the
+hired men coming, and a second glance discovered to him that two unknown
+men were with them. Watching for a moment, Kurt recognized the two
+strangers that had been talking to Mr. Anderson's driver. They seemed to
+be talking earnestly now. Kurt saw Jerry, a trusty and long-tried
+employee, rather unceremoniously break away from these strangers. But
+they followed him, headed him off, and with vehement nods and
+gesticulations appeared to be arguing with him. The other hired men
+pushed closer, evidently listening. Finally Jerry impatiently broke away
+and tramped toward the house. These strangers sent sharp words after
+him--words that Kurt could not distinguish, though he caught the tone of
+scorn. Then the two individuals addressed themselves to the other men;
+and in close contact the whole party passed out of sight behind the
+barn.
+
+Thoughtfully Kurt went into the house. He meant to speak to Jerry about
+the strangers, but he wanted to consider the matter first. He had
+misgivings. His father was not in the sitting-room, nor in the kitchen.
+Dinner was ready on the table, and the one servant, an old woman who had
+served the Dorns for years, appeared impatient at the lack of promptness
+in the men. Both father and son, except on Sundays, always ate with the
+hired help. Kurt stepped outside to find Jerry washing at the bench.
+
+"Jerry, what's keeping the men?" queried Kurt.
+
+"Wal, they're palaverin' out there with two I.W.W. fellers," replied
+Jerry.
+
+Kurt reached for the rope of the farm-bell, and rang it rather sharply.
+Then he went in to take his place at the table, and Jerry soon followed.
+Old man Dorn did not appear, which fact was not unusual. The other hired
+men did not enter until Jerry and Kurt were half done with the meal.
+They seemed excited and somewhat boisterous, Kurt thought, but once they
+settled down to eating, after the manner of hungry laborers, they had
+little to say. Kurt, soon finishing his dinner, went outdoors to wait
+for Jerry. That individual appeared to be long in coming, and loud
+voices in the kitchen attested to further argument. At last, however, he
+lounged out and began to fill a pipe.
+
+"Jerry, I want to talk to you," said Kurt. "Let's get away from the
+house."
+
+The hired man was a big, lumbering fellow, gnarled like an old oak-tree.
+He had a good-natured face and honest eyes.
+
+"I reckon you want to hear about them I.W.W. fellers?" he asked, as they
+walked away.
+
+"Yes," replied Kurt.
+
+"There's been a regular procession of them fellers, the last week or so,
+walkin' through the country," replied Jerry. "To-day's the first time
+any of them got to me. But I've heerd talk. Sunday when I was in Palmer
+the air was full of rumors."
+
+"Rumors of what?" queried Kurt.
+
+"All kinds," answered Jerry, nonchalantly scratching his stubby beard.
+"There's an army of I.W.W.'s comin' in from eastward. Idaho an' Montana
+are gittin' a dose now. Short hours; double wages; join the union;
+sabotage, whatever thet is; capital an' labor fight; threats if you
+don't fall in line; an' Lord knows what all."
+
+"What did those two fellows want of you?"
+
+"Wanted us to join the I.W.W.," replied the laborer.
+
+"Did they want a job?"
+
+"Not as I heerd. Why, one of them had a wad of bills thet would choke a
+cow. He did most of the talkin'. The little feller with the beady eyes
+an' the pock-marks, he didn't say much. He's Austrian an' not long in
+this country. The big stiff--Glidden, he called himself--must be some
+shucks in thet I.W.W. He looked an' talked oily at first--very
+persuadin'; but when I says I wasn't goin' to join no union he got sassy
+an' bossy. They made me sore, so I told him to go to hell. Then he said
+the I.W.W. would run the whole Northwest this summer--wheat-fields,
+lumberin', fruit-harvestin', railroadin'--the whole kaboodle, an' thet
+any workman who wouldn't join would git his, all right."
+
+"Well, Jerry, what do you think about this organization?" queried Kurt,
+anxiously.
+
+"Not much. It ain't a square deal. I ain't got no belief in them. What I
+heerd of their threatenin' methods is like the way this Glidden talks.
+If I owned a farm I'd drive such fellers off with a whip. There's goin'
+to be bad doin's if they come driftin' strong into the Bend."
+
+"Jerry, are you satisfied with your job?"
+
+"Sure. I won't join the I.W.W. An' I'll talk ag'in' it. I reckon a few
+of us will hev to do all the harvestin'. An', considerin' thet, I'll
+take a dollar a day more on my wages."
+
+"If father does not agree to that, I will," said Kurt. "Now how about
+the other men?"
+
+"Wal, they all air leanin' toward promises of little work an' lots of
+pay," answered Jerry, with a laugh. "Morgan's on the fence about
+joinin'. But Andrew agreed. He's Dutch an' pig-headed. Jansen's only too
+glad to make trouble fer his boss. They're goin' to lay off the rest of
+to-day an' talk with Glidden. They all agreed to meet down by the
+culvert. An' thet's what they was arguin' with me fer--wanted me to
+come."
+
+"Where's this man Glidden?" demanded Kurt. "I'll give him a piece of my
+mind."
+
+"I reckon he's hangin' round the farm--out of sight somewhere."
+
+"All right, Jerry. Now you go back to work. You'll never lose anything
+by sticking to us, I promise you that. Keep your eyes and ears open."
+
+Kurt strode back to the house, and his entrance to the kitchen evidently
+interrupted a colloquy of some kind. The hired men were still at table.
+They looked down at their plates and said nothing. Kurt left the
+sitting-room door open, and, turning, he asked Martha if his father had
+been to dinner.
+
+"No, an' what's more, when I called he takes to roarin' like a mad
+bull," replied the woman.
+
+Kurt crossed the sitting-room to knock upon his father's door. The reply
+forthcoming did justify the old woman's comparison. It certainly caused
+the hired men to evacuate the kitchen with alacrity. Old Chris Dorn's
+roar at his son was a German roar, which did not soothe the young man's
+rising temper. Of late the father had taken altogether to speaking
+German. He had never spoken English well. And Kurt was rapidly
+approaching the point where he would not speak German. A deadlock was in
+sight, and Kurt grimly prepared to meet it. He pounded on the locked
+door.
+
+"The men are going to lay off," he called.
+
+"Who runs this farm?" was the thundered reply.
+
+"The I.W.W. is going to run it if you sulk indoors as you have done
+lately," yelled Kurt. He thought that would fetch his father stamping
+out, but he had reckoned falsely. There was no further sound. Leaving
+the room in high dudgeon, Kurt hurried out to catch the hired men near
+at hand and to order them back to work. They trudged off surlily toward
+the barn.
+
+Then Kurt went on to search for the I.W.W. men, and after looking up and
+down the road, and all around, he at length found them behind an old
+strawstack. They were comfortably sitting down, backs to the straw,
+eating a substantial lunch. Kurt was angry and did not care. His
+appearance, however, did not faze the strangers. One of them, an
+American, was a man of about thirty years, clean-shaven, square-jawed,
+with light, steely, secretive gray eyes, and a look of intelligence and
+assurance that did not harmonize with his motley garb. His companion was
+a foreigner, small of stature, with eyes like a ferret and deep pits in
+his sallow face.
+
+"Do you know you're trespassing?" demanded Kurt.
+
+"You grudge us a little shade, eh, even to eat a bite?" said the
+American. He wrapped a paper round his lunch and leisurely rose, to
+fasten penetrating eyes upon the young man. "That's what I heard about
+you rich farmers of the Bend."
+
+"What business have you coming here?" queried Kurt, with sharp heat.
+"You sneak out of sight of the farmers. You trespass to get at our men
+and with a lot of lies and guff you make them discontented with their
+jobs. I'll fire these men just for listening to you."
+
+"Mister Dorn, we want you to fire them. That's my business out here,"
+replied the American.
+
+"Who are you, anyway?"
+
+"That's my business, too."
+
+Kurt passed from hot to cold. He could not miss the antagonism of this
+man, a bold and menacing attitude.
+
+"My foreman says your name's Glidden," went on Kurt, cooler this time,
+"and that you're talking I.W.W. as if you were one of its leaders; that
+you don't want a job; that you've got a wad of money; that you coax,
+then threaten; that you've intimidated three of our hands."
+
+"Your Jerry's a marked man," said Glidden, shortly.
+
+"You impudent scoundrel!" exclaimed Kurt. "Now you listen to this.
+You're the first I.W.W. man I've met. You look and talk like an
+American. But if you are American you're a traitor. We've a war to
+fight! War with a powerful country! Germany! And you come spreading
+discontent in the wheat-fields,... when wheat means life!... Get out of
+here before I--"
+
+"We'll mark you, too, Mister Dorn, and your wheat-fields," snapped
+Glidden.
+
+With one swift lunge Kurt knocked the man flat and then leaped to stand
+over him, watching for a move to draw a weapon. The little foreigner
+slunk back out of reach.
+
+"I'll start a little marking myself," grimly said Kurt. "Get up!"
+
+Slowly Glidden moved from elbow to knees, and then to his feet. His
+cheek was puffing out and his nose was bleeding. The light-gray eyes
+were lurid.
+
+"That's for your I.W.W.!" declared Kurt. "The first rule of your I.W.W.
+is to abolish capital, hey?"
+
+Kurt had not intended to say that. It slipped out in his fury. But the
+effect was striking. Glidden gave a violent start and his face turned
+white. Abruptly he hurried away. His companion shuffled after him. Kurt
+stared at them, thinking the while that if he had needed any proof of
+the crookedness of the I.W.W. he had seen it in Glidden's guilty face.
+The man had been suddenly frightened, and surprise, too, had been
+prominent in his countenance. Then Kurt remembered how Anderson had
+intimated that the secrets of the I.W.W. had been long hidden. Kurt,
+keen and quick in his sensibilities, divined that there was something
+powerful back of this Glidden's cunning and assurance. Could it be only
+the power of a new labor organization? That might well be great, but the
+idea did not convince Kurt. During a hurried and tremendous preparation
+by the government for war, any disorder such as menaced the country
+would be little short of a calamity. It might turn out a fatality. This
+so-called labor union intended to take advantage of a crisis to further
+its own ends. Yet even so, that fact did not wholly explain Glidden and
+his subtlety. Some nameless force loomed dark and sinister back of
+Glidden's meaning, and it was not peril to the wheatlands of the
+Northwest alone.
+
+Like a huge dog Kurt shook himself and launched into action. There were
+sense and pleasure in muscular activity, and it lessened the habit of
+worry. Soon he ascertained that only Morgan had returned to work in the
+fields. Andrew and Jansen were nowhere to be seen. Jansen had left four
+horses hitched to a harrow. Kurt went out to take up the work thus
+abandoned.
+
+It was a long field, and if he had earned a dollar for every time he had
+traversed its length, during the last ten years, he would have been a
+rich man. He could have walked it blindfolded. It was fallow ground,
+already plowed, disked, rolled, and now the last stage was to harrow it,
+loosening the soil, conserving the moisture.
+
+Morgan, far to the other side of this section, had the better of the
+job, for his harrow was a new machine and he could ride while driving
+the horses. But Kurt, using an old harrow, had to walk. The four big
+horses plodded at a gait that made Kurt step out to keep up with them.
+To keep up, to drive a straight line, to hold back on the reins, was
+labor for a man. It spoke well for Kurt that he had followed that old
+harrow hundreds of miles, that he could stand the strain, that he loved
+both the physical sense and the spiritual meaning of the toil.
+
+Driving west, he faced a wind laden with dust as dry as powder. At every
+sheeted cloud, whipping back from the hoofs of the horses and the steel
+spikes of the harrow, he had to bat his eyes to keep from being blinded.
+The smell of dust clogged his nostrils. As soon as he began to sweat
+under the hot sun the dust caked on his face, itching, stinging,
+burning. There was dust between his teeth.
+
+Driving back east was a relief. The wind whipped the dust away from him.
+And he could catch the fragrance of the newly turned soil. How brown and
+clean and earthy it looked! Where the harrow had cut and ridged, the
+soil did not look thirsty and parched. But that which was unharrowed
+cried out for rain. No cloud in the hot sky, except the yellow clouds of
+dust!
+
+On that trip east across the field, which faced the road, Dorn saw
+pedestrians in twos and threes passing by. Once he was hailed, but made
+no answer. He would not have been surprised to see a crowd, yet
+travelers were scarce in that region. The sight of these men, some of
+them carrying bags and satchels, was disturbing to the young farmer.
+Where were they going? All appeared outward bound toward the river. They
+came, of course, from the little towns, the railroads, the cities. At
+this season, with harvest-time near at hand, it had been in former years
+no unusual sight to see strings of laborers passing by. But this year
+they came earlier, and in greater numbers.
+
+With the wind in his face, however, Dorn saw nothing but the horses and
+the brown line ahead, and half the time they were wholly obscured in
+yellow dust. He began thinking about Lenore Anderson, just pondering
+that strange, steady look of a girl's eyes; and then he did not mind the
+dust or heat or distance. Never could he be cheated of his thoughts. And
+those of her, even the painful ones, gave birth to a comfort that he
+knew must abide with him henceforth on lonely labors such as this,
+perhaps in the lonelier watches of a soldier's duty. She had been
+curious, aloof, then sympathetic; she had studied his face; she had been
+an eloquent-eyed listener to his discourse on wheat. But she had not
+guessed his secret. Not until her last look--strange, deep, potent--had
+he guessed that secret himself.
+
+So, with mind both busy and absent, Kurt Dorn harrowed the fallow ground
+abandoned by his men; and when the day was done, with the sun setting
+hot and coppery beyond the dim, dark ranges, he guided the tired horses
+homeward and plodded back of them, weary and spent.
+
+He was to learn from Morgan, at the stables, that the old man had
+discharged both Andrew and Jansen. And Jansen, liberating some newly
+assimilated poison, had threatened revenge. He would see that any hired
+men would learn a thing or two, so that they would not sign up with
+Chris Dorn. In a fury the old man had driven Jansen out into the road.
+
+Sober and moody, Kurt put the horses away, and, washing the dust grime
+from sunburnt face and hands, he went to his little attic room, where he
+changed his damp and sweaty clothes. Then he went down to supper with
+mind made up to be lenient and silent with his old and sorely tried
+father.
+
+Chris Dorn sat in the light of the kitchen lamps. He was a huge man with
+a great, round, bullet-shaped head and a shock of gray hair and
+bristling, grizzled beard. His face was broad, heavy, and seemed sodden
+with dark, brooding thought. His eyes, under bushy brows, were pale
+gleams of fire. He looked immovable as to both bulk and will.
+
+Never before had Kurt Dorn so acutely felt the fixed, contrary, ruthless
+nature of his parent. Never had the distance between them seemed so
+great. Kurt shivered and sighed at once. Then, being hungry, he fell to
+eating in silence. Presently the old man shoved his plate back, and,
+wiping his face, he growled, in German:
+
+"I discharged Andrew and Jansen."
+
+"Yes, I know," replied Kurt. "It wasn't good judgment. What'll we do for
+hands?"
+
+"I'll hire more. Men are coming for the harvest."
+
+"But they all belong to the I.W.W.," protested Kurt.
+
+"And what's that?"
+
+In scarcely subdued wrath Kurt described in detail, and to the best of
+his knowledge, what the I.W.W. was, and he ended by declaring the
+organization treacherous to the United States.
+
+"How's that?" asked old Dorn, gruffly.
+
+Kurt was actually afraid to tell his father, who never read newspapers,
+who knew little of what was going on, that if the Allies were to win the
+war it was wheat that would be the greatest factor. Instead of that he
+said if the I.W.W. inaugurated strikes and disorder in the Northwest it
+would embarrass the government.
+
+"Then I'll hire I.W.W. men," said old Dorn.
+
+Kurt battled against a rising temper. This blind old man was his father.
+
+"But I'll not have I.W.W. men on the farm," retorted Kurt. "I just
+punched one I.W.W. solicitor."
+
+"I'll run this farm. If you don't like my way you can leave," darkly
+asserted the father.
+
+Kurt fell back in his chair and stared at the turgid, bulging forehead
+and hard eyes before him. What could be behind them? Had the war brought
+out a twist in his father's brain? Why were Germans so impossible?
+
+"My Heavens! father, would you turn me out of my home because we
+disagree?" he asked, desperately.
+
+"In my country sons obey their fathers or they go out for themselves."
+
+"I've not been a disobedient son," declared Kurt. "And here in America
+sons have more freedom--more say."
+
+"America has no sense of family life--no honest government. I hate the
+country."
+
+A ball of fire seemed to burst in Kurt.
+
+"That kind of talk infuriates me," he blazed. "I don't care if you are
+my father. Why in the hell did you come to America? Why did you stay?
+Why did you marry my mother--an American woman?... That's rot--just
+spiteful rot! I've heard you tell what life was in Europe when you were
+a boy. You ran off. You stayed in this country because it was a better
+country than yours.... Fifty years you've been in America--many years on
+this farm. And you love this land.... My God! father, can't you and men
+like you see the truth?"
+
+"Aye, I can," gloomily replied the old man. "The truth is we'll lose the
+land. That greedy Anderson will drive me off."
+
+"He will not. He's fine--generous," asserted Kurt, earnestly. "All he
+wanted was to see the prospects of the harvest and perhaps to help you.
+Anderson has not had interest on his money for three years. I'll bet
+he's paid interest demanded by the other stockholders in that bank you
+borrowed from. Why, he's our friend!"
+
+"Aye, and I see more," boomed the father. "He fetched his lass up here
+to make eyes at my son. I saw her--the sly wench!... Boy, you'll not
+marry her!"
+
+Kurt choked back his mounting rage.
+
+"Certainly I never will," he said, bitterly. "But I would if she'd have
+me."
+
+"What!" thundered Dorn, his white locks standing up and shaking like the
+mane of a lion. "That wheat banker's daughter! Never! I forbid it. You
+shall not marry any American girl."
+
+"Father, this is idle, foolish rant," cried Kurt, with a high warning
+note in his voice. "I've no idea of marrying.... But if I had one--whom
+else could I marry except an American girl?"
+
+"I'll sell the wheat--the land. We'll go back to Germany!"
+
+That was maddening to Kurt. He sprang up, sending dishes to the floor
+with a crash. He bent over to pound the table with a fist. Violent
+speech choked him and he felt a cold, tight blanching of his face.
+
+"Listen!" he rang out. "If I go to Germany it'll be as a soldier--to
+kill Germans!... I'm done--I'm through with the very name.... Listen to
+the last words I'll ever speak to you in German--the last! _To hell with
+Germany_!"
+
+Then Kurt plunged, blind in his passion, out of the door into the night.
+And as he went he heard his father cry out, brokenly:
+
+"My son! Oh, my son!"
+
+The night was dark and cool. A faint wind blew across the hills, and it
+was dry, redolent, sweet. The sky seemed an endless curving canopy of
+dark blue blazing with myriads of stars.
+
+Kurt staggered out of the yard, down along the edge of a wheat-field, to
+one of the straw-stacks, and there he flung himself down in an agony.
+
+"Oh, I'm ruined--ruined!" he moaned. "The break--has come!... Poor old
+dad!"
+
+He leaned there against the straw, shaking and throbbing, with a cold
+perspiration bathing face and body. Even the palms of his hands were
+wet. A terrible fit of anger was beginning to loose its hold upon him.
+His breathing was labored in gasps and sobs. Unutterable stupidity of
+his father--horrible cruelty of his position! What had he ever done in
+all his life to suffer under such a curse? Yet almost he clung to his
+wrath, for it had been righteous. That thing, that infernal twist in the
+brain, that was what was wrong with his father. His father who had been
+fifty years in the United States! How simple, then, to understand what
+was wrong with Germany.
+
+"By God! I am--American!" he panted, and it was as if he called to the
+grave of his mother, over there on the dark, windy hill.
+
+That tremendous uprising of his passion had been a vortex, an end, a
+decision. And he realized that even to that hour there had been a drag
+in his blood. It was over now. The hell was done with. His soul was
+free. This weak, quaking body of his housed his tainted blood and the
+emotions of his heart, but it could not control his mind, his will. Beat
+by beat the helpless fury in him subsided, and then he fell back and lay
+still for a long time, eyes shut, relaxed and still.
+
+A hound bayed mournfully; the insects chirped low, incessantly; the
+night wind rustled the silken heads of wheat.
+
+After a while the young man sat up and looked at the heavens, at the
+twinkling white stars, and then away across the shadows of round hills
+in the dusk. How lonely, sad, intelligible, and yet mystic the night and
+the scene!
+
+What came to him then was revealing, uplifting--a source of strength to
+go on. He was not to blame for what had happened; he could not change
+the future. He had a choice between playing the part of a man or that of
+a coward, and he had to choose the former. There seemed to be a spirit
+beside him--the spirit of his mother or of some one who loved him and
+who would have him be true to an ideal, and, if needful, die for it. No
+night in all his life before had been like this one. The dreaming hills
+with their precious rustling wheat meant more than even a spirit could
+tell. Where had the wheat come from that had seeded these fields? Whence
+the first and original seeds, and where were the sowers? Back in the
+ages! The stars, the night, the dark blue of heaven hid the secret in
+their impenetrableness. Beyond them surely was the answer, and perhaps
+peace.
+
+Material things--life, success--such as had inspired Kurt Dorn, on this
+calm night lost their significance and were seen clearly. They could not
+last. But the wheat there, the hills, the stars--they would go on with
+their task. Passion was the dominant side of a man declaring itself, and
+that was a matter of inheritance. But self-sacrifice, with its mercy,
+its succor, its seed like the wheat, was as infinite as the stars. He
+had long made up his mind, yet that had not given him absolute
+restraint. The world was full of little men, but he refused to stay
+little. This war that had come between him and his father had been bred
+of the fumes of self-centered minds, turned with an infantile fatality
+to greedy desires. His poor old blinded father could be excused and
+forgiven. There were other old men, sick, crippled, idle, who must
+suffer pain, but whose pain could be lightened. There were babies,
+children, women, who must suffer for the sins of men, but that suffering
+need no longer be, if men became honest and true.
+
+His sudden up-flashing love had a few hours back seemed a calamity. But
+out there beside the whispering wheat, under the passionless stars, in
+the dreaming night, it had turned into a blessing. He asked nothing but
+to serve. To serve her, his country, his future! All at once he who had
+always yearned for something unattainable had greatness thrust upon him.
+His tragical situation had evoked a spirit from the gods.
+
+To kiss that blue-eyed girl's sweet lips would be a sum of joy, earthly,
+all-satisfying, precious. The man in him trembled all over at the daring
+thought. He might revel in such dreams, and surrender to them, since she
+would never know, but the divinity he sensed there in the presence of
+those stars did not dwell on a woman's lips. Kisses were for the
+present, the all too fleeting present; and he had to concern himself
+with what he might do for one girl's future. It was exquisitely sad and
+sweet to put it that way, though Kurt knew that if he had never seen
+Lenore Anderson he would have gone to war just the same. He was not
+making an abstract sacrifice.
+
+The wheat-fields rolling before him, every clod of which had been
+pressed by his bare feet as a boy; the father whose changeless blood had
+sickened at the son of his loins; the life of hope, freedom, of action,
+of achievement, of wonderful possibility--these seemed lost to Kurt
+Dorn, a necessary renunciation when he yielded to the call of war.
+
+But no loss, no sting of bullet or bayonet, no torturing victory of
+approaching death, could balance in the scale against the thought of a
+picture of one American girl--blue-eyed, red-lipped, golden-haired--as
+she stepped somewhere in the future, down a summer lane or through a
+blossoming orchard, on soil that was free.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Toward the end of July eastern Washington sweltered under the most
+torrid spell of heat on record. It was a dry, high country, noted for an
+equable climate, with cool summers and mild winters. And this
+unprecedented wave would have been unbearable had not the atmosphere
+been free from humidity.
+
+The haze of heat seemed like a pall of thin smoke from distant forest
+fires. The sun rose, a great, pale-red ball, hot at sunrise, and it
+soared blazing-white at noon, to burn slowly westward through a
+cloudless, coppery sky, at last to set sullen and crimson over the
+ranges.
+
+Spokane, being the only center of iron, steel, brick, and masonry in
+this area, resembled a city of furnaces. Business was slack. The asphalt
+of the streets left clean imprints of a pedestrian's feet; bits of
+newspaper stuck fast to the hot tar. Down by the gorge, where the great
+green river made its magnificent plunges over the falls, people
+congregated, tarried, and were loath to leave, for here the blowing mist
+and the air set into motion by the falling water created a temperature
+that was relief.
+
+Citizens talked of the protracted hot spell, of the blasted crops, of an
+almost sure disaster to the wheat-fields, and of the activities of the
+I.W.W. Even the war, for the time being, gave place to the nearer
+calamities impending.
+
+Montana had taken drastic measures against the invading I.W.W. The
+Governor of Idaho had sent word to the camps of the organization that
+they had five days to leave that state. Spokane was awakening to the
+menace of hordes of strange, idle men who came in on the westbound
+freight-trains. The railroads had been unable to handle the situation.
+They were being hard put to it to run trains at all. The train crews
+that refused to join the I.W.W. had been threatened, beaten, shot at,
+and otherwise intimidated.
+
+The Chamber of Commerce sent an imperative appeal to representative
+wheat-raisers, ranchers, lumbermen, farmers, and bade them come to
+Spokane to discuss the situation. They met at the Hotel Davenport, where
+luncheon was served in one of the magnificently appointed dining-halls
+of that most splendid hotel in the West.
+
+The lion of this group of Spokane capitalists was Riesinberg, a man of
+German forebears, but all American in his sympathies, with a son already
+in the army. Riesinberg was president of a city bank and of the Chamber
+of Commerce. His first words to the large assembly of clean-cut,
+square-jawed, intent-eyed Westerners were: "Gentlemen, we are here to
+discuss the most threatening and unfortunate situation the Northwest was
+ever called upon to meet." His address was not long, but it was
+stirring. The Chamber of Commerce could provide unlimited means, could
+influence and control the state government; but it was from the visitors
+invited to this meeting, the men of the outlying districts which were
+threatened, that objective proofs must come and the best methods of
+procedure.
+
+The first facts to come out were that many crops were ruined already,
+but, owing to the increased acreage that year, a fair yield was
+expected; that wheat in the Bend would be a failure, though some farmers
+here and there would harvest well; that the lumber districts were not
+operating, on account of the I.W.W.
+
+Then it was that the organization of men who called themselves the
+Industrial Workers of the World drew the absorbed attention of the
+meeting. Depredations already committed stunned the members of the
+Chamber of Commerce.
+
+President Riesinberg called upon Beardsley, a prominent and intelligent
+rancher of the southern wheat-belt. Beardsley said:
+
+    "It is difficult to speak with any moderation of the outrageous
+    eruption of the I.W.W. It is nothing less than rebellion, and the
+    most effective means of suppressing rebellion is to apply a little
+    of that 'direct action' which is the favorite diversion of the
+    I.W.W.'s.
+
+    "The I.W.W. do not intend to accomplish their treacherous aims by
+    anything so feeble as speech; they scorn the ballot-box. They are
+    against the war, and their method of making known their protest is
+    by burning our grain, destroying our lumber, and blowing up
+    freight-trains. They seek to make converts not by argument, but by
+    threats and intimidation.
+
+    "We read that Western towns are seeking to deport these rebels. In
+    the old days we can imagine more drastic measures would have been
+    taken. The Westerners were handy with the rope and the gun in those
+    days. We are not counseling lynch law, but we think deportation is
+    too mild a punishment.
+
+    "We are too 'civilized' to apply the old Roman law, 'Spare the
+    conquered and extirpate the rebels,' but at least we could intern
+    them. The British have found it practicable to put German prisoners
+    to work at useful employment. Why couldn't we do the same with our
+    rebel I.W.W.'s?"
+
+Jones, a farmer from the Yakima Valley, told that business men,
+housewives, professional men, and high-school boys and girls would help
+to save the crop of Washington to the nation in case of labor trouble.
+Steps already had been taken to mobilize workers in stores, offices, and
+homes for work in the orchards and grain-fields, should the I.W.W.
+situation seriously threaten harvests.
+
+Pledges to go into the hay or grain fields or the orchards, with a
+statement of the number of days they were willing to work, had been
+signed by virtually all the men in North Yakima.
+
+Helmar, lumberman from the Blue Mountains, spoke feelingly; he said:
+
+    "My company is the owner of a considerable amount of timbered lands
+    and timber purchased from the state and from individuals. We have
+    been engaged in logging that land until our operations have been
+    stopped and our business paralyzed by an organization which calls
+    itself the Industrial Workers of the World, and by members of that
+    organization, and other lawless persons acting in sympathy with
+    them.
+
+    "Our employees have been threatened with physical violence and
+    death.
+
+    "Our works are picketed by individuals who camp out in the forests
+    and who intimidate and threaten our employees.
+
+    "Open threats have been made that our works, our logs, and our
+    timber will all be burned.
+
+    "Sabotage is publicly preached in the meetings, and in the
+    literature of the organization it is advised and upheld.
+
+    "The open boast is made that the lumbering industry, with all other
+    industry, will be paralyzed by this organization, by the destruction
+    of property used in industry and by the intimidation of laborers who
+    are willing to work.
+
+    "A real and present danger to the property of my company exists.
+    Unless protection is given to us it will probably be burned and
+    destroyed. Our lawful operations cannot be conducted because
+    laborers who are willing to work are fearful of their lives and are
+    subject to abuse, threats, and violence. Our camps, when in
+    operation, are visited by individuals belonging to the said
+    organization, and the men peaceably engaged in them threatened with
+    death if they do not cease work. All sorts of injury to property by
+    the driving of spikes in logs, the destruction of logs, and other
+    similar acts are encouraged and recommended.
+
+    "As I pointed out to the sheriff of our county, the season is a very
+    dry one and the woods are and will be, unless rain comes, in danger
+    of disastrous fires. The organization and its members have openly
+    and repeatedly asserted that they will burn the logs in the woods
+    and burn the forests of this company and other timber-holders before
+    they will permit logging operations to continue.
+
+    "Many individuals belonging to the organization are camped in the
+    open in the timbered country, and their very presence is a fire
+    menace. They are engaged in no business except to interfere with the
+    industry and to interfere with the logging of this company and
+    others who engaged in the logging business.
+
+    "We have done what we could in a lawful manner to continue our
+    operations and to protect our employees. We are now helpless, and
+    place the responsibility for the protection of our property and the
+    protection of our employees upon the board of county commissioners
+    and upon the officers of the county."
+
+Next President Riesinberg called upon a young reporter to read
+paragraphs of an I.W.W. speech he had heard made to a crowd of three
+hundred workmen. It was significant that several members of the Chamber
+of Commerce called for a certain paragraph to be reread. It was this:
+
+    "If you working-men could only stand together you could do in this
+    country what has been done in Russia," declared the I.W.W. orator.
+    "You know what the working-men did there to the slimy curs, the
+    gunmen, and the stool-pigeons of the capitalistic class. They bumped
+    them off. They sent them up to say, 'Good morning, Jesus.'"
+
+After a moment of muttering and another silence the president again
+addressed the meeting:
+
+    "Gentlemen, we have Anderson of Golden Valley with us to-day. If
+    there are any of you present who do not know him, you surely have
+    heard of him. His people were pioneers. He was born in Washington.
+    He is a type of the men who have made the Northwest. He fought the
+    Indians in early days and packed a gun for the outlaws--and to-day,
+    gentlemen, he owns a farm as big as Spokane County. We want to hear
+    from him."
+
+When Anderson rose to reply it was seen that he was pale and somber.
+Slowly he gazed at the assembly of waiting men, bowed; then he began,
+impressively:
+
+    "Gentlemen an' friends, I wish I didn't have to throw a bomb into
+    this here camp-fire talk. But I've got to. You're all talkin' I.W.W.
+    Facts have been told showin' a strange an' sudden growth of this
+    here four-flush labor union. We've had dealin's with them for
+    several years. But this year it's different.... All at once they've
+    multiplied and strengthened. There's somethin' behind them. A big
+    unseen hand is stackin' the deck.... An', countrymen, that
+    tremendous power is German gold!"
+
+Anderson's deep voice rang like a bell. His hearers sat perfectly
+silent. No surprise showed, but faces grew set and hard. After a pause
+of suspense, in which his denunciation had time to sink in, Anderson
+resumed:
+
+    "A few weeks ago a young man, a stranger, came to me an' asked for a
+    job. He could do anythin', he said. An' I hired him to drive my car.
+    But he wasn't much of a driver. We went up in the Bend country one
+    day, an' on that trip I got suspicious of him. I caught him talkin'
+    to what I reckoned was I.W.W. men. An' then, back home again, I
+    watched him an' kept my ears open. It didn't take long for me to
+    find discontent among my farm-hands. I hire about a hundred hands on
+    my ranches durin' the long off season, an' when harvest comes round
+    a good many more. All I can get, in fact.... Well, I found my hands
+    quittin' me, which was sure onusual. An' I laid it to that driver.
+
+    "One day not long ago I run across him hobnobbin' with the strange
+    man I'd seen talkin' with him on the Bend trip. But my driver--Nash,
+    he calls himself--didn't see me. That night I put a cowboy to watch
+    him. An' what this cowboy heard, put together two an' two, was that
+    Nash was assistant to an I.W.W. leader named Glidden. He had sent
+    for Glidden to come to look over my ranch. Both these I.W.W. men had
+    more money than they could well carry--lots of it gold! The way they
+    talked of this money proved that they did not know the source, but
+    the supply was unlimited.
+
+    "Next day Glidden could not be found. But my cowboy had learned
+    enough to show his methods. If these proselyters could not coax or
+    scare trusted men to join the I.W.W., they tried to corrupt them
+    with money. An' in most cases they're successful. I've not yet
+    sprung anythin' on my driver, Nash. But he can't get away, an'
+    meanwhile I'll learn much by watchin' him. Maybe through Nash I can
+    catch Glidden. An' so, gentlemen, here we have a plain case. An' the
+    menace is enough to chill the heart of every loyal citizen. Any way
+    you put it, if harvests can't be harvested, if wheat-fields an'
+    lumber forests are burned, if the state militia has to be called
+    out--any way you put it our government will be hampered, our
+    supplies kept from our allies--an' so the cause of Germany will be
+    helped.
+
+    "The I.W.W. have back of them an organized power with a definite
+    purpose. There can hardly be any doubt that that power is Germany.
+    The agitators an' leaders throughout the country are well paid.
+    Probably they, as individuals, do not know who pays them.
+    Undoubtedly a little gang of men makes the deals, handles the money.
+    We read that every U.S. attorney is investigating the I.W.W. The
+    government has determined to close down on them. But lawyers an' law
+    are slow to act. Meanwhile the danger to us is at hand.
+
+    "Gentlemen, to finish let me say that down in my country we're goin'
+    to rustle the I.W.W. in the good old Western way."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Golden Valley was the Garden of Eden of the Northwest. The southern
+slope rose to the Blue Mountains, whence flowed down the innumerable
+brooks that, uniting to form streams and rivers, abundantly watered the
+valley.
+
+The black reaches of timber extended down to the grazing-uplands, and
+these bordered on the sloping golden wheat-fields, which in turn
+contrasted so vividly with the lower green alfalfa-pastures; then came
+the orchards with their ruddy, mellow fruit, and lastly the bottom-lands
+where the vegetable-gardens attested to the wonderful richness of the
+soil. From the mountain-side the valley seemed a series of colored
+benches, stepping down, black to gray, and gray to gold, and gold to
+green with purple tinge, and on to the perfectly ordered, many-hued
+floor with its innumerable winding, tree-bordered streams glinting in
+the sunlight.
+
+The extremes of heat and cold never visited Golden Valley. Spokane and
+the Bend country, just now sweltering in a torrid zone, might as well
+have been in the Sahara, for all the effect it had on this garden spot
+of all the Inland Empire. It was hot in the valley, but not unpleasant.
+In fact, the greatest charm in this secluded vale was its pleasant
+climate all the year round. No summer cyclones, no winter blizzards, no
+cloudbursts or bad thunderstorms. It was a country that, once lived in,
+could never be left.
+
+There were no poor inhabitants in that great area of twenty-five hundred
+miles; and there were many who were rich. Prosperous little towns dotted
+the valley floor; and the many smooth, dusty, much-used roads all led to
+Ruxton, a wealthy and fine city.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Anderson, the rancher, had driven his car to Spokane. Upon his return he
+had with him a detective, whom he expected to use in the I.W.W.
+investigations, and a neighbor rancher. They had left Spokane early and
+had endured almost insupportable dust and heat. A welcome change began
+as they slid down from the bare desert into the valley; and once across
+the Copper River, Anderson began to breathe freer and to feel he was
+nearing home.
+
+"God's country!" he said, as he struck the first low swell of rising
+land, where a cool wind from off the wooded and watered hills greeted
+his face. Dust there still was, but it seemed a different kind and
+smelled of apple-orchards and alfalfa-fields. Here were hard, smooth
+roads, and Anderson sped his car miles and miles through a country that
+was a verdant fragrant bower, and across bright, shady streams and by
+white little hamlets.
+
+At Huntington he dropped his neighbor rancher, and also the detective,
+Hall, who was to go disguised into the districts overrun by the I.W.W. A
+further run of forty miles put him on his own property.
+
+Anderson owned a string of farms and ranches extending from the
+bottom-lands to the timber-line of the mountains. They represented his
+life of hard work and fair dealing. Many of these orchard and vegetable
+lands he had tenant farmers work on shares. The uplands or wheat and
+grass he operated himself. As he had accumulated property he had changed
+his place of residence from time to time, at last to build a beautiful
+and permanent home farther up on the valley slope than any of the
+others.
+
+It was a modern house, white, with a red roof. Situated upon a high
+level bench, with the waving gold fields sloping up from it and the
+green squares of alfalfa and orchards below, it appeared a landmark from
+all around, and could be plainly seen from Vale, the nearest little
+town, five miles away.
+
+Anderson had always loved the open, and he wanted a place where he could
+see the sun rise over the distant valley gateway, and watch it set
+beyond the bold black range in the west. He could sit on his front
+porch, wide and shady, and look down over two thousand acres of his own
+land. But from the back porch no eye could have encompassed the limit of
+his broad, swelling slopes of grain and grass.
+
+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-hoss."
+
+"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?
+
+"I thought he was Neuman," replied Kurt, feeling his way. "Is he in on
+the big deal with father?"
+
+"Which one?" queried the proprietor, with shrewd eyes, taking Kurt's
+measure. "You're in on both, of course."
+
+"Sure. I mean the wheat sale, not the I.W.W. deal," replied Kurt. He
+hazarded a guess with that mention of the I.W.W. No sooner had the words
+passed his lips than he divined he was on the track of sinister events.
+
+"Your father sold out to that Spokane miller. No, Neuman is not in on
+that."
+
+"I was surprised to hear father had sold the wheat. Was it speculation
+or guarantee?"
+
+"Old Chris guaranteed sixty bushels. There were friends of his here who
+advised against it. Did you have rain over there?"
+
+"Fine. The wheat will go over sixty bushels. I'm sorry I couldn't get
+here sooner."
+
+"When it rained you hurried over to boost the price. Well, it's too
+late."
+
+"Is Glidden here?" queried Kurt, hazarding another guess.
+
+"Don't talk so loud," warned the proprietor. "Yes, he just got here in a
+car with two other men. He's up-stairs having supper in his room."
+
+"Supper!" Kurt echoed the word, and averted his face to hide the leap of
+his blood. "That reminds me, I'm hungry."
+
+He went into the big, dimly lighted dining-room. There was a shelf on
+one side as he went in, and here, with his back turned to the room, he
+laid the disjointed gun and his hat. Several newspapers lying near
+attracted his eye. Quickly he slipped them under and around the gun, and
+then took a seat at the nearest table. A buxom German waitress came for
+his order. He gave it while he gazed around at his grim-faced old father
+and the burly Neuman, and his ears throbbed to the beat of his blood.
+His hand trembled on the table. His thoughts flashed almost too swiftly
+for comprehension. It took a stern effort to gain self-control.
+
+Evil of some nature was afoot. Neuman's presence there was a strange,
+disturbing fact. Kurt had made two guesses, both alarmingly correct. If
+he had any more illusions or hopes, he dispelled them. His father had
+been won over by this arch conspirator of the I.W.W. And, despite his
+father's close-fistedness where money was concerned, that eighty
+thousand dollars, or part of it, was in danger.
+
+Kurt wondered how he could get possession of it. If he could he would
+return it to the bank and wire a warning to the Spokane buyer that the
+wheat was not safe. He might persuade his father to turn over the amount
+of the debt to Anderson. While thinking and planning, Kurt kept an eye
+on his father and rather neglected his supper. Presently, when old Dorn
+and Neuman rose and left the dining-room, Kurt followed them. His father
+was whispering to the proprietor over the desk, and at Kurt's touch he
+glared his astonishment.
+
+"You here! What for?" he demanded, gruffly, in German.
+
+"I had to see you," replied Kurt, in English.
+
+"Did it rain?" was the old man's second demand, husky and serious.
+
+"The wheat is made, if we can harvest it," answered Kurt.
+
+The blaze of joy on old Dorn's face gave Kurt a twinge of pain. He hated
+to dispel it. "Come aside, here, a minute," he whispered, and drew his
+father over to a corner under a lamp. "I've got bad news. Look at this!"
+He produced the cake of phosphorus, careful to hide it from other
+curious eyes there, and with swift, low words he explained its meaning.
+He expected an outburst of surprise and fury, but he was mistaken.
+
+"I know about that," whispered his father, hoarsely. "There won't be any
+thrown in my wheat."
+
+"Father! What assurance have you of that?" queried Kurt, astounded.
+
+The old man nodded his gray head wisely. He knew, but he did not speak.
+
+"Do you think these I.W.W. plotters will spare your wheat?" asked Kurt.
+"You are wrong. They may lie to your face. But they'll betray you. The
+I.W.W. is backed by--by interests that want to embarrass the
+government."
+
+"What government?"
+
+"Why, ours--the U.S. government!"
+
+"That's not my government. The more it's embarrassed the better it will
+suit me."
+
+In the stress of the moment Kurt had forgotten his father's bitter and
+unchangeable hatred.
+
+"But you're--you're stupid," he hissed, passionately. "That government
+has protected you for fifty years."
+
+Old Dorn growled into his beard. His huge ox-eyes rolled. Kurt realized
+then finally how implacable and hopeless he was--how utterly German.
+Then Kurt importuned him to return the eighty thousand dollars to the
+bank until he was sure the wheat was harvested and hauled to the
+railroad.
+
+"My wheat won't burn," was old Dorn's stubborn reply.
+
+"Well, then, give me Anderson's thirty thousand. I'll take it to him at
+once. Our debt will be paid. We'll have it off our minds."
+
+"No hurry about that," replied his father.
+
+"But there is hurry," returned Kurt, in a hot whisper. "Anderson came to
+see you to-day. He wants his money."
+
+"Neuman holds the small end of that debt. I'll pay him. Anderson can
+wait."
+
+Kurt felt no amaze. He expected anything. But he could scarcely contain
+his fury. How this old man, his father, whom he had loved--how he had
+responded to the influences that must destroy him!
+
+"Anderson shall not wait," declared Kurt. "I've got some say in this
+matter. I've worked like a dog in those wheat-fields. I've a right to
+demand Anderson's money. He needs it. He has a tremendous harvest on his
+hands."
+
+Old Dorn shook his huge head in somber and gloomy thought. His broad
+face, his deep eyes, seemed to mask and to hide. It was an expression
+Kurt had seldom seen there, but had always hated. It seemed so old to
+Kurt, that alien look, something not born of his time.
+
+"Anderson is a capitalist," said Chris Dorn, deep in his beard. "He
+seeks control of farmers and wheat in the Northwest. Ranch after ranch
+he's gained by taking up and foreclosing mortgages. He's against labor.
+He grinds down the poor. He cheated Neuman out of a hundred thousand
+bushels of wheat. He bought up my debt. He meant to ruin me. He--"
+
+"You're talking I.W.W. rot," whispered Kurt, shaking with the effort to
+subdue his feelings. "Anderson is fine, big, square--a developer of the
+Northwest. Not an enemy! He's our friend. Oh! if only you had an
+American's eyes, just for a minute!... Father, I want that money for
+Anderson."
+
+"My son, I run my own business," replied Dorn, sullenly, with a pale
+fire in his opaque eyes. "You're a wild boy, unfaithful to your blood.
+You've fallen in love with an American girl.... Anderson says he needs
+money!"... With hard, gloomy face the old man shook his head. "He thinks
+he'll harvest!" Again that strange shake of finality. "I know what I
+know.... I keep my money.... We'll have other rule.... I keep my money."
+
+Kurt had vibrated to those most significant words and he stared
+speechless at his father.
+
+"Go home. Get ready for harvest," suddenly ordered old Dorn, as if he
+had just awakened to the fact of Kurt's disobedience in lingering here.
+
+"All right, father," replied Kurt, and, turning on his heel, he strode
+outdoors.
+
+When he got beyond the light he turned and went back to a position where
+in the dark he could watch without being seen. His father and the hotel
+proprietor were again engaged in earnest colloquy. Neuman had
+disappeared. Kurt saw the huge shadow of a man pass across a drawn blind
+in a room up-stairs. Then he saw smaller shadows, and arms raised in
+vehement gesticulation. The very shadows were sinister. Men passed in
+and out of the hotel. Once old Dorn came to the door and peered all
+around. Kurt observed that there was a dark side entrance to this hotel.
+Presently Neuman returned to the desk and said something to old Dorn,
+who shook his head emphatically, and then threw himself into a chair, in
+a brooding posture that Kurt knew well. He had seen it so often that he
+knew it had to do with money. His father was refusing demands of some
+kind. Neuman again left the office, this time with the proprietor. They
+were absent some little time.
+
+During this period Kurt leaned against a tree, hidden in the shadow,
+with keen eyes watching and with puzzled, anxious mind. He had
+determined, in case his father left that office with Neuman, on one of
+those significant disappearances, to slip into the hotel at the side
+entrance and go up-stairs to listen at the door of the room with the
+closely drawn blind. Neuman returned soon with the hotel man, and the
+two of them half led, half dragged old Dorn out into the street. They
+took the direction toward the railroad. Kurt followed at a safe distance
+on the opposite side of the street. Soon they passed the stores with
+lighted windows, then several dark houses, and at length the railroad
+station. Perhaps they were bound for the train. Kurt heard rumbling in
+the distance. But they went beyond the station, across the track, and
+turned to the right.
+
+Kurt was soft-footed and keen-eyed. He just kept the dim shadows in
+range. They were heading for some freight-cars that stood upon a
+side-track. The dark figures disappeared behind them. Then one figure
+reappeared, coming back. Kurt crouched low. This man passed within a few
+yards of Kurt and he was whispering to himself. After he was safely out
+of earshot Kurt stole on stealthily until he reached the end of the
+freight-cars. Here he paused, listening. He thought he heard low voices,
+but he could not see the men he was following. No doubt they were
+waiting in the secluded gloom for the other men apparently necessary for
+that secret conference. Kurt had sensed this event and he had determined
+to be present. He tried not to conjecture. It was best for him to apply
+all his faculties to the task of slipping unseen and unheard close to
+these men who had involved his father in some dark plot.
+
+Not long after Kurt hid himself on the other side of the freight-car he
+heard soft-padded footsteps and subdued voices. Dark shapes appeared to
+come out of the gloom. They passed him. He distinguished low, guttural
+voices, speaking German. These men, three in number, were scarcely out
+of sight when Kurt laid his rifle on the projecting shelf of the
+freight-car and followed them.
+
+Presently he came to deep shadow, where he paused. Low voices drew him
+on again, then a light made him thrill. Now and then the light appeared
+to be darkened by moving figures. A dark object loomed up to cut off
+Kurt's view. It was a pile of railroad ties, and beyond it loomed
+another. Stealing along these, he soon saw the light again, quite close.
+By its glow he recognized his father's huge frame, back to him, and the
+burly Neuman on the other side, and Glidden, whose dark face was working
+as he talked. These three were sitting, evidently on a flat pile of
+ties, and the other two men stood behind. Kurt could not make out the
+meaning of the low voices. Pressing closer to the freight-car, he
+cautiously and noiselessly advanced.
+
+Glidden was importuning with expressive hands and swift, low utterance.
+His face gleamed dark, hard, strong, intensely strung with corded,
+quivering muscles, with eyes apparently green orbs of fire. He spoke in
+German.
+
+Kurt dared not go closer unless he wanted to be discovered, and not yet
+was he ready for that. He might hear some word to help explain his
+father's strange, significant intimations about Anderson.
+
+"...must--have--money," Glidden was saying. To Kurt's eyes treachery
+gleamed in that working face. Neuman bent over to whisper gruffly in
+Dorn's ear. One of the silent men standing rubbed his hands together.
+Old Dorn's head was bowed. Then Glidden spoke so low and so swiftly that
+Kurt could not connect sentences, but with mounting blood he stood
+transfixed and horrified, to gather meaning from word on word, until he
+realized Anderson's doom, with other rich men of the Northwest, was
+sealed--that there were to be burnings of wheat-fields and of
+storehouses and of freight-trains--destruction everywhere.
+
+"I give money," said old Dorn, and with heavy movement he drew from
+inside his coat a large package wrapped in newspaper. He laid it before
+him in the light and began to unwrap it. Soon there were disclosed two
+bundles of bills--the eighty thousand dollars.
+
+Kurt thrilled in all his being. His poor father was being misled and
+robbed. A melancholy flash of comfort came to Kurt! Then at sight of
+Glidden's hungry eyes and working face and clutching hands Kurt pulled
+his hat far down, drew his revolver, and leaped forward with a yell,
+"Hands up!"
+
+He discharged the revolver right in the faces of the stunned plotters,
+and, snatching up the bundle of money, he leaped over the light,
+knocking one of the men down, and was gone into the darkness, without
+having slowed in the least his swift action.
+
+Wheeling round the end of the freight-car, he darted back, risking a
+hard fall in the darkness, and ran along the several cars to the first
+one, where he grasped his rifle and kept on. He heard his father's roar,
+like that of a mad bull, and shrill yells from the other men. Kurt
+laughed grimly. They would never catch him in the dark. While he ran he
+stuffed the money into his inside coat pockets. Beyond the railroad
+station he slowed down to catch his breath. His breast was heaving, his
+pulse hammering, and his skin was streaming. The excitement was the
+greatest under which he had ever labored.
+
+"Now--what shall--I do?" he panted. A freight-train was lumbering toward
+him and the head-light was almost at the station. The train appeared to
+be going slowly through without stopping. Kurt hurried on down the track
+a little farther. Then he waited. He would get on that train and make
+his way somehow to Ruxton, there to warn Anderson of the plot against
+his life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Kurt rode to Adrian on that freight, and upon arriving in the yards
+there he jumped off, only to mount another, headed south. He meant to be
+traveling while it was dark. No passenger-trains ran at night and he
+wanted to put as much distance between him and Wheatly as possible
+before daylight.
+
+He had piled into an open box-car. It was empty, at least of freight,
+and the floor appeared to have a thin covering of hay. The train,
+gathering headway, made a rattling rolling roar. Kurt hesitated about
+getting up and groping back in the pitch-black corners of the car. He
+felt that it contained a presence besides his own. And suddenly he was
+startled by an object blacker than the shadow, that sidled up close to
+him. Kurt could not keep the cold chills from chasing up and down his
+back. The object was a man, who reached for Kurt and felt of him with a
+skinny hand.
+
+"I.W.W.?" he whispered, hoarsely, in Kurt's ear.
+
+"Yes," replied Kurt.
+
+"Was that Adrian where you got on?"
+
+"It sure was," answered Kurt, with grim humor.
+
+"Than you're the feller?"
+
+"Sure," replied Kurt. It was evident that he had embarked upon an
+adventure.
+
+"When do we stall this freight?"
+
+"Not while we're on it, you can gamble."
+
+Other dark forms sidled out of the gloomy depths of that cavern-like
+corner and drew close to Kurt. He realized that he had fallen in with
+I.W.W. men who apparently had taken him for an expected messenger or
+leader. He was importuned for tobacco, drink, and money, and he judged
+that his begging companions consisted of an American tramp, an Austrian,
+a negro, and a German. Fine society to fall into! That eighty thousand
+dollars became a tremendous burden.
+
+"How many men on this freight?" queried Kurt, thinking he could ask
+questions better than answer them. And he was told there were about
+twenty-five, all of whom expected money. At this information Kurt rather
+closely pressed his hand upon the revolver in his side coat pocket. By
+asking questions and making judicious replies he passed what he felt was
+the dark mark in that mixed company of I.W.W. men; and at length, one by
+one, they melted away to their warmer corners, leaving Kurt by the door.
+He did not mind the cold. He wanted to be where, at the first indication
+of a stop, he could jump off the train.
+
+With his hand on his gun and hugging the bulging coat pockets close to
+him, Kurt settled himself for what he believed would be interminable
+hours. He strained eyes and ears for a possible attack from the riffraff
+I.W.W. men hidden there in the car. And that was why, perhaps, that it
+seemed only a short while until the train bumped and slowed, preparatory
+to stopping. The instant it was safe Kurt jumped out and stole away in
+the gloom. A fence obstructed further passage. He peered around to make
+out that he was in a road. Thereupon he hurried along it until he was
+out of hearing of the train. There was light in the east, heralding a
+dawn that Kurt surely would welcome. He sat down to wait, and addressed
+to his bewildered judgment a query as to whether or not he ought to keep
+on carrying the burdensome rifle. It was not only heavy, but when
+daylight came it might attract attention, and his bulging coat would
+certainly invite curiosity. He was in a predicament; nevertheless, he
+decided to hang on to the rifle.
+
+He almost fell asleep, waiting there with his back against a fence-post.
+The dawn came, and then the rosy sunrise. And he discovered, not half a
+mile away, a good-sized town, where he believed he surely could hire an
+automobile.
+
+Waiting grew to be so tedious that he decided to risk the early hour,
+and proceeded toward the town. Upon the outskirts he met a farmer boy,
+who, in reply to a question, said that the town was Connell. Kurt found
+another early riser in the person of a blacksmith who evidently was a
+Yankee and proud of it. He owned a car that he was willing to hire out
+on good security. Kurt satisfied him on that score, and then proceeded
+to ask how to get across the Copper River and into Golden Valley. The
+highway followed the railroad from that town to Kahlotus, and there
+crossed a big trunk-line railroad, to turn south toward the river.
+
+In half an hour, during which time Kurt was enabled to breakfast, the
+car was ready. It was a large car, rather ancient and the worse for
+wear, but its owner assured Kurt that it would take him where he wanted
+to go and he need not be afraid to drive fast. With that inspiring
+knowledge Kurt started off.
+
+Before ten o'clock Kurt reached Kilo, far across the Copper River, with
+the Blue Mountains in sight, and from there less confusing directions to
+follow. He had been lucky. He had passed the wreck of the freight-train
+upon which he had ridden from Adrian; his car had been surrounded by
+rough men, and only quick wits saved him at least delay; he had been
+hailed by more than one group of tramping I.W.W. men; and he had passed
+camps and freight-yards where idlers were congregated. And lastly, he
+had seen, far across the valley, a pall of smoke from forest fire.
+
+He was going to reach "Many Waters" in time to warn Anderson, and that
+fact gave him strange exultation. When it was assured and he had the
+eighty thousand dollars deposited in a bank he could feel that his gray,
+gloomy future would have several happy memories. How would Lenore
+Anderson feel toward a man who had saved her father? The thought was too
+rich, too sweet for Kurt to dwell upon.
+
+Before noon Kurt began to climb gradually up off the wonderfully fertile
+bottom-lands where the endless orchards and boundless gardens delighted
+his eye, and the towns grew fewer and farther between. Kurt halted at
+Huntington for water, and when he was about ready to start a man rushed
+out of a store, glanced hurriedly up and down the almost deserted
+street, and, espying Kurt, ran to him.
+
+"Message over 'phone! I.W.W.! Hell to pay!" he cried, excitedly.
+
+"What's up? Tell me the message," replied Kurt, calmly.
+
+"It just come--from Vale. Anderson, the big rancher! He 'phoned to send
+men out on all roads--to stop his car! His daughter's in it! She's been
+made off with! I.W.W.'s!"
+
+Kurt's heart leaped. The bursting blood burned through him and receded
+to leave him cold, tingling. Anything might happen to him this day! He
+reached inside the seat to grasp the disjointed rifle, and three swift
+movements seemed to serve to unwrap it and put the pieces together.
+
+"What else did Anderson say?" he asked, sharply.
+
+"That likely the car would head for the hills, where the I.W.W.'s are
+camped."
+
+"What road from here leads that way?"
+
+"Take the left-hand road at the end of town," replied the man, more
+calmly. "Ten miles down you'll come to a fork. There's where the
+I.W.W.'s will turn off to go up into the foot-hills. Anderson just
+'phoned. You can head off his car if it's on the hill road. But you'll
+have to drive.... Do you know Anderson's car? Don't you want men with
+you?"
+
+"No time!" called Kurt, as he leaped into the seat and jammed on the
+power.
+
+"I'll send cars all over," shouted the man, as Kurt whirred away.
+
+Kurt's eyes and hands and feet hurt with the sudden intensity of strain.
+All his nervous force seemed set upon the one great task of driving and
+guiding that car at the limit of its speed. Huntington flashed behind,
+two indistinct streaks of houses. An open road, slightly rising,
+stretched ahead. The wind pressed so hard that he could scarcely
+breathe. The car gave forth a humming roar.
+
+Kurt's heart labored, swollen and tight, high in his breast, and his
+thoughts were swift, tumultuous. An agony of dread battled with a
+dominating but strange certainty. He felt belief in his luck.
+Circumstances one by one had led to this drive, and in every one passed
+by he felt the direction of chance.
+
+He sped by fields of wheat, a wagon that he missed by an inch, some
+stragglers on the road, and then, far ahead, he saw a sign-post of the
+forks. As he neared it he gradually shut off the power, to stop at the
+cross-roads. There he got out to search for fresh car tracks turning up
+to the right. There were none. If Anderson's car was coming on that road
+he would meet it.
+
+Kurt started again, but at reasonable speed, while his eyes were sharp
+on the road ahead. It was empty. It sloped down for a long way, and made
+a wide curve to the right, along the base of hilly pastureland, and then
+again turned. And just as Kurt's keen gaze traveled that far a big
+automobile rounded the bend, coming fast. He recognized the red color,
+the shape of the car.
+
+"Anderson's!" he cried, with that same lift of his heart, that bursting
+gush of blood. "No dream!... I see it!... And I'll stop it!"
+
+The advantage was all his. He would run along at reasonable speed,
+choose a narrow place, stop his car so as to obstruct the road, and get
+out with his rifle.
+
+It seemed a long stretch down that long slope, and his car crept along
+while the other gradually closed the gap. Slower and slower Kurt ran,
+then turned half across the road and stopped. When he stepped out the
+other car was two hundred yards or more distant. Kurt saw when the
+driver slackened his speed. There appeared to be only two people in the
+car, both in front. But Kurt could not be sure of that until it was only
+fifty yards away.
+
+Then he swung out his rifle and waved for the driver to stop. But he did
+not stop. Kurt heard a scream. He saw a white face. He saw the driver
+swing his hand across that white face, dashing it back.
+
+"Halt!" yelled Kurt, at the top of his lungs.
+
+But the driver hunched down and put on the power. The red car leaped. As
+it flashed by Kurt recognized Nash and Anderson's daughter. She looked
+terrified. Kurt dared not shoot, for fear of hitting the girl. Nash
+swerved, took the narrow space left him, smashing the right front wheel
+of Kurt's car, and got by.
+
+Kurt stepped aside and took a quick shot at the tire of Nash's left hind
+wheel. He missed. His heart sank and he was like ice as he risked
+another. The little high-power bullet struck and blew the tire off the
+wheel. Nash's car lurched, skidded into the bank not thirty yards away.
+
+With a bound Kurt started for it, and he was there when Nash had twisted
+out of his seat and over the door.
+
+"Far enough! Don't move!" ordered Kurt, presenting the rifle.
+
+Nash was ghastly white, with hunted eyes and open mouth, and his hands
+shook.
+
+"Oh it's--Kurt Dorn!" cried a broken voice.
+
+Kurt saw the girl fumble with the door on her side, open it, and stagger
+out of his sight. Then she reappeared round the car. Bareheaded,
+disheveled, white as chalk, with burning eyes and bleeding lips, she
+gazed at Kurt as if to make sure of her deliverance.
+
+"Miss Anderson--if he's harmed you--" broke out Kurt, hoarsely.
+
+"Oh!... Don't kill him!... He hasn't touched me," she replied, wildly.
+
+"But your lips are bleeding."
+
+"Are they?" She put a trembling hand to them. "He--he struck me....
+That's nothing... But you--you have saved me--from God only knows what!"
+
+"I have! From him?" demanded Kurt. "What is he?"
+
+"He's a German!" returned Lenore, and red burned out of the white of her
+cheeks. "Secret agent--I.W.W.!... Plotter against my father's life!...
+Oh, he knocked father off the car--dragged him!... He ran the car
+away--with me--forced me back--he struck me!... Oh, if I were a man!"
+
+Nash responded with a passion that made his face drip with sweat and
+distort into savage fury of defeat and hate.
+
+"You two-faced cat!" he hissed. "You made love to me! You fooled me! You
+let me--"
+
+"Shut up!" thundered Kurt. "You German dog! I can't murder you, because
+I'm American. Do you get that? But I'll beat you within an inch of your
+life!"
+
+As Kurt bent over to lay down the rifle, Nash darted a hand into the
+seat for weapon of some kind. But Kurt, in a rush, knocked him over the
+front guard. Nash howled. He scrambled up with bloody mouth. Kurt was on
+him again.
+
+"Take that!" cried Kurt, low and hard, as he swung his arm. The big fist
+that had grasped so many plow-handles took Nash full on that bloody
+mouth and laid him flat. "Come on, German! Get out of the trench!"
+
+Like a dog Nash thrashed and crawled, scraping his hands in the dirt, to
+jump up and fling a rock that Kurt ducked by a narrow margin. Nash
+followed it, swinging wildly, beating at his adversary.
+
+Passion long contained burst in Kurt. He tasted the salt of his own
+blood where he had bitten his lips. Nash showed as in a red haze. Kurt
+had to get his hands on this German, and when he did it liberated a
+strange and terrible joy in him. No weapon would have sufficed. Hardly
+aware of Nash's blows, Kurt tore at him, swung and choked him, bore him
+down on the bank, and there beat him into a sodden, bloody-faced heap.
+
+Only then did a cry of distress, seemingly from far off, pierce Kurt's
+ears. Miss Anderson was pulling at him with frantic hands.
+
+"Oh, don't kill him! Please don't kill him!" she was crying. "Kurt!--for
+my sake, don't kill him!"
+
+That last poignant appeal brought Kurt to his senses. He let go of Nash.
+He allowed the girl to lead him back. Panting hard, he tried to draw a
+deep, full breath.
+
+"Oh, he doesn't move!" whispered Lenore, with wide eyes on Nash.
+
+"Miss Anderson--he's not--even insensible," panted Kurt. "But he's
+licked--good and hard."
+
+The girl leaned against the side of the car, with a hand buried in her
+heaving breast. She was recovering. The gray shade left her face. Her
+eyes, still wide and dark and beginning to glow with softer emotions,
+were upon Kurt.
+
+"You--you were the one to come," she murmured. "I prayed. I was terribly
+frightened. Ruenke was taking me--to the I.W.W. camp, up in the hills."
+
+"Ruenke?" queried Kurt.
+
+"Yes, that's his German name."
+
+Kurt awoke to the exigencies of the situation. Searching in the car, he
+found a leather belt. With this he securely bound Ruenke's hands behind
+his back, then rolled him down into the road.
+
+"My first German prisoner," said Kurt, half seriously. "Now, Miss
+Anderson, we must be doing things. We don't want to meet a lot of
+I.W.W.'s out here. My car is out of commission. I hope yours is not
+broken."
+
+Kurt got into the car and found, to his satisfaction, that it was not
+damaged so far as running-gear was concerned. After changing the ruined
+tire he backed down the road and turned to stop near where Ruenke lay.
+Opening the rear door, Kurt picked him up as if he had been a sack of
+wheat and threw him into the car. Next he secured the rifle that had
+been such a burden and had served him so well in the end.
+
+"Get in, Miss Anderson," he said, "and show me where to drive you home."
+
+She got in beside him, making a grimace as she saw Ruenke lying behind
+her. Kurt started and ran slowly by the damaged car.
+
+"He knocked a wheel off. I'll have to send back."
+
+"Oh, I thought it was all over when we hit!" said the girl.
+
+Kurt experienced a relaxation that was weakening. He could hardly hold
+the wheel and his mood became one of exaltation.
+
+"Father suspected this Ruenke," went on Lenore. "But he wanted to find
+out things from him. And I--I undertook--to twist Mr. Germany round my
+finger. I made a mess of it.... He lied. I didn't make love to him. But
+I listened to his love-making, and arrogant German love-making it was!
+I'm afraid I made eyes at him and let him believe I was smitten.... Oh,
+and all for nothing! I'm ashamed... But he lied!"
+
+Her confidence, at once pathetic and humorous and contemptuous,
+augmented Kurt's Homeric mood. He understood that she would not even let
+him, for a moment, have a wrong impression of her.
+
+"It must have been hard," agreed Kurt. "Didn't you find out anything at
+all?"
+
+"Not much," she replied. Then she put a hand on his sleeve. "Your
+knuckles are all bloody."
+
+"So they are. I got that punching our German friend."
+
+"Oh, how you did beat him!" she cried. "I had to look. My ire was up,
+too!... It wasn't very womanly--of me--that I gloried in the sight."
+
+"But you cried out--you pulled me away!" exclaimed Kurt.
+
+"That was because I was afraid you'd kill him," she replied.
+
+Kurt swerved his glance, for an instant, to her face. It was at once
+flushed and pale, with the deep blue of downcast eyes shadowy through
+her long lashes, exceedingly sweet and beautiful to Kurt's sight. He
+bent his glance again to the road ahead. Miss Anderson felt kindly and
+gratefully toward him, as was, of course, natural. But she was somehow
+different from what she had seemed upon the other occasions he had seen
+her. Kurt's heart was full to bursting.
+
+"I might have killed him," he said. "I'm glad--you stopped me.
+That--that frenzy of mine seemed to be the breaking of a dam. I have
+been dammed up within. Something had to break. I've been unhappy for a
+long time."
+
+"I saw that. What about?" she replied.
+
+"The war, and what it's done to father. We're estranged. I hate
+everything German. I loved the farm. My chance in life is gone. The
+wheat debt--the worry about the I.W.W.--and that's not all."
+
+Again she put a gentle hand on his sleeve and left it there for a
+moment. The touch thrilled all through Kurt.
+
+"I'm sorry. Your position is sad. But maybe it is not utterly hopeless.
+You--you'll come back after the war."
+
+"I don't know that I want to come back," he said. "For then--it'd be
+just as bad--worse.... Miss Anderson, it won't hurt to tell you the
+truth.... A year ago--that first time I saw you--I fell in love with
+you. I think--when I'm away--over in France--I'd like to feel that you
+know. It can't hurt you. And it'll be sweet to me.... I fought against
+the--the madness. But fate was against me.... I saw you again.... And it
+was all over with me!"
+
+He paused, catching his breath. She was perfectly quiet. He looked on
+down the winding road. There were dust-clouds in the distance.
+
+"I'm afraid I grew bitter and moody," he went on. "But the last
+forty-eight hours have changed me forever... I found that my poor old
+dad had been won over by these unscrupulous German agents of the I.W.W.
+But I saved his name.... I've got the money he took for the wheat we may
+never harvest. But if we do harvest I can pay all our debt.... Then I
+learned of a plot to ruin your father--to kill him!... I was on my way
+to 'Many Waters.' I can warn him.... Last of all I have saved you."
+
+The little hand dropped away from his coat sleeve. A soft,
+half-smothered cry escaped her. It seemed to him she was about to weep
+in her exceeding pity.
+
+"Miss Anderson, I--I'd rather not have--you pity me."
+
+"Mr. Dorn, I certainly don't pity you," she replied, with an unexpected,
+strange tone. It was full. It seemed to ring in his ears.
+
+"I know there never was and never could be any hope for me. I--I--"
+
+"Oh, you know that!" murmured the soft, strange voice.
+
+But Kurt could not trust his ears and he had to make haste to terminate
+the confession into which his folly and emotion had betrayed him. He
+scarcely heard her words.
+
+"Yes.... I told you why I wanted you to know.... And now forget
+that--and when I'm gone--if you think of me ever, let it be about how
+much better it made me--to have all this good luck--to help your father
+and to save you!"
+
+The dust-cloud down the road came from a string of automobiles, flying
+along at express speed. Kurt saw them with relief.
+
+"Here come the cars on your trail," he called out. "Your father will be
+in one of them."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Kurt opened the door of the car and stepped down. He could not help his
+importance or his pride. Anderson, who came running between two cars
+that had stopped abreast, was coatless and hatless, covered with dust,
+pale and fire-eyed.
+
+"Mr. Anderson, your daughter is safe--unharmed," Kurt assured him.
+
+"My girl!" cried the father, huskily, and hurried to where she leaned
+out of her seat.
+
+"All right, dad," she cried, as she embraced him. "Only a little shaky
+yet."
+
+It was affecting for Dorn to see that meeting, and through it to share
+something of its meaning. Anderson's thick neck swelled and colored, and
+his utterance was unintelligible. His daughter loosened her arm from
+round him and turned her face toward Kurt. Then he imagined he saw two
+blue stars, sweetly, strangely shining upon him.
+
+"Father, it was our friend from the Bend," she said. "He happened
+along."
+
+Anderson suddenly changed to the cool, smiling man Kurt remembered.
+
+"Howdy, Kurt?" he said, and crushed Kurt's hand. "What'd you do to him?"
+
+Kurt made a motion toward the back of the car. Then Anderson looked over
+the seats. With that he opened the door and in one powerful haul he drew
+Ruenke sliding out into the road. Ruenke's bruised and bloody face was
+uppermost, a rather gruesome sight. Anderson glared down upon him, while
+men from the other cars crowded around. Ruenke's eyes resembled those of
+a cornered rat. Anderson's jaw bulged, his big hands clenched.
+
+"Bill, you throw this fellow in your car and land him in jail. I'll make
+a charge against him," said the rancher.
+
+"Mr. Anderson, I can save some valuable time," interposed Kurt. "I've
+got to return a car I broke down. And there's my wheat. Will you have
+one of these men drive me back?"
+
+"Sure. But won't you come home with us?" said Anderson.
+
+"I'd like to. But I must get home," replied Kurt. "Please let me speak a
+few words for your ear alone." He drew Anderson aside and briefly told
+about the eighty thousand dollars; threw back his coat to show the
+bulging pockets. Then he asked Anderson's advice.
+
+"I'd deposit the money an' wire the Spokane miller," returned the
+rancher. "I know him. He'll leave the money in the bank till your wheat
+is safe. Go to the national bank in Kilo. Mention my name."
+
+Then Kurt told Anderson of the plot against his fortunes and his life.
+
+"Neuman! I.W.W.! German intrigue!" growled the rancher. "All in the same
+class!... Dorn, I'm forewarned, an' that's forearmed. I'll beat this
+outfit at their own game."
+
+They returned to Anderson's car. Kurt reached inside for his rifle.
+
+"Aren't you going home with us?" asked the girl.
+
+"Why, Miss Anderson, I--I'm sorry. I--I'd love to see 'Many Waters,'"
+floundered Kurt. "But I can't go now. There's no need. I must hurry back
+to--to my troubles."
+
+"I wanted to tell you something--at home," she returned, shyly.
+
+"Tell me now," said Kurt.
+
+She gave him such a glance as he had never received in his life. Kurt
+felt himself as wax before those blue eyes. She wanted to thank him.
+That would be sweet, but would only make his ordeal harder. He steeled
+himself.
+
+"You won't come?" she asked, and her smile was wistful.
+
+"No--thank you ever so much."
+
+"Will you come to see me before you--you go to war?"
+
+"I'll try."
+
+"But you must promise. You've done so much for me and my father.... I--I
+want you to come to see me--at my home."
+
+"Then I'll come," he replied.
+
+Anderson clambered into the car beside his daughter and laid his big
+hands on the wheel.
+
+"Sure he'll come, or we'll go after him," he declared, heartily. "So
+long, son."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Late in the forenoon of the next day Kurt Dorn reached home. A hot
+harvest wind breathed off the wheat-fields. It swelled his heart to see
+the change in the color of that section of Bluestem--the gold had a
+tinge of rich, ripe brown.
+
+Kurt's father awaited him, a haggard, gloomy-faced man, unkempt and
+hollow-eyed.
+
+"Was it you who robbed me?" he shouted hoarsely.
+
+"Yes," replied Kurt. He had caught the eager hope and fear in the old
+man's tone. Kurt expected that confession would bring on his father's
+terrible fury, a mood to dread. But old Dorn showed immense relief. He
+sat down in his relaxation from what must have been intense strain. Kurt
+saw a weariness, a shade, in the gray lined face that had never been
+there before.
+
+"What did you do with the money?" asked the old man.
+
+"I banked it in Kilo," replied Kurt. "Then I wired your miller in
+Spokane.... So you're safe if we can harvest the wheat."
+
+Old Dorn nodded thoughtfully. There had come a subtle change in him.
+Presently he asked Kurt if men had been hired for the harvest.
+
+"No. I've not seen any I would trust," replied Kurt, and then he briefly
+outlined Anderson's plan to insure a quick and safe harvesting of the
+grain. Old Dorn objected to this on account of the expense. Kurt argued
+with him and patiently tried to show him the imperative need of it.
+Dorn, apparently, was not to be won over; however, he was remarkably
+mild in comparison with what Kurt had expected.
+
+"Father, do you realize now that the men you were dealing with at
+Wheatly are dishonest? I mean with you. They would betray you."
+
+Old Dorn had no answer for this. Evidently he had sustained some kind of
+shock that he was not willing to admit.
+
+"Look here, father," went on Kurt, in slow earnestness. He spoke in
+English, because nothing would make him break his word and ever again
+speak a word of German. And his father was not quick to comprehend
+English. "Can't you see that the I.W.W. mean to cripple us wheat farmers
+this harvest?"
+
+"No," replied old Dorn, stubbornly.
+
+"But they do. They don't _want_ work. If they accept work it is for a
+chance to do damage. All this I.W.W. talk about more wages and shorter
+hours is deceit. They make a bold face of discontent. That is all a lie.
+The I.W.W. is out to ruin the great wheat-fields and the great lumber
+forests of the Northwest."
+
+"I do not believe that," declared his father, stoutly. "What for?"
+
+Kurt meant to be careful of that subject.
+
+"No matter what for. It does not make any difference what it's for.
+We've got to meet it to save our wheat.... Now won't you believe me?
+Won't you let me manage the harvest?"
+
+"I will not believe," replied old Dorn, stubbornly. "Not about _my_
+wheat. I know they mean to destroy. They are against rich men like
+Anderson. But not me or my wheat!"
+
+"There is where you are wrong. I'll prove it in a very few days. But in
+that time I can prepare for them and outwit them. Will you let me?"
+
+"Go ahead," replied old Dorn, gruffly.
+
+It was a concession that Kurt was amazed and delighted to gain. And he
+set about at once to act upon it. He changed his clothes and satisfied
+his hunger; then, saddling his horse, he started out to visit his farmer
+neighbors.
+
+The day bade fair to be rich in experience. Jerry, the foreman, was
+patrolling his long beat up and down the highway. Jerry carried a
+shot-gun and looked like a sentry. The men under him were on the other
+side of the section of wheat, and the ground was so rolling that they
+could not be seen from the highway. Jerry was unmistakably glad and
+relieved to see Kurt.
+
+"Some goin's-on," he declared, with a grin. "Since you left there's been
+one hundred and sixteen I.W.W. tramps along this here road."
+
+"Have you had any trouble?" inquired Kurt.
+
+"Wal, I reckon it wasn't trouble, but every time I took a peg at some
+sneak I sort of broke out sweatin' cold."
+
+"You shot at them?"
+
+"Sure I shot when I seen any loafin' along in the dark. Two of them shot
+back at me, an' after thet I wasn't particular to aim high.... Reckon
+I'm about dead for sleep."
+
+"I'll relieve you to-night," replied Kurt. "Jerry, doesn't the wheat
+look great?"
+
+"Wal, I reckon. An' walkin' along here when it's quiet an' no wind
+blowin', I can just hear the wheat crack. It's gittin' ripe fast, an'
+sure the biggest crop we ever raised.... But I'm tellin' you--when I
+think how we'll ever harvest it my insides just sinks like lead!"
+
+Kurt then outlined Anderson's plan, which was received by the foreman
+with eager approval and the assurance that the neighbor farmers would
+rally to his call.
+
+Kurt found his nearest neighbor, Olsen, cutting a thin, scarcely ripe
+barley. Olsen was running a new McCormack harvester, and appeared
+delighted with the machine, but cast down by the grain prospects. He did
+not intend to cut his wheat at all. It was a dead loss.
+
+"Two sections--twelve hundred an' eighty acres!" he repeated, gloomily.
+"An' the third bad year! Dorn, I can't pay the interest to my bank."
+
+Olsen's sun-dried and wind-carved visage was as hard and rugged and
+heroic as this desert that had resisted him for years. Kurt saw under
+the lines and the bronze all the toil and pain and unquenchable hope
+that had made Olsen a type of the men who had cultivated this desert of
+wheat.
+
+"I'll give you five hundred dollars to help me harvest," said Kurt,
+bluntly, and briefly stated his plan.
+
+Olsen whistled. He complimented Anderson's shrewd sense. He spoke
+glowingly of that magnificent section of wheat that absolutely must be
+saved. He promised Kurt every horse and every man on his farm. But he
+refused the five hundred dollars.
+
+"Oh, say, you'll have to accept it," declared Kurt.
+
+"You've done me good turns," asserted Olsen.
+
+"But nothing like this. Why, this will be a rush job, with all the men
+and horses and machines and wagons I can get. It'll cost ten--fifteen
+thousand dollars to harvest that section. Even at that, and paying
+Anderson, we'll clear twenty thousand or more. Olsen, you've got to take
+the money."
+
+"All right, if you insist. I'm needin' it bad enough," replied Olsen.
+
+Further conversation with Olsen gleaned the facts that he was the only
+farmer in their immediate neighborhood who did not have at least a
+little grain worth harvesting. But the amount was small and would
+require only slight time. Olsen named farmers that very likely would not
+take kindly to Dorn's proposition, and had best not be approached. The
+majority, however, would stand by him, irrespective of the large wage
+offered, because the issue was one to appeal to the pride of the Bend
+farmers. Olsen appeared surprisingly well informed upon the tactics of
+the I.W.W., and predicted that they would cause trouble, but be run out
+of the country. He made the shrewd observation that when even those
+farmers who sympathized with Germany discovered that their wheat-fields
+were being menaced by foreign influences and protected by the home
+government, they would experience a change of heart. Olsen said the war
+would be a good thing for the United States, because they would win it,
+and during the winning would learn and suffer and achieve much.
+
+Kurt rode away from Olsen in a more thoughtful frame of mind. How
+different and interesting the points of view of different men! Olsen had
+never taken the time to become a naturalized citizen of the United
+States. There had never been anything to force him to do it. But his
+understanding of the worth of the United States and his loyalty to it
+were manifest in his love for his wheatlands. In fact, they were
+inseparable. Probably there were millions of pioneers, emigrants,
+aliens, all over the country who were like Olsen, who needed the fire of
+the crucible to mold them into a unity with Americans. Of such,
+Americans were molded!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Kurt rode all day, and when, late that night, he got home, weary and
+sore and choked, he had enlisted the services of thirty-five farmers to
+help him harvest the now famous section of wheat.
+
+His father had plainly doubted the willingness of these neighbors to
+abandon their own labors, for the Bend exacted toil for every hour of
+every season, whether rich or poor in yield. Likewise he was plainly
+moved by the facts. His seamed and shaded face of gloom had a moment of
+light.
+
+"They will make short work of this harvest," he said, thoughtfully.
+
+"I should say so," retorted Kurt. "We'll harvest and haul that grain to
+the railroad in just three days."
+
+"Impossible!" ejaculated Dorn.
+
+"You'll see," declared Kurt. "You'll see who's managing this harvest."
+
+He could not restrain his little outburst of pride. For the moment the
+great overhanging sense of calamity that for long had haunted him faded
+into the background. It did seem sure that they would save this splendid
+yield of wheat. How much that meant to Kurt--in freedom from debt, in
+natural love of the fruition of harvest, in the loyalty to his
+government! He realized how strange and strong was the need in him to
+prove he was American to the very core of his heart. He did not yet
+understand that incentive, but he felt it.
+
+After eating dinner Kurt took his rifle and went out to relieve Jerry.
+
+"Only a few more days and nights!" he exclaimed to his foreman. "Then
+we'll have all the harvesters in the country right in our wheat."
+
+"Wal, a hell of a lot can happen before then," declared Jerry,
+pessimistically.
+
+Kurt was brought back to realities rather suddenly. But questioning
+Jerry did not elicit any new or immediate cause for worry. Jerry
+appeared tired out.
+
+"You go get some sleep," said Kurt.
+
+"All right. Bill's been dividin' this night watch with me. I reckon
+he'll be out when he wakes up," replied Jerry, and trudged away.
+
+Kurt shouldered his rifle and slowly walked along the road with a
+strange sense that he was already doing army duty in protecting property
+which was at once his own and his country's.
+
+The night was dark, cool, and quiet. The heavens were starry bright. A
+faint breeze brought the tiny crackling of the wheat. From far distant
+came the bay of a hound. The road stretched away pale and yellow into
+the gloom. In the silence and loneliness and darkness, in all around
+him, and far across the dry, whispering fields, there was an invisible
+presence that had its affinity in him, hovered over him shadowless and
+immense, and waved in the bursting wheat. It was life. He felt the wheat
+ripening. He felt it in reawakened tenderness for his old father and in
+the stir of memory of Lenore Anderson. The past active and important
+hours had left little room for thought of her.
+
+But now she came back to him, a spirit in keeping with his steps, a
+shadow under the stars, a picture of sweet, wonderful young womanhood.
+His whole relation of thought toward her had undergone some marvelous
+change. The most divine of gifts had been granted him--an opportunity to
+save her from harm, perhaps from death. He had served her father. How
+greatly he could not tell, but if measured by the gratitude in her eyes
+it would have been infinite. He recalled that expression--blue, warm,
+soft, and indescribably strange with its unuttered hidden meaning. It
+was all-satisfying for him to realize that she had been compelled to
+give him a separate and distinct place in her mind. He must stand apart
+from all others she knew. It had been his fortune to preserve her
+happiness and the happiness that she must be to sisters and mother, and
+that some day she would bestow upon some lucky man. They would all owe
+it to him. And Lenore Anderson knew he loved her.
+
+These things had transformed his relation of thought toward her. He had
+no regret, no jealousy, no fear. Even the pang of suppressed and
+overwhelming love had gone with his confession.
+
+But he did remember her presence, her beauty, her intent blue glance,
+and the faint, dreaming smile of her lips--remembered them with a
+thrill, and a wave of emotion, and a contraction of his heart. He had
+promised to see her once more, to afford her the opportunity, no doubt,
+to thank him, to try to make him see her gratitude. He would go, but he
+wished it need not be. He asked no more. And seeing her again might
+change his fulness of joy to something of pain.
+
+So Kurt trod the long road in the darkness and silence, pausing, and
+checking his dreams now and then, to listen and to watch. He heard no
+suspicious sounds, nor did he meet any one. The night was melancholy,
+with a hint of fall in its cool breath.
+
+Soon he would be walking a beat in one of the training-camps, with a
+bugle-call in his ears and the turmoil of thousands of soldiers in the
+making around him: soon, too, he would be walking the deck of a
+transport, looking back down the moon-blanched wake of the ship toward
+home, listening to the mysterious moan of the ocean; and then soon
+feeling under his feet the soil of a foreign country, with hideous and
+incomparable war shrieking its shell furies and its man anguish all
+about him. But no matter how far away he ever got, he knew Lenore
+Anderson would be with him as she was there on that dim, lonely starlit
+country road.
+
+And in these long hours of his vigil Kurt Dorn divined a relation
+between his love for Lenore Anderson and a terrible need that had grown
+upon him. A need of his heart and his soul! More than he needed her, if
+even in his wildest dreams he had permitted himself visions of an
+earthly paradise, he needed to prove to his blood and his spirit that he
+was actually and truly American. He had no doubt of his intelligence,
+his reason, his choice. The secret lay hidden in the depths of him, and
+he knew it came from the springs of the mother who had begotten him. His
+mother had given him birth, and by every tie he was mostly hers.
+
+Kurt had been in college during the first year of the world war. And his
+name, his fair hair and complexion, his fluency in German, and his
+remarkable efficiency in handicrafts had opened him to many a hint, many
+a veiled sarcasm that had stung him like a poison brand. There was
+injustice in all this war spirit. It changed the minds of men and women.
+He had not doubted himself until those terrible scenes with his father,
+and, though he had reacted to them as an American, he had felt the
+drawing, burning blood tie. He hated everything German and he knew he
+was wrong in doing so. He had clear conception in his mind of the
+difference between the German war motives and means, and those of the
+other nations.
+
+Kurt's problem was to understand himself. His great fight was with his
+own soul. His material difficulties and his despairing love had suddenly
+been transformed, so that they had lent his spirit wings. How many poor
+boys and girls in America must be helplessly divided between parents and
+country! How many faithful and blind parents, obedient to the laws of
+mind and heart, set for all time, must see a favorite son go out to
+fight against all they had held sacred!
+
+That was all bad enough, but Kurt had more to contend with. No illusions
+had he of a chastened German spirit, a clarified German mind, an
+unbrutalized German heart. Kurt knew his father. What would change his
+father? Nothing but death! Death for himself or death for his only son!
+Kurt had an incalculable call to prove forever to himself that he was
+free. He had to spill his own blood to prove himself, or he had to spill
+that of an enemy. And he preferred that it should be his own. But that
+did not change a vivid and terrible picture which haunted him at times.
+He saw a dark, wide, and barren shingle of the world, a desert of
+desolation made by man, where strange, windy shrieks and thundering
+booms and awful cries went up in the night, and where drifting palls of
+smoke made starless sky, and bursts of reddish fires made hell.
+
+Suddenly Kurt's slow pacing along the road was halted, as was the trend
+of his thought. He was not sure he had heard a sound. But he quivered
+all over. The night was far advanced now; the wind was almost still; the
+wheat was smooth and dark as the bosom of a resting sea. Kurt listened.
+He imagined he heard, far away, the faint roar of an automobile. But it
+might have been a train on the railroad. Sometimes on still nights he
+caught sounds like that.
+
+Then a swish in the wheat, a soft thud, very low, unmistakably came to
+Kurt's ear. He listened, turning his ear to the wind. Presently he heard
+it again--a sound relating both to wheat and earth. In a hot flash he
+divined that some one had thrown fairly heavy bodies into the
+wheat-fields. Phosphorus cakes! Kurt held his breath while he peered
+down the gloomy road, his heart pounding, his hands gripping the rifle.
+And when he descried a dim form stealthily coming toward him he yelled,
+"Halt!"
+
+Instantly the form wavered, moved swiftly, with quick pad of footfalls.
+Kurt shot once--twice--three times--and aimed as best he could to hit.
+The form either fell or went on out of sight in the gloom. Kurt answered
+the excited shouts of his men, calling them to come across to him. Then
+he went cautiously down the road, peering on the ground for a dark form.
+But he failed to find it, and presently had to admit that in the dark
+his aim had been poor. Bill came out to relieve Kurt, and together they
+went up and down the road for a mile without any glimpse of a skulking
+form. It was almost daylight when Kurt went home to get a few hours'
+sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Next day was one of the rare, blistering-hot days with a furnace wind
+that roared over the wheat-fields. The sky was steely and the sun like
+copper. It was a day which would bring the wheat to a head.
+
+At breakfast Jerry reported that fresh auto tracks had been made on the
+road during the night; and that dust and wheat all around the great
+field showed a fresh tramping.
+
+Kurt believed a deliberate and particular attempt had been made to
+insure the destruction of the Dorn wheat-field. And he ordered all hands
+out to search for the dangerous little cakes of phosphorus.
+
+It was difficult to find them. The wheat was almost as high as a man's
+head and very thick. To force a way through it without tramping it down
+took care and time. Besides, the soil was soft, and the agents who had
+perpetrated this vile scheme had perfectly matched the color. Kurt
+almost stepped on one of the cakes before he saw it. His men were very
+slow in finding any. But Kurt's father seemed to walk fatally right to
+them, for in a short hundred yards he found three. They caused a
+profound change in this gloomy man. Not a word did he utter, but he
+became animated by a tremendous energy.
+
+The search was discouraging. It was like hunting for dynamite bombs that
+might explode at any moment. All Kurt's dread of calamity returned
+fourfold. The intense heat of the day, that would ripen the wheat to
+bursting, would likewise sooner or later ignite the cakes of phosphorus.
+And when Jerry found a cake far inside the field, away from the road,
+showing that powerful had been the arm that had thrown it there, and how
+impossible it would be to make a thorough search, Kurt almost succumbed
+to discouragement. Still, he kept up a frenzied hunting and inspired the
+laborers to do likewise.
+
+About ten o'clock an excited shout from Bill drew Kurt's attention, and
+he ran along the edge of the field. Bill was sweaty and black, yet
+through it all Kurt believed he saw the man was pale. He pointed with
+shaking hand toward Olsen's hill.
+
+Kurt vibrated to a shock. He saw a long circular yellow column rising
+from the hill, slanting away on the strong wind.
+
+"Dust!" he cried, aghast.
+
+"Smoke!" replied Bill, hoarsely.
+
+The catastrophe had fallen. Olsen's wheat was burning. Kurt experienced
+a profound sensation of sadness. What a pity! The burning of wheat--the
+destruction of bread--when part of the world was starving! Tears dimmed
+his eyes as he watched the swelling column of smoke.
+
+Bill was cursing, and Kurt gathered that the farm-hand was predicting
+fires all around. This was inevitable. But it meant no great loss for
+most of the wheat-growers whose yield had failed. For Kurt and his
+father, if fire got a hold in their wheat, it meant ruin. Kurt's sadness
+was burned out by a slow and growing rage.
+
+"Bill, go hitch up to the big mower," ordered Kurt. "We'll have to cut
+all around our field. Bring drinking water and whatever you can lay a
+hand on ... anything to fight fire!"
+
+Bill ran thumping away over the clods. Then it happened that Kurt looked
+toward his father. The old man was standing with his arms aloft, his
+face turned toward the burning wheat, and he made a tragic figure that
+wrung Kurt's heart.
+
+Jerry came running up. "Fire! Fire! Olsen's burnin'! Look! By all thet's
+dirty, them I.W.W.'s hev done it!... Kurt, we're in fer hell! Thet
+wind's blowin' straight this way."
+
+"Jerry, we'll fight till we drop," replied Kurt. "Tell the men and
+father to keep on searching for phosphorus cakes.... Jerry, you keep to
+the high ground. Watch for fires starting on our land. If you see one
+yell for us and make for it. Wheat burns slow till it gets started. We
+can put out fires if we're quick."
+
+"Kurt, there ain't no chance on earth fer us!" yelled Jerry, pale with
+anger. His big red hands worked. "If fire starts we've got to hev a lot
+of men.... By Gawd! if I ain't mad!"
+
+"Don't quit, Jerry," said Kurt, fiercely. "You never can tell. It looks
+hopeless. But we'll never give up. Hustle now!"
+
+Jerry shuffled off as old Dorn came haltingly, as if stunned, toward
+Kurt. But Kurt did not want to face his father at that moment. He needed
+to fight to keep up his own courage.
+
+"Never mind that!" yelled Kurt, pointing at Olsen's hill. "Keep looking
+for those damned pieces of phosphorus!"
+
+With that Kurt dove into the wheat, and, sweeping wide his arms to make
+a passage, he strode on, his eyes bent piercingly upon the ground close
+about him. He did not penetrate deeper into the wheat from the road than
+the distance he estimated a strong arm could send a stone. Almost at
+once his keen sight was rewarded. He found a cake of phosphorus half
+buried in the soil. It was dry, hard and hot either from the sun or its
+own generating power. That inspired Kurt. He hurried on. Long practice
+enabled him to slip through the wheat as a barefoot country boy could
+run through the corn-fields. And his passion gave him the eyes of a
+hunting hawk sweeping down over the grass. To and fro he passed within
+the limits he had marked, oblivious to time and heat and effort. And
+covering that part of the wheat-field bordering the road he collected
+twenty-seven cakes of phosphorus, the last few of which were so hot they
+burnt his hands.
+
+Then he had to rest. He appeared as wet as if he had been plunged into
+water; his skin burned, his eyes pained, his breast heaved. Panting and
+spent, he lay along the edge of the wheat, with closed eyelids and lax
+muscles.
+
+When he recovered he rose and went back along the road. The last quarter
+of the immense wheat-field lay upon a slope of a hill, and Kurt had to
+mount this before he could see the valley. From the summit he saw a
+sight that caused him to utter a loud exclamation. Many columns of smoke
+were lifting from the valley, and before him the sky was darkened.
+Olsen's hill was as if under a cloud. No flames showed anywhere, but in
+places the line of smoke appeared to be approaching.
+
+"It's a thousand to one against us," he said, bitterly, and looked at
+his watch. He was amazed to see that three hours had passed since he had
+given orders to the men. He hurried back to the house. No one was there
+except the old servant, who was wringing her hands and crying that the
+house would burn. Throwing the cakes of phosphorus into a
+watering-trough, Kurt ran into the kitchen, snatched a few biscuits, and
+then made for the fields, eating as he went.
+
+He hurried down a lane that bordered the big wheat-field. On this side
+was fallow ground for half the length of the section, and the other half
+was ripe barley, dry as tinder, and beyond that, in line with the
+burning fields, a quarter-section of blasted wheat. The men were there.
+Kurt saw at once that other men with horses and machines were also
+there. Then he recognized Olsen and two other of his neighbors. As he
+ran up he was equally astounded and out of breath, so that he could not
+speak. Old Dorn sat with gray head bowed on his hand.
+
+"Hello!" shouted Olsen. His grimy face broke into a hard smile. "Fires
+all over! Wheat's burnin' like prairie grass! Them chips of phosphorus
+are sure from hell!... We've come over to help."
+
+"You--did! You left--your fields!" gasped Kurt.
+
+"Sure. They're not much to leave. And we're goin' to save this section
+of yours or bust tryin'!... I sent my son in his car, all over, to hurry
+men here with horses, machines, wagons."
+
+Kurt was overcome. He could only wring Olsen's hand. Here was an answer
+to one of his brooding, gloomy queries. Something would be gained, even
+if the wheat was lost. Kurt had scarcely any hope left.
+
+"What's to be done?" he panted, hoarsely. In this extremity Olsen seemed
+a tower of strength. This sturdy farmer was of Anderson's breed, even if
+he was a foreigner. And he had fought fires before.
+
+"If we have time we'll mow a line all around your wheat," replied Olsen.
+
+"Reckon we won't have time," interposed Jerry, pointing to a smoke far
+down in the corner of the stunted wheat. "There's a fire startin'."
+
+"They'll break out all over," said Olsen, and he waved a couple of his
+men away. One had a scythe and the other a long pole with a wet burlap
+bag tied on one end. They hurried toward the little cloud of smoke.
+
+"I found a lot of cakes over along the road," declared Kurt, with a grim
+surety that he had done that well.
+
+"They've surrounded your wheat," returned Olsen. "But if enough men get
+here we'll save the whole section.... Lucky you've got two wells an'
+that watertank. We'll need all the water we can get. Keep a man pumpin'.
+Fetch all the bags an' brooms an' scythes. I'll post lookouts along this
+lane to watch for fires breakin' out in the big field. When they do
+we've got to run an' cut an' beat them out.... It won't be long till
+most of this section is surrounded by fire."
+
+Thin clouds of smoke were then blowing across the fields and the wind
+that carried them was laden with an odor of burning wheat. To Kurt it
+seemed to be the fragrance of baking bread.
+
+"How'd it be to begin harvestin'?" queried Jerry. "Thet wheat's ripe."
+
+"No combines should be risked in there until we're sure the danger's
+past," replied Olsen. "There! I see more of our neighbors comin' down
+the road. We're goin' to beat the I.W.W."
+
+That galvanized Kurt into action and he found himself dragging Jerry
+back to the barns. They hitched a team to a heavy wagon, in record time,
+and then began to load with whatever was available for fighting fire.
+They loaded a barrel, and with huge buckets filled it with water.
+Leaving Jerry to drive, Kurt rushed back to the fields. During his short
+absence more men, with horses and machines, had arrived; fire had broken
+out in the stunted wheat, and also, nearer at hand, in the barley. Kurt
+saw his father laboring like a giant. Olsen was taking charge, directing
+the men. The sky was obscured now, and all the west was thick with
+yellow smoke. The south slopes and valley floor were clouding. Only in
+the east, over the hill, did the air appear clear. Back of Kurt, down
+across the barley and wheat on the Dorn land, a line of fire was
+creeping over the hill. This was on the property adjoining Olsen's.
+Gremniger, the owner, had abandoned his own fields. At the moment he was
+driving a mower along the edge of the barley, cutting a nine-foot path.
+Men behind him were stacking the sheaves. The wind was as hot as if from
+a blast-furnace; the air was thick and oppressive; the light of day was
+growing dim.
+
+Kurt, mounted on the seat of one of the combine threshers, surveyed with
+rapid and anxious gaze all the points around him, and it lingered over
+the magnificent sweep of golden wheat. The wheat bowed in waves before
+the wind, and the silken rustle, heard above the confusion of yelling
+men, was like a voice whispering to Kurt. Somehow his dread lessened
+then and other emotions predominated. He saw more and more farmers
+arrive, in cars, in wagons, with engines and threshers, until the lane
+was lined with them and men were hurrying everywhere.
+
+Suddenly Kurt espied a slender column of smoke rising above the wheat
+out in front of him toward the highway. This was the first sign of fire
+in the great section that so many farmers had come to protect. Yelling
+for help, he leaped off the seat and ran with all his might toward the
+spot. Breasting that thick wheat was almost as hard as breasting waves.
+Jerry came yelling after him, brandishing a crude beater; and both of
+them reached the fire at once. It was a small circle, burning slowly.
+Madly Kurt rushed in to tear and stamp as if the little hissing flames
+were serpents. He burned his hands through his gloves and his feet
+through his boots. Jerry beat hard, accompanying his blows with profane
+speech plainly indicating that he felt he was at work on the I.W.W. In
+short order they put out this little fire. Returning to his post, Kurt
+watched until he was called to lend a hand down in the stunted wheat.
+
+Fire had crossed and had gotten a hold on Dorn's lower field. Here the
+wheat was blasted and so burned all the more fiercely. Horses and mowers
+had to be taken away to the intervening barley-field. A weird, smoky,
+and ruddy darkness enveloped the scene. Dim red fire, in lines and dots
+and curves, appeared on three sides, growing larger and longer, meeting
+in some places, crisscrossed by black figures of threshing men
+belaboring the flames. Kurt came across his father working like a
+mad-man. Kurt warned him not to overexert himself, and the father never
+heard. Now and then his stentorian yell added to the medley of cries and
+shouts and blows, and the roar of the wind fanning the flames.
+
+Kurt was put to beating fire in the cut wheat. He stood with flames
+licking at his boots. It was astonishing how tenacious the fire
+appeared, how it crept along, eating up the mowed wheat. All the men
+that could be spared there were unable to check it and keep it out of
+the standing grain. When it reached this line it lifted a blaze, flamed
+and roared, and burned like wildfire in grass. The men were driven back,
+threshing and beating, all to no avail. Kurt fell into despair. There
+was no hope. It seemed like an inferno.
+
+Flaring high, the light showed the black, violently agitated forms of
+the fighters, and the clouds of yellow smoke, coalescing and drifting,
+changing to dark and soaring high.
+
+Olsen had sent three mowers abreast down the whole length of the
+barley-field before the fire reached that line. It was a wise move, and
+if anything could do so it would save the day. The leaping flame, thin
+and high, and a mile long, curled down the last of the standing wheat
+and caught the fallen barley. But here its speed was checked. It had to
+lick a way along the ground.
+
+In desperation, in unabated fury, the little army of farmers and
+laborers, with no thought of personal gain, with what seemed to Kurt a
+wonderful and noble spirit, attacked this encroaching line of fire like
+men whose homes and lives and ideals had been threatened with
+destruction. Kurt's mind worked as swiftly as his tireless hands. This
+indeed was being in a front line of battle. The scene was weird, dark,
+fitful, at times impressive and again unreal. These neighbors of his,
+many of them aliens, some of them Germans, when put to this vital test,
+were proving themselves. They had shown little liking for the Dorns, but
+here was love of wheat, and so, in some way, loyalty to the government
+that needed it. Here was the answer of the Northwest to the I.W.W. No
+doubt if the perpetrators of that phosphorus trick could have been laid
+hold of then, blood would have been shed. Kurt sensed in the fierce
+energy, in the dark, grimy faces, shining and wet under the light, in
+the hoarse yell and answering shout, a nameless force that was finding
+itself and centering on one common cause.
+
+His old father toiled as ten men. That burly giant pushed ever in the
+lead, and his hoarse call and strenuous action told of more than a
+mercenary rage to save his wheat.
+
+Fire never got across that swath of cut barley. It was beaten out as if
+by a thousand men. Shadow and gloom enveloped the fighters as they
+rested where their last strokes had fallen. Over the hills faint
+reflection of dying flames lit up the dark clouds of smoke. The battle
+seemed won.
+
+Then came the thrilling cry: "Fire! Fire!"
+
+One of the outposts came running out of the dark.
+
+"Fire! the other side! Fire!" rang out Olsen's yell.
+
+Kurt ran with the gang pell-mell through the dark, up the barley slope,
+to see a long red line, a high red flare, and lifting clouds of ruddy
+smoke. Fire in the big wheat-field! The sight inflamed him, carried him
+beyond his powers, and all he knew was that he became the center of a
+dark and whirling mêlée encircled by living flames that leaped only to
+be beaten down. Whether that threshing chaos of fire and smoke and wheat
+was short or long was beyond him to tell but the fire was extinguished
+to the last spark.
+
+Walking back with the weary crowd, Kurt felt a clearer breeze upon his
+face. Smoke was not flying so thickly. Over the western hill, through a
+rift in the clouds, peeped a star. The only other light he saw twinkled
+far down the lane. It was that of a lantern. Dark forms barred it now
+and then. Slowly Kurt recovered his breath. The men were talking and
+tired voices rang with assurance that the fire was beaten.
+
+Some one called Kurt. The voice was Jerry's. It seemed hoarse and
+strained. Kurt could see the lean form of his man, standing in the light
+of the lantern. A small dark group of men, silent and somehow
+impressive, stood off a little in the shadow.
+
+"Here I am, Jerry," called Kurt, stepping forward. Just then Olsen
+joined Jerry.
+
+"Boy, we've beat the I.W.W.'s, but--but--" he began, and broke off
+huskily.
+
+"What's the matter?" queried Kurt, and a cold chill shot over him.
+
+Jerry plucked at his sleeve.
+
+"Your old man--your dad--he's overworked hisself," whispered Jerry.
+"It's tough.... Nobody could stop him."
+
+Kurt felt that the fulfilment of his icy, sickening dread had come.
+Jerry's dark face, even in the uncertain light, was tragic.
+
+"Boy, his heart went back on him--he's dead!" said Olsen, solemnly.
+
+Kurt pushed the kind hands aside. A few steps brought him to where,
+under the light of the lantern, lay his father, pale and still, with a
+strange softening of the iron cast of intolerance.
+
+"Dead!" whispered Kurt, in awe and horror. "Father! Oh, he's
+gone!--without a word--"
+
+Again Jerry plucked at Kurt's sleeve.
+
+"I was with him," said Jerry. "I heard him fall an' groan.... I had the
+light. I bent over, lifted his head.... An' he said, speaking English,
+'Tell my son--I was wrong!'... Then he died. An' thet was all."
+
+Kurt staggered away from the whispering, sympathetic foreman, out into
+the darkness, where he lifted his face in the thankfulness of a breaking
+heart.
+
+It had, indeed, taken the approach of death to change his hard old
+father. "Oh, he meant--that if he had his life to live over again--he
+would be different!" whispered Kurt. That was the one great word needed
+to reconcile Kurt to his father.
+
+The night had grown still except for the murmuring of the men. Smoke
+veiled the horizon. Kurt felt an intense and terrible loneliness. He was
+indeed alone in the world. A hard, tight contraction of throat choked
+back a sob. If only he could have had a word with his father! But no
+grief, nothing could detract from the splendid truth of his father's
+last message. In the black hours soon to come Kurt would have that to
+sustain him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+The bright sun of morning disclosed that wide, rolling region of the
+Bend to be a dreary, blackened waste surrounding one great wheat-field,
+rich and mellow and golden.
+
+Kurt Dorn's neighbor, Olsen, in his kind and matter-of-fact way, making
+obligation seem slight, took charge of Kurt's affairs, and made the
+necessary and difficult decisions. Nothing must delay the harvesting and
+transporting of the wheat. The women folk arranged for the burial of old
+Chris Dorn.
+
+Kurt sat and moved about in a gloomy kind of trance for a day and a
+half, until his father was laid to rest beside his mother, in the little
+graveyard on the windy hill. After that his mind slowly cleared. He kept
+to himself the remainder of that day, avoiding the crowd of harvesters
+camping in the yard and adjacent field; and at sunset he went to a
+lonely spot on the verge of the valley, where with sad eyes he watched
+the last rays of sunlight fade over the blackened hills. All these hours
+had seemed consecrated to his father's memory, to remembered acts of
+kindness and of love, of the relation that had gone and would never be
+again. Reproach and remorse had abided with him until that sunset hour,
+when the load eased off his heart.
+
+Next morning he went out to the wheat-field.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What a wonderful harvesting scene greeted Kurt Dorn! Never had its like
+been seen in the Northwest, nor perhaps in any other place. A huge pall
+of dust, chaff, and smoke hung over the vast wheat-field, and the air
+seemed charged with a roar. The glaring gold of the wheat-field appeared
+to be crisscrossed everywhere with bobbing black streaks of
+horses--bays, blacks, whites, and reds; by big, moving painted machines,
+lifting arms and puffing straw; by immense wagons piled high with
+sheaves of wheat, lumbering down to the smoking engines and the
+threshers that sent long streams of dust and chaff over the lifting
+straw-stacks; by wagons following the combines to pick up the plump
+brown sacks of wheat; and by a string of empty wagons coming in from the
+road.
+
+Olsen was rushing thirty combine threshers, three engine
+threshing-machines, forty wagon-teams, and over a hundred men well known
+to him. There was a guard around the field. This unprecedented harvest
+had attracted many spectators from the little towns. They had come in
+cars and on horseback and on foot. Olsen trusted no man on that field
+except those he knew.
+
+The wonderful wheat-field was cut into a thousand squares and angles and
+lanes and curves. The big whirring combines passed one another, stopped
+and waited and turned out of the way, leaving everywhere little patches
+and cubes of standing wheat, that soon fell before the onslaught of the
+smaller combines. This scene had no regularity. It was one of confusion;
+of awkward halts, delays, hurries; of accident. The wind blew clouds of
+dust and chaff, alternately clearing one space to cloud another. And a
+strange roar added the last heroic touch to this heroic field. It was
+indeed the roar of battle--men and horses governing the action of
+machinery, and all fighting time. For in delay was peril to the wheat.
+
+Once Kurt ran across the tireless and implacable Olsen. He seemed a man
+of dust and sweat and fury.
+
+"She's half cut an' over twenty thousand bushels gone to the railroad!"
+he exclaimed. "An' we're speedin' up."
+
+"Olsen, I don't get what's going on," replied Kurt. "All this is like a
+dream."
+
+"Wake up. You'll be out of debt an' a rich man in three days," added
+Olsen, and went his way.
+
+In the afternoon Kurt set out to work as he had never worked in his
+life. There was need of his strong hands in many places, but he could
+not choose any one labor and stick by it for long. He wanted to do all.
+It was as if this was not a real and wonderful harvest of his father's
+greatest wheat yield, but something that embodied all years, all
+harvests, his father's death, the lifting of the old, hard debt, the
+days when he had trod the fields barefoot, and this day when, strangely
+enough, all seemed over for him. Peace dwelt with him, yet no hope.
+Behind his calm he could have found the old dread, had he cared to look
+deeply. He loved these heroic workers of the fields. It had been given
+to him--a great task--to be the means of creating a test for them, his
+neighbors under a ban of suspicion; and now he could swear they were as
+true as the gold of the waving wheat. More than a harvest was this most
+strenuous and colorful of all times ever known in the Bend; it had a
+significance that uplifted him. It was American.
+
+First Kurt began to load bags of wheat, as they fell from the whirring
+combines, into the wagons. For his powerful arms a full bag, containing
+two bushels, was like a toy for a child. With a lift and a heave he
+threw a bag into a wagon. They were everywhere, these brown bags,
+dotting the stubble field, appearing as if by magic in the wake of the
+machines. They rolled off the platforms. This toil, because it was hard
+and heavy, held Kurt for an hour, but it could not satisfy his enormous
+hunger to make that whole harvest his own. He passed to pitching sheaves
+of wheat and then to driving in the wagons. From that he progressed to a
+seat on one of the immense combines, where he drove twenty-four horses.
+No driver there was any surer than Kurt of his aim with the little
+stones he threw to spur a lagging horse. Kurt had felt this when, as a
+boy, he had begged to be allowed to try his hand; he liked the shifty
+cloud of fragrant chaff, now and then blinding and choking him; and he
+liked the steady, rhythmic tramps of hooves and the roaring whir of the
+great complicated machine. It fascinated him to see the wide swath of
+nodding wheat tremble and sway and fall, and go sliding up into the
+inside of that grinding maw, and come out, straw and dust and chaff, and
+a slender stream of gold filling the bags.
+
+This day Kurt Dorn was gripped by the unknown. Some far-off instinct of
+future drove him, set his spiritual need, and made him register with his
+senses all that was so beautiful and good and heroic in the scene about
+him.
+
+Strangely, now and then a thought of Lenore Anderson entered his mind
+and made sudden havoc. It tended to retard action. He trembled and
+thrilled with a realization that every hour brought closer the meeting
+he could not avoid. And he discovered that it was whenever this memory
+recurred that he had to leave off his present task and rush to another.
+Only thus could he forget her.
+
+The late afternoon found him feeding sheaves of wheat to one of the
+steam-threshers. He stood high upon a platform and pitched sheaves from
+the wagons upon the sliding track of the ponderous, rattling
+threshing-machine. The engine stood off fifty yards or more, connected
+by an endless driving-belt to the thresher. Here indeed were whistle and
+roar and whir, and the shout of laborers, and the smell of smoke, sweat,
+dust, and wheat. Kurt had arms of steel. If they tired he never knew it.
+He toiled, and he watched the long spout of chaff and straw as it
+streamed from the thresher to lift, magically, a glistening,
+ever-growing stack. And he felt, as a last and cumulative change, his
+physical effort, and the physical adjuncts of the scene, pass into
+something spiritual, into his heart and his memory.
+
+The end of that harvest-time came as a surprise to Kurt. Obsessed with
+his own emotions, he had actually helped to cut the wheat and harvest
+it; he had seen it go swath by swath, he had watched the huge wagons
+lumber away and the huge straw-stacks rise without realizing that the
+hours of this wonderful harvest were numbered.
+
+Sight of Olsen coming in from across the field, and the sudden cessation
+of roar and action, made Kurt aware of the end. It seemed a calamity.
+But Olsen was smiling through his dust-caked face. About him were
+relaxation, an air of finality, and a subtle pride.
+
+"We're through," he said. "She tallies thirty-eight thousand, seven
+hundred an' forty-one bushels. It's too bad the old man couldn't live to
+hear that."
+
+Olsen gripped Kurt's hand and wrung it.
+
+"Boy, I reckon you ought to take that a little cheerfuller," he went on.
+"But--well it's been a hard time.... The men are leavin' now. In two
+hours the last wagons will unload at the railroad. The wheat will all be
+in the warehouse. An' our worry's ended."
+
+"I--I hope so," responded Kurt. He seemed overcome with the passionate
+longing to show his gratitude to Olsen. But the words would not flow.
+"I--I don't know how to thank you.... All my life--"
+
+"We beat the I.W.W.," interposed the farmer, heartily. "An' now what'll
+you do, Dorn?"
+
+"Why, I'll hustle to Kilo, get my money, send you a check for yourself
+and men, pay off the debt to Anderson, and then--"
+
+But Kurt did not conclude his speech. His last words were
+thought-provoking.
+
+"It's turned out well," said Olsen, with satisfaction, and, shaking
+hands again with Kurt, he strode back to his horses.
+
+At last the wide, sloping field was bare, except for the huge
+straw-stacks. A bright procession lumbered down the road, led by the
+long strings of wagons filled with brown bags. A strange silence had
+settled down over the farm. The wheat was gone. That waving stretch of
+gold had fallen to the thresher and the grain had been hauled away. The
+neighbors had gone, leaving Kurt rich in bushels of wheat, and richer
+for the hearty farewells and the grips of horny hands. Kurt's heart was
+full.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was evening. Kurt had finished his supper. Already he had packed a
+few things to take with him on the morrow. He went out to the front of
+the house. Stars were blinking. There was a low hum of insects from the
+fields. He missed the soft silken rustle of the wheat. And now it seemed
+he could sit there in the quiet darkness, in that spot which had been
+made sweet by Lenore Anderson's presence, and think of her, the meeting
+soon to come. The feeling abiding with him then must have been
+happiness, because he was not used to it. Without deserving anything, he
+had asked a great deal of fate, and, lo! it had been given him. All was
+well that ended well. He realized now the terrible depths of despair
+into which he had allowed himself to be plunged. He had been weak,
+wrong, selfish. There was something that guided events.
+
+He needed to teach himself all this, with strong and repeated force, so
+that when he went to give Lenore Anderson the opportunity to express her
+gratitude, to see her sweet face again, and to meet the strange, warm
+glance of her blue eyes, so mysterious and somehow mocking, he could be
+a man of restraint, of pride, like any American, like any other college
+man she knew. This was no time for a man to leave a girl bearing a
+burden of his unsolicited love, haunted, perhaps, by a generous reproach
+that she might have been a little to blame. He had told her the truth,
+and so far he had been dignified. Now let him bid her good-by, leaving
+no sorrow for her, and, once out of her impelling presence, let come
+what might come. He could love her then; he could dare what he had never
+dared; he could surrender himself to the furious, insistent sweetness of
+a passion that was sheer bliss in its expression. He could imagine
+kisses on the red lips that were not for him.
+
+A husky shout from somewhere in the rear of the house diverted Kurt's
+attention. He listened. It came again. His name! It seemed a strange
+call from out of the troubled past that had just ended. He hurried
+through the house to the kitchen. The woman stood holding a lamp,
+staring at Jerry.
+
+Jerry appeared to have sunk against the wall. His face was pallid, with
+drops of sweat standing out, with distorted, quivering lower jaw. He
+could not look at Kurt. He could not speak. With shaking hand he pointed
+toward the back of the house.
+
+Filled with nameless dread, Kurt rushed out. He saw nothing unusual,
+heard nothing. Rapidly he walked out through the yard, and suddenly he
+saw a glow in the sky above the barns. Then he ran, so that he could get
+an unobstructed view of the valley.
+
+The instant he obtained this he halted as if turned to stone. The valley
+was a place of yellow light. He stared. With the wheat-fields all
+burned, what was the meaning of such a big light? That broad flare had a
+center, low down on the valley floor. As he gazed a monstrous flame
+leaped up, lighting colossal pillars of smoke that swirled upward, and
+showing plainer than in day the big warehouse and lines of freight-cars
+at the railroad station, eight miles distant.
+
+"My God!" gasped Kurt. "The warehouse--my wheat--on fire!"
+
+Clear and unmistakable was the horrible truth. Kurt heard the roar of
+the sinister flames. Transfixed, he stood there, at first hardly able to
+see and to comprehend. For miles the valley was as light as at noonday.
+An awful beauty attended the scene. How lurid and sinister the red heart
+of that fire? How weird and hellish and impressive of destruction those
+black, mountain-high clouds of smoke! He saw the freight-cars disappear
+under this fierce blazing and smoking pall. He watched for what seemed
+endless moments. He saw the changes of that fire, swift and terrible.
+And only then did Kurt Dorn awaken to the full sense of the calamity.
+
+"All that work--Olsen's sacrifice--and the farmers'--my father's
+death--all for nothing!" whispered Kurt. "They only waited--those
+fiends--to fire the warehouse and the cars!"
+
+The catastrophe had fallen. The wheat was burning. He was ruined. His
+wheatland must go to Anderson. Kurt thought first and most poignantly of
+the noble farmers who had sacrificed the little in their wheat-fields to
+save the much in his. Never could he repay them.
+
+Then he became occupied with a horrible heat that seemed to have come
+from the burning warehouse to all his pulses and veins and to his heart
+and his soul.
+
+This fiendish work, as had been forecast, was the work of the I.W.W.
+Behind it was Glidden and perhaps behind him was the grasping, black
+lust of German might. Kurt's loss was no longer abstract or
+problematical. It was a loss so real and terrible that it confounded
+him. He shook and gasped and reeled. He wrung his hands and beat his
+breast while the tumult swayed him, the physical hate at last yielding
+up its significance. What then, was his great loss? He could not tell.
+The thing was mighty, like the sense of terror and loneliness in the
+black night. Not the loss for his farmer neighbors, so true in his hour
+of trial! Not the loss of his father, nor the wheat, nor the land, nor
+his ruined future! But it must be a loss, incalculable and
+insupportable, to his soul. His great ordeal had been the need, a
+terrible and incomprehensible need, to kill something intangible in
+himself. He had meant to do it. And now the need was shifted, subject to
+a baser instinct. If there was German blood in him, poisoning the very
+wells of his heart he could have spilled it, and so, whether living or
+dead, have repudiated the taint. That was now clear in his
+consciousness. But a baser spark had ignited all the primitive passion
+of the forebears he felt burning and driving within him. He felt no
+noble fire. He longed to live, to have a hundredfold his strength and
+fury, to be gifted with a genius for time and place and bloody deed, to
+have the war-gods set him a thousand opportunities, to beat with iron
+mace and cut with sharp bayonet and rend with hard hand--to kill and
+kill and kill the hideous thing that was German.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Kurt rushed back to the house. Encountering Jerry, he ordered him to run
+and saddle a couple of horses. Then Kurt got his revolver and a box of
+shells, and, throwing on his coat, he hurried to the barn. Jerry was
+leading out the horses. It took but short work to saddle them. Jerry was
+excited and talkative. He asked Kurt many questions, which excited few
+replies.
+
+When Kurt threw himself into the saddle Jerry yelled, "Which way?"
+
+"Down the trail!" replied Kurt, and was off.
+
+"Aw, we'll break our necks!" came Jerry's yell after him.
+
+Kurt had no fear of the dark. He knew that trail almost as well by night
+as by day. His horse was a mettlesome colt that had not been worked
+during the harvest, and he plunged down the dim, winding trail as if,
+indeed, to verify Jerry's fears. Presently the thin, pale line that was
+the trail disappeared on the burned wheat-ground. Here Kurt was at fault
+as to direction, but he did not slacken the pace for that. He heard
+Jerry pounding along in the rear, trying to catch up. The way the colt
+jumped ditches and washes and other obstructions proved his keen sight.
+Kurt let him go. And then the ride became both perilous and thrilling.
+
+Kurt could not see anything on the blackened earth. But he knew from the
+contour of the hills just about where to expect to reach the fence and
+the road. And he did not pull the horse too soon. When he found the gate
+he waited for Jerry, who could be heard calling from the darkness. Kurt
+answered him.
+
+"Here's the gate!" yelled Kurt, as Jerry came galloping up. "Good road
+all the way now!"
+
+"Lickity-cut then!" shouted Jerry to whom the pace had evidently
+communicated enthusiasm.
+
+The ride then became a race, with Kurt drawing ahead. Kurt could see the
+road, a broad, pale belt, dividing the blackness on either side; and he
+urged the colt to a run. The wind cut short Kurt's breath, beat at his
+ears, and roared about them. Closer and closer drew the red flare of the
+dying fire, casting long rays of light into Kurt's eyes.
+
+The colt was almost run out when he entered the circle of reddish flare.
+Kurt saw the glowing ruins of the elevators and a long, fiery line of
+box-cars burned to the wheels. Men were running and shouting round in
+front of the little railroad station, and several were on the roof with
+brooms and buckets. The freight-house had burned, and evidently the
+station itself had been on fire. Across the wide street of the little
+village the roof of a cottage was burning. Men were on top of it,
+beating the shingles. Hoarse yells greeted Kurt as he leaped out of the
+saddle. He heard screams of frightened women. On the other side of the
+burned box-cars a long, thin column of sparks rose straight upward. Over
+the ruins of the elevators hung a pall of heavy smoke. Just then Jerry
+came galloping up, his lean face red in the glow.
+
+"Thet you, Kurt! Say, the sons of guns are burnin' down the town." He
+leaped off. "Lemme have your bridle. I'll tie the hosses up. Find out
+what we can do."
+
+Kurt ran here and there, possessed by impotent rage. The wheat was gone!
+That fact gave him a hollow, sickening pang. He met farmers he knew.
+They all threw up their hands at sight of him. Not one could find a
+voice. Finally he met Olsen. The little wheat farmer was white with
+passion. He carried a gun.
+
+"Hello, Dorn! Ain't this hell? They got your wheat!" he said hoarsely.
+
+"Olsen! How'd it happen? Wasn't anybody set to guard the elevators?"
+
+"Yes. But the I.W.W.'s drove all the guards off but Grimm, an' they beat
+him up bad. Nobody had nerve enough to shoot."
+
+"Olsen, if I run into the Glidden I'll kill him," declared Kurt.
+
+"So will I.... But, Dorn, they're a hard crowd. They're over there on
+the side, watchin' the fire. A gang of them! Soon as I can get the men
+together we'll drive them out of town. There'll be a fight, if I don't
+miss my guess."
+
+"Hurry the men! Have all of them get their guns! Come on!"
+
+"Not yet, Dorn. We're fightin' fire yet. You an' Jerry help all you
+can."
+
+Indeed, it appeared there was danger of more than one cottage burning.
+The exceedingly dry weather of the past weeks had made shingles like
+tinder, and wherever a glowing spark fell on them there straightway was
+a smoldering fire. Water, a scarce necessity in that region, had been
+used until all wells and pumps became dry. It was fortunate that most of
+the roofs of the little village had been constructed of galvanized iron.
+Beating out blazes and glowing embers with brooms was not effective
+enough. When it appeared that the one cottage nearest the rain of sparks
+was sure to go, Kurt thought of the railroad watertank below the
+station. He led a number of men with buckets to the tank, and they soon
+drowned out the smoldering places.
+
+Meanwhile the blazes from the box-cars died out, leaving only the dull
+glow from the red heap that had once been the elevators. However, this
+gave forth light enough for any one to be seen a few rods distant.
+Sparks had ceased to fall, and from that source no further danger need
+be apprehended. Olsen had been going from man to man, sending those who
+were not armed home for guns. So it came about that half an hour after
+Kurt's arrival a score of farmers, villagers, and a few railroaders were
+collected in a group, listening to the pale-faced Olsen.
+
+"Men, there's only a few of us, an' there's hundreds, mebbe, in thet
+I.W.W. gang, but we've got to drive them off," he said, doggedly.
+"There's no tellin' what they'll do if we let them hang around any
+longer. They know we're weak in numbers. We've got to do some shootin'
+to scare them away."
+
+Kurt seconded Olsen in ringing voice.
+
+"They've threatened your homes," he said. "They've burned my
+wheat--ruined me. They were the death of my father.... These are facts
+I'm telling you. We can't wait for law or for militia. We've got to meet
+this I.W.W. invasion. They have taken advantage of the war situation.
+They're backed by German agents. It's now a question of our property.
+We've got to fight!"
+
+The crowd made noisy and determined response. Most of them had small
+weapons; a few had shot-guns or rifles.
+
+"Come on, men," called Olsen. "I'll do the talkin'. An' if I say shoot,
+why, you shoot!"
+
+It was necessary to go around the long line of box-cars. Olsen led the
+way, with Kurt just back of him. The men spoke but little and in
+whispers. At the left end of the line the darkness was thick enough to
+make objects indistinct.
+
+Once around the corner, Kurt plainly descried a big dark crowd of men
+whose faces showed red in the glow of the huge pile of embers which was
+all that remained of the elevators. They did not see Olsen's men.
+
+"Hold on," whispered Olsen. "If we get in a fight here we'll be in a bad
+place. We've nothin' to hide behind. Let's go off--more to the left--an'
+come up behind those freight-cars on the switches. That'll give us cover
+an' we'll have the I.W.W.'s in the light."
+
+So he led off to the left, keeping in the shadow, and climbed between
+several lines of freight-cars, all empty, and finally came out behind
+the I.W.W.'s. Olsen led to within fifty yards of them, and was halted by
+some observant member of the gang who sat with the others on top of a
+flat-car.
+
+This man's yell stilled the coarse talk and laughter of the gang.
+
+"What's that?" shouted a cold, clear voice with authority in it.
+
+Kurt thought he recognized the voice, and it caused a bursting, savage
+sensation in his blood.
+
+"Here's a bunch of farmers with guns!" yelled the man from the flat-car.
+
+Olsen halted his force near one of the detached lines of box-cars, which
+he probably meant to take advantage of in case of a fight.
+
+"Hey, you I.W.W.'s!" he shouted, with all his might.
+
+There was a moment's silence.
+
+"There's no I.W.W.'s here," replied the authoritative voice.
+
+Kurt was sure now that he recognized Glidden's voice. Excitement and
+anger then gave place to deadly rage.
+
+"Who are you?" yelled Olsen.
+
+"We're tramps watchin' the fire," came the reply.
+
+"You set that fire!"
+
+"No, we didn't."
+
+Kurt motioned Olsen to be silent, as with lifting breast he took an
+involuntary step forward.
+
+"Glidden, I know you!" he shouted, in hard, quick tones. "I'm Kurt Dorn.
+I've met you. I know your voice.... Take your gang--get out of here--or
+we'll kill you!"
+
+This pregnant speech caused a blank dead silence. Then came a white
+flash, a sharp report. Kurt heard the thud of a bullet striking some one
+near him. The man cried out, but did not fall.
+
+"Spread out an' hide!" ordered Olsen. "An' shoot fer keeps!"
+
+The little crowd broke and melted into the shadows behind and under the
+box-cars. Kurt crawled under a car and between the wheels, from which
+vantage-point he looked out. Glidden's gang were there in the red glow,
+most of them now standing. The sentry who had given the alarm still sat
+on top of the flat-car, swinging his legs. His companions, however, had
+jumped down. Kurt heard men of his own party crawling and whispering
+behind him, and he saw dim, dark, sprawling forms under the far end of
+the car.
+
+"Boss, the hayseeds have run off," called the man from the flat car.
+
+Laughter and jeers greeted this sally.
+
+Kurt concluded it was about time to begin proceedings. Resting his
+revolver on the side of the wheel behind which he lay, he took steady
+aim at the sentry, holding low. Kurt was not a good shot with a revolver
+and the distance appeared to exceed fifty yards. But as luck would have
+it, when he pulled trigger the sentry let out a loud bawl of terror and
+pain, and fell off the car to the ground. Flopping and crawling like a
+crippled chicken, he got out of sight below.
+
+Kurt's shot was a starter for Olsen's men. Four or five of the shot-guns
+boomed at once; then the second barrels were discharged, along with a
+sharper cracking of small arms. Pandemonium broke loose in Glidden's
+gang. No doubt, at least, of the effectiveness of the shot-guns! A
+medley of strange, sharp, enraged, and anguished cries burst upon the
+air, a prelude to a wild stampede. In a few seconds that lighted spot
+where the I.W.W. had grouped was vacant, and everywhere were fleeing
+forms, some swift, others slow. So far as Kurt could see, no one had
+been fatally injured. But many had been hurt, and that fact augured well
+for Olsen's force.
+
+Presently a shot came from some hidden enemy. It thudded into the wood
+of the car over Kurt. Some one on his side answered it, and a heavy
+bullet, striking iron, whined away into the darkness. Then followed
+flash here and flash there, with accompanying reports and whistles of
+lead. From behind and under and on top of cars opened up a fire that
+proved how well armed these so-called laborers were. Their volley
+completely drowned the desultory firing of Olsen's squad.
+
+Kurt began to wish for one of the shot-guns. It was this kind of weapon
+that saved Olsen's followers. There were a hundred chances to one of
+missing an I.W.W. with a single bullet, while a shot-gun, aimed fairly
+well, was generally productive of results. Kurt stopped wasting his
+cartridges. Some one was hurt behind his car and he crawled out to see.
+A villager named Schmidt had been wounded in the leg, not seriously, but
+bad enough to disable him. He had been using a double-barreled
+breech-loading shot-gun, and he wore a vest with rows of shells in the
+pockets across the front. Kurt borrowed gun and ammunition; and with
+these he hurried back to his covert, grimly sure of himself. At thought
+of Glidden he became hot all over, and this heat rather grew with the
+excitement of battle.
+
+With the heavy fowling-piece loaded, Kurt peeped forth from behind his
+protecting wheel and watched keenly for flashes or moving dark figures.
+The I.W.W. had begun to reserve their fire, to shift their positions,
+and to spread out, judging from a wider range of the reports. It looked
+as if they meant to try and surround Olsen's band. It was
+extraordinary--the assurance and deadly intent of this riffraff gang of
+tramp labor-agitators. In preceding years a crowd of I.W.W. men had been
+nothing to worry a rancher. Vastly different it seemed now. They acted
+as if they had the great war back of them.
+
+Kurt crawled out of his hiding-place, and stole from car to car, in
+search of Olsen. At last he found the rancher, in company with several
+men, peering from behind a car. One of his companions was sitting down
+and trying to wrap something round his foot.
+
+"Olsen, they're spreading out to surround us," whispered Kurt.
+
+"That's what Bill here just said," replied Olsen, nervously. "If this
+keeps up we'll be in a tight place. What'll we do, Dorn?"
+
+"We mustn't break and run, of all things," said Kurt. "They'd burn the
+village. Tell our men to save their shells.... If I only could get some
+cracks at a bunch of them together--with this big shot-gun!"
+
+"Say, we've been watchin' that car--the half-size one, there--next the
+high box-car," whispered Olsen.
+
+"It's full of them. Sometimes we see a dozen shots come from it, all at
+once."
+
+"Olsen, I've an idea," returned Kurt, excitedly. "You fellows keep
+shooting--attract their attention. I'll slip below, climb on top of a
+box-car, and get a rake-off at that bunch."
+
+"It's risky, Dorn," said Olsen, with hesitation. "But if you could get
+in a few tellin' shots--start that gang on the run!"
+
+"I'll try it," rejoined Kurt, and forthwith stole off back toward the
+shadow. It struck him that there was more light then when the attack
+began. The fire had increased, or perhaps the I.W.W. had started
+another; at any rate, the light was growing stronger, and likewise the
+danger greater. As he crossed an open space a bullet whizzed by him, and
+then another zipped by to strike up the gravel ahead. These were not
+random shots. Some one was aiming at him. How strange and rage-provoking
+to be shot at deliberately! What a remarkable experience for a young
+wheat farmer! Raising wheat in the great Northwest had assumed
+responsibilities. He had to run, and he was the more furious because of
+that. Another bullet, flying wide, hummed to his left before he gained
+the shelter of the farthest line of freight-cars. Here he hid and
+watched. The firing appeared to be all behind him, and, thus encouraged,
+he stole along to the end of the line of cars, and around. A bright
+blaze greeted his gaze. An isolated car was on fire. Kurt peered forth
+to make sure of his bearings, and at length found the high derrick by
+which he had marked the box-car that he intended to climb.
+
+He could see plainly, and stole up to his objective point, with little
+risk to himself until he climbed upon the box-car. He crouched low,
+almost on hands and knees, and finally gained the long shadow of a shed
+between the tracks. Then he ran past the derrick to the dark side of the
+car. He could now plainly see the revolver flashes and could hear the
+thud and spang of their bullets striking. Drawing a deep breath, Kurt
+climbed up the iron ladder on the dark side of the car.
+
+He had the same sensation that possessed him when he was crawling to get
+a pot-shot at a flock of wild geese. Only this was mightily more
+exciting. He did not forget the risk. He lay flat and crawled little by
+little. Every moment he expected to be discovered. Olsen had evidently
+called more of his men to his side, for they certainly were shooting
+diligently. Kurt heard a continuous return fire from the car he was
+risking so much to get a shot at. At length he was within a yard of the
+end of the car--as far as he needed to go. He rested a moment. He was
+laboring for breath, sweating freely, on fire with thrills.
+
+His plan was to raise himself on one knee and fire as many double shots
+as possible. Presently he lifted his head to locate the car. It was half
+in the bright light, half in the shadow, lengthwise toward him, about
+sixty or seventy yards distant, and full of men. He dropped his head,
+tingling all over. It was a disappointment that the car stood so far
+away. With fine shot he could not seriously injure any of the I.W.W.
+contingent, but he was grimly sure of the fright and hurt he could
+inflict. In his quick glance he had seen flashes of their guns, and many
+red faces, and dark, huddled forms.
+
+Kurt took four shells and set them, end up, on the roof of the car close
+to him. Then, cocking the gun, he cautiously raised himself to one knee.
+He discharged both barrels at once. What a boom and what a terrified
+outburst of yells! Swiftly he broke the gun, reloaded, fired as before,
+and then again. The last two shots were fired at the men piling
+frantically over the side of the car, yelling with fear. Kurt had heard
+the swishing pattering impact of those swarms of small shot. The I.W.W.
+gang ran pell-mell down the open track, away from Kurt and toward the
+light. As he reloaded the gun he saw men running from all points to join
+the gang. With an old blunderbuss of a shot-gun he had routed the I.W.W.
+It meant relief to Olsen's men; but Kurt had yet no satisfaction for the
+burning of his wheat, for the cruel shock that had killed his father.
+
+"Come on, Olsen!" he yelled, at the top of his lungs. "They're a lot of
+cowards!"
+
+Then in his wild eagerness he leaped off the car. The long jump landed
+him jarringly, but he did not fall or lose hold of the gun. Recovering
+his balance, he broke into a run. Kurt was fast on his feet. Not a young
+man of his neighborhood nor any of his college-mates could outfoot him
+in a race. And then these I.W.W. fellows ran like stiff-legged tramps,
+long unused to such mode of action. And some of them were limping as
+they ran. Kurt gained upon them. When he got within range he halted
+short and freed two barrels. A howl followed the report. Some of the
+fleeing ones fell, but were dragged up and on by companions. Kurt
+reloaded and, bounding forward like a deer, yelling for Olsen, he ran
+until he was within range, then stopped to shoot again. Thus he
+continued until the pursued got away from the circle of light. Kurt saw
+the gang break up, some running one way and some another. There were
+sheds and cars and piles of lumber along the track, affording places to
+hide. Kurt was halted by the discovery that he had no more ammunition.
+Panting, he stopped short, realizing that he had snapped an empty gun at
+men either too tired or too furious or too desperate to run any farther.
+
+"He's out of shells!" shouted a low, hard voice that made Kurt leap. He
+welcomed the rush of dark forms, and, swinging the gun round his head,
+made ready to brain the first antagonist who neared him. But some one
+leaped upon him from behind. The onslaught carried him to his knees.
+Bounding up, he broke the gun stock on the head of his assailant, who
+went down in a heap. Kurt tried to pull his revolver. It became
+impossible, owing to strong arms encircling him. Wrestling, he freed
+himself, only to be staggered by a rush of several men, all pouncing
+upon him at once. Kurt went down, but, once down, he heaved so
+powerfully that he threw off the whole crew. Up again, like a cat, he
+began to fight. Big and strong and swift, with fists like a
+blacksmith's, Kurt bowled over this assailant and that one. He thought
+he recognized Glidden in a man who kept out of his reach and who was
+urging on the others. Kurt lunged at him and finally got his hands on
+him. That was fatal for Kurt, because in his fury he forgot Glidden's
+comrades. In one second his big hand wrenched a yell of mortal pain out
+of Glidden; then a combined attack of the others rendered Kurt
+powerless. A blow on the head stunned him--made all dark.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+It seemed that Kurt did not altogether lose consciousness, for he had
+vague sensations of being dragged along the ground. Presently the
+darkness cleared from his mind and he opened his eyes. He lay on his
+back. Looking up, he saw stars through the thin, broken clouds of smoke.
+A huge pile of railroad ties loomed up beside him.
+
+He tried to take note of his situation. His hands were tied in front of
+him, not so securely, he imagined, that he could not work them free. His
+legs had not been tied. Both his head and shoulder, on the left side,
+pained him severely. Upon looking around, Kurt presently made out the
+dark form of a man. He appeared rigid with attention, but that evidently
+had no relation to Kurt. The man was listening and watching for his
+comrades. Kurt heard no voices or shots. After a little while, however,
+he thought he heard distant footsteps on the gravel. He hardly knew what
+to make of his predicament. If there was only one guard over him, escape
+did not seem difficult, unless that guard had a gun.
+
+"Hello, you!" he called.
+
+"Hello, yourself" replied the man, jerking up in evident surprise.
+
+"What's your name?" inquired Kurt, amiably.
+
+"Well, it ain't J.J. Hill or Anderson," came the gruff response.
+
+Kurt laughed. "But you would be one of those names if you could, now
+wouldn't you?" went on Kurt.
+
+"My name is Dennis," gloomily returned the man.
+
+"It certainly is. _That_ is the name of all I.W.W.'s," said Kurt.
+
+"Say, are you the fellow who had the shot-gun?"
+
+"I sure am," replied Kurt.
+
+"I ought to knock you on the head."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I'll have to eat standing up for a month."
+
+"Yes?" queried Kurt.
+
+"The seat of my pants must have made a good target, for you sure pasted
+it full of birdshot."
+
+Kurt smothered a laugh. Then he felt the old anger leap up. "Didn't you
+burn my wheat?"
+
+"Are you that young Dorn?"
+
+"Yes, I am," replied Kurt, hotly.
+
+"Well, I didn't burn one damn straw of your old wheat."
+
+"You didn't! But you're with these men? You're an I.W.W. You've been
+fighting these farmers here."
+
+"If you want to know, I'm a tramp," said the man, bitterly. "Years ago I
+was a prosperous oil-producer in Ohio. I had a fine oil-field. Along
+comes a big fellow, tries to buy me out, and, failing that, he shot off
+dynamite charges into the ground next my oil-field.... Choked my wells!
+Ruined me!... I came west--went to farming. Along comes a corporation,
+steals my water for irrigation--and my land went back to desert.... So I
+quit working and trying to be honest. It doesn't pay. The rich men are
+getting all the richer at the expense of the poor. So now I'm a tramp."
+
+"Friend, that's a hard-luck story," said Kurt. "It sure makes me
+think.... But I'll tell you what--you don't belong to this I.W.W.
+outfit, even if you are a tramp."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because you're American! That's why."
+
+"Well, I know I am. But I can be American and travel with a labor union,
+can't I?"
+
+"No. This I.W.W. is no labor union. It never was. Their very first rule
+is to abolish capital. They're anarchists. And now they're backed by
+German money. The I.W.W. is an enemy to America. All this hampering of
+railroads, destruction of timber and wheat, is an aid to Germany in the
+war. The United States is at war! My God! man, can't you see it's your
+own country that must suffer for such deals as this wheat-burning
+to-night?"
+
+"The hell you say!" ejaculated the man, in amaze.
+
+"This Glidden is a German agent--perhaps a spy. He's no labor leader.
+What does he care for the interests of such men as you?"
+
+"Young man, if you don't shut up you'll give me a hankering to go back
+to real work."
+
+"I hope I do. Let me give you a hunch. Throw down this I.W.W. outfit. Go
+to Ruxton and get Anderson of 'Many Waters' ranch to give you a job.
+Tell him who you are and that I sent you."
+
+"Anderson of 'Many Waters,' hey? Well, maybe it'll surprise you to know
+that Glidden is operating there, has a lot of men there, and is going
+there from here."
+
+"No, it doesn't surprise me. I hope he does go there. For if he does
+he'll get killed."
+
+"Sssssh!" whispered the guard. "Here comes some of the gang."
+
+Kurt heard low voices and soft footfalls. Some dark forms loomed up.
+
+"Bradford, has he come to yet?" queried the brutal voice of Glidden.
+
+"Nope," replied the guard. "I guess he had a hard knock. He's never
+budged."
+
+"We've got to beat it out of here," said Glidden. "It's long after
+midnight. There's a freight-train down the track. I want all the gang to
+board it. You run along, Bradford, and catch up with the others."
+
+"What're you going to do with this young fellow?" queried Bradford,
+curiously.
+
+"That's none of your business," returned Glidden.
+
+"Maybe not. But I reckon I'll ask, anyhow. You want me to join your
+I.W.W., and I'm asking questions. Labor strikes--standing up for your
+rights--is one thing, and burning wheat or slugging young farmers is
+another. Are you going to let this Dorn go?"
+
+Kurt could plainly see the group of five men, Bradford standing over the
+smaller Glidden, and the others strung and silent in the intensity of
+the moment.
+
+"I'll cut his throat," hissed Glidden.
+
+Bradford lunged heavily. The blow he struck Glidden was square in the
+face. Glidden would have had a hard fall but for the obstruction in the
+shape of his comrades, upon whom he was knocked. They held him up.
+Glidden sagged inertly, evidently stunned or unconscious. Bradford
+backed guardedly away out of their reach, then, wheeling, he began to
+run with heavy, plodding strides.
+
+Glidden's comrades seemed anxiously holding him up, peering at him, but
+no one spoke. Kurt saw his opportunity. With one strong wrench he freed
+his hands. Feeling in his pocket for his gun, he was disturbed to find
+that it had been taken. He had no weapon. But he did not hesitate.
+Bounding up, he rushed like a hurricane upon the unprepared group. He
+saw Glidden's pale face upheld to the light of the stars, and by it saw
+that Glidden was recovering. With all his might Kurt swung as he rushed,
+and the blow he gave the I.W.W. leader far exceeded Bradford's. Glidden
+was lifted so powerfully against one of his men that they both fell.
+Then Kurt, striking right and left, beat down the other two, and,
+leaping over them, he bounded away into the darkness. Shrill piercing
+yells behind him lent him wings.
+
+But he ran right into another group of I.W.W. men, dozens in number, he
+thought, and by the light of what appeared to be a fire they saw him as
+quickly as he saw them. The yells behind were significant enough. Kurt
+had to turn to run back, and he had to run the gauntlet of the men he
+had assaulted. They promptly began to shoot at Kurt. The whistle of lead
+was uncomfortably close. Never had he run so fleetly. When he flashed
+past the end of the line of cars, into comparative open, he found
+himself in the light of a new fire. This was a shed perhaps a score of
+rods or less from the station. Some one was yelling beyond this, and
+Kurt thought he recognized Jerry's voice, but he did not tarry to make
+sure. Bullets scattering the gravel ahead of him and singing around his
+head, and hoarse cries behind, with a heavy-booted tread of pursuers,
+gave Kurt occasion to hurry. He flew across the freight-yard, intending
+to distance his pursuers, then circle round the station to the village.
+
+Once he looked back. The gang, well spread out, was not far behind him,
+just coming into the light of the new fire. No one in it could ever
+catch him, of that Kurt was sure.
+
+Suddenly a powerful puff of air, like a blast of wind, seemed to lift
+him. At the same instant a dazzling, blinding, yellow blaze illuminated
+the whole scene. The solid earth seemed to rock under Kurt's flying
+feet, and then a terrific roar appalled him. He was thrown headlong
+through the air, and all about him seemed streaks and rays and bursts of
+fire. He alighted to plow through the dirt until the momentum of force
+had been expended. Then he lay prone, gasping and choking, almost blind,
+but sensitive to the rain of gravel and debris, the fearful cries of
+terrified men, taste of smoke and dust, and the rank smell of exploded
+gasoline.
+
+Kurt got up to grope his way through the murky darkness. He could escape
+now. If that explosion had not killed his pursuers it had certainly
+scared them off. He heard men running and yelling off to the left. A
+rumble of a train came from below the village. Finally Kurt got clear of
+the smoke, to find that he had wandered off into one of the fields
+opposite the station. Here he halted to rest a little and to take
+cognizance of his condition. It surprised him to find out that he was
+only bruised, scratched, and sore. He had expected to find himself full
+of bullets.
+
+"Whew! They blew up the gasoline-shed!" he soliloquized. "But some of
+them miscalculated, for if I don't lose my guess there was a bunch of
+I.W.W. closer to that gasoline than I was.... Some adventure!... I got
+another punch at Glidden. I felt it in my bones that I'd get a crack at
+him. Oh, for another!... And that Bradford! He did make me think. How he
+slugged Glidden! Good! Good! There's your old American spirit coming
+out."
+
+Kurt sat down to rest and to listen. He found he needed a rest. The only
+sound he heard was the rumbling of a train, gradually drawing away. A
+heavy smoke rose from the freight-yard, but there were no longer any
+blazes or patches of red fire. Perhaps the explosion had smothered all
+the flames.
+
+It had been a rather strenuous evening, he reflected. A good deal of
+satisfaction lay in the fact that he had severely punished some of the
+I.W.W. members, if he had not done away with any of them.
+
+When he thought of Glidden, however, he did not feel any satisfaction.
+His fury was gone, but in its place was a strong judgment that such men
+should be made examples. He certainly did not want to run across Glidden
+again, because if he did he would have blood on his hands.
+
+Kurt's chance meeting with the man Bradford seemed far the most
+interesting, if not thrilling, incident of the evening. It opened up a
+new point of view. How many of the men of that motley and ill-governed
+I.W.W. had grievances like Bradford's? Perhaps there were many. Kurt
+tried to remember instances when, in the Northwest wheat country,
+laborers and farmers had been cheated or deceived by men of large
+interests. It made him grave to discover that he could recall many such
+instances. His own father had long nursed a grievance against Anderson.
+Neuman, his father's friend, had a hard name. And there were many who
+had profited by the misfortune of others. That, after all, was a
+condition of life. He took it for granted, then, that all members of the
+I.W.W. were not vicious or dishonest. He was glad to have this proof.
+The I.W.W. had been organized by labor agitators, and they were the ones
+to blame, and their punishment should be severest. Kurt began to see
+where the war, cruel as it would be, was going to be of immeasurable
+benefit to the country.
+
+It amazed Kurt, presently, to note that dawn was at hand. He waited
+awhile longer, wanting to be sure not to meet any lingering members of
+the I.W.W. It appeared, indeed, that they had all gone.
+
+He crossed the freight-yard. A black ruin, still smoldering, lay where
+the elevators had been. That wonderful wheat yield of his had been
+destroyed. In the gray dawn it was hard to realize. He felt a lump in
+his throat. Several tracks were littered with the remains of burned
+freight-cars. When Kurt reached the street he saw men in front of the
+cottages. Some one hailed him, and then several shouted. They met him
+half-way. Jerry and Olsen were in the party.
+
+"We was pretty much scared," said Jerry, and his haggard face showed his
+anxiety.
+
+"Boy, we thought the I.W.W. had made off with you," added Olsen,
+extending his hand.
+
+"Not much! Where are they?" replied Kurt.
+
+"Gone on a freight-train. When Jerry blew up the gasoline-shed that
+fixed the I.W.W."
+
+"Jerry, did you do that?" queried Kurt.
+
+"I reckon."
+
+"Well, you nearly blew me off the map. I was running, just below the
+shed. When that explosion came I was lifted and thrown a mile. Thought
+I'd never light!"
+
+"So far as we can tell, nobody was killed," said Olsen. "Some of our
+fellows have got bullet-holes to nurse. But no one is bad hurt."
+
+"That's good. I guess we came out lucky," replied Kurt.
+
+"You must have had some fight, runnin' off that way after the I.W.W.'s.
+We heard you shootin' an' the I.W.W.'s yellin'. That part was fun. Tell
+us what happened to you."
+
+So Kurt had to narrate his experiences from the time he stole off with
+the big shot-gun until his friends saw him again. It made rather a long
+story, which manifestly was of exceeding interest to the villagers.
+
+"Dorn," said one of the men, "you an' Jerry saved this here village from
+bein' burned."
+
+"We all had a share. I'm sure glad they're gone. Now what damage was
+done?"
+
+It turned out that there had been little hurt to the property of the
+villagers. Some freight-cars full of barley, loaded and billed by the
+railroad people, had been burned, and this loss of grain would probably
+be paid for by the company. The loss of wheat would fall upon Kurt. In
+the haste of that great harvest and its transportation to the village no
+provision had been made for loss. The railroad company had not accepted
+his wheat for transportation, and was not liable.
+
+"Olsen, according to our agreement I owe you fifteen thousand dollars,"
+said Kurt.
+
+"Yes, but forget it," replied Olsen. "You're the loser here."
+
+"I'll pay it," replied Kurt.
+
+"But, boy, you're ruined!" ejaculated the farmer. "You can't pay that
+big price now. An' we don't expect it."
+
+"Didn't you leave your burning fields to come help us save ours?"
+queried Kurt.
+
+"Sure. But there wasn't much of mine to burn."
+
+"And so did many of the other men who came to help. I tell you, Olsen,
+that means a great deal to me. I'll pay my debt or--or--"
+
+"But how can you?" interrupted Olsen, reasonably. "Sometime, when you
+raise another crop like this year, then you could pay."
+
+"The farm will bring that much more than I owe Anderson."
+
+"You'll give up the farm?" exclaimed Olsen.
+
+"Yes. I'll square myself."
+
+"Dorn, we won't take that money," said the farmer, deliberately.
+
+"You'll have to take it. I'll send you a check soon--perhaps to-morrow."
+
+"Give up your land!" repeated Olsen. "Why, that's unheard of! Land in
+your family so many years!... What will you do?"
+
+"Olsen, I waited for the draft just on account of my father. If it had
+not been for him I'd have enlisted. Anyway, I'm going to war."
+
+That silenced the little group of grimy-faced men.
+
+"Jerry, get our horses and we'll ride home," said Kurt.
+
+The tall foreman strode off. Kurt sensed something poignant in the
+feelings of the men, especially Olsen. This matter of the I.W.W. dealing
+had brought Kurt and his neighbors closer together. And he thought it a
+good opportunity for a few words about the United States and the war and
+Germany. So he launched forth into an eloquent expression of some of his
+convictions. He was still talking when Jerry returned with the horses.
+At length he broke off, rather abruptly, and, saying good-by, he
+mounted.
+
+"Hold on, Kurt," called Olsen, and left the group to lay a hand on the
+horse and to speak low. "What you said struck me deep. It applies pretty
+hard to us of the Bend. We've always been farmers, with no thought of
+country. An' that's because we left our native country to come here. I'm
+not German an' I've never been for Germany. But many of my neighbors an'
+friends are Germans. This war never has come close till now. I know
+Germans in this country. They have left their fatherland an' they are
+lost to that fatherland!... It may take some time to stir them up, to
+make them see, but the day will come.... Take my word for it, Dorn, the
+German-Americans of the Northwest, when it comes to a pinch, will find
+themselves an' be true to the country they have adopted."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+The sun was up, broad and bright, burning over the darkened
+wheat-fields, when Kurt and Jerry reached home. Kurt had never seen the
+farm look like that--ugly and black and bare. But the fallow ground,
+hundreds of acres of it, billowing away to the south, had not suffered
+any change of color or beauty. To Kurt it seemed to smile at him, to bid
+him wait for another spring.
+
+And that thought was poignant, for he remembered he must leave at once
+for "Many Waters."
+
+He found, when he came to wash the blood and dirt from his person, that
+his bruises were many. There was a lump on his head, and his hands were
+skinned. After changing his clothes and packing a few things in a
+valise, along with his papers, he went down to breakfast. Though
+preoccupied in mind, he gathered that both the old housekeeper and Jerry
+were surprised and dismayed to see him ready to leave. He had made no
+mention of his intentions. And it struck him that this, somehow, was
+going to be hard.
+
+Indeed, when the moment came he found that speech was difficult and his
+voice not natural.
+
+"Martha--Jerry--I'm going away for good," he said, huskily. "I mean to
+make over the farm to Mr. Anderson. I'll leave you in charge here--and
+recommend that you be kept on. Here's your money up to date.... I'm
+going away to the war--and the chances are I'll never come back."
+
+The old housekeeper, who had been like a mother to him for many years,
+began to cry; and Jerry struggled with a regret that he could not speak.
+
+Abruptly Kurt left them and hurried out of the house. How strange that
+difficult feelings had arisen--emotions he had never considered at all!
+But the truth was that he was leaving his home forever. All was
+explained in that.
+
+First he went to the graves of his father and mother, out on the south
+slope, where there were always wind and sun. The fire had not desecrated
+the simple burying-ground. There was no grass. But a few trees and
+bushes kept it from appearing bare.
+
+Kurt sat down in the shade near his mother's grave and looked away
+across the hills with dim eyes. Something came to him--a subtle
+assurance that his mother approved of his going to war. Kurt remembered
+her--slow, quiet, patient, hard-working, dominated by his father.
+
+The slope was hot and still, with only a rustling of leaves in the wind.
+The air was dry. Kurt missed the sweet fragrance of wheat. What odor
+there was seemed to be like that of burning weeds. The great, undulating
+open of the Bend extended on three sides. His parents had spent the best
+of their lives there and had now been taken to the bosom of the soil
+they loved. It seemed natural. Many were the last resting-places of
+toilers of the wheat there on those hills. And surely in the long
+frontier days, and in the ages before, men innumerable had gone back to
+the earth from which they had sprung. The dwelling-places of men were
+beautiful; it was only life that was sad. In this poignant, revealing
+hour Kurt could not resist human longings and regrets, though he gained
+incalculable strength from these two graves on the windy slope. It was
+not for any man to understand to the uttermost the meaning of life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he left he made his way across some of the fallow land and some of
+the stubble fields that had yielded, alas! so futilely, such abundant
+harvest. His boyhood days came back to him, when he used to crush down
+the stubble with his bare feet. Every rod of the way revealed some
+memory. He went into the barn and climbed into the huge, airy loft. It
+smelled of straw and years of dust and mice. The swallows darted in and
+out, twittering. How friendly they were! Year after year they had
+returned to their nests--the young birds returning to the homes of the
+old. Home even for birds was a thing of first and vital importance.
+
+It was a very old barn that had not many more useful years to stand.
+Kurt decided that he would advise that it be strengthened. There were
+holes in the rough shingling and boards were off the sides. In the
+corners and on the rafters was an accumulation of grain dust as thick as
+snow. Mice ran in and out, almost as tame as the swallows. He seemed to
+be taking leave of them. He recalled that he used to chase and trap mice
+with all a boy's savage ingenuity. But that boyish instinct, along with
+so many things so potential then, was gone now.
+
+Best of all he loved the horses. Most of these were old and had given
+faithful service for many years. Indeed, there was one--Old Badge--that
+had carried Kurt when he was a boy. Once he and a neighbor boy had gone
+to the pasture to fetch home the cows. Old Badge was there, and nothing
+would do but that they ride him. From the fence Kurt mounted to his
+broad back. Then the neighbor boy, full of the devil, had struck Old
+Badge with a stick. The horse set off at a gallop for home with Kurt,
+frantically holding on, bouncing up and down on his back. That had been
+the ride of Kurt's life. His father had whipped him, too, for the
+adventure.
+
+How strangely vivid and thought-compelling were these ordinary adjuncts
+to his life there on the farm. It was only upon giving them up that he
+discovered their real meaning. The hills of bare fallow and of yellow
+slope, the old barn with its horses, swallows, mice, and odorous loft,
+the cows and chickens--these appeared to Kurt, in the illuminating light
+of farewell, in their true relation to him. For they, and the labor of
+them, had made him what he was.
+
+Slowly he went back to the old house and climbed the stairs. Only three
+rooms were there up-stairs, and one of these, his mother's, had not been
+opened for a long time. It seemed just the same as when he used to go to
+her with his stubbed toes and his troubles. She had died in that room.
+And now he was a man, going out to fight for his country. How strange!
+Why? In his mother's room he could not answer that puzzling question. It
+stung him, and with a last look, a good-by, and a word of prayer on his
+lips, he turned to his own little room.
+
+He entered and sat down on the bed. It was small, with the slope of the
+roof running down so low that he had learned to stoop when close to the
+wall. There was no ceiling. Bare yellow rafters and dark old shingles
+showed. He could see light through more than one little hole. The window
+was small, low, and without glass. How many times he had sat there,
+leaning out in the hot dusk of summer nights, dreaming dreams that were
+never to come true. Alas for the hopes and illusions of boyhood! So long
+as he could remember, this room was most closely associated with his
+actions and his thoughts. It was a part of him. He almost took it into
+his confidence as if it were human. Never had he become what he had
+dared to dream he would, yet, somehow, at that moment he was not
+ashamed. It struck him then what few belongings he really had. But he
+had been taught to get along with little.
+
+Living in that room was over for him. He was filled with unutterable
+sadness. Yet he would not have had it any different. Bigger, and
+selfless things called to him. He was bidding farewell to his youth and
+all that it related to. A solemn procession of beautiful memories passed
+through his mind, born of the nights there in that room of his boyhood,
+with the wind at the eaves and the rain pattering on the shingles. What
+strong and vivid pictures! No grief, no pain, no war could rob him of
+this best heritage from the past.
+
+He got up to go. And then a blinding rush of tears burned his eyes. This
+room seemed dearer than all the rest of his home. It was hard to leave.
+His last look was magnified, transformed. "Good-by!" he whispered, with
+a swelling constriction in his throat. At the head of the dark old
+stairway he paused a moment, and then with bowed head he slowly
+descended.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+An August twilight settled softly down over "Many Waters" while Lenore
+Anderson dreamily gazed from her window out over the darkening fields so
+tranquil now after the day's harvest toil.
+
+Of late, in thoughtful hours such as this, she had become conscious of
+strain, of longing. She had fought out a battle with herself, had
+confessed her love for Kurt Dorn, and, surrendering to the enchantment
+of that truth, had felt her love grow with every thought of him and
+every beat of a thrilling pulse. In spite of a longing that amounted to
+pain and a nameless dread she could not deny, she was happy. And she
+waited, with a woman's presaging sense of events, for a crisis that was
+coming.
+
+Presently she heard her father down-stairs, his heavy tread and hearty
+voice. These strenuous harvest days left him little time for his family.
+And Lenore, having lost herself in her dreams, had not, of late, sought
+him out in the fields. She was waiting, and, besides, his keen eyes, at
+once so penetrating and so kind, had confused her. Few secrets had she
+ever kept from her father.
+
+"Where's Lenore?" she heard him ask, down in the dining-room.
+
+"Lenorry's mooning," replied Kathleen, with a giggle.
+
+"Ah-huh? Well, whereabouts is she moonin'?" went on Anderson.
+
+"Why, in her room!" retorted the child. "And you can't get a word out of
+her with a crowbar."
+
+Anderson's laugh rang out with a jingle of tableware. He was eating his
+supper. Then Lenore heard her mother and Rose and Kathleen all burst out
+with news of a letter come that day from Jim, away training to be a
+soldier. It was Rose who read this letter aloud to her father, and
+outside of her swift, soft voice the absolute silence attested to the
+attention of the listeners. Lenore's heart shook as she distinguished a
+phrase here and there, for Jim's letter had been wonderful for her. He
+had gained weight! He was getting husky enough to lick his father! He
+was feeling great! There was not a boy in the outfit who could beat him
+to a stuffed bag of a German soldier! And he sure could make some job
+with that old bayonet! So ran Jim's message to the loved ones at home.
+Then a strange pride replaced the quake in Lenore's heart. Not now would
+she have had Jim stay home. She had sacrificed him. Something subtler
+than thought told her she would never see him again. And, oh, how dear
+he had become!
+
+Then Anderson roared his delight in that letter and banged the table
+with his fist. The girls excitedly talked in unison. But the mother was
+significantly silent. Lenore forgot them presently and went back to her
+dreaming. It was just about dark when her father called.
+
+"Lenore."
+
+"Yes, father," she replied.
+
+"I'm comin' up," he said, and his heavy tread sounded in the hall. It
+was followed by the swift patter of little feet. "Say, you kids go back.
+I want to talk to Lenore."
+
+"Daddy," came Kathleen's shrill, guilty whisper, "I was only in
+fun--about her mooning."
+
+The father laughed again and slowly mounted the stairs. Lenore reflected
+uneasily that he seldom came to her room. Also, when he was most
+concerned with trouble he usually sought her.
+
+"Hello! All in the dark?" he said, as he came in. "May I turn on the
+light?"
+
+Lenore assented, though not quite readily. But Anderson did not turn on
+the light. He bumped into things on the way to where she was curled up
+in her window-seat, and he dropped wearily into Lenore's big arm-chair.
+
+"How are you, daddy?" she inquired.
+
+"Dog tired, but feelin' fine," he replied. "I've got a meetin' at eight
+an' I need a rest. Reckon I'd like to smoke--an' talk to you--if you
+don't mind."
+
+"I'd sure rather listen to my dad than any one," she replied, softly.
+She knew he had come with news or trouble or need of help. He always
+began that way. She could measure his mood by the preliminaries before
+his disclosure. And she fortified herself.
+
+"Wasn't that a great letter from the boy?" began Anderson, as he lit a
+cigar. By the flash of the match Lenore got a glimpse of his dark and
+unguarded face. Indeed, she did well to fortify herself.
+
+"Fine!... He wrote it to me. I laughed. I swelled with pride. It sent my
+blood racing. It filled me with fight.... Then I sneaked up here to
+cry."
+
+"Ah-huh!" exclaimed Anderson, with a loud sigh. Then for a moment of
+silence the end of his cigar alternately paled and glowed. "Lenore, did
+you get any--any kind of a hunch from Jim's letter?"
+
+"I don't exactly understand what you mean," replied Lenore.
+
+"Did somethin'--strange an' different come to you?" queried Anderson,
+haltingly, as if words were difficult to express what he meant.
+
+"Why, yes--I had many strange feelings."
+
+"Jim's letter was just like he talks. But to me it said somethin' he
+never meant an' didn't know.... Jim will never come back!"
+
+"Yes, dad--I divined just that," whispered Lenore.
+
+"Strange about that," mused Anderson, with a pull on his cigar.
+
+And then followed a silence. Lenore felt how long ago her father had
+made his sacrifice. There did not seem to be any need for more words
+about Jim. But there seemed a bigness in the bond of understanding
+between her and her father. A cause united them, and they were sustained
+by unfaltering courage. The great thing was the divine spark in the boy
+who could not have been held back. Lenore gazed out into the darkening
+shadows. The night was very still, except for the hum of insects, and
+the cool air felt sweet on her face. The shadows, the silence, the
+sleeping atmosphere hovering over "Many Waters," seemed charged with a
+quality of present sadness, of the inexplicable great world moving to
+its fate.
+
+"Lenore, you haven't been around much lately," resumed Anderson. "Sure
+you're missed. An' Jake swears a lot more than usual."
+
+"Father, you told me to stay at home," she replied.
+
+"So I did. An' I reckon it's just as well. But when did you ever before
+mind me?"
+
+"Why, I always obey you," replied Lenore, with her low laugh.
+
+"Ah-huh! Not so I'd notice it.... Lenore, have you seen the big clouds
+of smoke driftin' over 'Many Waters' these last few days?"
+
+"Yes. And I've smelled smoke, too.... From forest fire, is it not?"
+
+"There's fire in some of the timber, but the wind's wrong for us to get
+smoke from the foot-hills."
+
+"Then where does the smoke come from?" queried Lenore, quickly.
+
+"Some of the Bend wheat country's been burned over."
+
+"Burned! You mean the wheat?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Oh! What part of the Bend?"
+
+"I reckon it's what you called young Dorn's desert of wheat."
+
+"Oh, what a pity!... Have you had word?"
+
+"Nothin' but rumors yet. But I'm fearin' the worst an' I'm sorry for our
+young friend."
+
+A sharp pain shot through Lenore's breast, leaving behind an ache.
+
+"It will ruin him!" she whispered.
+
+"Aw no, not that bad," declared Anderson, and there was a red streak in
+the dark where evidently he waved his cigar in quick, decisive action.
+"It'll only be tough on him an' sort of embarrassin' for me--an' you.
+That boy's proud.... I'll bet he raised hell among them I.W.W.'s, if he
+got to them." And Anderson chuckled with the delight he always felt in
+the Western appreciation of summary violence justly dealt.
+
+Lenore felt the rising tide of her anger. She was her father's daughter,
+yet always had been slow to wrath. That was her mother's softness and
+gentleness tempering the hard spirit of her father. But now her blood
+ran hot, beating and bursting about her throat and temples. And there
+was a leap and quiver to her body.
+
+"Dastards! Father, those foreign I.W.W. devils should be shot!" she
+cried, passionately. "To ruin those poor, heroic farmers! To ruin
+that--that boy! It's a crime! And, oh, to burn his beautiful field of
+wheat--with all his hopes! Oh, what shall I call that!"
+
+"Wal, lass, I reckon it'd take stronger speech than any you know,"
+responded Anderson. "An' I'm usin' that same."
+
+Lenore sat there trembling, with hot tears running down her cheeks, with
+her fists clenched so tight that her nails cut into her palms. Rage only
+proved to her how impotent she was to avert catastrophe. How bitter and
+black were some trials! She shrank with a sense of acute pain at thought
+of the despair there must be in the soul of Kurt Dorn.
+
+"Lenore," began Anderson, slowly--his tone was stronger, vibrant with
+feeling--"you love this young Dorn!"
+
+A tumultuous shock shifted Lenore's emotions. She quivered as before,
+but this was a long, shuddering thrill shot over her by that spoken
+affirmation. What she had whispered shyly and fearfully to herself when
+alone and hidden--what had seemed a wonderful and forbidden secret--her
+father had spoken out. Lenore gasped. Her anger fled as it had never
+been. Even in the dark she hid her face and tried to grasp the wild,
+whirling thoughts and emotions now storming her. He had not asked. He
+had affirmed. He knew. She could not deceive him even if she would. And
+then for a moment she was weak, at the mercy of contending tides.
+
+"Sure I seen he was in love with you," Anderson was saying. "Seen that
+right off, an' I reckon I'd not thought much of him if he hadn't
+been.... But I wasn't sure of you till the day Dorn saved you from
+Ruenke an' fetched you back. Then I seen. An' I've been waitin' for you
+to tell me."
+
+"There's--nothing--to tell," faltered Lenore.
+
+"I reckon there is," he replied. Leaning over, he threw his cigar out of
+the window and took hold of her.
+
+Lenore had never felt him so impelling. She was not proof against the
+strong, warm pressure of his hand. She felt in its clasp, as she had
+when a little girl, a great and sure safety. It drew her irresistibly.
+She crept into his arms and buried her face on his shoulder, and she had
+a feeling that if she could not relieve her heart it would burst.
+
+"Oh, d--dad," she whispered, with a soft, hushed voice that broke
+tremulously at her lips, "I--I love him!... I do love him.... It's
+terrible!... I knew it--that last time you took me to his home--when he
+said he was going to war.... And, oh, now you know!"
+
+Anderson held her tight against his broad breast that lifted her with
+its great heave. "Ah-huh! Reckon that's some relief. I wasn't so darn
+sure," said Anderson. "Has he spoken to you?"
+
+"Spoken! What do you mean?"
+
+"Has Dorn told you he loved you?"
+
+Lenore lifted her face. If that confession of hers had been relief to
+her father it had been more so to her. What had seemed terrible began to
+feel natural. Still, she was all intense, vibrating, internally
+convulsed.
+
+"Yes, he has," she replied, shyly. "But such a confession! He told it as
+if to explain what he thought was boldness on his part. He had fallen in
+love with me at first sight!... And then meeting me was too much for
+him. He wanted me to know. He was going away to war. He asked
+nothing.... He seemed to apologize for--for daring to love me. He asked
+nothing. And he has absolutely not the slightest idea I care for him."
+
+"Wal, I'll be dog-goned!" ejaculated Anderson. "What's the matter with
+him?"
+
+"Dad, he is proud," replied Lenore, dreamily. "He's had a hard struggle
+out there in his desert of wheat. They've always been poor. He imagines
+there's a vast distance between an heiress of 'Many Waters' and a farmer
+boy. Then, more than all, I think, the war has fixed a morbid trouble in
+his mind. God knows it must be real enough! A house divided against
+itself is what he called his home. His father is German. He is American.
+He worshiped his mother, who was a native of the United States. He has
+become estranged from his father. I don't know--I'm not sure--but I felt
+that he was obsessed by a calamity in his German blood. I divined that
+was the great reason for his eagerness to go to war."
+
+"Wal, Kurt Dorn's not goin' to war," replied her father. "I fixed that
+all right."
+
+An amazing and rapturous start thrilled over Lenore. "Daddy!" she cried,
+leaping up in his arms, "what have you done?"
+
+"I got exemption for him, that's what," replied Anderson, with great
+satisfaction.
+
+"Exemption!" exclaimed Lenore, in bewilderment.
+
+"Don't you remember the government official from Washington? You met him
+in Spokane. He was out West to inspire the farmers to raise more wheat.
+There are many young farmers needed a thousand times more on the
+wheat-fields than on the battle-fields. An' Kurt Dorn is one of them.
+That boy will make the biggest sower of wheat in the Northwest. I
+recommended exemption for Dorn. An' he's exempted an' doesn't know it."
+
+"Doesn't know! He'll _never_ accept exemption," declared Lenore.
+
+"Lass, I'm some worried myself," rejoined Anderson. "Reckon you've
+explained Dorn to me--that somethin' queer about him.... But he's
+sensible. He can be told things. An' he'll see how much more he's needed
+to raise wheat than to kill Germans."
+
+"But, father--suppose he _wants_ to kill Germans?" asked Lenore,
+earnestly. How strangely she felt things about Dorn that she could not
+explain.
+
+"Then, by George! it's up to you, my girl," replied her father, grimly.
+"Understand me. I've no sentiment about Dorn in this matter. One good
+wheat-raiser is worth a dozen soldiers. To win the war--to feed our
+country after the war--why, only a man like me knows what it 'll take!
+It means millions of bushels of wheat!... I've sent my own boy. He'll
+fight with the best or the worst of them. But he'd never been a man to
+raise wheat. All Jim ever raised is hell. An' his kind is needed now. So
+let him go to war. But Dorn must be kept home. An' that's up to Lenore
+Anderson."
+
+"Me!... Oh--how?" cried Lenore, faintly.
+
+"Woman's wiles, daughter," said Anderson, with his frank laugh. "When
+Dorn comes let me try to show him his duty. The Northwest can't spare
+young men like him. He'll see that. If he has lost his wheat he'll come
+down here to make me take the land in payment of the debt. I'll accept
+it. Then he'll say he's goin' to war, an' then I'll say he ain't....
+We'll have it out. I'll offer him such a chance here an' in the Bend
+that he'd have to be crazy to refuse. But if he has got a twist in his
+mind--if he thinks he's got to go out an' kill Germans--then you'll have
+to change him."
+
+"But, dad, how on earth can I do that?" implored Lenore, distracted
+between hope and joy and fear.
+
+"You're a woman now. An' women are in this war up to their eyes. You'll
+be doin' more to keep him home than if you let him go. He's moony about
+you. You can make him stay. An' it's your future--your happiness....
+Child, no Anderson ever loves twice."
+
+"I cannot throw myself into his arms," whispered Lenore, very low.
+
+"Reckon I didn't mean you to," returned Anderson, gruffly.
+
+"Then--if--if he does not ask me to--to marry him--how can I--"
+
+"Lenore, no man on earth could resist you if you just let yourself be
+sweet--as sweet as you are sometimes. Dorn could never leave you!"
+
+"I'm not so sure of that, daddy," she murmured.
+
+"Then take my word for it," he replied, and he got up from the chair,
+though still holding her. "I'll have to go now.... But I've shown my
+hand to you. Your happiness is more to me than anythin' else in this
+world. You love that boy. He loves you. An' I never met a finer lad!
+Wal, here's the point. He need be no slacker to stay home. He can do
+more good here. Then outside of bein' a wheat man for his army an' his
+country he can be one for me. I'm growin' old, my lass!... Here's the
+biggest ranch in Washington to look after, an' I want Kurt Dorn to look
+after it.... Now, Lenore, do we understand each other?"
+
+She put her arms around his neck. "Dear old daddy, you're the
+wonderfulest father any girl ever had! I would do my best--I would obey
+even if I did not love Kurt Dorn.... To hear you speak so of him--oh,
+its sweet! It--chokes me!... Now, good-night.... Hurry, before I--"
+
+She kissed him and gently pushed him out of the room. Then before the
+sound of his slow footfalls had quite passed out of hearing she lay
+prone upon her bed, her face buried in the pillow, her hands clutching
+the coverlet, utterly surrendered to a breaking storm of emotion.
+Terrible indeed had come that presaged crisis of her life. Love of her
+wild brother Jim, gone to atone forever for the errors of his youth;
+love of her father, confessing at last the sad fear that haunted him;
+love of Dorn, that stalwart clear-eyed lad who set his face so bravely
+toward a hopeless, tragic fate--these were the burden of the flood of
+her passion, and all they involved, rushing her from girlhood into
+womanhood, calling to her with imperious desires, with deathless
+loyalty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+After Lenore's paroxysm of emotion had subsided and she lay quietly in
+the dark, she became aware of soft, hurried footfalls passing along the
+path below her window. At first she paid no particular heed to them, but
+at length the steady steps became so different in number, and so regular
+in passing every few moments, that she was interested to go to her
+window and look out. Watching there awhile, she saw a number of men,
+whispering and talking low, come from the road, pass under her window,
+and disappear down the path into the grove. Then no more came. Lenore
+feared at first these strange visitors might be prowling I.W.W. men. She
+concluded, however, that they were neighbors and farm-hands, come for
+secret conference with her father.
+
+Important events were pending, and her father had not taken her into his
+confidence! It must be, then, something that he did not wish her to
+know. Only a week ago, when the I.W.W. menace had begun to be serious,
+she had asked him how he intended to meet it, and particularly how he
+would take sure measures to protect himself. Anderson had laughed down
+her fears, and Lenore, absorbed in her own tumult, had been easily
+satisfied. But now, with her curiosity there returned a two-fold dread.
+
+She put on a cloak and went down-stairs. The hour was still early. She
+heard the girls with her mother in the sitting-room. As Lenore slipped
+out she encountered Jake. He appeared to loom right out of the darkness
+and he startled her.
+
+"Howdy, Miss Lenore!" he said. "Where might you be goin'?"
+
+"Jake, I'm curious about the men I heard passing by my window," she
+replied. Then she observed that Jake had a rifle under his arm, and she
+added, "What are you doing with that gun?"
+
+"Wal, I've sort of gone back to packin' a Winchester," replied Jake.
+
+Lenore missed his smile, ever ready for her. Jake looked somber.
+
+"You're on guard!" she exclaimed.
+
+"I reckon. There's four of us boys round the house. You're not goin' off
+thet step, Miss Lenore."
+
+"Oh, ah-huh!" replied Lenore, imitating her father, and bantering Jake,
+more for the fun of it than from any intention of disobeying him. "Who's
+going to keep me from it?"
+
+"I am. Boss's orders, Miss Lenore. I'm dog-gone sorry. But you sure
+oughtn't to be outdoors this far," replied Jake.
+
+"Look here, my cowboy dictator. I'm going to see where those men went,"
+said Lenore, and forthwith she stepped down to the path.
+
+Then Jake deliberately leaned his rifle against a post and, laying hold
+of her with no gentle hands, he swung her in one motion back upon the
+porch. The broad light streaming out of the open door showed that,
+whatever his force meant, it had paled his face to exercise it.
+
+"Why, Jake--to handle me that way!" cried Lenore, in pretended reproach.
+She meant to frighten or coax the truth out of him. "You hurt me!"
+
+"I'm beggin' your pardon if I was rough," said Jake. "Fact is, I'm a
+little upset an' I mean bizness."
+
+Whereupon Lenore stepped back to close the door, and then, in the
+shadow, she returned to Jake and whispered: "I was only in fun. I would
+not think of disobeying you. But you can trust me. I'll not tell, and
+I'll worry less if I know what's what.... Jake, is father in danger?"
+
+"I reckon. But the best we could do was to make him stand fer a guard.
+There's four of us cowpunchers with him all day, an' at night he's
+surrounded by guards. There ain't much chance of his gittin' hurt. So
+you needn't worry about thet."
+
+"Who are these men I heard passing? Where are they from?"
+
+"Farmers, ranchers, cowboys, from all over this side of the river."
+
+"There must have been a lot of them," said Lenore, curiously.
+
+"Reckon you never heerd the quarter of what's come to attend Anderson's
+meetin'."
+
+"What for? Tell me, Jake."
+
+The cowboy hesitated. Lenore heard his big hand slap round the
+rifle-stock.
+
+"We've orders not to tell thet," he replied.
+
+"But, Jake, you can tell _me_. You always tell me secrets. I'll not
+breathe it."
+
+Jake came closer to her, and his tall head reached to a level with hers,
+where she stood on the porch. Lenore saw his dark, set face, his
+gleaming eyes.
+
+"Wal, it's jest this here," he whispered, hoarsely. "Your dad has
+organized vigilantes, like he belonged to in the early days.... An' it's
+the vigilantes thet will attend to this I.W.W. outfit."
+
+Those were thrilling words to Jake, as was attested by his emotion, and
+they surely made Lenore's knees knock together. She had heard many
+stories from her father of that famous old vigilante band, secret,
+making the law where there was no law.
+
+"Oh, I might have expected that of dad!" she murmured.
+
+"Wal, it's sure the trick out here. An' your father's the man to deal
+it. There'll be dog-goned little wheat burned in this valley, you can
+gamble on thet."
+
+"I'm glad. I hate the very thought.... Jake, you know about Mr. Dorn's
+misfortune?"
+
+"No, I ain't heerd about him. But I knowed the Bend was burnin' over,
+an' of course I reckoned Dorn would lose his wheat. Fact is, he had the
+only wheat up there worth savin' ... Wal, these I.W.W.'s an' their
+German bosses hev put it all over the early days when rustlin' cattle,
+holdin' up stage-coaches, an' jest plain cussedness was stylish."
+
+"Jake, I'd rather have lived back in the early days," mused Lenore.
+
+"Me too, though I ain't no youngster," he replied. "Reckon you'd better
+go in now, Miss Lenore.... Don't you worry none or lose any sleep."
+
+Lenore bade the cowboy good-night and went to the sitting-room. Her
+mother sat preoccupied, with sad and thoughtful face. Rose was writing
+many pages to Jim. Kathleen sat at the table, surreptitiously eating
+while she was pretending to read.
+
+"My, but you look funny, Lenorry!" she cried.
+
+"Why don't you laugh, then?" retorted Lenore.
+
+"You're white. Your eyes are big and purple. You look like a starved
+cannibal.... If that's what it's like to be in love--excuse me--I'll
+never fall for any man!"
+
+"You ought to be in bed. Mother I recommend the baby of the family be
+sent up-stairs."
+
+"Yes, child, it's long past your bedtime," said Mrs. Anderson.
+
+"Aw, no!" wailed Kathleen.
+
+"Yes," ordered her mother.
+
+"But you'd never thought of it--if Lenorry hadn't said so," replied
+Kathleen.
+
+"You should obey Lenore," reprovingly said Mrs. Anderson.
+
+"What? Me! Mind her!" burst out Kathleen, hotly, as she got up to go.
+"Well, I guess not!" Kathleen backed to the door and opened it. Then
+making a frightful face at Lenore, most expressive of ridicule and
+revenge, she darted up-stairs.
+
+"My dear, will you write to your brother?" inquired Mrs. Anderson.
+
+"Yes," replied Lenore. "I'll send mine with Rose's."
+
+Mrs. Anderson bade the girls good-night and left the room. After that
+nothing was heard for a while except the scratching of pens.
+
+It was late when Lenore retired, yet she found sleep elusive. The
+evening had made subtle, indefinable changes in her. She went over in
+mind all that had been said to her and which she felt, with the result
+that one thing remained to torment and perplex and thrill her--to keep
+Kurt Dorn from going to war.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next day Lenore did not go out to the harvest fields. She expected Dorn
+might arrive at any time, and she wanted to be there when he came. Yet
+she dreaded the meeting. She had to keep her hands active that day, so
+in some measure to control her mind. A thousand times she felt herself
+on the verge of thrilling and flushing. Her fancy and imagination seemed
+wonderfully active. The day was more than usually golden, crowned with
+an azure blue, like the blue of the Pacific. She worked in her room,
+helped her mother, took up her knitting, and sewed upon a dress, and
+even lent a hand in the kitchen. But action could not wholly dull the
+song in her heart. She felt unutterably young, as if life had just
+opened, with haunting, limitless, beautiful possibilities. Never had the
+harvest-time been so sweet.
+
+Anderson came in early from the fields that day. He looked like a
+farm-hand, with his sweaty shirt, his dusty coat, his begrimed face. And
+when he kissed Lenore he left a great smear on her cheek.
+
+"That's a harvest kiss, my lass," he said, with his big laugh. "Best of
+the whole year!"
+
+"It sure is, dad," she replied. "But I'll wait till you wash your face
+before I return it. How's the harvest going?"
+
+"We had trouble to-day," he said.
+
+"What happened?"
+
+"Nothin' much, but it was annoyin'. We had some machines crippled, an'
+it took most of the day to fix them.... We've got a couple of hundred
+hands at work. Some of them are I.W.W.'s, that's sure. But they all
+swear they are not an' we have no way to prove it. An' we couldn't catch
+them at their tricks.... All the same, we've got half your big
+wheat-field cut. A thousand acres, Lenore!... Some of the wheat 'll go
+forty bushels to the acre, but mostly under that."
+
+"Better than last harvest," Lenore replied, gladly. "We are lucky....
+Father, did you hear any news from the Bend?"
+
+"Sure did," he replied, and patted her head. "They sent me a message up
+from Vale.... Young Dorn wired from Kilo he'd be here to-day."
+
+"To-day!" echoed Lenore, and her heart showed a tendency to act
+strangely.
+
+"Yep. He'll be here soon," said Anderson, cheerfully. "Tell your mother.
+Mebbe he'll come for supper. An' have a room ready for him."
+
+"Yes, father," replied Lenore.
+
+"Wal, if Dorn sees you as you look now--sleeves rolled up, apron on,
+flour on your nose--a regular farmer girl--an' sure huggable, as Jake
+says--you won't have no trouble winnin' him."
+
+"How you talk!" exclaimed Lenore, with burning cheeks. She ran to her
+room and made haste to change her dress.
+
+But Dorn did not arrive in time for supper. Eight o'clock came without
+his appearing, after which, with keen disappointment, Lenore gave up
+expecting him that night. She was in her father's study, helping him
+with the harvest notes and figures, when Jake knocked and entered.
+
+"Dorn's here," he announced.
+
+"Good. Fetch him in," replied Anderson.
+
+"Father, I--I'd rather go," whispered Lenore.
+
+"You stay right along by your dad," was his reply, "an' be a real
+Anderson."
+
+When Lenore heard Dorn's step in the hall the fluttering ceased in her
+heart and she grew calm. How glad she would be to see him! It had been
+the suspense of waiting that had played havoc with her feelings.
+
+Then Dorn entered with Jake. The cowboy set down a bag and went out. He
+seemed strange to Lenore and very handsome in his gray flannel suit.
+
+As he stepped forward in greeting Lenore saw how white he was, how
+tragic his eyes. There had come a subtle change in his face. It hurt
+her.
+
+"Miss Anderson, I'm glad to see you," he said, and a flash of red
+stained his white cheeks. "How are you?"
+
+"Very well, thank you," she replied, offering her hand. "I'm glad to see
+you."
+
+They shook hands, while Anderson boomed out: "Hello, son! I sure am glad
+to welcome you to 'Many Waters.'"
+
+No doubt as to the rancher's warm and hearty greeting! It warmed some of
+the coldness out of Dorn's face.
+
+"Thank you. It's good to come--yet it's--it's hard."
+
+Lenore saw his throat swell. His voice seemed low and full of emotion.
+
+"Bad news to tell," said Anderson. "Wal, forget it.... Have you had
+supper?"
+
+"Yes. At Huntington. I'd have been here sooner, but we punctured a tire.
+My driver said the I.W.W. was breaking bottles on the roads."
+
+"I.W.W. Now where'd I ever hear that name?" asked Anderson, quizzically.
+"Bustin' bottles, hey! Wal, they'll be bustin' their heads presently....
+Sit down, Dorn. You look fine, only you're sure pale."
+
+"I lost my father," said Dorn.
+
+"What! Your old man? Dead?... Aw, that's tough!"
+
+Lenore felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to go to Dorn. "Oh, I'm
+sorry!" she said.
+
+"That is a surprise," went on Anderson, rather huskily. "My Lord! But
+it's only round the corner for every man.... Come on, tell us all about
+it, an' the rest of the bad news.... Get it over. Then, mebbe Lenore n'
+me--"
+
+But Anderson did not conclude his last sentence.
+
+Dorn's face began to work as he began to talk, and his eyes were dark
+and deep, burning with gloom.
+
+"Bad news it is, indeed.... Mr. Anderson, the I.W.W. marked us....
+You'll remember your suggestion about getting my neighbors to harvest
+our wheat in a rush. I went all over, and almost all of them came. We
+had been finding phosphorus everywhere. Then, on the hot day, fires
+broke out all around. My neighbors left their own burning fields to save
+ours. We fought fire. We fought fire all around us, late into the
+night.... My father had grown furious, maddened at the discovery of how
+he had been betrayed by Glidden. You remember the--the plot, in which
+some way my father was involved. He would not believe the I.W.W. meant
+to burn _his_ wheat. And when the fires broke out he worked like a
+mad-man.... It killed him!... I was not with him when he died. But
+Jerry, our foreman was.... And my father's last words were, 'Tell my son
+I was wrong.'... Thank God he sent me that message! I think in that he
+confessed the iniquity of the Germans.... Well, my neighbor, Olsen,
+managed the harvest. He sure rushed it. I'd have given a good deal for
+you and Miss Anderson to have seen all those big combines at work on one
+field. It was great. We harvested over thirty-eight thousand bushels and
+got all the wheat safely to the elevators at the station.... And that
+night the I.W.W. burned the elevators!"
+
+Anderson's face turned purple. He appeared about to explode. There was a
+deep rumbling within his throat that Lenore knew to be profanity
+restrained on account of her presence. As for her own feelings, they
+were a strange mixture of sadness for Dorn and pride in her father's
+fury, and something unutterably sweet in the revelation about to be made
+to this unfortunate boy. But she could not speak a word just then, and
+it appeared that her father was in the same state.
+
+Evidently the telling of his story had relieved Dorn. The strain relaxed
+in his white face and it lost a little of its stern fixity. He got up
+and, opening his bag, he took out some papers.
+
+"Mr. Anderson, I'd like to settle all this right now," he said. "I want
+it off my mind."
+
+"Go ahead, son, an' settle," replied Anderson, thickly. He heaved a big
+sigh and then sat down, fumbling for a match to light his cigar. When he
+got it lighted he drew in a big breath and with it manifestly a great
+draught of consoling smoke.
+
+"I want to make over the--the land--in fact, all the property--to
+you--to settle mortgage and interest," went on Dorn, earnestly, and then
+paused.
+
+"All right. I expected that," returned Anderson, as he emitted a cloud
+of smoke.
+
+"The only thing is--" here Dorn hesitated, evidently with difficult
+speech--"the property is worth more than the debt."
+
+"Sure. I know," said Anderson, encouragingly.
+
+"I promised our neighbors big money to harvest our wheat. You remember
+you told me to offer it. Well, they left their own wheat and barley
+fields to burn, and they saved ours. And then they harvested it and
+hauled it to the railroad.... I owe Andrew Olsen fifteen thousand
+dollars for himself and the men who worked with him.... If I could pay
+that--I'd--almost be happy.... Do you think my property is worth that
+much more than the debt?"
+
+"I think it is--just about," replied Anderson. "We'll mail the money to
+Olsen.... Lenore, write out a check to Andrew Olsen for fifteen
+thousand."
+
+Lenore's hand trembled as she did as her father directed. It was the
+most poorly written check she had ever drawn. Her heart seemed too big
+for her breast just then. How cool and calm her father was! Never had
+she loved him quite so well as then. When she looked up from her task it
+was to see a change in Kurt Dorn that suddenly dimmed her eyes.
+
+"There, send this to Olsen," said Anderson. "We'll run into town in a
+day or so an' file the papers."
+
+Lenore had to turn her gaze away from Dorn. She heard him in broken,
+husky accents try to express his gratitude.
+
+"Ah-huh! Sure--sure!" interrupted Anderson, hastily. "Now listen to me.
+Things ain't so bad as they look.... For instance, we're goin' to fool
+the I.W.W. down here in the valley."
+
+"How can you? There are so many," returned Dorn.
+
+"You'll see. We're just waitin' a chance."
+
+"I saw hundreds of I.W.W. men between her and Kilo."
+
+"Can you tell an I.W.W. from any other farm-hand?" asked Anderson.
+
+"Yes, I can," replied Dorn, grimly.
+
+"Wal, I reckon we need you round here powerful much," said the rancher,
+dryly. "Dorn, I've got a big proposition to put up to you."
+
+Lenore, thrilling at her father's words, turned once more. Dorn appeared
+more composed.
+
+"Have you?" he inquired, in surprise.
+
+"Sure. But there's no hurry about tellin' you. Suppose we put it off."
+
+"I'd rather hear it now. My stay here must be short. I--I--You know--"
+
+"Hum! Sure I know.... Wal then, it's this: Will you go in business with
+me? Want you to work that Bend wheat-farm of yours for me--on half
+shares.... More particular I want you to take charge of 'Many Waters.'
+You see, I'm--not so spry as I used to be. It's a big job, an' I've a
+lot of confidence in you. You'll live here, of course, an' run to an'
+fro with one of my cars. I've some land-development schemes--an', to cut
+it short, there's a big place waitin' for you in the Northwest."
+
+"Mr. Anderson!" cried Dorn, in a kind of rapturous amaze. Red burned out
+the white of his face. "That's great! It's too great to come true.
+You're good!... If I'm lucky enough to come back from the war--"
+
+"Son, you're not goin' to war!" interposed Anderson.
+
+"What!" exclaimed Dorn, blankly. He stared as if he had not heard
+aright.
+
+Anderson calmly repeated his assertion. He was smiling; he looked kind;
+but underneath that showed the will that had made him what he was.
+
+"But I _am_!" flashed the young man, as if he had been misunderstood.
+
+"Listen. You're like all boys--hot-headed an' hasty. Let me talk a
+little," resumed Anderson. And he began to speak of the future of the
+Northwest. He painted that in the straight talk of a farmer who knew,
+but what he predicted seemed like a fairy-tale. Then he passed to the
+needs of the government and the armies, and lastly the people of the
+nation. All depended upon the farmer! Wheat was indeed the staff of life
+and of victory! Young Dorn was one of the farmers who could not be
+spared. Patriotism was a noble thing. Fighting, however, did not alone
+constitute a duty and loyalty to the nation. This was an economic war, a
+war of peoples, and the nation that was the best fed would last longest.
+Adventure and the mistaken romance of war called indeed to all
+red-blooded young Americans. It was good that they did call. But they
+should not call the young farmer from his wheat-fields.
+
+"But I've been drafted!" Dorn spoke with agitation. He seemed bewildered
+by Anderson's blunt eloquence. His intelligence evidently accepted the
+elder man's argument, but something instinctive revolted.
+
+"There's exemption, my boy. Easy in your case," replied Anderson.
+
+"Exemption!" echoed Dorn, and a dark tide of blood rose to his temples.
+"I wouldn't--I couldn't ask for that!"
+
+"You don't need to," said the rancher. "Dorn, do you recollect that
+Washington official who called on you some time ago?"
+
+"Yes," replied Dorn, slowly.
+
+"Did he say anythin' about exemption?"
+
+"No. He asked me if I wanted it, that's all."
+
+"Wal, you had it right then. I took it upon myself to get exemption for
+you. That government official heartily approved of my recommendin'
+exemption for you. An' he gave it."
+
+"Anderson! You took--it upon--yourself--" gasped Dorn, slowly rising. If
+he had been white-faced before, he was ghastly now.
+
+"Sure I did.... Good Lord! Dorn, don't imagine I ever questioned your
+nerve.... It's only you're not needed--or rather, you're needed more at
+home.... I let my son Jim go to war. That's enough for one family!"
+
+But Dorn did not grasp the significance of Anderson's reply.
+
+"How dared you? What right had you?" he demanded passionately.
+
+"No right at all, lad," replied Anderson. "I just recommended it an' the
+official approved it."
+
+"But I refuse!" cried Dorn, with ringing fury. "I won't accept
+exemption."
+
+"Talk sense now, even if you are mad," returned Anderson, rising. "I've
+paid you a high compliment, young man, an' offered you a lot. More 'n
+you see, I guess.... Why won't you accept exemption?"
+
+"I'm going to war!" was the grim, hard reply.
+
+"But you're needed here. You'd be more of a soldier here. You could do
+more for your country than if you gave a hundred lives. Can't you see
+that?"
+
+"Yes, I can," assented Dorn, as if forced.
+
+"You're no fool, an' you're a loyal American. Your duty is to stay home
+an' raise wheat."
+
+"I've a duty to myself," returned Dorn, darkly.
+
+"Son, your fortune stares you right in the face--here. Are you goin' to
+turn from it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You want to get in that war? You've got to fight?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ah-huh!" Anderson threw up his hands in surrender. "Got to kill some
+Germans, hey?... Why not come out to my harvest fields an' hog-stick a
+few of them German I.W.W.'s?"
+
+Dorn had no reply for that.
+
+"Wal, I'm dog-gone sorry," resumed Anderson. "I see it's a tough place
+for you, though I can't understand. You'll excuse me for mixin' in your
+affairs.... An' now, considerin' other ways I've really helped you, I
+hope you'll stay at my home for a few days. We all owe you a good deal.
+My family wants to make up to you. Will you stay?"
+
+"Thank you--yes--for a few days," replied Dorn.
+
+"Good! That'll help some. Mebbe, after runnin' around 'Many Waters' with
+Le--with the girls--you'll begin to be reasonable. I hope so."
+
+"You think me ungrateful!" exclaimed Dorn, shrinking.
+
+"I don't think nothin'," replied Anderson. "I turn you over to Lenore."
+He laughed as he pronounced Dorn's utter defeat. And his look at Lenore
+was equivalent to saying the issue now depended upon her, and that he
+had absolutely no doubt of its outcome. "Lenore, take him in to meet
+mother an' the girls, an' entertain him. I've got work to do."
+
+Lenore felt the blushes in her cheeks and was glad Dorn did not look at
+her. He seemed locked in somber thought. As she touched him and bade him
+come he gave a start; then he followed her into the hall. Lenore closed
+her father's door, and the instant she stood alone with Dorn a wonderful
+calmness came to her.
+
+"Miss Anderson, I'd rather not--not meet your mother and sisters
+to-night," said Dorn. "I'm upset. Won't it be all right to wait till
+to-morrow?"
+
+"Surely. But I think they've gone to bed," replied Lenore, as she
+glanced into the dark sitting-room. "So they have.... Come, let us go
+into the parlor."
+
+Lenore turned on the shaded lights in the beautiful room. How
+inexplicable was the feeling of being alone with him, yet utterly free
+of the torment that had possessed her before! She seemed to have divined
+an almost insurmountable obstacle in Dorn's will. She did not have her
+father's assurance. It made her tremble to realize her responsibility
+--that her father's earnest wishes and her future of love or
+woe depended entirely upon what she said and did. But she felt that
+indeed she had become a woman. And it would take a woman's wit and charm
+and love to change this tragic boy.
+
+"Miss--Anderson," he began, brokenly, with restraint let down, "your
+father--doesn't understand. I've _got_ to go.... And even if I am
+spared--I couldn't ever come back.... To work for him--all the time in
+love with you--I couldn't stand it.... He's so good. I know I could care
+for him, too.... Oh, I thought I was bitterly resigned--hard--inhuman.
+But all this makes it--so--so much worse."
+
+He sat down heavily, and, completely unnerved, he covered his face with
+his hands. His shoulders heaved and short, strangled sobs broke from
+him.
+
+Lenore had to overcome a rush of tenderness. It was all she could do to
+keep from dropping to her knees beside him and slipping her arms around
+his neck. In her agitation she could not decide whether that would be
+womanly or not; only, she must make no mistakes. A hot, sweet flush went
+over her when she thought that always as a last resort she could reveal
+her secret and use her power. What would he do when he discovered she
+loved him?
+
+"Kurt, I understand," she said, softly, and put a hand on his shoulder.
+And she stood thus beside him, sadly troubled, vaguely divining that her
+presence was helpful, until he recovered his composure. As he raised his
+head and wiped tears from his eyes he made no excuses for his weakness,
+nor did he show any shame.
+
+"Miss Anderson--" he began.
+
+"Please call me Lenore. I feel so--so stiff when you are formal. My
+friends call me Lenore," she said.
+
+"You mean--you consider me your friend?" he queried.
+
+"Indeed I do," she replied, smiling.
+
+"I--I'm afraid I misunderstood your asking me to visit you," he said. "I
+thank you. I'm proud and glad that you call me your friend. It will be
+splendid to remember--when I am over there."
+
+"I wonder if we could talk of anything except trouble and war," replied
+Lenore, plaintively. "If we can't, then let's look at the bright side."
+
+"Is there a bright side?" he asked, with his sad smile.
+
+"Every cloud, you know.... For instance, if you go to war--"
+
+"Not if. I _am_ going," he interrupted.
+
+"Oh, so you say," returned Lenore, softly. And she felt deep in her the
+inception of a tremendous feminine antagonism. It stirred along her
+pulse. "Have your own way, then. But _I_ say, _if_ you go, think how
+fine it will be for me to get letters from you at the front--and to
+write you!"
+
+"You'd like to hear from me?... You would answer?" he asked,
+breathlessly.
+
+"Assuredly. And I'll knit socks for you."
+
+"You're--very good," he said, with strong feeling.
+
+Lenore again saw his eyes dim. How strangely sensitive he was! If he
+exaggerated such a little kindness as she had suggested, if he responded
+to it with such emotion, what would he do when the great and marvelous
+truth of her love was flung in his face? The very thought made Lenore
+weak.
+
+"You'll go to training-camp," went on Lenore, "and because of your
+wonderful physique and your intelligence you will get a commission. Then
+you'll go to--France." Lenore faltered a little in her imagined
+prospect. "You'll be in the thick of the great battles. You'll give and
+take. You'll kill some of those--those--Germans. You'll be wounded and
+you'll be promoted.... Then the Allies will win. Uncle Sam's grand army
+will have saved the world.... Glorious!... You'll come back--home to
+us--to take the place dad offered you.... There! that is the bright
+side."
+
+Indeed, the brightness seemed reflected in Dorn's face.
+
+"I never dreamed you could be like this," he said, wonderingly.
+
+"Like what?"
+
+"I don't know just what I mean. Only you're different from my--my
+fancies. Not cold or--or proud."
+
+"You're beginning to get acquainted with me, that's all. After you've
+been here awhile--"
+
+"Please don't make it so hard for me," he interrupted, appealingly. "I
+can't stay."
+
+"Don't you want to?" she asked.
+
+"Yes. And I will stay a couple of days. But no longer. It'll be hard
+enough to go then."
+
+"Perhaps I--we'll make it so hard for you that you can't go."
+
+Then he gazed piercingly at her, as if realizing a will opposed to his,
+a conviction not in sympathy with his.
+
+"You're going to keep this up--this trying to change my mind?"
+
+"I surely am," she replied, both wistfully and wilfully.
+
+"Why? I should think you'd respect my sense of duty."
+
+"Your duty is more here than at the front. The government man said so.
+My father believes it. So do I.... You have some other--other thing you
+think duty."
+
+"I hate Germans!" he burst out, with a dark and terrible flash.
+
+"Who does not?" she flashed back at him, and she rose, feeling as if
+drawn by a powerful current. She realized then that she must be prepared
+any moment to be overwhelmed by the inevitable climax of this meeting.
+But she prayed for a little more time. She fought her emotions.
+
+She saw him tremble. "Lenore, I'd better run off in the night," he said.
+
+Instinctively, with swift, soft violence, she grasped his hands. Perhaps
+the moment had come. She was not afraid, but the suddenness of her
+extremity left her witless.
+
+"You would not!... That would be unkind--not like you at all.... To run
+off without giving me a chance--without good-by!... Promise me you will
+not."
+
+"I promise," he replied, wearily, as if nonplussed by her attitude. "You
+said you understood me. But I can't understand you."
+
+She released his hands and turned away. "I promise--that you shall
+understand--very soon."
+
+"You feel sorry for me. You pity me. You think I'll only be
+cannon-fodder for the Germans. You want to be nice, kind, sweet to
+me--to send me away with better thoughts.... Isn't that what you think?"
+
+He was impatient, almost angry. His glance blazed at her. All about him,
+his tragic face, his sadness, his defeat, his struggle to hold on to his
+manliness and to keep his faith in nobler thoughts--these challenged
+Lenore's compassion, her love, and her woman's combative spirit to save
+and to keep her own. She quivered again on the brink of betraying
+herself. And it was panic alone that held her back.
+
+"Kurt--I think--presently I'll give you the surprise of your life," she
+replied, and summoned a smile.
+
+How obtuse he was! How blind! Perhaps the stress of his emotion, the
+terrible sense of his fate, left him no keenness, no outward
+penetration. He answered her smile, as if she were a child whose
+determined kindness made him both happy and sad.
+
+"I dare say you will," he replied. "You Andersons are full of
+surprises.... But I wish you would not do any more for me. I am like a
+dog. The kinder you are to me the more I love you.... How dreadful to go
+away to war--to violence and blood and death--to all that's
+brutalizing--with my heart and mind full of love for a noble girl like
+you!--If I come to love you any more I'll not be a man."
+
+To Lenore he looked very much of a man, so tall and lithe and
+white-faced, with his eyes of fire, his simplicity, and his tragic
+refusal of all that was for most men the best of life. Whatever his
+ideal, it was magnificent. Lenore had her chance then, but she was
+absolutely unable to grasp it. Her blood beat thick and hot. If she
+could only have been sure of herself! Or was it that she still cared too
+much for herself? The moment had not come. And in her tumult there was a
+fleeting fury at Dorn's blindness, at his reverence of her, that he dare
+not touch her hand. Did he imagine she was stone?
+
+"Let us say good night," she said. "You are worn out. And I am--not just
+myself. To-morrow we'll be--good friends.... Father will take you to
+your room."
+
+Dorn pressed the hand she offered, and, saying good-night, he followed
+her to the hall. Lenore tapped on the door of her father's study, then
+opened it.
+
+"Good night, dad. I'm going up," she said. "Will you look after Kurt?"
+
+"Sure. Come in, son," replied her father.
+
+Lenore felt Dorn's strange, intent gaze upon her as she passed him.
+Lightly she ran up-stairs and turned at the top. The hall was bright and
+Dorn stood full in the light, his face upturned. It still wore the
+softer expression of those last few moments. Lenore waved her hand, and
+he smiled. The moment was natural. Youth to youth! Lenore felt it. She
+marveled that he did not. A sweet devil of wilful coquetry possessed
+her.
+
+"Oh, did you say you wouldn't go?" she softly called.
+
+"I said only good night," he replied.
+
+"If you _don't_ go, then you will never be General Dorn, will you? What
+a pity!"
+
+"I'll go. And then it will be--'Private Dorn--missing. No relatives,'"
+he replied.
+
+That froze Lenore. Her heart quaked. She gazed down upon him with all
+her soul in her eyes. She knew it and did not care. But he could not
+see.
+
+"Good night, Kurt Dorn," she called, and ran to her room.
+
+Composure did not come to her until she was ready for bed, with the
+light out and in her old seat at the window. Night and silence and
+starlight always lent Lenore strength. She prayed to them now and to the
+spirit she knew dwelt beyond them. And then she whispered what her
+intelligence told her was an unalterable fact--Kurt Dorn could never be
+changed. But her sympathy and love and passion, all that was womanly
+emotion, stormed at her intelligence and refused to listen to it.
+
+Nothing short of a great shock would divert Dorn from his tragic
+headlong rush toward the fate he believed unalterable. Lenore sensed a
+terrible, sinister earnestness in him. She could not divine its meaning.
+But it was such a driving passion that no man possessing it and free to
+the violence of war could ever escape death. Even if by superhuman
+strife, and the guidance of Providence, he did escape death, he would
+have lost something as precious as life. If Dorn went to war at all--if
+he ever reached those blood-red trenches, in the thick of fire and
+shriek and ferocity--there to express in horrible earnestness what she
+vaguely felt yet could not define--then so far as she was concerned she
+imagined that she would not want him to come back.
+
+That was the strength of spirit that breathed out of the night and the
+silence to her. Dorn would go to war as no ordinary soldier, to obey, to
+fight, to do his duty; but for some strange, unfathomable obsession of
+his own. And, therefore, if he went at all he was lost. War, in its
+inexplicable horror, killed the souls of endless hordes of men.
+Therefore, if he went at all she, too, was lost to the happiness that
+might have been hers. She would never love another man. She could never
+marry. She would never have a child.
+
+So his soul and her happiness were in the balance weighed against a
+woman's power. It seemed to Lenore that she felt hopelessly unable to
+carry the issue to victory; and yet, on the other hand, a tumultuous and
+wonderful sweetness of sensation called to her, insidiously, of the
+infallible potency of love. What could she do to save Dorn's life and
+his soul? There was only one answer to that. She would do anything. She
+must make him love her to the extent that he would have no will to carry
+out this desperate intent. There was little time to do that. The gradual
+growth of affection through intimacy and understanding was not possible
+here. It must come as a flash of lightning. She must bewilder him with
+the revelation of her love, and then by all its incalculable power hold
+him there.
+
+It was her father's wish; it would be the salvation of Dorn; it meant
+all to her. But if to keep him there would make him a slacker, Lenore
+swore she would die before lifting her lips to his. The government would
+rather he stayed to raise wheat than go out and fight men. Lenore saw
+the sanity, the cardinal importance of that, as her father saw it. So
+from all sides she was justified. And sitting there in the darkness and
+silence, with the cool wind in her face, she vowed she would be all
+woman, all sweetness, all love, all passion, all that was feminine and
+terrible, to keep Dorn from going to war.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Lenore awakened early. The morning seemed golden. Birds were singing at
+her window. What did that day hold in store for her? She pressed a hand
+hard on her heart as if to hold it still. But her heart went right on,
+swift, exultant, throbbing with a fullness that was almost pain.
+
+Early as she awakened, it was, nevertheless, late when she could direct
+her reluctant steps down-stairs. She had welcomed every little
+suggestion and task to delay the facing of her ordeal.
+
+There was merriment in the sitting-room, and Dorn's laugh made her glad.
+The girls were at him, and her father's pleasant, deep voice chimed in.
+Evidently there was a controversy as to who should have the society of
+the guest. They had all been to breakfast. Mrs. Anderson expressed
+surprise at Lenore's tardiness, and said she had been called twice.
+Lenore had heard nothing except the birds and the music of her thoughts.
+She peeped into the sitting-room.
+
+"Didn't you bring me anything?" Kathleen was inquiring of Dorn.
+
+Dorn was flushed and smiling. Anderson stood beaming upon them, and Rose
+appeared to be inclined toward jealousy.
+
+"Why--you see--I didn't even know Lenore had a little sister," Dorn
+explained.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Kathleen, evidently satisfied. "All Lenorry's beaux
+bring me things. But I believe I'm going to like you best."
+
+Lenore had intended to say good morning. She changed her mind, however,
+at Kathleen's naïve speech, and darted back lest she be seen. She felt
+the blood hot in her cheeks. That awful, irrepressible Kathleen! If she
+liked Dorn she would take possession of him. And Kathleen was lovable,
+irresistible. Lenore had a sudden thought that Kathleen would aid the
+good cause if she could be enlisted. While Lenore ate her breakfast she
+listened to the animated conversation in the sitting-room. Presently her
+father came in.
+
+"Hello, Lenore! Did you get up?" he greeted her, cheerily.
+
+"I hardly ever did, it seems.... Dad, the day was something to face,"
+she said.
+
+"Ah-huh! It's like getting up to work. Lenore, the biggest duty of life
+is to hide your troubles.... Dorn looks like a human bein' this mornin'.
+The kids have won him. I reckon he needs that sort of cheer. Let them
+have him. Then after a while you fetch him out to the wheat-field.
+Lenore, our harvestin' is half done. Every day I've expected some trick
+or deviltry. But it hasn't come yet."
+
+"Are any of the other ranchers having trouble?" she inquired.
+
+"I hear rumors of bad work. But facts told by ranchers an' men who were
+here only yesterday make little of the rumors. All that burnin' of wheat
+an' timber, an' the destruction of machines an' strikin' of farm-hands,
+haven't hit Golden Valley yet. We won't need any militia here, you can
+bet on that."
+
+"Father, it won't do to be over-confident," she said, earnestly. "You
+know you are the mark for the I.W.W. sabotage. If you are not
+careful--any moment--"
+
+Lenore paused with a shudder.
+
+"Lass, I'm just like I was in the old rustlin' days. An' I've surrounded
+myself with cowboys like Jake an' Bill, an' old hands who pack guns an'
+keep still, as in the good old Western days. We're just waitin' for the
+I.W.W.'s to break loose."
+
+"Then what?" queried Lenore.
+
+"Wal, we'll chase that outfit so fast it'll be lost in dust," he
+replied.
+
+"But if you chase them away, it 'll only be into another state, where
+they'll make trouble for other farmers. You don't do any real good."
+
+"My dear, I reckon you've said somethin' strong," he replied, soberly,
+and went out.
+
+Then Kathleen came bouncing in. Her beautiful eyes were full of mischief
+and excitement. "Lenorry, your new beau has all the others skinned to a
+frazzle," she said.
+
+For once Lenore did not scold Kathleen, but drew her close and
+whispered: "Do you want to please me? Do you want me to do _everything_
+for you?"
+
+"I sure do," replied Kathleen, with wonderful eyes.
+
+"Then be nice, sweet, good to him.... make him love you.... Don't tease
+him about my other beaux. Think how you can make him like 'Many
+Waters.'"
+
+"Will you promise--_everything_?" whispered Kathleen, solemnly.
+Evidently Lenore's promises were rare and reliable.
+
+"Yes. Cross my heart. There! And you must not tell."
+
+Kathleen was a precocious child, with all the potentialities of youth.
+She could not divine Lenore's motive, but she sensed a new and
+fascinating mode of conduct for herself. She seemed puzzled a little at
+Lenore's earnestness.
+
+"It's a bargain," she said, soberly, as if she had accepted no slight
+gauge.
+
+"Now, Kathleen, take him all over the gardens, the orchards, the corrals
+and barns," directed Lenore. "Be sure to show him the horses--my horses,
+especially. Take him round the reservoir--and everywhere except the
+wheat-fields. I want to take him there myself. Besides, father does not
+want you girls to go out to the harvest."
+
+Kathleen nodded and ran back to the sitting-room. Lenore heard them all
+go out together. Before she finished breakfast her mother came in again.
+
+"Lenore, I like Mr. Dorn," she said, meditatively. "He has an
+old-fashioned manner that reminds me of my boy friends when I was a
+girl. I mean he's more courteous and dignified than boys are nowadays. A
+splendid-looking boy, too. Only his face is so sad. When he smiles he
+seems another person."
+
+"No wonder he's sad," replied Lenore, and briefly told Kurt Dorn's
+story.
+
+"Ah!" sighed Mrs. Anderson. "We have fallen upon evil days.... Poor
+boy!... Your father seems much interested in him. And you are too, my
+daughter?"
+
+"Yes, I am," replied Lenore, softly.
+
+Two hours later she heard Kathleen's gay laughter and pattering feet.
+Lenore took her wide-brimmed hat and went out on the porch. Dorn was
+indeed not the same somber young man he had been.
+
+"Good morning, Kurt," said Lenore, extending her hand.
+
+The instant he greeted her she saw the stiffness, the aloofness had gone
+from him. Kathleen had made him feel at home. He looked younger. There
+was color in his face.
+
+"Kathleen, I'll take charge of Mr. Dorn now, if you will allow me that
+pleasure."
+
+"Lenorry, I sure hate to give him up. We sure had a fine time."
+
+"Did he like 'Many Waters'?"
+
+"Well, if he didn't he's a grand fibber," replied Kathleen. "But he did.
+You can't fool me. I thought I'd never get him back to the house." Then,
+as she tripped up the porch steps, she shook a finger at Dorn.
+"Remember!"
+
+"I'll never forget," said Dorn, and he was as earnest as he was amiable.
+Then, as she disappeared, he exclaimed to Lenore, "What an adorable
+little girl!"
+
+"Do you like Kathleen?"
+
+"Like her!" Dorn laughed in a way to make light of such words. "My life
+has been empty. I see that."
+
+"Come, we'll go out to the wheat-fields," said Lenore. "What do you
+think of 'Many Waters'? This is harvest-time. You see 'Many Waters' at
+its very best."
+
+"I can hardly tell you," he replied. "All my life I've lived on my
+barren hills. I seem to have come to another world. 'Many Waters' is
+such a ranch as I never dreamed of. The orchards, the fruit, the
+gardens--and everywhere running water! It all smells so fresh and sweet.
+And then the green and red and purple against that background of blazing
+gold!... 'Many Waters' is verdant and fruitful. The Bend is desert."
+
+"Now that you've been here, do you like it better than your barren
+hills?" asked Lenore.
+
+Kurt hesitated. "I don't know," he answered, slowly. "But maybe that
+desert I've lived in accounts for much I lack."
+
+"Would you like to stay at 'Many Waters'--if you weren't going to war?"
+
+"I might prefer 'Many Waters' to any place on earth. It's a paradise.
+But I would not chose to stay here."
+
+"Why? When you return--you know--my father will need you here. And if
+anything should happen to him I will have to run the ranch. Then _I_
+would need you."
+
+Dorn stopped in his tracks and gazed at her as if there were slight
+misgivings in his mind.
+
+"Lenore, if you owned this ranch would you want me--_me_ for your
+manager?" he asked, bluntly.
+
+"Yes," she replied.
+
+"You would? Knowing I was in love with you?"
+
+"Well, I had forgotten that," she replied, with a little laugh. "It
+would be rather embarrassing--and funny, wouldn't it?"
+
+"Yes, it would," he said, grimly, and walked on again. He made a gesture
+of keen discomfiture. "I knew you hadn't taken me seriously."
+
+"I believed you, but I could not take you _very_ seriously," she
+murmured.
+
+"Why not?" he demanded, as if stung, and his eyes flashed on her.
+
+"Because your declaration was not accompanied by the
+usual--question--that a girl naturally expects under such
+circumstances."
+
+"Good Heaven! You say that?... Lenore Anderson, you think me insincere
+because I did not ask you to marry me," he asserted, with bitter pathos.
+
+"No. I merely said you were not--_very_ serious," she replied. It was
+fascination to torment him this way, yet it hurt her, too. She was
+playing on the verge of a precipice, not afraid of a misstep, but
+glorying in the prospect of a leap into the abyss. Something deep and
+strange in her bade her make him show her how much he loved her. If she
+drove him to desperation she would reward him.
+
+"I am going to war," he began, passionately, "to fight for you and your
+sisters.... I am ruined.... The only noble and holy feeling left to
+me--that I can have with me in the dark hours--is my love for you. If
+you do not believe that, I am indeed the most miserable of beggars! Most
+boys going to the front leave many behind whom they love. I have no one
+but you.... don't make me a coward."
+
+"I believe you. Forgive me," she said.
+
+"If I had asked you to marry me--_me_--why, I'd have been a selfish,
+egotistical fool. You are far above me. And I want you to know I know
+it.... But even if I had not--had the blood I have--even if I had been
+prosperous instead of ruined, I'd never have asked you, unless I came
+back whole from the war."
+
+They had been walking out the lane during this conversation and had come
+close to the wheat-field. The day was hot, but pleasant, the dry wind
+being laden with harvest odors. The hum of the machines was like the
+roar in a flour-mill.
+
+"If you go to war--and come back whole--?" began Lenore, tantalizingly.
+She meant to have no mercy upon him. It was incredible how blind he was.
+Yet how glad that made her. He resembled his desert hills, barren of
+many little things, but rich in hidden strength, heroic of mold.
+
+"Then just to add one more to the conquests girls love I'll--I'll
+propose to you," he declared, banteringly.
+
+"Beware, boy! I might accept you," she exclaimed.
+
+His play was short-lived. He could not be gay, even under her influence.
+
+"Please don't jest," he said, frowning. "Can't we talk of something
+besides love and war?"
+
+"They seem to be popular just now," she replied, audaciously. "Anyway,
+all's fair--you know."
+
+"No, it is not fair," he returned, low-voiced and earnest. "So once for
+all let me beg of you, don't jest. Oh, I know you're sweet. You're full
+of so many wonderful, surprising words and looks. I can't understand
+you.... But I beg of you, don't make me a fool!"
+
+"Well, if you pay such compliments and if I--want them--what then? You
+are very original, very gallant, Mr. Kurt Dorn, and I--I rather like
+you."
+
+"I'll get angry with you," he threatened.
+
+"You couldn't.... I'm the only girl you're going to leave behind--and if
+you got angry I'd never write to you."
+
+It thrilled Lenore and wrung her heart to see how her talk affected him.
+He was in a torment. He believed she spoke lightly, girlishly, to tease
+him--that she was only a gay-hearted girl, fancy-free and just a little
+proud of her conquest over even him.
+
+"I surrender. Say what you like," he said, resignedly. "I'll stand
+anything--just to get your letters."
+
+"If you go I'll write as often as you want me to," she replied.
+
+With that they emerged upon the harvest-field. Machines and engines
+dotted the golden slope, and wherever they were located stood towering
+straw-stacks. Horses and men and wagons were strung out as far as the
+eye could see. Long streams of chaff and dust and smoke drifted upward.
+
+"Lenore, there's trouble in the very air," said Dorn. "Look!"
+
+She saw a crowd of men gathering round one of the great
+combine-harvesters. Some one was yelling.
+
+"Let's stay away from trouble," replied Lenore. "We've enough of our
+own."
+
+"I'm going over there," declared Dorn. "Perhaps you'd better wait for
+me--or go back."
+
+"Well! You're the first boy who ever--"
+
+"Come on," he interrupted, with grim humor. "I'd rather enjoy your
+seeing me break loose--as I will if there's any I.W.W. trickery."
+
+Before they got to the little crowd Lenore both heard and saw her
+father. He was in a rage and not aware of her presence. Jake and Bill,
+the cowboys, hovered over him. Anderson strode to and fro, from one side
+of the harvester to the other. Lenore did not recognize any of the
+harvest-hands, and even the driver was new to her. They were not a
+typical Western harvest crew, that was certain. She did not like their
+sullen looks, and Dorn's muttered imprecation, the moment he neared
+them, confirmed her own opinion.
+
+Anderson's foreman stood gesticulating, pale and anxious of face.
+
+"No, I don't hold you responsible," roared the rancher. "But I want
+action.... I want to know why this machine's broke down."
+
+"It was in perfect workin' order," declared the foreman. "I don't know
+why it broke down."
+
+"That's the fourth machine in two days. No accident, I tell you,"
+shouted Anderson. Then he espied Dorn and waved a grimy hand. "Come
+here, Dorn," he called, and stepped out of the group of dusty men.
+"Somethin' wrong here. This new harvester's broke down. It's a McCormack
+an' new to us. But it has worked great an' I jest believe it's been
+tampered with... Do you know these McCormack harvesters?"
+
+"Yes. They're reliable," replied Dorn.
+
+"Ah-huh! Wal, get your coat off an' see what's been done to this one."
+
+Dorn took off his coat and was about to throw it down, when Lenore held
+out her hand for it.
+
+"Unhitch the horses," said Dorn.
+
+Anderson gave this order, which was complied with. Then Dorn disappeared
+around or under the big machine.
+
+"Lenore, I'll bet he tells us somethin' in a minute," said Anderson to
+her. "These new claptraps are beyond me. I'm no mechanic."
+
+"Dad, I don't like the looks of your harvest-hands," whispered Lenore.
+
+"Wal, this is a sample of the lot I hired. No society for you, my lass!"
+
+"I'm going to stay now," she replied.
+
+Dorn appeared to be raising a racket somewhere out of sight under or
+inside the huge harvester. Rattling and rasping sounds, creaks and
+cracks, attested to his strong and impatiently seeking hands.
+
+Presently he appeared. His white shirt had been soiled by dust and
+grease. There was chaff in his fair hair. In one grimy hand he held a
+large monkey-wrench. What struck Lenore most was the piercing intensity
+of his gaze as he fixed it upon her father.
+
+"Anderson, I knew right where to find it," he said, in a sharp, hard
+voice. "This monkey-wrench was thrown upon the platform, carried to the
+elevator into the thresher.... Your machine is torn to pieces
+inside--out of commission!"
+
+"Ah-huh!" exclaimed Anderson, as if the truth was a great relief.
+
+"Where'd that monkey-wrench come from?" asked the foreman, aghast. "It's
+not ours. I don't buy that kind."
+
+Anderson made a slight, significant motion to the cowboys. They lined up
+beside him, and, like him, they looked dangerous.
+
+"Come here, Kurt," he said, and then, putting Lenore before him, he
+moved a few steps aside, out of earshot of the shifty-footed
+harvest-hands. "Say, you called the turn right off, didn't you?"
+
+"Anderson, I've had a hard experience, all in one harvest-time," replied
+Dorn. "I'll bet you I can find out who threw this wrench into your
+harvester."
+
+"I don't doubt you, my lad. But how?"
+
+"It had to be thrown by one of these men near the machine. That
+harvester hasn't run twenty feet from where the trick was done.... Let
+these men face me. I'll find the guilty one."
+
+"Wait till we get Lenore out of the way," replied Anderson
+
+"Boss, me an' Bill can answer fer thet outfit as it stands, an' no risks
+fer nobody," put in Jake, coolly.
+
+Anderson's reply was cut short by a loud explosion. It frightened
+Lenore. She imagined one of the steam-engines had blown up.
+
+"That thresher's on fire," shouted Dorn, pointing toward a big machine
+that was attached by an endless driving belt to an engine.
+
+The workmen, uttering yells and exclamations, ran toward the scene of
+the new accident, leaving Anderson, his daughter, and the foreman
+behind. Smoke was pouring out of the big harvester. The harvest-hands
+ran wildly around, shouting and calling, evidently unable to do
+anything. The line of wagons full of wheat-sheaves broke up; men dragged
+at the plunging horses. Then flame followed the smoke out of the
+thresher.
+
+"I've heard of threshers catchin' fire," said Anderson, as if
+dumfounded, "but I never seen one.... Now how on earth did that happen?"
+
+"Another trick, Anderson," replied Dorn. "Some I.W.W. has stuffed a
+handful of matches into a wheat-sheaf. Or maybe a small bomb!"
+
+"Ah-huh!... Come on, let's go over an' see my money burn up.... Kurt,
+I'm gettin' some new education these days."
+
+Dorn appeared to be unable to restrain himself. He hurried on ahead of
+the others. And Anderson whispered to Lenore, "I'll bet somethin's
+comin' off!"
+
+This alarmed Lenore, yet it also thrilled her.
+
+The threshing-machine burned like a house of cards. Farm-hands came
+running from all over the field. But nothing, manifestly, could be done
+to save the thresher. Anderson, holding his daughter's arm, calmly
+watched it burn. There was excitement all around; it had not been
+communicated, however, to the rancher. He looked thoughtful. The foreman
+darted among the groups of watchers and his distress was very plain.
+Dorn had gotten out of sight. Lenore still held his coat and wondered
+what he was doing. She was thoroughly angry and marveled at her father's
+composure. The big thresher was reduced to a blazing, smoking hulk in
+short order.
+
+Dorn came striding up. His face was pale and his mouth set.
+
+"Mr. Anderson, you've got to make a strong stand--and quick," he said,
+deliberately.
+
+"I reckon. An' I'm ready, if it's the right time," replied the rancher.
+"But what can we prove?"
+
+"That's proof," declared Dorn, pointing at the ruined thresher. "Do you
+know all your honest hands?"
+
+"Yes, an' I've got enough to clean up this outfit in no time. We're only
+waitin'."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Wal, I reckon for what's just come off."
+
+"Don't let them go any farther.... Look at these fellows. Can't you tell
+the I.W.W.'s from the others?"
+
+"No, I can't unless I count all the new harvest-hands I.W.W.'s."
+
+"Every one you don't know here is in with that gang," declared Dorn, and
+he waved a swift hand at the groups. His eyes swept piercingly over, and
+apparently through, the men nearest at hand.
+
+At this juncture Jake and Bill, with two other cowboys, strode up to
+Anderson.
+
+"Another accident, boss," said Jake, sarcastically. "Ain't it about time
+we corralled some of this outfit?"
+
+Anderson did not reply. He had suddenly imitated Lenore, who had become
+solely bent upon Dorn's look. That indeed was cause for interest. It was
+directed at a member of the nearest group--a man in rough garb, with
+slouch-hat pulled over his eyes. As Lenore looked she saw this man,
+suddenly becoming aware of Dorn's scrutiny, hastily turn and walk away.
+
+"Hold on!" called Dorn, his voice a ringing command. It halted every
+moving person on that part of the field. Then Dorn actually bounded
+across the intervening space.
+
+"Come on, boys," said Anderson, "get in this. Dorn's spotted some one,
+an' now that's all we want.... Lenore, stick close behind me. Jake, you
+keep near her."
+
+They moved hastily to back up Dorn, who had already reached the workman
+he had halted. Anderson took out a whistle and blew such a shrill blast
+that it deafened Lenore, and must have been heard all over the
+harvest-field. Not improbably that was a signal agreed upon between
+Anderson and his men. Lenore gathered that all had been in readiness for
+a concerted movement and that her father believed Dorn's action had
+brought the climax.
+
+"Haven't I seen you before?" queried Dorn, sharply.
+
+The man shook his head and kept it bent a little, and then he began to
+edge back nearer to the stragglers, who slowly closed into a group
+behind him. He seemed nervous, shifty.
+
+"He can't speak English," spoke up one of them, gruffly.
+
+Dorn looked aggressive and stern. Suddenly his hand flashed out to
+snatch off the slouch-hat which hid the fellow's face. Amazingly, a gray
+wig came with it. This man was not old. He had fair thick hair.
+
+For a moment Dorn gazed at the slouch-hat and wig. Then with a fierce
+action he threw them down and swept a clutching hand for the man. The
+fellow dodged and, straightening up, he reached for a gun. But Dorn
+lunged upon him. Then followed a hard grappling sound and a hoarse yell.
+Something bright glinted in the sun. It made a sweeping circle, belched
+fire and smoke. The report stunned Lenore. She shut her eyes and clung
+to her father. She heard cries, a scuffling, sodden blows.
+
+"Jake! Bill!" called Anderson. "Hold on! No gun-play yet! Dorn's makin'
+hash out of that fellow.... But watch the others sharp!"
+
+Then Lenore looked again. Dorn had twisted the man around and was in the
+act of stripping off the further disguise of beard, disclosing the pale
+and convulsed face of a comparatively young man.
+
+_"Glidden!"_ burst out Dorn. His voice had a terrible ring of furious
+amaze. His whole body seemed to gather as in a knot and then to spring.
+The man called Glidden went down before that onslaught, and his gun went
+flying aside.
+
+Three of Glidden's group started for it. The cowboy Bill leaped forward,
+a gun in each hand. "Hyar!... Back!" he yelled. And then all except the
+two struggling principals grew rigid.
+
+Lenore's heart was burning in her throat. The movements of Dorn were too
+swift for her sight. But Glidden she saw handled as if by a giant. Up
+and down he seemed thrown, with bloody face, flinging arms, while he
+uttered hoarse bawls. Dorn's form grew more distinct. It plunged and
+swung in frenzied energy. Lenore heard men running and yells from all
+around. Her father spread wide his arm before her, so that she had to
+bend low to see. He shouted a warning. Jake was holding a gun thrust
+forward.
+
+"Boss, he's goin' to kill Glidden!" said the cowboy, in a low tone.
+
+Anderson's reply was incoherent, but its meaning was plain.
+
+Lenore's lips and tongue almost denied her utterance. "Oh!... Don't let
+him!"
+
+The crowd behind the wrestling couple swayed back and forth, and men
+changed places here and there. Bill strode across the space, guns
+leveled. Evidently this action was due to the threatening movements of
+several workmen who crouched as if to leap on Dorn as he whirled in his
+fight with Glidden.
+
+"Wal, it's about time!" yelled Anderson, as a number of lean, rangy men,
+rushing from behind, reached Bill's side, there to present an armed and
+threatening front.
+
+All eyes now centered on Dorn and Glidden. Lenore, seeing clearly for
+the first time, suffered a strange, hot paroxysm of emotion never before
+experienced by her. It left her weak. It seemed to stultify the cry that
+had been trying to escape her. She wanted to scream that Dorn must not
+kill the man. Yet there was a ferocity in her that froze the cry.
+Glidden's coat and blouse were half torn off; blood covered him; he
+strained and flung himself weakly in that iron clutch. He was beaten and
+bent back. His tongue hung out, bloody, fluttering with strangled cries.
+A ghastly face, appalling in its fear of death!
+
+Lenore broke her mute spell of mingled horror and passion.
+
+"For God's sake, don't let Dorn kill him!" she implored.
+
+"Why not?" muttered Anderson. "That's Glidden. He killed Dorn's
+father--burned his wheat--ruined him!"
+
+"Dad--for _my_--sake!" she cried brokenly.
+
+"Jake, stop him!" yelled Anderson. "Pull him off!"
+
+As Lenore saw it, with eyes again half failing her, Jake could not
+separate Dorn from his victim.
+
+"Leggo, Dorn!" he yelled. "You're cheatin' the gallows!...Hey, Bill,
+he's a bull!... Help, hyar--quick!"
+
+Lenore did not see the resulting conflict, but she could tell by
+something that swayed the crowd when Glidden had been freed.
+
+"Hold up this outfit!" yelled Anderson to his men. "Come on, Jake, drag
+him along." Jake appeared, leading the disheveled and wild-eyed Dorn.
+"Son, you did my heart good, but there was some around here who didn't
+want you to spill blood. An' that's well. For I am seein' red....Jake,
+you take Dorn an' Lenore a piece toward the house, then hurry back."
+
+Then Lenore felt that she had hold of Dorn's arm and she was listening
+to Jake without understanding a word he said, while she did hear her
+father's yell of command, "Line up there, you I.W.W.'s!"
+
+Jake walked so swiftly that Lenore had to run to keep up. Dorn stumbled.
+He spoke incoherently. He tried to stop. At this Lenore clasped his arm
+and cried, "Oh, Kurt, come home with me!"
+
+They hurried down the slope. Lenore kept looking back. The crowd
+appeared bunched now, with little motion. That relieved her. There was
+no more fighting.
+
+Presently Dorn appeared to go more willingly. He had relaxed. "Let go,
+Jake," he said. "I'm--all right--now. That arm hurts."
+
+"Wal, you'll excuse me, Dorn, for handlin' you rough.... Mebbe you don't
+remember punchin' me one when I got between you an' Glidden?"
+
+"Did I?... I couldn't see, Jake," said Dorn. His voice was weak and had
+a spent ring of passion in it. He did not look at Lenore, but kept his
+face turned toward the cowboy.
+
+"I reckon this 's fur enough," rejoined Jake, halting and looking back.
+"No one comin'. An' there'll be hell to pay out there. You go on to the
+house with Miss Lenore.... Will you?"
+
+"Yes," replied Dorn.
+
+"Rustle along, then.... An' you, Miss Lenore, don't you worry none about
+us."
+
+Lenore nodded and, holding Dorn's arm closely, she walked as fast as she
+could down the lane.
+
+"I--I kept your coat," she said, "though I never thought of it--till
+just now."
+
+She was trembling all over, hot and cold by turns, afraid to look up at
+him, yet immensely proud of him, with a strange, sickening dread. He
+walked rather dejectedly now, or else bent somewhat from weakness. She
+stole a quick glance at his face. It was white as a sheet. Suddenly she
+felt something wet and warm trickle from his arm down into her hand.
+Blood! She shuddered, but did not lose her hold. After a faintish
+instant there came a change in her.
+
+"Are you--hurt?" she asked.
+
+"I guess--not. I don't know," he said.
+
+"But the--the blood," she faltered.
+
+He held up his hands. His knuckles were bloody and it was impossible to
+tell whether from injury to them or not. But his left forearm was badly
+cut.
+
+"The gun cut me.... And he bit me, too," said Dorn. "I'm sorry you were
+there.... What a beastly spectacle for you!"
+
+"Never mind me," she murmured. "I'm all right _now!_... But, oh!--"
+
+She broke off eloquently.
+
+"Was it you who had the cowboys pull me off him? Jake said, as he broke
+me loose, 'For Miss Lenore's sake!'"
+
+"It was dad who sent them. But I begged him to."
+
+"That was Glidden, the I.W.W. agitator and German agent.... He--just the
+same as murdered my father.... He burned my wheat--lost my all!"
+
+"Yes, I--I know, Kurt," whispered Lenore.
+
+"I meant to kill him!"
+
+"That was easy to tell.... Oh, thank God, you did not!... Come, don't
+let us stop." She could not face the piercing, gloomy eyes that went
+through her.
+
+"Why should you care?.... Some one will have to kill Glidden."
+
+"Oh, do not talk so," she implored. "Surely, now you're glad you did
+not?"
+
+"I don't understand myself. But I'm certainly sorry you were there....
+There's a beast in men--in me!... I had a gun in my pocket. But do you
+think I'd have used it?... I wanted to feel his flesh tear, his bones
+break, his blood spurt--"
+
+"Kurt!"
+
+"Yes!... That was the Hun in me!" he declared, in sudden bitter passion.
+
+"Oh, my friend, do not talk so!" she cried. "You make me--Oh, there is
+_no_ Hun in you!"
+
+"Yes, that's what ails me!"
+
+"There is _not_!" she flashed back, roused to passion. "You had been
+made desperate. You acted as any wronged man! You fought. He tried to
+kill you. I saw the gun. No one could blame you.... I had my own reason
+for begging dad to keep you from killing him--a selfish woman's
+reason!... But I tell you I was so furious--so wrought up--that if it
+had been any man but _you_--he should have killed him!"
+
+"Lenore, you're beyond my understanding," replied Dorn, with emotion.
+"But I thank you--for excusing me--for standing up for me."
+
+"It was nothing....Oh, how you bleed!.... Doesn't that hurt?"
+
+"I've no pain--no feeling at all--except a sort of dying down in me of
+what must have been hell."
+
+They reached the house and went in. No one was there, which fact
+relieved Lenore.
+
+"I'm glad mother and the girls won't see you," she said, hurriedly. "Go
+up to your room. I'll bring bandages."
+
+He complied without any comment. Lenore searched for what she needed to
+treat a wound and ran up-stairs. Dorn was sitting on a chair in his
+room, holding his arm, from which blood dripped to the floor. He smiled
+at her.
+
+"You would be a pretty Red Cross nurse," he said.
+
+Lenore placed a bowl of water on the floor and, kneeling beside Dorn,
+took his arm and began to bathe it. He winced. The blood covered her
+fingers.
+
+"My blood on your hands!" he exclaimed, morbidly. "German blood!"
+
+"Kurt, you're out of your head," retorted Lenore, hotly. "If you dare to
+say that again I'll--" She broke off.
+
+"What will you do?"
+
+Lenore faltered. What would she do? A revelation must come, sooner or
+later, and the strain had begun to wear upon her. She was stirred to her
+depths, and instincts there were leaping. No sweet, gentle, kindly
+sympathy would avail with this tragic youth. He must be carried by
+storm. Something of the violence he had shown with Glidden seemed
+necessary to make him forget himself. All his whole soul must be set in
+one direction. He could not see that she loved him, when she had looked
+it, acted it, almost spoken it. His blindness was not to be endured.
+
+"Kurt Dorn, don't dare to--to say that again!"
+
+She ceased bathing his arm, and looked up at him suddenly quite pale.
+
+"I apologize. I am only bitter," he said. "Don't mind what I say....
+It's so good of you--to do this."
+
+Then in silence Lenore dressed his wound, and if her heart did beat
+unwontedly, her fingers were steady and deft. He thanked her, with moody
+eyes seeing far beyond her.
+
+"When I lie--over there--with--"
+
+"If you go!" she interrupted. He was indeed hopeless. "I advise you to
+rest a little."
+
+"I'd like to know what becomes of Glidden," he said.
+
+"So should I. That worries me."
+
+"Weren't there a lot of cowboys with guns?"
+
+"So many that there's no need for you to go out--and start another
+fight."
+
+"I did start it, didn't I?"
+
+"You surely did," She left him then, turning in the doorway to ask him
+please to be quiet and let the day go by without seeking those excited
+men again. He smiled, but he did not promise.
+
+For Lenore the time dragged between dread and suspense. From her window
+she saw a motley crowd pass down the lane to the main road. No
+harvesters were working. At the noon meal only her mother and the girls
+were present. Word had come that the I.W.W. men were being driven from
+"Many Waters." Mrs. Anderson worried, and Lenore's sisters for once were
+quiet. All afternoon the house was lifeless. No one came or left. Lenore
+listened to every little sound. It relieved her that Dorn had remained
+in his room. Her hope was that the threatened trouble had been averted,
+but something told her that the worst was yet to come.
+
+It was nearly supper-time when she heard the men returning. They came in
+a body, noisy and loitering, as if reluctant to break away from one
+another. She heard the horses tramp into the barns and the loud voices
+of drivers.
+
+When she went down-stairs she encountered her father. He looked
+impressive, triumphant! His effort at evasion did not deceive Lenore.
+But she realized at once that in this instance she could not get any
+news from him. He said everything was all right and that I.W.W. men were
+to be deported from Washington. But he did not want any supper, and he
+had a low-voiced, significant interview with Dorn. Lenore longed to know
+what was pending. Dorn's voice, when he said at his door, "Anderson,
+I'll go!" was ringing, hard, and deadly. It frightened Lenore. Go where?
+What were they going to do? Lenore thought of the vigilantes her father
+had organized.
+
+Supper-time was an ordeal. Dorn ate a little; then excusing himself, he
+went back to his room. Lenore got through the meal somehow, and, going
+outside, she encountered Jake. The moment she questioned him she knew
+something extraordinary had taken place or was about to take place. She
+coaxed and entreated. For once Jake was hard to manage. But the more
+excuses he made, the more he evaded her, the greater became Lenore's
+need to know. And at last she wore the cowboy out. He could not resist
+her tears, which began to flow in spite of her.
+
+"See hyar, Miss Lenore, I reckon you care a heap fer young Dorn--beggin'
+your pardon?" queried Jake.
+
+"Care for him!... Jake, I love him."
+
+"Then take a hunch from me an' keep him home--with you--to-night."
+
+"Does father want Kurt Dorn to go--wherever he's going?"
+
+"Wal, I should smile! Your dad likes the way Dorn handles I.W.W.'s,"
+replied Jake, significantly.
+
+"Vigilantes!" whispered Lenore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+Lenore waited for Kurt, and stood half concealed behind the curtains. It
+had dawned upon her that she had an ordeal at hand. Her heart
+palpitated. She heard his quick step on the stairs. She called before
+she showed herself.
+
+"Hello!... Oh, but you startled me!" he exclaimed. He had been
+surprised, too, at the abrupt meeting. Certainly he had not been
+thinking of her. His pale, determined face attested to stern and
+excitable thought.
+
+He halted before her.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Lenore.
+
+"To see your father."
+
+"What about?"
+
+"It's rather important," he replied, with hesitation.
+
+"Will it take long?"
+
+He showed embarrassment. "I--He--We'll be occupied 'most all evening."
+
+"Indeed!... Very well. If you'd rather be--_occupied_--than spend the
+evening with me!" Lenore turned away, affecting a disdainful and hurt
+manner.
+
+"Lenore, it's not that," he burst out. "I--I'd rather spend an evening
+with you than anybody else--or do anything."
+
+"That's very easy to say, Mr. Dorn," she returned, lightly.
+
+"But it's true," he protested.
+
+"Come out of the hall. Father will hear us," she said, and led him into
+the room. It was not so light in there, but what light there was fell
+upon his face and left hers in shadow.
+
+"I've made an--an appointment for to-night," he declared, with
+difficulty.
+
+"Can't you break it?" she asked.
+
+"No. That would lay me open to--to cowardice--perhaps your father's
+displeasure."
+
+"Kurt Dorn, it's brave to give up some things!... And if you go you'll
+incur _my_ displeasure."
+
+"Go!" he ejaculated, staring at her.
+
+"Oh, I know!... And I'm--well, not flattered to see you'd rather go hang
+I.W.W.'s than stay here with me." Lenore did not feel the assurance and
+composure with which she spoke. She was struggling with her own
+feelings. She believed that just as soon as she and Kurt understood each
+other--faced each other without any dissimulation--then she would feel
+free and strong. If only she could put the situation on a sincere
+footing! She must work for that. Her difficulty was with a sense of
+falsity. There was no time to plan. She must change his mind.
+
+Her words had made him start.
+
+"Then you know?" he asked.
+
+"Of course."
+
+"I'm sorry for that," he replied, soberly, as he brushed a hand up
+through his wet hair.
+
+"But you will stay home?"
+
+"No," he returned, shortly, and he looked hard.
+
+"Kurt, I don't want _you_ mixed up with any lynching-bees," she said,
+earnestly.
+
+"I'm a citizen of Washington. I'll join the vigilantes. I'm American.
+I've been ruined by these I.W.W.'s. No man in the West has lost so much!
+Father--home--land--my great harvest of wheat!... Why shouldn't I go?"
+
+"There's no reason except--_me_," she replied, rather unsteadily.
+
+He drew himself up, with a deep breath, as if fortifying himself.
+"That's a mighty good reason.... But you will be kinder if you withdraw
+your objections."
+
+"Can't you conceive of any reason why I--I beg you not to go?"
+
+"I can't," he replied, staring at her. It seemed that every moment he
+spent in her presence increased her effect upon him. Lenore felt this,
+and that buoyed up her failing courage.
+
+"Kurt, you've made a very distressing--a terrible and horrible blunder,"
+she said, with a desperation that must have seemed something else to
+him.
+
+"My heavens! What have I done?" he gasped, his face growing paler. How
+ready he was to see more catastrophe! It warmed her heart and
+strengthened her nerve.
+
+The moment had come. Even if she did lose her power of speech she still
+could show him what his blunder was. Nothing in all her life had ever
+been a hundredth part as hard as this. Yet, as the words formed, her
+whole heart seemed to be behind them, forcing them out. If only he did
+not misunderstand!
+
+Then she looked directly at him and tried to speak. Her first attempt
+was inarticulate, her second was a whisper, "Didn't you ever--think I--I
+might care for you?"
+
+It was as if a shock went over him, leaving him trembling. But he did
+not look as amazed as incredulous. "No, I certainly never did," he said.
+
+"Well--that's your blunder--for I--I do. You--you never--never--asked
+me."
+
+"You do what--care for me?... What on earth do you mean by that?"
+
+Lenore was fighting many emotions now, the one most poignant being a
+wild desire to escape, which battled with an equally maddening one to
+hide her face on his breast.
+
+Yet she could see how white he had grown--how different. His hands
+worked convulsively and his eyes pierced her very soul.
+
+"What should a girl mean--telling she cared?"
+
+"I don't know. Girls are beyond me," he replied, stubbornly.
+
+"Indeed that's true. I've felt so far beyond you--I had to come to
+this."
+
+"Lenore," he burst out, hoarsely, "you talk in riddles! You've been so
+strange, yet so fine, so sweet! And now you say you care for me!...
+Care?... What does that mean? A word can drive me mad. But I never dared
+to hope. I love you--love you--love you--my God! you're all I've left to
+love. I--"
+
+"Do you think you've a monopoly on all the love in the world?"
+interrupted Lenore, coming to her real self. His impassioned declaration
+was all she needed. Her ordeal was over.
+
+It seemed as if he could not believe his ears or eyes.
+
+"Monopoly! World!" he echoed. "Of course I don't. But--"
+
+"Kurt, I love you just as much as--as you love me.... So there!"
+
+Lenore had time for one look at his face before he enveloped her. What a
+relief to hide her own! It was pressed to his breast very closely. Her
+eyes shut, and she felt hot tears under the lids. All before her
+darkened sight seemed confusion, whirling chaos. It seemed that she
+could not breathe and, strangely, did not need to. How unutterably happy
+she felt! That was an age-long moment--wonderful for her own relief and
+gladness--full of changing emotions. Presently Kurt appeared to be
+coming to some semblance of rationality. He released her from that
+crushing embrace, but still kept an arm around her while he held her off
+and looked at her.
+
+"Lenore, will you kiss me?" he whispered.
+
+She could have cried out in sheer delight at the wonder of that whisper
+in her ear. It had been she who had changed the world for Kurt Dorn.
+
+"Yes--presently," she replied, with a tremulous little laugh. "Wait
+till--I get my breath--"
+
+"I was beside myself--am so yet," he replied, low voiced as if in awe.
+"I've been lifted to heaven.... It cannot be true. I believe, yet I'll
+not be sure till you kiss me.... You--Lenore Anderson, this girl of my
+dreams! Do you love me--is it true?"
+
+"Yes, Kurt, indeed I do--very dearly," she replied, and turned to look
+up into his face. It was transfigured. Lenore's heart swelled as a deep
+and profound emotion waved over her.
+
+"Please kiss me--then."
+
+She lifted her face, flushing scarlet. Their lips met. Then with her
+head upon his shoulder and her hands closely held she answered the
+thousand and one questions of a bewildered and exalted lover who could
+not realize the truth. Lenore laughed at him and eloquently furnished
+proof of her own obsession, and told him how and why and when it all
+came about.
+
+Not for hours did Kurt come back to actualities. "I forgot about the
+vigilantes," he exclaimed, suddenly. "It's too late now.... How the time
+has flown!... Oh, Lenore, thought of other things breaks in, alas!"
+
+He kissed her hand and got up. Another change was coming over him.
+Lenore had long expected the moment when realization would claim his
+attention. She was prepared.
+
+"Yes, you forgot your appointment with dad and the vigilantes. You've
+missed some excitement and violence."
+
+His face had grown white again--grave now and troubled. "May I speak to
+your father?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," she replied.
+
+"If I come back from the war--well--not crippled--will you promise to
+marry me?"
+
+"Kurt, I promise now."
+
+That seemed to shake him. "But, Lenore, it is not fair to you. I don't
+believe a soldier should bind a girl by marriage or engagement before he
+goes to war. She should be free.... I want you to be free."
+
+"That's for you to say," she replied, softly. "But for my part, I don't
+want to be free--if you go away to war."
+
+"If!... I'm going," he said, with a start. "You don't want to be free?
+Lenore, would you be engaged to me?"
+
+"My dear boy, of course I would.... It seems I _am,_ doesn't it?" she
+replied, with one of her deep, low laughs.
+
+He gazed at her, fascinated, worked upon by overwhelming emotions.
+"Would you marry me--before I go?"
+
+"Yes," she flashed.
+
+He bent and bowed then under the storm. Stumbling to her, almost on his
+knees, he brokenly expressed his gratitude, his wonder, his passion, and
+the terrible temptation that he must resist, which she must help him to
+resist.
+
+"Kurt, I love you. I will see things through your eyes, if I must. I
+want to be a comfort to you, not a source of sorrow."
+
+"But, Lenore, what comfort can I find?... To leave you now is going to
+be horrible!... To part from you now--I don't see how I can."
+
+Then Lenore dared to broach the subject so delicate, so momentous.
+
+"You need not part from me. My father has asked me to try to keep you
+home. He secured exemption for you. You are more needed here than at the
+front. You can feed many soldiers. You would be doing your duty--with
+honor!... You would be a soldier. The government is going to draft young
+men for farm duty. Why not you? There are many good reasons why you
+would be better than most young men. Because you know wheat. And wheat
+is to become the most important thing in the world. No one misjudges
+your loyalty.... And surely you see that the best service to your
+country is what you can do best."
+
+He sat down beside her, with serious frown and somber eyes. "Lenore, are
+you asking me not to go to war?"
+
+"Yes, I am," she replied. "I have thought it all over. I've given up my
+brother. I'd not ask you to stay home if you were needed at the front as
+much as here. That question I have had out with my conscience.... Kurt,
+don't think me a silly, sentimental girl. Events of late have made me a
+woman."
+
+He buried his face in his hands. "That's the most amazing of
+all--you--Lenore Anderson, my American girl--asking me not to go to
+war."
+
+"But, dear, it is not so amazing. It's reasonable. Your peculiar point
+of view makes it look different. I am no weak, timid, love-sick girl
+afraid to let you go!... I've given you good, honorable, patriotic
+reasons for your exemption from draft. Can you see that?"
+
+"Yes. I grant all your claims. I know wheat well enough to tell you that
+if vastly more wheat-raising is not done the world will starve. That
+would hold good for the United States in forty years without war."
+
+"Then if you see my point why are you opposed to it?" she asked.
+
+"Because I am Kurt Dorn," he replied, bitterly.
+
+His tone, his gloom made her shiver. It would take all her intelligence
+and wit and reason to understand him, and vastly more than that to
+change him. She thought earnestly. This was to be an ordeal profoundly
+more difficult than the confession of her love. It was indeed a crisis
+dwarfing the other she had met. She sensed in him a remarkably strange
+attitude toward this war, compared with that of her brother or other
+boys she knew who had gone.
+
+"Because you are Kurt Dorn," she said, thoughtfully. "It's in the name,
+then.... But I think it a pretty name--a good name. Have I not consented
+to accept it as mine--for life?"
+
+He could not answer that. Blindly he reached out with a shaking hand, to
+find hers, to hold it close. Lenore felt the tumult in him. She was
+shocked. A great tenderness, sweet and motherly, flooded over her.
+
+"Dearest, in this dark hour--that was so bright a little while ago--you
+must not keep anything from me," she replied. "I will be true to you. I
+will crush my selfish hopes. I will be your mother.... tell me why you
+must go to war because you are Kurt Dorn."
+
+"My father was German. He hated this country--yours and mine. He plotted
+with the I.W.W. He hated your father and wanted to destroy him....
+Before he died he realized his crime. For so I take the few words he
+spoke to Jerry. But all the same he was a traitor to my country. I bear
+his name. I have German in me.... And by God I'm going to pay!"
+
+His deep, passionate tones struck into Lenore's heart. She fought with a
+rising terror. She was beginning to understand him. How helpless she
+felt--how she prayed for inspiration--for wisdom!
+
+"Pay!... How?" she asked.
+
+"In the only way possible. I'll see that a Dorn goes to war--who will
+show his American blood--who will fight and kill--and be killed!"
+
+His passion, then, was more than patriotism. It had its springs in the
+very core of his being. He had, it seemed, a debt that he must pay. But
+there was more than this in his grim determination. And Lenore divined
+that it lay hidden in his bitter reference to his German blood. He hated
+that--doubted himself because of it. She realized now that to keep him
+from going to war would be to make him doubt his manhood and eventually
+to despise himself. No longer could she think of persuading him to stay
+home. She must forget herself. She knew then that she had the power to
+keep him and she could use it, but she must not do so. This tragic thing
+was a matter of his soul. But if he went to war with this bitter
+obsession, with this wrong motive, this passionate desire to spill blood
+in him that he hated, he would lose his soul. He must be changed. All
+her love, all her woman's flashing, subtle thought concentrated on this
+fact. How strange the choice that had been given her! Not only must she
+relinquish her hope of keeping him home, but she must perhaps go to
+desperate ends to send him away with a changed spirit. The moment of
+decision was agony for her.
+
+"Kurt, this is a terrible hour for both of us," she said, "but, thank
+Heaven, you have confessed to me. Now I will confess to you."
+
+"Confess?... You?... What nonsense!" he exclaimed. But in his surprise
+he lifted his head from his hands to look at her.
+
+"When we came in here my mind was made up to make you stay home. Father
+begged me to do it, and I had my own selfish motive. It was love. Oh, I
+do love you, Kurt, more than you can dream of!... I justified my
+resolve. I told you that. But I wanted you. I wanted your love--your
+presence. I longed for a home with you as husband--master--father to my
+babies. I dreamed of all. It filled me with terror to think of you going
+to war. You might be crippled--mangled--murdered.... Oh, my dear, I
+could not bear the thought!... So I meant to overcome you. I had it all
+planned. I meant to love you--to beg you--to kiss you--to make you
+stay--"
+
+"Lenore, what are you saying?" he cried, in shocked amaze.
+
+She flung her arms round his neck. "Oh, I could--I could have kept you!"
+she answered, low voiced and triumphant. "It fills me with joy.... Tell
+me I could have kept you--tell me."
+
+"Yes. I've no power to resist you. But I might have hated--"
+
+"Hush!... It's all might have.... I've risen above myself."
+
+"Lenore, you distress me. A little while ago you bewildered me with your
+sweetness and love.... Now--you look like an angel or a goddess.... Oh,
+to have your face like this--always with me! Yet it distresses me--so
+terrible in purpose. What are you about to tell me? I see something--"
+
+"Listen," she broke in. "I meant to make you weak. I implore you now to
+be strong. You must go to war! But with all my heart and soul I beg you
+to go with a changed spirit.... You were about to do a terrible thing.
+You hated the German in you and meant to kill it by violence. You
+despised the German blood and you meant to spill it. Like a wild man you
+would have rushed to fight, to stab and beat, to murder--and you would
+have left your breast open for a bayonet-thrust.... Oh, I know it!...
+Kurt, you are horribly wrong. That is no way to go to war.... War is a
+terrible business, but men don't wage it for motives such as yours. We
+Americans all have different strains of blood--English--French--German.
+One is as good as another. You are obsessed--you are out of your head on
+this German question. You must kill that idea--kill it with one
+bayonet-thrust of sense.... You must go to war as my soldier--with my
+ideal. Your country has called you to help uphold its honor, its pledged
+word. You must fight to conquer an enemy who threatens to destroy
+freedom.... You must be brave, faithful, merciful, clean--an American
+soldier!... You are only one of a million. You have no personal need for
+war. You are as good, as fine, as noble as any man--my choice, sir, of
+all the men in the world!... I am sending you. I am giving you up....
+Oh, my darling--you will never know how hard it is!... But go! Your life
+has been sad. You have lost so much. I feel in my woman's heart what
+will be--if only you'll change--if you see God in this as I see. Promise
+me. Love that which you hated. Prove for yourself what I believe. Trust
+me--promise me... Then--oh, I know God will send you back to me!"
+
+He fell upon his knees before her to bury his face in her lap. His whole
+frame shook. His hands plucked at her dress. A low sob escaped him.
+
+"Lenore," he whispered, brokenly, "I can't see God in this--for me!... I
+can't promise!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Thirty masked men sat around a long harvest mess-table. Two lanterns
+furnished light enough to show a bare barnlike structure, the
+rough-garbed plotters, the grim set of hard lips below the half-masks,
+and big hands spread out, ready to draw from the hat that was passing.
+
+The talk was low and serious. No names were spoken. A heavy man, at the
+head of the table, said: "We thirty, picked men, represent the country.
+Let each member here write on his slip of paper his choice of punishment
+for the I.W.W.'s--death or deportation...."
+
+The members of the band bent their masked faces and wrote in a dead
+silence. A noiseless wind blew through the place. The lanterns
+flickered; huge shadows moved on the walls. When the papers had been
+passed back to the leader he read them.
+
+"Deportation," he announced. "So much for the I.W.W. men.... Now for the
+leader.... But before we vote on what to do with Glidden let me read an
+extract from one of his speeches. This is authentic. It has been
+furnished by the detective lately active in our interest. Also it has
+been published. I read it because I want to bring home to you all an
+issue that goes beyond our own personal fortunes here."
+
+Leaning toward the flickering flare of the lantern, the leader read from
+a slip of paper: "If the militia are sent out here to hinder the I.W.W.
+we will make it so damned hot for the government that no troops will be
+able to go to France.... I don't give a damn what this country is
+fighting for.... I am fighting for the rights of labor.... American
+soldiers are Uncle Sam's scabs in disguise."
+
+The deep, impressive voice ended. The leader's huge fist descended upon
+the table with a crash. He gazed up and down the rows of sinister masked
+figures. "Have you anything to say?"
+
+"No," replied one.
+
+"Pass the slips," said another.
+
+And then a man, evidently on in years, for his hair was gray and he
+looked bent, got up. "Neighbors," he began "I lived here in the early
+days. For the last few years I've been apologizing for my home town. I
+don't want to apologize for it any longer."
+
+He sat down. And a current seemed to wave from him around that dark
+square of figures. The leader cleared his throat as if he had much to
+say, but he did not speak. Instead he passed the hat. Each man drew
+forth a slip of paper and wrote upon it. The action was not slow.
+Presently the hat returned round the table to the leader. He spilled its
+contents, and with steady hand picked up the first slip of paper.
+
+"Death!" he read, sonorously, and laid it down to pick up another. Again
+he spoke that grim word. The third brought forth the same, and likewise
+the next, and all, until the verdict had been called out thirty times.
+
+"At daylight we'll meet," boomed out that heavy voice. "Instruct
+Glidden's guards to make a show of resistance.... We'll hang Glidden to
+the railroad bridge. Then each of you get your gangs together. Round up
+all the I.W.W.'s. Drive them to the railroad yard. There we'll put them
+aboard a railroad train of empty cars. And that train will pass under
+the bridge where Glidden will be hanging.... We'll escort them out of
+the country."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That August dawn was gray and cool, with gold and pink beginning to
+break over the dark eastern ranges. The town had not yet awakened. It
+slept unaware of the stealthy forms passing down the gray road and of
+the distant hum of motor-cars and trot of hoofs.
+
+Glidden's place of confinement was a square warehouse, near the edge of
+town. Before the improvised jail guards paced up and down, strangely
+alert.
+
+Daylight had just cleared away the gray when a crowd of masked men
+appeared as if by magic and bore down upon the guards. There was an
+apparent desperate resistance, but, significantly, no cries or shots.
+The guards were overpowered and bound.
+
+The door of the jail yielded to heavy blows of an ax. In the corner of a
+dim, bare room groveled Glidden, bound so that he had little use of his
+body. But he was terribly awake. When six men entered he asked,
+hoarsely: "What're you--after?... What--you mean?"
+
+They jerked him erect. They cut the bonds from his legs. They dragged
+him out into the light of breaking day.
+
+When he saw the masked and armed force he cried: "My God!... What'll
+you--do with me?"
+
+Ghastly, working, sweating, his face betrayed his terror.
+
+"You're to be hanged by the neck," spoke a heavy, solemn voice.
+
+The man would have collapsed but for the strong hands that upheld him.
+
+"What--for?" he gasped.
+
+"For I.W.W. crimes--for treason--for speeches no American can stand in
+days like these." Then this deep-voiced man read to Glidden words of his
+own.
+
+"Do you recognize that?"
+
+Glidden saw how he had spoken his own doom. "Yes, I said that," he had
+nerve left to say. "But--I insist on arrest--trial--justice!... I'm no
+criminal.... I've big interests behind me.... You'll suffer--"
+
+A loop of a lasso, slung over his head and jerked tight, choked off his
+intelligible utterance. But as the silent, ruthless men dragged him away
+he gave vent to terrible, half-strangled cries.
+
+The sun rose red over the fertile valley--over the harvest fields and
+the pastures and the orchards, and over the many towns that appeared
+lost in the green and gold of luxuriance.
+
+In the harvest districts west of the river all the towns were visited by
+swift-flying motor-cars that halted long enough for a warning to be
+shouted to the citizens, "Keep off the streets!"
+
+Simultaneously armed forces of men, on foot and on horseback, too
+numerous to count, appeared in the roads and the harvest fields.
+
+They accosted every man they met. If he were recognized or gave proof of
+an honest identity he was allowed to go; otherwise he was marched along
+under arrest. These armed forces were thorough in their search, and in
+the country districts they had an especial interest in likely
+camping-places, and around old barns and straw-stacks. In the towns they
+searched every corner that was big enough to hide a man.
+
+So it happened that many motley groups of men were driven toward the
+railroad line, where they were held until a freight-train of empty
+cattle-cars came along. This train halted long enough to have the I.W.W.
+contingent driven aboard, with its special armed guard following, and
+then it proceeded on to the next station. As stations were many, so were
+the halts, and news of the train with its strange freight flashed ahead.
+Crowds lined the railroad tracks. Many boys and men in these crowds
+carried rifles and pistols which they leveled at the I.W.W. prisoners as
+the train passed. Jeers and taunts and threats accompanied this
+presentation of guns.
+
+Before the last station of that wheat district was reached full three
+hundred members of the I.W.W., or otherwise suspicious characters, were
+packed into the open cars. At the last stop the number was greatly
+augmented, and the armed forces were cut down to the few guards who were
+to see the I.W.W. deported from the country. Here provisions and
+drinking-water were put into the cars. And amid a hurrahing roar of
+thousands the train with its strange load slowly pulled out.
+
+It did not at once gather headway. The engine whistled a prolonged
+blast--a signal or warning not lost on many of its passengers.
+
+From the front cars rose shrill cries that alarmed the prisoners in the
+rear. The reason soon became manifest. Arms pointed and eyes stared at
+the figure of a man hanging from a rope fastened to the center of a high
+bridge span under which the engine was about to pass.
+
+The figure swayed in the wind. It turned half-way round, disclosing a
+ghastly, distorted face, and a huge printed placard on the breast, then
+it turned back again. Slowly the engine drew one car-load after another
+past the suspended body of the dead man. There were no more cries. All
+were silent in that slow-moving train. All faces were pale, all eyes
+transfixed.
+
+The placard on the hanged man's breast bore in glaring red a strange
+message: _Last warning_. 3-7-77.
+
+The figures were the ones used in the frontier days by vigilantes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A dusty motor-car climbed the long road leading up to the Neuman ranch.
+It was not far from Wade, a small hamlet of the wheat-growing section,
+and the slopes of the hills, bare and yellow with waving grain, bore
+some semblance to the Bend country. Four men--a driver and three
+cowboys--were in the automobile.
+
+A big stone gate marked the entrance to Neuman's ranch. Cars and
+vehicles lined the roadside. Men were passing in and out. Neuman's home
+was unpretentious, but his barns and granaries and stock-houses were
+built on a large scale.
+
+"Bill, are you goin' in with me after this pard of the Kaiser's?"
+inquired Jake, leisurely stretching himself as the car halted. He opened
+the door and stiffly got out. "Gimme a hoss any day fer gittin' places!"
+
+"Jake, my regard fer your rep as Anderson's foreman makes me want to hug
+the background," replied Bill. "I've done a hell of a lot these last
+forty-eight hours."
+
+"Wal, I reckon you have, Bill, an' no mistake.... But I was figgerin' on
+you wantin' to see the fun."
+
+"Fun!... Jake, it 'll be fun enough fer me to sit hyar an' smoke in the
+shade, an' watch fer you to come a-runnin' from thet big German
+devil.... Pard, they say he's a bad man!"
+
+"Sure. I know thet. All them Germans is bad."
+
+"If the boss hadn't been so dog-gone strict about gun-play I'd love to
+go with you," responded Bill. "But he didn't give me no orders. You're
+the whole outfit this round-up."
+
+"Bill, you'd have to take orders from me," said Jake, coolly.
+
+"Sure. Thet's why I come with Andy."
+
+The other cowboy, called Andy, manifested uneasiness, and he said: "Aw,
+now, Jake, you ain't a-goin' to ask me to go in there?... An' me hatin'
+Germans the way I do!"
+
+"Nope. I guess I'll order Bill to go in an' fetch Neuman out," replied
+Jake, complacently, as he made as if to re-enter the car.
+
+Bill collapsed in his seat. "Jake," he expostulated, weakly, "this job
+was given you because of your rep fer deploomacy.... Sure I haven't none
+of thet.... An' you, Jake, why you're the smoothest an' slickest talker
+thet ever come to the Northwest."
+
+Evidently Jake had a vulnerable point. He straightened up with a little
+swagger. "Wal, you watch me," he said. "I'll fetch the big Dutchman
+eatin' out of my hand.... An' say, when we git him in the car an' start
+back let's scare the daylights out of him."
+
+"Thet'd be powerful fine. But how?"
+
+"You fellers take a hunch from me," replied Jake. And he strode off up
+the lane toward the ranch-house.
+
+Jake had been commissioned to acquaint Neuman with the fact that recent
+developments demanded his immediate presence at "Many Waters." The
+cowboy really had a liking for the job, though he pretended not to.
+
+Neuman had not yet begun harvesting. There were signs to Jake's
+experienced eye that the harvest-hands were expected this very day. Jake
+fancied he knew why the rancher had put off his harvesting. And also he
+knew that the extra force of harvest-hands would not appear. He was
+regarded with curiosity by the women members of the Neuman household,
+and rather enjoyed it. There were several comely girls in evidence. Jake
+did not look a typical Northwest foreman and laborer. Booted and
+spurred, with his gun swinging visibly, and his big sombrero and gaudy
+scarf, he looked exactly what he was, a cowman of the open ranges.
+
+His inquiries elicited the fact that Neuman was out in the fields,
+waiting for the harvest-hands.
+
+"Wal, if he's expectin' thet outfit of I.W.W.'s he'll never harvest,"
+said Jake, "for some of them is hanged an' the rest run out of the
+country."
+
+Jake did not wait to see the effect of his news. He strode back toward
+the fields, and with the eye of a farmer he appraised the barns and
+corrals, and the fields beyond. Neuman raised much wheat, and enough
+alfalfa to feed his stock. His place was large and valuable, but not
+comparable to "Many Waters."
+
+Out in the wheat-fields were engines with steam already up, with
+combines and threshers and wagons waiting for the word to start. Jake
+enjoyed the keen curiosity roused by his approach. Neuman strode out
+from a group of waiting men. He was huge of build, ruddy-faced and
+bearded, with deep-set eyes.
+
+"Are you Neuman?" inquired Jake.
+
+"That's me," gruffly came the reply.
+
+"I'm Anderson's foreman. I've been sent over to tell you thet you're
+wanted pretty bad at 'Many Waters.'"
+
+The man stared incredulously. "What?... Who wants me?"
+
+"Anderson. An' I reckon there's more--though I ain't informed."
+
+Neuman rumbled a curse. Amaze dominated him. "Anderson!... Well, I don't
+want to see him," he replied.
+
+"I reckon you don't," was the cowboy's cool reply.
+
+The rancher looked him up and down. However familiar his type was to
+Anderson, it was strange to Neuman. The cowboy breathed a potential
+force. The least significant thing about his appearance was that
+swinging gun. He seemed cool and easy, with hard, keen eyes. Neuman's
+face took a shade off color.
+
+"But I'm going to harvest to-day," he said. "I'm late. I've a hundred
+hands coming."
+
+"Nope. You haven't none comin'," asserted Jake.
+
+"What!" ejaculated Neuman.
+
+"Reckon it's near ten o'clock," said the cowboy. "We run over here
+powerful fast."
+
+"Yes, it's near ten," bellowed Neuman, on the verge of a rage.... "I
+haven't harvest-hands coming!... What's this talk?"
+
+"Wal, about nine-thirty I seen all your damned I.W.W.'s, except what was
+shot an' hanged, loaded in a cattlecar an' started out of the country."
+
+A blow could not have hit harder than the cowboy's biting speech.
+Astonishment and fear shook Neuman before he recovered control of
+himself.
+
+"If it's true, what's that to me?" he bluffed, in hoarse accents.
+
+"Neuman, I didn't come to answer questions," said the cowboy, curtly.
+"My boss jest sent me fer you, an' if you bucked on comin', then I was
+to say it was your only chance to avoid publicity an' bein' run out of
+the country."
+
+Neuman was livid of face now and shaking all over his huge frame.
+
+"Anderson threatens me!" he shouted. "Anderson suspicions me!... _Gott
+in Himmel_!... Me he always cheated! An' now he insults--"
+
+"Say, it ain't healthy to talk like thet about my boss," interrupted
+Jake, forcibly. "An' we're wastin' time. If you don't go with me we'll
+be comin' back--the whole outfit of us!... Anderson means you're to face
+his man!"
+
+"What man?"
+
+"Dorn. Young Dorn, son of old Chris Dorn of the Bend.... Dorn has some
+things to tell you thet you won't want made public.... Anderson's givin'
+you a square deal. If it wasn't fer thet I'd sling my gun on you!... Do
+you git my hunch?"
+
+The name of Dorn made a slack figure of the aggressive Neuman.
+
+"All right--I go," he said, gruffly, and without a word to his men he
+started off.
+
+Jake followed him. Neuman made a short cut to the gate, thus avoiding a
+meeting with any of his family. At the road, however, some men observed
+him and called in surprise, but he waved them back.
+
+"Bill, you an' Andy collect yourselves an' give Mr. Neuman a seat," said
+Jake, as he opened the door to allow the farmer to enter.
+
+The two cowboys gave Neuman the whole of the back seat, and they
+occupied the smaller side seats. Jake took his place beside the driver.
+
+"Burn her up!" was his order.
+
+The speed of the car made conversation impossible until the limits of a
+town necessitated slowing down. Then the cowboys talked. For all the
+attention they paid to Neuman, he might as well not have been present.
+Before long the driver turned into a road that followed a railroad track
+for several miles and then crossed it to enter a good-sized town. The
+streets were crowded with people and the car had to be driven slowly. At
+this juncture Jake suggested.
+
+"Let's go down by the bridge."
+
+"Sure," agreed his allies.
+
+Then the driver turned down a still more peopled street that sloped a
+little and evidently overlooked the railroad tracks. Presently they came
+in sight of a railroad bridge, around which there appeared to be an
+excited yet awestruck throng. All faces were turned up toward the
+swaying form of a man hanging by a rope tied to the high span of the
+bridge.
+
+"Wal, Glidden's hangin' there yet," remarked Jake, cheerfully.
+
+With a violent start Neuman looked out to see the ghastly placarded
+figure, and then he sank slowly back in his seat. The cowboys apparently
+took no notice of him. They seemed to have forgotten his presence.
+
+"Funny they'd cut all the other I.W.W.'s down an' leave Glidden hangin'
+there," observed Bill.
+
+"Them vigilantes sure did it up brown," added Andy. "I was dyin' to join
+the band. But they didn't ask me."
+
+"Nor me," replied Jake, regretfully. "An' I can't understand why, onless
+it was they was afeared I couldn't keep a secret."
+
+"Who is them vigilantes, anyhow?" asked Bill, curiously.
+
+"Wal, I reckon nobody knows. But I seen a thousand armed men this
+mornin'. They sure looked bad. You ought to have seen them poke the
+I.W.W.'s with cocked guns."
+
+"Was any one shot?" queried Andy.
+
+"Not in the daytime. Nobody killed by this Citizens' Protective League,
+as they call themselves. They just rounded up all the suspicious men an'
+herded them on to thet cattle-train an' carried them off. It was at
+night when the vigilantes worked--masked an' secret an' sure bloody.
+Jest like the old vigilante days! ... An' you can gamble they ain't
+through yet."
+
+"Uncle Sam won't need to send any soldiers here."
+
+"Wal, I should smile not. Thet'd be a disgrace to the Northwest. It was
+a bad time fer the I.W.W. to try any tricks on us."
+
+Jake shook his lean head and his jaw bulged. He might have been
+haranguing, cowboy-like, for the benefit of the man they feigned not to
+notice, but it was plain, nevertheless, that he was angry.
+
+"What gits me wuss 'n them I.W.W.'s is the skunks thet give Uncle Sam
+the double-cross," said Andy, with dark face. "I'll stand fer any man
+an' respect him if he's aboveboard an' makes his fight in the open. But
+them coyotes thet live off the land an' pretend to be American when they
+ain't--they make me pisen mad."
+
+"I heerd the vigilantes has marked men like thet," observed Bill.
+
+"I'll give you a hunch, fellers," replied Jake, grimly. "By Gawd! the
+West won't stand fer traitors!"
+
+All the way to "Many Waters," where it was possible to talk and be
+heard, the cowboys continued in like strain. And not until the driver
+halted the car before Anderson's door did they manifest any awareness of
+Neuman.
+
+"Git out an' come in," said Jake to the pallid, sweating rancher.
+
+He led Neuman into the hall and knocked upon Anderson's study door. It
+was opened by Dorn.
+
+"Wal, hyar we are," announced Jake, and his very nonchalance attested to
+pride.
+
+Anderson was standing beside his desk. He started, and his hand flashed
+back significantly as he sighted his rival and enemy.
+
+"No gun-play, boss, was your orders," said Jake. "An' Neuman ain't
+packin' no gun."
+
+It was plain that Anderson made a great effort at restraint. But he
+failed. And perhaps the realization that he could not kill this man
+liberated his passion. Then the two big ranchers faced each
+other--Neuman livid and shaking, Anderson black as a thunder-cloud.
+
+"Neuman, you hatched up a plot with Glidden to kill me," said Anderson,
+bitterly.
+
+Neuman, in hoarse, brief answer, denied it.
+
+"Sure! Deny it. What do we care? ... We've got you, Neuman," burst out
+Anderson, his heavy voice ringing with passion. "But it's not your
+low-down plot thet's r'iled me. There's been a good many men who've
+tried to do away with me. I've outplayed you in many a deal. So your
+personal hate for me doesn't count. I'm sore--an' you an' me can't live
+in the same place, because you're a damned traitor. You've lived here
+for twenty years. You've grown rich off the country. An' you'd sell us
+to your rotten Germany. What I think of you for that I'm goin' to tell
+you."
+
+Anderson paused to take a deep breath. Then he began to curse Neuman.
+All the rough years of his frontier life, as well as the quieter ones of
+his ranching days, found expression in the swift, thunderous roll of his
+terrible scorn. Every vile name that had ever been used by cowboy,
+outlaw, gambler, leaped to Anderson's stinging tongue. All the keen,
+hard epithets common to the modern day he flung into Neuman's face. And
+he ended with a profanity that was as individual in character as its
+delivery was intense.
+
+"I'm callin' you for my own relief," he concluded, "an' not that I
+expect to get under your hide."
+
+Then he paused. He wiped the beaded drops from his forehead, and he
+coughed and shook himself. His big fists unclosed. Passion gave place to
+dignity.
+
+"Neuman, it's a pity you an' men like you can't see the truth. That's
+the mystery to me--why any one who had spent half a lifetime an'
+prospered here in our happy an' beautiful country could ever hate it. I
+never will understand that. But I do understand that America will never
+harbor such men for long. You have your reasons, I reckon. An' no doubt
+you think you're justified. That's the tragedy. You run off from
+hard-ruled Germany. You will not live there of your own choice. You
+succeed here an' live in peace an' plenty.... An', by God! you take up
+with a lot of foreign riffraff an' double-cross the people you owe so
+much!... What's wrong with your mind?... Think it over.... An' that's
+the last word I have for you."
+
+Anderson, turning to his desk, took up a cigar and lighted it. He was
+calm again. There was really sadness where his face had shown only fury.
+Then he addressed Dorn.
+
+"Kurt, it's up to you now," he said. "As my superintendent an' some-day
+partner, what you'll say goes with me.... I don't know what bein' square
+would mean in relation to this man."
+
+Anderson sat down heavily in his desk chair and his face became obscured
+in cigar smoke.
+
+"Neuman, do you recognize me?" asked Dorn, with his flashing eyes on the
+rancher.
+
+"No," replied Neuman.
+
+"I'm Chris Dorn's son. My father died a few days ago. He overtaxed his
+heart fighting fire in the wheat ... Fire set by I.W.W. men. Glidden's
+men! ... They burned our wheat. Ruined us!"
+
+Neuman showed shock at the news, at the sudden death of an old friend,
+but he did not express himself in words.
+
+"Do you deny implication in Glidden's plot to kill Anderson?" demanded
+Dorn.
+
+"Yes," replied Neuman.
+
+"Well, you're a liar!" retorted Dorn. "I saw you with Glidden and my
+father. I followed you at Wheatly--out along the railroad tracks. I
+slipped up and heard the plot. It was I who snatched the money from my
+father."
+
+Neuman's nerve was gone, but with his stupid and stubborn process of
+thought he still denied, stuttering incoherently.
+
+"Glidden has been hanged," went on Dorn. "A vigilante band has been
+organized here in the valley. Men of your known sympathy will not be
+safe, irrespective of your plot against Anderson. But as to that,
+publicity alone will be enough to ruin you.... Americans of the West
+will not tolerate traitors.... Now the question you've got to decide is
+this. Will you take the risks or will you sell out and leave the
+country?"
+
+"I'll sell out," replied Neuman.
+
+"What price do you put on your ranch as it stands?"
+
+"One hundred thousand dollars."
+
+Dorn turned to Anderson and asked, "Is it worth that much?"
+
+"No. Seventy-five thousand would be a big price," replied the rancher.
+
+"Neuman, we will give you seventy-five thousand for your holdings. Do
+you accept?"
+
+"I have no choice," replied Neuman, sullenly.
+
+"Choice!" exclaimed Dorn. "Yes, you have. And you're not being cheated.
+I've stated facts. You are done in this valley. You're ruined _now!_ And
+Glidden's fate stares you in the face.... Will you sell and leave the
+country?"
+
+"Yes," came the deep reply, wrenched from a stubborn breast.
+
+"Go draw up your deeds, then notify us," said Dorn, with finality.
+
+Jake opened the door. Stolidly and slowly Neuman went out, precisely as
+he had entered, like a huge man in conflict with unintelligible
+thoughts.
+
+"Send him home in the car," called Anderson.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+For two fleeting days Lenore Anderson was happy when she forgot,
+miserable when she remembered. Then the third morning dawned.
+
+At the breakfast-table her father had said, cheerily, to Dorn: "Better
+take off your coat an' come out to the fields. We've got some job to
+harvest that wheat with only half-force.... But, by George! my trouble's
+over."
+
+Dorn looked suddenly blank, as if Anderson's cheery words had recalled
+him to the realities of life. He made an incoherent excuse and left the
+table.
+
+"Ah-huh!" Anderson's characteristic exclamation might have meant little
+or much. "Lenore, what ails the boy?"
+
+"Nothing that I know of. He has been as--as happy as I am," she replied.
+
+"Then it's all settled?"
+
+"Father, I--I--"
+
+Kathleen's high, shrill, gleeful voice cut in: "Sure it's settled! Look
+at Lenorry blush!"
+
+Lenore indeed felt the blood stinging face and neck. Nevertheless, she
+laughed.
+
+"Come into my room," said Anderson.
+
+She followed him there, and as he closed the door she answered his
+questioning look by running into his arms and hiding her face.
+
+"Wal, I'll be dog-goned!" the rancher ejaculated, with emotion. He held
+her and patted her shoulder with his big hand. "Tell me, Lenore."
+
+"There's little to tell," she replied, softly. "I love him--and he loves
+me so--so well that I've been madly happy--in spite of--of--"
+
+"Is that all?" asked Anderson, dubiously.
+
+"Is not that enough?"
+
+"But Dorn's lovin' you so well doesn't say he'll not go to war."
+
+And it was then that forgotten bitterness returned to poison Lenore's
+cup of joy.
+
+"Ah!"... she whispered.
+
+"Good Lord! Lenore, you don't mean you an' Dorn have been alone all the
+time these few days--an' you haven't settled that war question?" queried
+Anderson, in amaze.
+
+"Yes.... How strange!... But since--well, since something
+happened--we--we forgot," she replied, dreamily.
+
+"Wal, go back to it," said Anderson, forcibly. "I want Dorn to help
+me.... Why, he's a wonder!... He's saved the situation for us here in
+the valley. Every rancher I know is praisin' him high. An' he sure
+treated Neuman square. An' here I am with three big wheat-ranches on my
+hands!... Lenore, you've got to keep him home."
+
+"Dad!... I--I could not!" replied Lenore. She was strangely realizing an
+indefinable change in herself. "I can't try to keep him from going to
+war. I never thought of that since--since we confessed our love.... But
+it's made some difference.... It'll kill me, I think, to let him go--but
+I'd die before I'd ask him to stay home."
+
+"Ah-huh!" sighed Anderson, and, releasing her, he began to pace the
+room. "I don't begin to understand you, girl. But I respect your
+feelin's. It's a hell of a muddle!... I'd forgotten the war myself while
+chasin' off them I.W.W.'s.... But this war has _got_ to be reckoned
+with!... Send Dorn to me!"
+
+Lenore found Dorn playing with Kathleen. These two had become as brother
+and sister.
+
+"Kurt, dad wants to see you," said Lenore seriously.
+
+Dorn looked startled, and the light of fun on his face changed to a
+sober concern.
+
+"You told him?"
+
+"Yes, Kurt, I told him what little I had to tell."
+
+He gave her a strange glance and then slowly went toward her father's
+study. Lenore made a futile attempt to be patient. She heard her
+father's deep voice, full and earnest, and she heard Dorn's quick,
+passionate response. She wondered what this interview meant. Anderson
+was not one to give up easily. He had set his heart upon holding this
+capable young man in the great interests of the wheat business. Lenore
+could not understand why she was not praying that he be successful. But
+she was not. It was inexplicable and puzzling--this change in her--this
+end of her selfishness. Yet she shrank in terror from an impinging
+sacrifice. She thrust the thought from her with passionate physical
+gesture and with stern effort of will.
+
+Dorn was closeted with her father for over an hour. When he came out he
+was white, but apparently composed. Lenore had never seen his eyes so
+piercing as when they rested upon her.
+
+"Whew!" he exclaimed, and wiped his face. "Your father has my poor old
+dad--what does Kathleen say?--skinned to a frazzle!"
+
+"What did he say?" asked Lenore, anxiously.
+
+"A lot--and just as if I didn't know it all better than he knows,"
+replied Dorn, sadly. "The importance of wheat; his three ranches and
+nobody to run them; his growing years; my future and a great opportunity
+as one of the big wheat men of the Northwest; the present need of the
+government; his only son gone to war, which was enough for his
+family.... And then he spoke of you--heiress to 'Many Waters'--what a
+splendid, noble girl you were--like your mother! What a shame to ruin
+your happiness--your future!... He said you'd make the sweetest of
+wives--the truest of mothers!... Oh, my God!"
+
+Lenore turned away her face, shocked to her heart by his tragic passion.
+Dorn was silent for what seemed a long time.
+
+"And--then he cussed me--hard--as no doubt I deserved," added Dorn.
+
+"But--what did you say?" she whispered.
+
+"I said a lot, too," replied Dorn, remorsefully.
+
+"Did--did you--?" began Lenore, and broke off, unable to finish.
+
+"I arrived--to where I am now--pretty dizzy," he responded, with a smile
+that was both radiant and sorrowful. He took her hands and held them
+close. "Lenore!... if I come home from the war--still with my arms and
+legs--whole--will you marry me?"
+
+"Only come home _alive_, and no matter what you lose, yes!--yes!" she
+whispered, brokenly.
+
+"But it's a conditional proposal, Lenore," he insisted. "You must never
+marry half a man."
+
+"I will marry _you_!" she cried, passionately.
+
+It seemed to her that she loved him all the more, every moment, even
+though he made it so hard for her. Then through blurred, dim eyes she
+saw him take something from his pocket and felt him put a ring on her
+finger.
+
+"It fits! Isn't that lucky," he said, softly. "My mother's ring,
+Lenore...."
+
+He kissed her hand.
+
+Kathleen was standing near them, open-eyed and open-mouthed, in an
+ecstasy of realization.
+
+"Kathleen, your sister has promised to marry me--when I come from the
+war," said Dorn to the child.
+
+She squealed with delight, and, manifestly surrendering to a
+long-considered temptation, she threw her arms around his neck and
+hugged him close.
+
+"It's perfectly grand!" she cried. "But what a chump you are for going
+at all--when you could marry Lenorry!"
+
+That was Kathleen's point of view, and it must have coincided somewhat
+with Mr. Anderson's.
+
+"Kathleen, you wouldn't have me be a slacker?" asked Dorn, gently.
+
+"No. But we let Jim go," was her argument.
+
+Dorn kissed her, then turned to Lenore. "Let's go out to the fields."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not a long walk to the alfalfa, but by the time she got there
+Lenore's impending woe was as if it had never been. Dorn seemed
+strangely gay and unusually demonstrative; apparently he forgot the
+war-cloud in the joy of the hour. That they were walking in the open
+seemed not to matter to him.
+
+"Kurt, some one will see you," Lenore remonstrated.
+
+"You're more beautiful than ever to-day," he said, by way of answer, and
+tried to block her way.
+
+Lenore dodged and ran. She was fleet, and eluded him down the lane,
+across the cut field, to a huge square stack of baled alfalfa. But he
+caught her just as she got behind its welcome covert. Lenore was far
+less afraid of him than of laughing eyes. Breathless, she backed up
+against the stack.
+
+"You're--a--cannibal!" she panted. But she did not make much resistance.
+
+"You're--a goddess!" he replied.
+
+"Me!... Of what?"
+
+"Why, of 'Many Waters'!... Goddess of wheat!... The sweet, waving wheat,
+rich and golden--the very spirit of life!"
+
+"If anybody sees you--mauling me--this way--I'll not seem a goddess to
+him.... My hair is down--my waist--Oh, Kurt!"
+
+Yet it did not very much matter how she looked or what happened. Beyond
+all was the assurance of her dearness to him. Suddenly she darted away
+from him again. Her heart swelled, her spirit soared, her feet were
+buoyant and swift. She ran into the uncut alfalfa. It was thick and
+high, tangling round her feet. Here her progress was retarded. Dorn
+caught up with her. His strong hands on her shoulders felt masterful,
+and the sweet terror they inspired made her struggle to get away.
+
+"You shall--not--hold me!" she cried.
+
+"But I will. You must be taught--not to run," he said, and wrapped her
+tightly in his arms.
+
+"Now surrender your kisses meekly!"
+
+"I--surrender!... But, Kurt, someone will see... Dear, we'll go
+back--or--somewhere--"
+
+"Who can see us here but the birds?" he said, and the strong hands held
+her fast. "You will kiss me--enough--right now--even if the whole
+world--looked on!" he said, ringingly. "Lenore, my soul!... Lenore, I
+love you!"
+
+He would not be denied. And if she had any desire to deny him it was
+lost in the moment. She clasped his neck and gave him kiss for kiss.
+
+But her surrender made him think of her. She felt his effort to let her
+go.
+
+Lenore's heart felt too big for her breast. It hurt. She clung to his
+hand and they walked on across the field and across a brook, up the
+slope to one of Lenore's favorite seats. And there she wanted to rest.
+She smoothed her hair and brushed her dress, aware of how he watched
+her, with his heart in his eyes.
+
+Had there ever in all the years of the life of the earth been so perfect
+a day? How dazzling the sun! What heavenly blue the sky! And all beneath
+so gold, so green! A lark caroled over Lenore's head and a quail
+whistled in the brush below. The brook babbled and gurgled and murmured
+along, happy under the open sky. And a soft breeze brought the low roar
+of the harvest fields and the scent of wheat and dust and straw.
+
+Life seemed so stingingly full, so poignant, so immeasurably worth
+living, so blessed with beauty and richness and fruitfulness.
+
+"Lenore, your eyes are windows--and I can see into your soul. I can
+read--and first I'm uplifted and then I'm sad."
+
+It was he who talked and she who listened. This glorious day would be
+her strength when the--Ah! but she would not complete a single bitter
+thought.
+
+She led him away, up the slope, across the barley-field, now cut and
+harvested, to the great, swelling golden spaces of wheat. Far below, the
+engines and harvesters were humming. Here the wheat waved and rustled in
+the wind. It was as high as Lenore's head.
+
+"It's fine wheat," observed Dorn. "But the wheat of my desert hills was
+richer, more golden, and higher than this."
+
+"No regrets to-day!" murmured Lenore, leaning to him.
+
+There was magic in those words--the same enchantment that made the hours
+fly. She led him, at will, here and there along the rustling-bordered
+lanes. From afar they watched the busy harvest scene, with eyes that
+lingered long on a great, glittering combine with its thirty-two horses
+plodding along.
+
+"I can drive them. Thirty-two horses!" she asserted, proudly.
+
+"No!"
+
+"Yes. Will you come? I will show you."
+
+"It is a temptation," he said, with a sigh. "But there are eyes there.
+They would break the spell."
+
+"Who's talking about eyes now?" she cried.
+
+They spent the remainder of that day on the windy wheat-slope, high up,
+alone, with the beauty and richness of "Many Waters" beneath them. And
+when the sun sent its last ruddy and gold rays over the western hills,
+and the weary harvesters plodded homeward, Lenore still lingered, loath
+to break the spell. For on the way home, she divined, he would tell her
+he was soon to leave.
+
+Sunset and evening star! Their beauty and serenity pervaded Lenore's
+soul. Surely there was a life somewhere else, beyond in that infinite
+space. And the defeat of earthly dreams was endurable.
+
+They walked back down the wheat lanes hand in hand, as dusk shadowed the
+valley; and when they reached the house he told her gently that he must
+go.
+
+"But--you will stay to-night?" she whispered.
+
+"No. It's all arranged," he replied, thickly. "They're to drive me
+over--my train's due at eight.... I've kept it--till the last few
+minutes."
+
+They went in together.
+
+"We're too late for dinner," said Lenore, but she was not thinking of
+that, and she paused with head bent. "I--I want to say good-by to
+you--here." She pointed to the dim, curtained entrance of the
+living-room.
+
+"I'd like that, too," he replied. "I'll go up and get my bag. Wait."
+
+Lenore slowly stepped to that shadowed spot beyond the curtains where
+she had told her love to Dorn; and there she stood, praying and fighting
+for strength to let him go, for power to conceal her pain. The one great
+thing she could do was to show him that she would not stand in the way
+of his duty to himself. She realized then that if he had told her
+sooner, if he were going to remain one more hour at "Many Waters," she
+would break down and beseech him not to leave her.
+
+She saw him come down-stairs with his small hand-bag, which he set down.
+His face was white. His eyes burned. But her woman's love made her
+divine that this was not a shock to his soul, as it was to hers, but
+stimulation--a man's strange spiritual accounting to his fellow-men.
+
+He went first into the dining-room, and Lenore heard her mother's and
+sisters' voices in reply to his. Presently he came out to enter her
+father's study. Lenore listened, but heard no sound there. Outside, a
+motor-car creaked and hummed by the window, to stop by the side porch.
+Then the door of her father's study opened and closed, and Dorn came to
+where she was standing.
+
+Lenore did precisely as she had done a few nights before, when she had
+changed the world for him. But, following her kiss, there was a terrible
+instant when, with her arms around his neck, she went blind at the
+realization of loss. She held to him with a savage intensity of
+possession. It was like giving up life. She knew then, as never before,
+that she had the power to keep him at her side. But a thought saved her
+from exerting it--the thought that she could not make him less than
+other men--and so she conquered.
+
+"Lenore, I want you to think always--how you loved me," he said.
+
+"Loved you? Oh, my boy! It seems your lot has been hard. You've
+toiled--you've lost all--and now..."
+
+"Listen," he interrupted, and she had never heard his voice like that.
+"The thousands of boys who go to fight regard it a duty. For our
+country!... I had that, but more.... My father was German... and he was
+a traitor. The horror for me is that I hate what is German in _me_.... I
+will have to kill that. But you've helped me.... I know I'm American.
+I'll do my duty, whatever it is. I would have gone to war only a beast
+with my soul killed before I ever got there.... With no hope--no
+possibility of return!... But you love me!... Can't you see--how great
+the difference?"
+
+Lenore understood and felt it in his happiness. "Yes, Kurt, I know....
+Thank God, I've helped you.... I want you to go. I'll pray always. I
+believe you will come back to me.... Life could not be so utterly
+cruel..." She broke off.
+
+"Life can't rob me now--nor death," he cried, in exaltation. "I have
+your love. Your face will always be with me--as now--lovely and
+brave!... Not a tear!... And only that sweet smile like an angel's!...
+Oh, Lenore, what a girl you are!"
+
+"Say good-by--and go," she faltered. Another moment would see her
+weaken.
+
+"Yes, I must hurry." His voice was a whisper--almost gone. He drew a
+deep breath. "Lenore--my promised wife--my star for all the black
+nights--God bless you--keep you!... Good-by!"
+
+She spent all her strength in her embrace, all her soul in the passion
+of her farewell kiss. Then she stood alone, tottering, sinking. The
+swift steps, now heavy and uneven, passed out of the hall--the door
+closed--the motor-car creaked and rolled away--the droning hum ceased.
+
+For a moment of despairing shock, before the storm broke, Lenore blindly
+wavered there, unable to move from the spot that had seen the beginning
+and the end of her brief hour of love. Then she summoned strength to
+drag herself to her room, to lock her door.
+
+Alone! In the merciful darkness and silence and loneliness!... She need
+not lie nor play false nor fool herself here. She had let him go!
+Inconceivable and monstrous truth! For what?... It was not now with her,
+that deceiving spirit which had made her brave. But she was a woman. She
+fell upon her knees beside her bed, shuddering.
+
+That moment was the beginning of her sacrifice, the sacrifice she shared
+in common now with thousands of other women. Before she had pitied; now
+she suffered. And all that was sweet, loving, noble, and motherly--all
+that was womanly--rose to meet the stretch of gray future, with its
+endless suspense and torturing fear, its face of courage for the light
+of day, its despair for the lonely night, and its vague faith in the
+lessons of life, its possible and sustaining and eternal hope of God.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+    Camp--, _October_--.
+
+    Dear Sister Lenore,--It's been long since I wrote you. I'm sorry,
+    dear. But I haven't just been in shape to write. Have been
+    transferred to a training-camp not far from New York. I don't like
+    it. The air is raw, penetrating, different from our high mountain
+    air in the West. So many gray, gloomy days! And wet--why you never
+    saw a rain in Washington! Fine bunch of boys, though. We get up in
+    the morning at 4:30. Sweep the streets of the camp! I'm glad to get
+    up and sweep, for I'm near frozen long before daylight. Yesterday I
+    peeled potatoes till my hands were cramped. Nine million spuds, I
+    guess! I'm wearing citizen's clothes--too thin, by gosh!--and
+    sleeping in a tent, on a canvas cot, with one blanket. Wouldn't care
+    a--(scoose me, sis)--I wouldn't mind if I had a real gun, and some
+    real fighting to look forward to. Some life, I don't think! But I
+    meant to tell you why I'm here.
+
+    You remember how I always took to cowboys. Well, I got chummy with a
+    big cow puncher from Montana. His name was Andersen. Isn't that
+    queer? His name same as mine except for the last e where I have o.
+    He's a Swede or Norwegian. True-blue American? Well, I should smile.
+    Like all cowboys! He's six feet four, broad as a door, with a flat
+    head of an Indian, and a huge, bulging chin. Not real handsome, but
+    say! he's one of the finest fellows that ever lived. We call him
+    Montana.
+
+    There were a lot of rough-necks in our outfit, and right away I got
+    in bad. You know I never was much on holding my temper. Anyway, I
+    got licked powerful fine, as dad would say, and I'd been all beaten
+    up but for Montana. That made us two fast friends, and sure some
+    enemies, you bet.
+
+    We had the tough luck to run into six of the rough-necks, just
+    outside of the little town, where they'd been drinking. I never
+    heard the name of one of that outfit. We weren't acquainted at all.
+    Strange how they changed my soldier career, right at the start! This
+    day, when we met them, they got fresh, and of course I had to start
+    something. I soaked that rough-neck, sis, and don't you forget it.
+    Well, it was a fight, sure. I got laid out--not knocked out, for I
+    could see--but I wasn't any help to pard Montana. It looked as if he
+    didn't need any. The rough-necks jumped him. Then, one after
+    another, he piled them up in the road. Just a swing--and down went
+    each one--cold. But the fellow I hit came to and, grabbing up a
+    pick-handle, with all his might he soaked Montana over the head.
+    What an awful crack! Montana went down, and there was blood
+    everywhere.
+
+    They took Montana to the hospital, sewed up his head. It wasn't long
+    before he seemed all right again, but he told me sometimes he felt
+    queer. Then they put us on a troop-train, with boys from California
+    and all over, and we came East. I haven't seen any of those other
+    Western boys, though, since we got here.
+
+    One day, without any warning, Montana keeled over, down and out.
+    Paralysis! They took him to a hospital in New York. No hope, the
+    doctors said, and he was getting worse all the time. But some New
+    York surgeon advised operation, anyway. So they opened that
+    healed-over place in his head, where the pick-handle hit--and what
+    do you think they found? A splinter off that pick-handle, stuck two
+    inches under his skull, in his brain! They took it out. Every day
+    they expected Montana to die. But he didn't. But he _will_ die. I
+    went over to see him. He's unconscious part of the time--crazy the
+    rest. No part of his right side moves! It broke me all up. Why
+    couldn't that soak he got have been on the Kaiser's head?
+
+    I tell you, Lenore, a fellow has his eye teeth cut in this getting
+    ready to go to war. It makes me sick. I enlisted to fight, not to be
+    chased into a climate that doesn't agree with me--not to sweep roads
+    and juggle a wooden gun. There are a lot of things, but say! I've
+    got to cut out that kind of talk.
+
+    I feel almost as far away from you all as if I were in China. But
+    I'm nearer France! I hope you're well and standing pat, Lenore.
+    Remember, you're dad's white hope. I was the black sheep, you know.
+    Tell him I don't regard my transfer as a disgrace. The officers
+    didn't and he needn't. Give my love to mother and the girls. Tell
+    them not to worry. Maybe the war will be over before--I'll write you
+    often now, so cheer up.
+
+    Your loving brother,
+
+    Jim.
+
+
+    Camp--, _October_--.
+
+    My Dearest Lenore,--If my writing is not very legible it is because
+    my hand shakes when I begin this sweet and sacred privilege of
+    writing to my promised wife. My other letter was short, and this is
+    the second in the weeks since I left you. What an endless time! You
+    must understand and forgive me for not writing oftener and for not
+    giving you definite address.
+
+    I did not want to be in the Western regiment, for reasons hard to
+    understand. I enlisted in New York and am trying hard to get into
+    the Rainbow Division, with some hope of success. There is nothing to
+    me in being a member of a crack regiment, but it seems that this one
+    will see action first of all American units. I don't want to be an
+    officer, either.
+
+    How will it be possible for me to write you as I want to--letters
+    that will be free of the plague of myself--letters that you can
+    treasure if I never come back? Sleeping and waking, I never forget
+    the wonderful truth of your love for me. It did not seem real when I
+    was with you, but, now that we are separated, I know that it is
+    real. Mostly my mind contains only two things--this constant memory
+    of you, and that other terrible thing of which I will not speak. All
+    else that I think or do seems to be mechanical.
+
+    The work, the training, is not difficult for me, though so many boys
+    find it desperately hard. You know I followed a plow, and that is
+    real toil. Right now I see the brown fallow hills and the great
+    squares of gold. But visions or thoughts of home are rare. That is
+    well, for they hurt like a stab. I cannot think now of a single
+    thing connected with my training here that I want to tell you. Yet
+    some things I must tell. For instance, we have different
+    instructors, and naturally some are more forcible than others. We
+    have one at whom the boys laugh. He tickles them. They like him. But
+    he is an ordeal for me. The reason is that in our first bayonet
+    practice, when we rushed and thrust a stuffed bag, he made us yell,
+    _"God damn you, German--die!"_ I don't imagine this to be general
+    practice in army exercises, but the fact is he started us that way.
+    I can't forget. When I begin to charge with a bayonet those words
+    leap silently, but terribly, to my lips. Think of this as reality,
+    Lenore--a sad and incomprehensible truth in 1917. All in me that is
+    spiritual, reasonable, all that was once hopeful, revolts at this
+    actuality and its meaning. But there is another side, that dark one,
+    which revels in anticipation. It is the cave-man in me, hiding by
+    night, waiting with a bludgeon to slay. I am beginning to be struck
+    by the gradual change in my comrades. I fancied that I alone had
+    suffered a retrogression. I have a deep consciousness of baseness
+    that is going to keep me aloof from them. I seem to be alone with my
+    own soul. Yet I seem to be abnormally keen to impressions. I feel
+    what is going on in the soldiers' minds, and it shocks me, set me
+    wondering, forces me to doubt myself. I keep saying it must be my
+    peculiar way of looking at things.
+
+    Lenore, I remember your appeal to me. Shall I ever forget your sweet
+    face--your sad eyes when you bade me hope in God?--I am trying, but
+    I do not see God yet. Perhaps that is because of my morbidness--my
+    limitations. Perhaps I will face him over there, when I go down into
+    the Valley of the Shadow. One thing, however, I do begin to see is
+    that there is a divinity in men. Slowly something divine is
+    revealing itself to me. To give up work, property, friends, sister,
+    mother, home, sweetheart, to sacrifice all and go out to fight for
+    country, for honor--that indeed is divine. It is beautiful. It
+    inspires a man and lifts his head. But, alas! if he is a thinking
+    man, when he comes in contact with the actual physical preparation
+    for war, he finds that the divinity was the hour of his sacrifice
+    and that, to become a good soldier, he must change, forget, grow
+    hard, strong, merciless, brutal, humorous, and callous, all of which
+    is to say base. I see boys who are tender-hearted, who love life,
+    who were born sufferers, who cannot inflict pain! How many silent
+    cries of protest, of wonder, of agony, must go up in the night over
+    this camp! The sum of them would be monstrous. The sound of them, if
+    voiced, would be a clarion blast to the world. It is sacrifice that
+    is divine, and not the making of an efficient soldier.
+
+    I shall write you endlessly. The action of writing relieves me. I
+    feel less burdened now. Sometimes I cannot bear the burden of all
+    this unintelligible consciousness. My mind is not large enough.
+    Sometimes I feel that I am going to be every soldier and every
+    enemy--each one in his strife or his drifting or his agony or his
+    death. But despite that feeling I seem alone in a horde. I make no
+    friends. I have no way to pass my leisure but writing. I can hardly
+    read at all. When off duty the boys amuse themselves in a hundred
+    ways--going to town, the theaters, and movies; chasing the girls
+    (especially that to judge by their talk); play; boxing; games; and I
+    am sorry to add, many of them gamble and drink. But I cannot do any
+    of these things. I cannot forget what I am here for. I cannot forget
+    that I am training to kill men. Never do I forget that soon I will
+    face death. What a terrible, strange, vague thrill that sends
+    shivering over me! Amusement and forgetfulness are past for Kurt
+    Dorn. I am concerned with my soul. I am fighting that black passion
+    which makes of me a sleepless watcher and thinker.
+
+    If this war only lets me live long enough to understand its meaning!
+    Perhaps that meaning will be the meaning of life, in which case I am
+    longing for the unattainable. But underneath it all must be a
+    colossal movement of evolution, of spiritual growth--or of
+    retrogression. Who knows? When I ask myself what I am going to fight
+    for, I answer--for my country, as a patriot--for my hate, as an
+    individual. My time is almost up. I go on duty. The rain is roaring
+    on the thin roof. How it rains in this East! Whole days and nights
+    it pours. I cannot help but think of my desert hills, always so
+    barren and yellow, with the dust-clouds whirling. One day of this
+    rain, useless and wasted here, would have saved the Bend crop of
+    wheat. Nature is almost as inscrutable as God.
+
+    Lenore, good-by for this time. Think of me, but not as lonely or
+    unhappy or uncomfortable out there in the cold, raw, black, wet
+    night. I will be neither. Some one--a spirit--will keep beside me as
+    I step the beat. I have put unhappiness behind me. And no rain or
+    mud or chill will ever feaze me.
+
+    Yours with love,
+
+    Kurt Dorn.
+
+
+    Camp--, _October_--.
+
+    Dear Sister Lenore,--After that little letter of yours I could do
+    nothing more than look up another pin like the one I sent Kathleen.
+    I inclose it. Hope you will wear it.
+
+    I'm very curious to see what your package contains. It hasn't
+    arrived yet. All the mail comes late. That makes the boys sore.
+
+    The weather hasn't been so wet lately as when I last wrote, but it's
+    colder. Believe me these tents are not steam-heated! But we grin and
+    try to look happy. It's not the most cheerful thing to hear the old
+    call in the morning and tumble out in the cold gray dawn. Say! I've
+    got two blankets now. _Two!_ Just time for mess, then we hike down
+    the road. I'm in for artillery now, I guess. The air service really
+    fascinated me, but you can't have what you want in this business.
+
+    _Saturday_.--This letter will be in sections. No use sending you a
+    little dab of news now and then. I'll write when I can, and mail
+    when the letter assumes real proportions. Your package arrived and I
+    was delighted. I think I slept better last night on your little
+    pillow than any night since we were called out. My pillow before was
+    your sleeveless jersey.
+
+    It's after three A.M. and I'm on guard--that is, battery guard, and
+    I have to be up from midnight to reveille, not on a post, but in my
+    tent, so that if any of my men (I'm a corporal now), whom I relieve
+    every two hours, get into trouble they can call me. Non-coms. go on
+    guard once in six days, so about every sixth night I get along with
+    no sleep.
+
+    We have been ordered to do away with all personal property except
+    shaving outfit and absolutely necessary articles. We can't keep a
+    foot-locker, trunk, valise, or even an ordinary soap-box in our
+    tents. Everything must be put in one barrack bag, a canvas sack just
+    like a laundry-bag.
+
+    Thank the girls for the silk handkerchief and candy they sent. I
+    sure have the sweetest sisters of any boy I know. I never
+    appreciated them when I had them. I'm learning bitter truths these
+    days. And tell mother I'll write her soon. Thank her for the pajamas
+    and the napkins. Tell her I'm sorry a soldier has no use for either.
+
+    This morning I did my washing of the past two weeks, and I was so
+    busy that I didn't hear the bugle blow, and thereby got on the
+    "black book." Which means that I won't get any time off soon.
+
+    Before I forget, Lenore, let me tell you that I've taken ten
+    thousand dollars' life insurance from the government, in your favor
+    as beneficiary. This costs me only about six and a half dollars per
+    month, and in case of my death--Well, I'm a soldier, now. Please
+    tell Rose I've taken a fifty-dollar Liberty Bond of the new issue
+    for her. This I'm paying at the rate of five dollars per month and
+    it will be delivered to her at the end of ten months. Both of these,
+    of course, I'm paying out of my government pay as a soldier. The
+    money dad sent me I spent like water, lent to the boys, threw away.
+    Tell him not to send me any more. Tell him the time has come for Jim
+    Anderson to make good. I've a rich dad and he's the best dad any
+    harum-scarum boy ever had. I'm going to prove more than one thing
+    this trip.
+
+    We hear so many rumors, and none of them ever come true. One of them
+    is funny--that we have so many rich men with political influence in
+    our regiment that we will never get to France! Isn't that the limit?
+    But it's funny because, if we have rich men, I'd like to see them.
+    Still, there are thirty thousand soldiers here, and in my neck of
+    the woods such rumors are laughed and cussed at. We hear also that
+    we're going to be ordered South. I wish that would come true. It's
+    so cold and drab and muddy and monotonous.
+
+    My friend Montana fooled everybody. He didn't die. He seems to be
+    hanging on. Lately he recovered consciousness. Told me he had no
+    feeling on his left side, except sometimes his hand itched, you
+    know, like prickly needles. But Montana will never be any good
+    again. That fine big cowboy! He's been one grand soldier. It sickens
+    me sometimes to think of the difference between what thrilled me
+    about this war game and what we get. Maybe, though--There goes my
+    call. I must close. Love to all.
+
+    Jim.
+
+
+    New York City, _October_--.
+
+    Dearest Lenore,--It seems about time that I had a letter from you.
+    I'm sure letters are on the way, but they do not come quickly. The
+    boys complain of the mail service. Isn't it strange that there is
+    not a soul to write me except you? Jeff, my farm-hand, will write me
+    whenever I write him, which I haven't done yet.
+
+    I'm on duty here in New York at an armory bazaar. It's certainly the
+    irony of fate. Why did the officer pick on me, I'd like to know? But
+    I've never complained of an order so far, and I'm standing it.
+    Several of us--and they chose the husky boys--have been sent over
+    here, for absolutely no purpose that I can see except to exhibit
+    ourselves in uniform. It's a woman's bazaar, to raise money for
+    war-relief work and so on. The hall is almost as large as that field
+    back of your house, and every night it is packed with people, mostly
+    young. My comrades are having fun out of it, but I feel like a fish
+    out of water.
+
+    Just the same, Lenore, I'm learning more every day. If I was not so
+    disgusted I'd think this was a wonderful opportunity. As it is, I
+    regard it only as an experience over which I have no control and
+    that interests me in spite of myself. New York is an awful
+    place--endless, narrow, torn-up streets crowded with hurrying
+    throngs, taxicabs, cars, and full of noise and dust. I am always
+    choked for air. And these streets reek. Where do the people come
+    from and where are they going? They look wild, as if they had to go
+    somewhere, but did not know where that was. I've no time or
+    inclination to see New York, though under happier circumstances I
+    think I'd like to.
+
+    People in the East seem strange to me. Still, as I never mingled
+    with many people in the West, I cannot say truly whether Eastern
+    people are different from Western people. But I think so. Anyway,
+    while I was in Spokane, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles I
+    did not think people were greatly concerned about the war. Denver
+    people appeared not to realize there was a war. But here in New York
+    everything is war. You can't escape it. You see that war will soon
+    obsess rich and poor, alien and neutral and belligerent, pacifist
+    and militarist. Since I wrote you last I've tried to read the
+    newspapers sent to us. It's hard to tell you which makes me the
+    sicker--the prattle of the pacifist or the mathematics of the
+    military experts. Both miss the spirit of men. Neither has any soul.
+    I think the German minds must all be mathematical.
+
+    But I want to write about the women and girls I see, here in New
+    York, in the camps and towns, on the trains, everywhere. Lenore, the
+    war has thrown them off their balance. I have seen and studied at
+    close hand women of all classes. Believe me, as the boys say, I have
+    thought more than twice whether or not I would tell you the stark
+    truth. But somehow I am impelled to. I have an overwhelming
+    conviction that all American girls and mothers should know what the
+    truth is. They will never be told, Lenore, and most would never
+    believe if they were told. And that is one thing wrong with people.
+
+    I believe every soldier, from the time he enlists until the war is
+    ended, should be kept away from women. This is a sweeping statement
+    and you must take into account the mind of him who makes it. But I
+    am not leaping at conclusions. The soldier boys have terrible peril
+    facing them long before they get to the trenches. Not all, or nearly
+    all, the soldiers are going to be vitally affected by the rottenness
+    of great cities or by the mushroom hotbeds of vice springing up near
+    the camps. These evils exist and are being opposed by military and
+    government, by police and Y.M.C.A., and good influence of good
+    people. But they will never wholly stamp it out.
+
+    Nor do I want to say much about the society women who are "rushing"
+    the officers. There may be one here and there with her heart in the
+    right place, but with most of them it must be, first, this something
+    about war that has unbalanced women; and secondly, a fad, a novelty,
+    a new sentimental stunt, a fashion set by some leader. Likewise I
+    want to say but little about the horde of common, street-chasing,
+    rattled-brained women and girls who lie in wait for soldiers at
+    every corner, so to speak. All these, to be sure, may be
+    unconsciously actuated by motives that do not appear on the surface;
+    and if this be true, their actions are less bold, less raw than they
+    look.
+
+    What I want to dwell upon is my impression of something strange,
+    unbalanced, incomprehensible, about the frank conduct of so many
+    well-educated, refined, and good women I see; and about the
+    eagerness, restlessness, the singular response of nice girls to
+    situations that are not natural.
+
+    To-night a handsome, stylishly gowned woman of about thirty came up
+    to me with a radiant smile and a strange brightness in her eyes.
+    There were five hundred couples dancing on the floor, and the music
+    and sound of sliding feet made it difficult to hear her. She said:
+    "You handsome soldier boy! Come dance with me?" I replied politely
+    that I did not dance. Then she took hold of me and said, "I'll teach
+    you." I saw a wedding-ring on the hand she laid on my arm. Then I
+    looked straight at her, "Madam, very soon I'll be learning the dance
+    of death over in France, and my mind's concerned with that." She
+    grew red with anger. She seemed amazed. And she snapped, "Well, you
+    _are_ a queer soldier!" Later I watched her flirting and dancing
+    with an officer.
+
+    Overtures and advances innumerable have been made to me, ranging
+    from the assured possession-taking onslaught like this woman's to
+    the slight, subtle something, felt more than seen, of a more complex
+    nature. And, Lenore, I blush to tell you this, but I've been mobbed
+    by girls. They have a thousand ways of letting a soldier _know!_ I
+    could not begin to tell them. But I do not actually realize what it
+    is that is conveyed, that I know; and I am positive the very large
+    majority of soldiers _misunderstand_. At night I listen to the talks
+    of my comrades, and, well--if the girls only heard! Many times I go
+    out of hearing, and when I cannot do that I refuse to hear.
+
+    Lenore, I am talking about nice girls now. I am merciless. There are
+    many girls like you--they seem like you, though none so pretty. I
+    mean, you know, there are certain manners and distinctions that at
+    once mark a really nice girl. For a month I've been thrown here and
+    there, so that it seems I've seen as many girls as soldiers. I have
+    been sent to different entertainments given for soldiers. At one
+    place a woman got up and invited the girls to ask the boys to dance.
+    At another a crowd of girls were lined up wearing different ribbons,
+    and the boys marched along until each one found the girl wearing a
+    ribbon to match the one he wore. That was his partner. It was
+    interesting to see the eager, mischievous, brooding eyes of these
+    girls as they watched and waited. Just as interesting was it to see
+    this boy's face when he found his partner was ugly, and that boy
+    swell with pride when he found he had picked a "winner." It was all
+    adventure for both boys and girls. But I saw more than that in it.
+    Whenever I could not avoid meeting a girl I tried to be agreeable
+    and to talk about war, and soldiers, and what was going on. I did
+    not dance, of course, and I imagine more than one girl found me a
+    "queer soldier."
+
+    It always has touched me, though, to see and feel the sweetness,
+    graciousness, sympathy, kindness, and that other indefinable
+    something, in the girls I have met. How they made me think of you,
+    Lenore! No doubt about their hearts, their loyalty, their
+    Americanism. Every soldier who goes to France can fight for some
+    girl! They make you feel that. I believe I have gone deeper than
+    most soldiers in considering what I will call war-relation of the
+    sexes. If it is normal, then underneath it all is a tremendous
+    inscrutable design of nature or God. If that be true, actually true,
+    then war must be inevitable and right! How horrible! My thoughts
+    confound me sometimes. Anyway, the point I want to make is this: I
+    heard an officer tell an irate father, whose two daughters had been
+    insulted by soldiers: "My dear sir, it is regrettable. These men
+    will be punished. But they are not greatly to blame, because so many
+    girls throw themselves at their heads. Your daughters did not, of
+    course, but they should not have come here." That illustrates the
+    fixed idea of the military, all through the ranks--_Women throw
+    themselves at soldiers!_ It is true that they do. But the idea is
+    false, nevertheless, because the mass of girls are misunderstood.
+
+    Misunderstood!--I can tell you why. Surely the mass of American
+    girls are nice, fine, sweet, wholesome. They are young. The news of
+    war liberates something in them that we can find no name for. But it
+    must be noble. A soldier! The very name, from childhood, is one to
+    make a girl thrill. What then the actual thing, the uniform,
+    invested somehow with chivalry and courage, the clean-cut athletic
+    young man, somber and fascinating with his intent eyes, his serious
+    brow, or his devil-may-care gallantry, the compelling presence of
+    him that breathes of his sacrifice, of his near departure to
+    privation, to squalid, comfortless trenches, to the fire and hell of
+    war, to blood and agony and death--in a word to fight, fight, fight
+    for women!... So through this beautiful emotion women lose their
+    balance and many are misunderstood. Those who would not and could
+    not be bold are susceptible to advances that in an ordinary time
+    would not affect them. War invests a soldier with a glamour. Love at
+    first sight, flirtations, rash intimacies, quick engagements,
+    immediate marriages. The soldier who is soon going away to fight and
+    perhaps to die strikes hard at the very heart of a girl. Either she
+    is not her real self then, or else she is suddenly transported to a
+    womanhood that is instinctive, elemental, universal for the future.
+    She feels what she does not know. She surrenders because there is an
+    imperative call to the depths of her nature. She sacrifices because
+    she is the inspiritor of the soldier, the reward for his loss, the
+    savior of the race. If women are the spoils of barbarous conquerors,
+    they are also the sinews, the strength, the soul of defenders.
+
+    And so, however you look at it, war means for women sacrifice,
+    disillusion, heartbreak, agony, doom. I feel that so powerfully that
+    I am overcome; I am sick at the gaiety and playing; I am full of
+    fear, wonder, admiration, and hopeless pity for them.
+
+    No man can tell what is going on in the souls of soldiers while
+    noble women are offering love and tenderness, throwing themselves
+    upon the altar of war, hoping blindly to send their great spirits
+    marching to the front. Perhaps the man who lives through the war
+    will feel the change in his soul if he cannot tell it. Day by day I
+    think I see a change in my comrades. As they grow physically
+    stronger they seem to grow spiritually lesser. But maybe that is
+    only my idea. I see evidences of fear, anger, sullenness, moodiness,
+    shame. I see a growing indifference to fatigue, toil, pain. As these
+    boys harden physically they harden mentally. Always, 'way off there
+    is the war, and that seems closely related to the near duty
+    here--what it takes to make a man. These fellows will measure men
+    differently after this experience with sacrifice, obedience, labor,
+    and pain. In that they will become great. But I do not think these
+    things stimulate a man's mind. Changes are going on in me, some of
+    which I am unable to define. For instance, physically I am much
+    bigger and stronger than I was. I weigh one hundred and eighty
+    pounds! As for my mind, something is always tugging at it. I feel
+    that it grows tired. It wants to forget. In spite of my will, all of
+    these keen desires of mine to know everything lag and fail often,
+    and I catch myself drifting. I see and feel and hear without
+    thinking. I am only an animal then. At these times sight of blood,
+    or a fight, or a plunging horse, or a broken leg--and these sights
+    are common--affects me little until I am quickened and think about
+    the meaning of it all. At such moments I have a revulsion of
+    feeling. With memory comes a revolt, and so on, until I am the
+    distressed, inquisitive, and morbid person I am now. I shudder at
+    what war will make me. Actual contact with earth, exploding guns,
+    fighting comrades, striking foes, will make brutes of us all. It is
+    wrong to shed another man's blood. If life was meant for that why do
+    we have progress? I cannot reconcile a God with all this horror. I
+    have misgivings about my mind. If I feel so acutely here in safety
+    and comfort, what shall I feel over there in peril and agony? I fear
+    I shall laugh at death. Oh, Lenore, consider that! To laugh in the
+    ghastly face of death! If I yield utterly to a fiendish joy of
+    bloody combat, then my mind will fail, and that in itself would be
+    evidence of God.
+
+    I do not read over my letters to you, I just write. Forgive me if
+    they are not happier. Every hour I think of you. At night I see your
+    face in the shadow of the tent wall. And I love you unutterably.
+
+    Faithfully,
+
+    Kurt Dorn.
+
+
+    Camp ----, _November_ --,
+
+    Dear Sister,--It's bad news I've got for you this time. Something
+    bids me tell you, though up to now I've kept unpleasant facts to
+    myself.
+
+    The weather has knocked me out. My cold came back, got worse and
+    worse. Three days ago I had a chill that lasted for fifteen minutes.
+    I shook like a leaf. It left me, and then I got a terrible pain in
+    my side. But I didn't give in, which I feel now was a mistake. I
+    stayed up till I dropped.
+
+    I'm here in the hospital. It's a long shed with three stoves, and a
+    lot of beds with other sick boys. My bed is far away from a stove.
+    The pain is bad yet, but duller, and I've fever. I'm pretty sick,
+    honey. Tell mother and dad, but not the girls. Give my love to all.
+    And don't worry. It'll all come right in the end. This beastly
+    climate's to blame.
+
+
+    _Later_,--It's night now. I was interrupted. I'll write a few more
+    lines. Hope you can read them. It's late and the wind is moaning
+    outside. It's so cold and dismal. The fellow in the bed next to me
+    is out of his head. Poor devil! He broke his knee, and they put off
+    the operation--too busy! So few doctors and so many patients! And
+    now he'll lose his leg. He's talking about home. Oh, Lenore! _Home!_
+    I never knew what home was--till now.
+
+    I'm worse to-night. But I'm always bad at night. Only, to-night I
+    feel strange. There's a weight on my chest, besides the pain. That
+    moan of wind makes me feel so lonely. There's no one here--and I'm
+    so cold. I've thought a lot about you girls and mother and dad. Tell
+    dad I made good.
+
+    Jim
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+Jim's last letter was not taken seriously by the other members of the
+Anderson family. The father shook his head dubiously. "That ain't like
+Jim," but made no other comment. Mrs. Anderson sighed. The young sisters
+were not given to worry. Lenore, however, was haunted by an unwritten
+meaning in her brother's letter.
+
+Weeks before, she had written to Dorn and told him to hunt up Jim. No
+reply had yet come from Dorn. Every day augmented her uneasiness, until
+it was dreadful to look for letters that did not come. All this
+fortified her, however, to expect calamity. Like a bolt out of the clear
+sky it came in the shape of a telegram from Camp ---- saying that Jim
+was dying.
+
+The shock prostrated the mother. Jim had been her favorite. Mr. Anderson
+left at once for the East. Lenore had the care of her mother and the
+management of "Many Waters" on her hands, which duties kept her
+mercifully occupied. Mrs. Anderson, however, after a day, rallied
+surprisingly. Lenore sensed in her mother the strength of the spirit
+that sacrificed to a noble and universal cause. It seemed to be Mrs.
+Anderson's conviction that Jim had been shot, or injured by accident in
+gun-training, or at least by a horse. Lenore did not share her mother's
+idea and was reluctant to dispel it. On the evening of the fifth day
+after Mr. Anderson's departure a message came, saying that he had
+arrived too late to see Jim alive. Mrs. Anderson bore the news bravely,
+though she weakened perceptibly.
+
+The family waited then for further news. None came. Day after day
+passed. Then one evening, while Lenore strolled in the gloaming,
+Kathleen came running to burst out with the announcement of their
+father's arrival. He had telephoned from Vale for a car to meet him.
+
+Not long after that, Lenore, who had gone to her room, heard the return
+of the car and recognized her father's voice. She ran down in time to
+see him being embraced by the girls, and her mother leaning with bowed
+head on his shoulder.
+
+"Yes, I fetched Jim--back," he said, steadily, but very low. "It's all
+arranged.... An' we'll bury him to-morrow."
+
+"Oh--dad!" cried Lenore.
+
+"Hello, my girl!" he replied, and kissed her. "I'm sorry to tell you I
+couldn't locate Kurt Dorn.... That New York--an' that trainin' camp!"
+
+He held up his hands in utter futility of expression. Lenore's quick
+eyes noted his face had grown thin and haggard, and she made sure with a
+pang that his hair was whiter.
+
+"I'm sure glad to be home," he said, with a heavy expulsion of breath.
+"I want to clean up an' have a bite to eat."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lenore was so disappointed at failing to hear from Dorn that she did not
+think how singular it was her father did not tell more about Jim. Later
+he seemed more like himself, and told them simply that Jim had
+contracted pneumonia and died without any message for his folk at home.
+This prostrated Mrs. Anderson again.
+
+Later Lenore sought her father in his room. He could not conceal from
+her that he had something heartrending on his mind. Then there was more
+than tragedy in his expression. Lenore felt a leap of fear at what
+seemed her father's hidden anger. She appealed to him--importuned him.
+Plainer it came to her that he wanted to relieve himself of a burden.
+Then doubling her persuasions, she finally got him to talk.
+
+"Lenore, it's not been so long ago that right here in this room Jim
+begged me to let him enlist. He wasn't of age. But would I let him
+go--to fight for the honor of our country--for the future safety of our
+home?... We all felt the boy's eagerness, his fire, his patriotism.
+Wayward as he's been, we suddenly were proud of him. We let him go. We
+gave him up. He was a part of our flesh an' blood--sent by us
+Andersons--to do our share."
+
+Anderson paused in his halting speech, and swallowed hard. His white
+face twitched strangely and his brow was clammy. Lenore saw that his
+piercing gaze looked far beyond her for the instant that he broke down.
+
+"Jim was a born fighter," the father resumed. "He wasn't vicious. He
+just had a leanin' to help anybody. As a lad he fought for his little
+pards--always on the right side--an' he always fought fair.... This
+opportunity to train for a soldier made a man of him. He'd have made his
+mark in the war. Strong an' game an' fierce, he'd ... he'd ... Well,
+he's dead--he's _dead!_... Four months after enlistment he's dead....
+An' he never had a rifle in his hands! He never had his hands on a
+machine-gun or a piece of artillery!... He never had a uniform! He never
+had an overcoat! He never ..."
+
+Then Mr. Anderson's voice shook so that he had to stop to gain control.
+Lenore was horrified. She felt a burning stir within her.
+
+"Lemme get this--out," choked Anderson, his face now livid, his veins
+bulging. "I'm drove to tell it. I was near all day locatin' Jim's
+company. Found the tent where he'd lived. It was cold, damp, muddy.
+Jim's messmates spoke high of him. Called him a prince!... They all owed
+him money. He'd done many a good turn for them. He had only a thin
+blanket, an' he caught cold. All the boys had colds. One night he gave
+that blanket to a boy sicker than he was. Next day he got worse....
+There was miles an' miles of them tents. I like to never found the
+hospital where they'd sent Jim. An' then it was six o'clock in the
+mornin'--a raw, bleak day that'd freeze one of us to the marrow. I had
+trouble gettin' in. But a soldier went with me an'--an' ..."
+
+Anderson's voice went to a whisper, and he looked pityingly at Lenore.
+
+"That hospital was a barn. No doctors! Too early.... The nurses weren't
+in sight. I met one later, an', poor girl! she looked ready to drop
+herself!... We found Jim in one of the little rooms. No heat! It was
+winter there.... Only a bed!... Jim lay on the floor, dead! He'd fallen
+or pitched off the bed. He had on only his underclothes that he had
+on--when he--left home.... He was stiff--an' must have--been dead--a
+good while."
+
+Lenore held out her trembling hands. "Dead--Jim dead--like that!" she
+faltered.
+
+"Yes. He got pneumonia," replied Anderson, hoarsely. "The camp was full
+of it."
+
+"But--my God! Were not the--the poor boys taken care of?" implored
+Lenore, faintly.
+
+"It's a terrible time. All was done that _could_ be done!"
+
+"Then--it was all--for nothing?"
+
+"All! All! Our boy an' many like him--the best blood of our
+country--Western blood--dead because ... because ..."
+
+Anderson's voice failed him.
+
+"Oh, Jim! Oh, my brother!... Dead like a poor neglected dog! Jim--who
+enlisted to fight--for--"
+
+Lenore broke down then and hurried away to her room.
+
+With great difficulty Mrs. Anderson was revived, and it became manifest
+that the prop upon which she had leaned had been slipped from under her.
+The spirit which had made her strong to endure the death of her boy
+failed when the sordid bald truth of a miserable and horrible waste of
+life gave the lie to the splendid fighting chance Jim had dreamed of.
+
+When Anderson realized that she was fading daily he exhausted himself in
+long expositions of the illness and injury and death common to armies in
+the making. More deaths came from these causes than from war. It was the
+elision of the weaker element--the survival of the fittest; and some,
+indeed very many, mothers must lose their sons that way. The government
+was sound at the core, he claimed; and his own rage was at the few
+incompetents and profiteers. These must be weeded out--a process that
+was going on. The gigantic task of a government to draft and prepare a
+great army and navy was something beyond the grasp of ordinary minds.
+Anderson talked about what he had seen and heard, proving the wonderful
+stride already made. But all that he said now made no impression upon
+Mrs. Anderson. She had made her supreme sacrifice for a certain end, and
+that was as much the boy's fiery ambition to fight as it was her duty,
+common with other mothers, to furnish a man at the front. What a
+hopeless, awful sacrifice! She sank under it.
+
+Those were trying days for Lenore, just succeeding her father's return;
+and she had little time to think of herself. When the mail came, day
+after day, without a letter from Dorn, she felt the pang in her breast
+grow heavier. Intimations crowded upon her of impending troubles that
+would make the present ones seem light.
+
+It was not long until the mother was laid to rest beside the son.
+
+When that day ended, Lenore and her father faced each other in her room,
+where he had always been wont to come for sympathy. They gazed at each
+other, with hard, dry eyes. Stark-naked truth--grim reality--the nature
+of this catastrophe--the consciousness of war--dawned for each in the
+look of the other. Brutal shock and then this second exceeding bitter
+woe awakened their minds to the futility of individual life.
+
+"Lenore--it's over!" he said, huskily, as he sank into a chair. "Like a
+nightmare!... What have I got to live for?"
+
+"You have us girls," replied Lenore. "And if you did not have us there
+would be many others for you to live for.... Dad, can't you see--_now_?"
+
+"I reckon. But I'm growin' old an' mebbe I've quit."
+
+"No, dad, you'll never quit. Suppose all we Americans quit. That'd mean
+a German victory. Never! Never! Never!"
+
+"By God! you're right!" he ejaculated, with the trembling strain of his
+face suddenly fixing. Blood and life shot into his eyes. He got up
+heavily and began to stride to and fro before her. "You see clearer than
+me. You always did, Lenore."
+
+"I'm beginning to see, but I can't tell you," replied Lenore, closing
+her eyes. Indeed, there seemed a colossal vision before her, veiled and
+strange. "Whatever happens, we _cannot_ break. It's because of the war.
+We have our tasks--greater now than ever we believe could be thrust upon
+us. Yours to show men what you are made of! To raise wheat as never
+before in your life! Mine to show my sisters and my friends--all the
+women--what their duty is. We must sacrifice, work, prepare, and fight
+for the future."
+
+"I reckon," he nodded solemnly. "Loss of mother an' Jim changes this
+damned war. Whatever's in my power to do must go on. So some one can
+take it up when I--"
+
+"That's the great conception, dad," added Lenore, earnestly. "We are
+tragically awakened. We've been surprised--terribly struck in the dark.
+Something monstrous and horrible!... I can feel the menace in it for
+all--over every family in this broad land."
+
+"Lenore, you said once that Jim--Now, how'd you know it was all over for
+him?"
+
+"A woman's heart, dad. When I said good-by to Jim I knew it was good-by
+forever."
+
+"Did you feel that way about Kurt Dorn?"
+
+"No. He will come back to me. I dream it. It's in my spirit--my instinct
+of life, my flesh-and-blood life of the future--it's in my belief in
+God. Kurt Dorn's ordeal will be worse than death for him. But I believe
+as I pray--that he will come home alive."
+
+"Then, after all, you do hope," said her father. "Lenore, when I was
+down East, I seen what women were doin'. The bad women are good an' the
+good women are great. I think women have more to do with war then men,
+even if they do stay home. It must be because women are mothers....
+Lenore, you've bucked me up. I'll go at things now. The need for wheat
+next year will be beyond calculation. I'll buy ten thousand acres of
+that wheatland round old Chris Dorn's farm. An' my shot at the Germans
+will be wheat. I'll raise a million bushels!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next morning in the mail was a long, thick envelope addressed to Lenore
+in handwriting that shook her heart and made her fly to the seclusion of
+her room.
+
+    New York City, _November_ --.
+
+    DEAREST,--when you receive this I will be in France.
+
+Then Lenore sustained a strange shock. The beloved handwriting faded,
+the thick sheets of paper fell; and all about her seemed dark and
+whirling, as the sudden joy and excitement stirred by the letter changed
+to sickening pain.
+
+"_France!_ He's in France?" she whispered. "Oh, Kurt!" A storm of love
+and terror burst over her. It had the onset and the advantage of a
+bewildering surprise. It laid low, for the moment, her fortifications of
+sacrifice, strength, and resolve. She had been forced into womanhood,
+and her fear, her agony, were all the keener for the intelligence and
+spirit that had repudiated selfish love. Kurt Dorn was in France in the
+land of the trenches! Strife possessed her and had a moment of raw,
+bitter triumph. She bit her lips and clenched her fists, to restrain the
+impulse to rush madly around the room, to scream out her fear and hate.
+With forcing her thought, with hard return to old well-learned
+arguments, there came back the nobler emotions. But when she took up the
+letter again, with trembling hands, her heart fluttered high and sick,
+and she saw the words through blurred eyes.
+
+    ...I'll give the letter to an ensign, who has promised to mail it
+    the moment he gets back to New York.
+
+    Lenore, your letter telling me about Jim was held up in the mail.
+    But thank goodness, I got it in time. I'd already been transferred,
+    and expected orders any day to go on board the transport, where I am
+    writing now. I'd have written you, or at least telegraphed you,
+    yesterday, after seeing Jim, if I had not expected to see him again
+    to-day. But this morning we were marched on board and I cannot even
+    get this letter off to you.
+
+    Lenore, your brother is a very sick boy. I lost some hours finding
+    him. They did not want to let me see him. But I implored--said that
+    I was engaged to his sister--and finally I got in. The nurse was
+    very sympathetic. But I didn't care for the doctors in charge. They
+    seemed hard, hurried, brusque. But they have their troubles. The
+    hospital was a long barracks, and it was full of cripples.
+
+    The nurse took me into a small, bare room, too damp and cold for a
+    sick man, and I said so. She just looked at me.
+
+    Jim looks like you more than any other of the Andersons. I
+    recognized that at the same moment I saw how very sick he was. They
+    had told me outside that he had a bad case of pneumonia. He was
+    awake, perfectly conscious, and he stared at me with eyes that set
+    my heart going.
+
+    "Hello, Jim!" I said, and offered my hand, as I sat down on the bed.
+    He was too weak to shake hands.
+
+    "Who're you?" he asked. He couldn't speak very well. When I told him
+    my name and that I was his sister's fiancé his face changed so he
+    did not look like the same person. It was beautiful. Oh, it showed
+    how homesick he was! Then I talked a blue streak about you, about
+    the girls, about "Many Waters"--how I lost my wheat, and everything.
+    He was intensely interested, and when I got through he whispered
+    that he guessed Lenore had picked a "winner." What do you think of
+    that? He was curious about me, and asked me questions till the nurse
+    made him stop. I was never so glad about anything as I was about the
+    happiness it evidently gave him to meet me and hear from home. I
+    promised to come next day if we did not sail. Then he showed what I
+    must call despair. He must have been passionately eager to get to
+    France. The nurse dragged me out. Jim called weakly after me:
+    "Good-by, Kurt. Stick some Germans for me!" I'll never forget his
+    tone nor his look.... Lenore, he doesn't expect to get over to
+    France.
+
+    I questioned the nurse, and she shook her head doubtfully. She
+    looked sad. She said Jim had been the lion of his regiment. I
+    questioned a doctor, and he was annoyed. He put me off with a sharp
+    statement that Jim was not in danger. But I think he is. I hope and
+    pray he recovers.
+
+    _Thursday_.
+
+    We sailed yesterday. It was a wonderful experience, leaving Hoboken.
+    Our transport and the dock looked as if they had a huge swarm of
+    yellow bees hanging over everything. The bees were soldiers. The
+    most profound emotion I ever had--except the one when you told me
+    you loved me--came over me as the big boat swung free of the
+    dock--of the good old U.S., of home. I wanted to jump off and swim
+    through the eddying green water to the piles and hide in them till
+    the boat had gone. As we backed out, pulled up tugs, and got started
+    down the river, my thrills increased, until we passed the Statue of
+    Liberty--and then I couldn't tell how I felt. One thing, I could not
+    see very well.... I gazed beyond the colossal statue that France
+    gave to the U.S.--'way across the water and the ships and the docks
+    toward the West that I was leaving. Feeling like mine then only
+    comes once to a man in his life. First I seemed to see all the vast
+    space, the farms, valleys, woods, deserts, rivers, and mountains
+    between me and my golden wheat-hills. Then I saw my home, and it was
+    as if I had a magnificent photograph before my very eyes. A sudden
+    rush of tears blinded me. Such a storm of sweetness, regret, memory!
+    Then at last you--_you_ as you stood before me last, the very
+    loveliest girl in all the world. My heart almost burst, and in the
+    wild, sick pain of the moment I had a strange, comforting flash of
+    thought that a man who could leave you must be impelled by something
+    great in store for him. I feel that. I told you once. To laugh at
+    death! That is what I shall do. But perhaps that is not the great
+    experience which will come to me.
+
+    I saw the sun set in the sea, 'way back toward the western horizon,
+    where the thin, dark line that was land disappeared in the red glow.
+    The wind blows hard. The water is rough, dark gray, and cold. I like
+    the taste of the spray. Our boat rolls heavily and many boys are
+    already sick. I do not imagine the motion will affect me. It is
+    stuffy below-deck. I'll spend what time I can above, where I can see
+    and feel. It was dark just now when I came below. And as I looked
+    out into the windy darkness and strife I was struck by the
+    strangeness of the sea and how it seemed to be like my soul. For a
+    long time I have been looking into my soul, and I find such
+    ceaseless strife, such dark, unlit depths, such chaos. These
+    thoughts and emotions, always with me, keep me from getting close to
+    my comrades. No, not me, but it keeps them away from me. I think
+    they regard me strangely. They all talk of submarines. They are
+    afraid. Some will lose sleep at night. But I never think of a
+    submarine when I gaze out over the tumbling black waters. What I
+    think of, what I am going after, what I need seems far, far away.
+    Always! I am no closer now than when I was at your home. So it has
+    not to do with distance. And Lenore, maybe it has not to do with
+    trenches or Germans.
+
+    _Wednesday_.
+
+    It grows harder to get a chance to write and harder for me to
+    express myself. When I could write I have to work or am on duty;
+    when I have a little leisure I am somehow clamped. This old chugging
+    boat beats the waves hour after hour, all day and all night. I can
+    feel the vibration when I'm asleep. Many things happen that would
+    interest you, just the duty and play of the soldiers, for that
+    matter, and the stories I hear going from lip to lip, and the
+    accidents. Oh! so much happens. But all these rush out of my mind
+    the moment I sit down to write. There is something at work in me as
+    vast and heaving as the ocean.
+
+    At first I had a fear, a dislike of the ocean. But that is gone. It
+    is indescribable to stand on the open deck at night as we are
+    driving on and on and on--to look up at the grand, silent stars,
+    that know, that understand, yet are somehow merciless--to look out
+    across the starlit, moving sea. Its ceaseless movement at first
+    distressed me; now I feel that it is perpetually moving to try to
+    become still. To seek a level! To find itself! To quiet down to
+    peace! But that will never be. And I think if the ocean is not like
+    the human heart, then what is it like?
+
+    This voyage will be good for me. The hard, incessant objective life,
+    the physical life of a soldier, somehow comes to a halt on board
+    ship. And every hour now is immeasurable for me. Whatever the
+    mystery of life, of death, of what drives me, of why I cannot help
+    fight the demon in me, of this thing called war--the certainty is
+    that these dark, strange nights on the sea have given me a hope and
+    faith that the truth is not utterly unattainable.
+
+    _Sunday._
+
+    We're in the danger zone now, with destroyers around us and a
+    cruiser ahead. I am all eyes and ears. I lose sleep at night from
+    thinking so hard. The ship doctor stopped me the other day--studied
+    my face. Then he said: "You're too intense. You think too hard....
+    Are you afraid?" And I laughed in his face. "Absolutely no!" I told
+    him. "Then forget--and mix with the boys. Play--cut up--fight--do
+    anything but _think!_" That doctor is a good chap, but he doesn't
+    figure Kurt Dorn if he imagines the Germans can kill me by making me
+    think.
+
+    We're nearing France now, and the very air is charged. An aeroplane
+    came out to meet us--welcome us, I guess, and it flew low. The
+    soldiers went wild. I never had such a thrill. That air game would
+    just suit me, if I were fitted for it. But I'm no mechanic. Besides,
+    I'm too big and heavy. My place will be in the front line with a
+    bayonet. Strange how a bayonet fascinates me!
+
+    They say we can't write home anything about the war. I'll write you
+    something, whenever I can. Don't be unhappy if you do not hear
+    often--or if my letters cease to come. My heart and my mind are full
+    of you. Whatever comes to me--the training over here--the going to
+    the trenches--the fighting--I shall be safe if only I can remember
+    you.
+
+    With love,
+
+    Kurt.
+
+Lenore carried that letter in her bosom when she went out to walk in the
+fields, to go over the old ground she and Kurt had trod hand in hand.
+From the stone seat above the brook she watched the sunset. All was
+still except the murmur of the running water, and somehow she could not
+long bear that. As the light began to shade on the slopes, she faced
+them, feeling, as always, a strength come to her from their familiar
+lines. Twilight found her high above the ranch, and absolutely alone.
+She would have this lonely hour, and then, all her mind and energy must
+go to what she knew was imperative duty. She would work to the limit of
+her endurance.
+
+It was an autumn twilight, with a cool wind, gray sky, and sad, barren
+slopes. The fertile valley seemed half obscured in melancholy haze, and
+over toward the dim hills beyond night had already fallen. No stars, no
+moon, no afterglow of sunset illumined the grayness that in this hour
+seemed prophetic of Lenore's future.
+
+"'Safe!' he said. 'I shall be safe if only I can remember you,'" she
+whispered to herself, wonderingly. "What did he mean?"
+
+Pondering the thought, she divined it had to do with Dorn's singular
+spiritual mood. He had gone to lend his body as so much physical brawn,
+so much weight, to a concerted movement of men, but his mind was apart
+from a harmony with that. Lenore felt that whatever had been the
+sacrifice made by Kurt Dorn, it had been passed with his decision to go
+to war. What she prayed for then was something of his spirit.
+
+Slowly, in the gathering darkness, she descended the long slope. The
+approaching night seemed sad, with autumn song of insects. All about her
+breathed faith, from the black hills above, the gray slopes below, from
+the shadowy void, from the murmuring of insect life in the grass. The
+rugged fallow ground under her feet seemed to her to be a symbol of
+faith--faith that winter would come and pass--the spring sun and rain
+would burst the seeds of wheat--and another summer would see the golden
+fields of waving grain. If she did not live to see them, they would be
+there just the same; and so life and nature had faith in its promise.
+That strange whisper was to Lenore the whisper of God.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Through the pale obscurity of a French night, cool, raw, moist, with a
+hint of spring in its freshness, a line of soldiers plodded along the
+lonely, melancholy lanes. Wan starlight showed in the rifts between the
+clouds. Neither dark nor light, the midnight hour had its unreality in
+this line of marching men; and its reality in the dim, vague hedges, its
+spectral posts, its barren fields.
+
+Rain had ceased to fall, but a fine, cold, penetrating mist filled the
+air. The ground was muddy in places, slippery in others; and here and
+there it held pools of water ankle-deep. The stride of the marching men
+appeared short and dragging, without swing or rhythm. It was weary, yet
+full of the latent power of youth, of unused vitality. Stern, clean-cut,
+youthful faces were set northward, unchanging in the shadowy, pale
+gleams of the night. These faces lifted intensely whenever a strange,
+muffled, deep-toned roar rolled out of the murky north. The night looked
+stormy, but that rumble was not thunder. Fifty miles northward, beyond
+that black and mysterious horizon, great guns were booming war.
+
+Sometimes, as the breeze failed, the night was silent except for the
+slow, sloppy tramp of the marching soldiers. Then the low voices were
+hushed. When the wind freshened again it brought at intervals those
+deep, significant detonations which, as the hours passed, seemed to grow
+heavier and more thunderous.
+
+At length a faint gray light appeared along the eastern sky, and
+gradually grew stronger. The dawn of another day was close at hand. It
+broke as if reluctantly, cold and gray and sunless.
+
+The detachment of United States troops halted for camp outside of the
+French village of A----.
+
+Kurt Dorn was at mess with his squad.
+
+The months in France had flown away on wings of training and absorbing
+and waiting. Dorn had changed incalculably. But all he realized of it
+was that he weighed one hundred and ninety pounds and that he seemed to
+have lived a hundred swift lives. All that he saw and felt became part
+of him. His comrades had been won to him as friends by virtue of his
+ever-ready helping hand, by his devotion to training, by his
+close-lipped acceptance of all the toils and knocks and pains common to
+the making of a soldier. The squad lived together as one large family of
+brothers. Dorn's comrades had at first tormented him with his German
+name; they had made fun of his abstraction and his letter-writing; they
+had misunderstood his aloofness. But the ridicule died away, and now, in
+the presaged nature of events, his comrades, all governed by the
+physical life of the soldier, took him for a man.
+
+Perhaps it might have been chance, or it might have been true of all the
+American squads, but the fact was that Dorn's squad was a strangely
+assorted set of young men. Perhaps that might have been Dorn's
+conviction from coming to live long with them. They were a part of the
+New York Division of the --th, all supposed to be New York men. As a
+matter of fact, this was not true. Dorn was a native of Washington.
+Sanborn was a thick-set, sturdy fellow with the clear brown tan and
+clear brown eyes of the Californian. Brewer was from South Carolina, a
+lean, lanky Southerner, with deep-set dark eyes. Dixon hailed from
+Massachusetts, from a fighting family, and from Harvard, where he had
+been a noted athlete. He was a big, lithe, handsome boy, red-faced and
+curly-haired. Purcell was a New-Yorker, of rich family, highly
+connected, and his easy, clean, fine ways, with the elegance of his
+person, his blond distinction, made him stand out from his khaki-clad
+comrades, though he was clad identically with them. Rogers claimed the
+Bronx to be his home and he was proud of it. He was little, almost
+undersized, but a knot of muscle, a keen-faced youth with Irish blood in
+him. These particular soldiers of the squad were closest to Dorn.
+
+Corporal Bob Owens came swinging in to throw his sombrero down.
+
+"What's the orders, Bob?" some one inquired.
+
+"We're going to rest here," he replied.
+
+The news was taken impatiently by several and agreeably by the majority.
+They were all travel-stained and worn. Dorn did not comment on the news,
+but the fact was that he hated the French villages. They were so old, so
+dirty, so obsolete, so different from what he had been accustomed to.
+But he loved the pastoral French countryside, so calm and picturesque.
+He reflected that soon he would see the devastation wrought by the Huns.
+
+"Any news from the front?" asked Dixon.
+
+"I should smile," replied the corporal, grimly.
+
+"Well, open up, you clam!"
+
+Owens thereupon told swiftly and forcibly what he had heard. More
+advance of the Germans--it was familiar news. But somehow it was taken
+differently here within sound of the guns. Dorn studied his comrades,
+wondering if their sensations were similar to his. He expressed nothing
+of what he felt, but all the others had something to say. Hard, cool,
+fiery, violent speech that differed as those who uttered it differed,
+yet its predominant note rang fight.
+
+"Just heard a funny story," said Owens, presently.
+
+"Spring it," somebody replied.
+
+"This comes from Berlin, so they say. According to rumor, the Kaiser and
+the Crown Prince seldom talk to each other. They happened to meet the
+other day. And the Crown Prince said: 'Say, pop, what got us into this
+war?'
+
+"The Emperor replied, 'My son, I was deluded.'
+
+"'Oh, sire, impossible!' exclaimed the Prince. 'How could it be?'
+
+"'Well, some years ago I was visited by a grinning son-of-a-gun from New
+York--no other than the great T.R. I took him around. He was most
+interested in my troops. After he had inspected them, and particularly
+the Imperial Guard, he slapped me on the back and shouted, "Bill, you
+could lick the world!" ... And, my son, I fell for it!'"
+
+This story fetched a roar from every soldier present except Dorn. An
+absence of mirth in him had been noted before.
+
+"Dorn, can't you laugh!" protested Dixon.
+
+"Sure I can--when I hear something funny," replied Dorn.
+
+His comrades gazed hopelessly at him.
+
+"My Lawd! boy, thet was shore funny," drawled Brewer with his lazy
+Southern manner.
+
+"Kurt, you're not human," said Owens, sadly. "That's why they call you
+Demon Dorn."
+
+All the boys in the squad had nicknames. In Dorn's case several had been
+applied by irrepressible comrades before one stuck. The first one
+received a poor reception from Kurt. The second happened to be a great
+blunder for the soldier who invented it. He was not in Dorn's squad, but
+he knew Dorn pretty well, and in a moment of deviltry he had coined for
+Dorn the name "Kaiser Dorn." Dorn's reaction to this appellation was
+discomfiting and painful for the soldier. As he lay flat on the ground,
+where Dorn had knocked him, he had struggled with a natural rage,
+quickly to overcome it. He showed the right kind of spirit. He got up.
+"Dorn, I apologize. I was only in fun. But some fun is about as funny as
+death." On the way out he suggested a more felicitous name--Demon Dorn.
+Somehow the boys took to that. It fitted many of Dorn's violent actions
+in training, especially the way he made a bayonet charge. Dorn objected
+strenuously. But the name stuck. No comrade or soldier ever again made a
+hint of Dorn's German name or blood.
+
+"Fellows, if a funny story can't make Dorn laugh, he's absolutely a dead
+one," said Owens.
+
+"Spring a new one, quick," spoke up some one. "Gee! it's great to
+laugh.... Why, I've not heard from home for a month!"
+
+"Dorn, will you beat it so I can spring this one?" queried Owens.
+
+"Sure," replied Dorn, amiably, as he started away. "I suppose you think
+me one of these I-dare-you-to-make-me-laugh sort of chaps."
+
+"Forget her, Dorn--come out of it!" chirped up Rogers.
+
+To Dorn's regret, he believed that he failed his comrades in one way,
+and he was always trying to make up for it. Part of the training of a
+soldier was the ever-present need and duty of cheerfulness. Every member
+of the squad had his secret, his own personal memory, his inner
+consciousness that he strove to keep hidden. Long ago Dorn had divined
+that this or that comrade was looking toward the bright side, or
+pretending there was one. They all played their parts. Like men they
+faced this incomprehensible duty, this tremendous separation, this dark
+and looming future, as if it was only hard work that must be done in
+good spirit. But Dorn, despite all his will, was mostly silent, aloof,
+brooding, locked up in his eternal strife of mind and soul. He could not
+help it. Notwithstanding all he saw and divined of the sacrifice and
+pain of his comrades, he knew that his ordeal was infinitely harder. It
+was natural that they hoped for the best. He had no hope.
+
+"Boys," said Owens, "there's a squad of Blue Devils camped over here in
+an old barn. Just back from the front. Some one said there wasn't a man
+in it who hadn't had a dozen wounds, and some twice that many. We must
+see that bunch. Bravest soldiers of the whole war! They've been through
+the three years--at Verdun--on the Marne--and now this awful Flanders
+drive. It's up to us to see them."
+
+News like this thrilled Dorn. During all the months he had been in
+France the deeds and valor of these German-named Blue Devils had come to
+him, here and there and everywhere. Dorn remembered all he heard, and
+believed it, too, though some of the charges and some of the burdens
+attributed to these famed soldiers seemed unbelievable. His opportunity
+had now come. With the moving up to the front he would meet reality; and
+all within him, the keen, strange eagerness, the curiosity that
+perplexed, the unintelligible longing, the heat and burn of passion,
+quickened and intensified.
+
+Not until late in the afternoon, however, did off duty present an
+opportunity for him to go into the village. It looked the same as the
+other villages he had visited, and the inhabitants, old men, old women
+and children, all had the somber eyes, the strained, hungry faces, the
+oppressed look he had become accustomed to see. But sad as were these
+inhabitants of a village near the front, there was never in any one of
+them any absence of welcome to the Americans. Indeed, in most people he
+met there was a quick flashing of intense joy and gratitude. The
+Americans had come across the sea to fight beside the French. That was
+the import, tremendous and beautiful.
+
+Dorn met Dixon and Rogers on the main street of the little village. They
+had been to see the Blue Devils.
+
+"Better stay away from them," advised Dixon, dubiously.
+
+"No!... Why?" ejaculated Dorn.
+
+Dixon shook his head. "Greatest bunch I ever looked at. But I think they
+resented our presence. Pat and I were talking about them. It's strange,
+Dorn, but I believe these Blue Devils that have saved France and
+England, and perhaps America, too, don't like our being here."
+
+"Impossible!" replied Dorn.
+
+"Go and see for yourself," put in Rogers. "I believe we all ought to
+look them over."
+
+Thoughtfully Dorn strode on in the direction indicated, and presently he
+arrived at the end of the village, where in an old orchard he found a
+low, rambling, dilapidated barn, before which clusters of soldiers in
+blue lounged around smoking fires. As he drew closer he saw that most of
+them seemed fixed in gloomy abstraction. A few were employed at some
+task of hand, and several bent over the pots on fires. Dorn's sweeping
+gaze took in the whole scene, and his first quick, strange impression
+was that these soldiers resembled ghouls who had lived in dark holes of
+mud.
+
+Kurt meant to make the most of his opportunity. To him, in his peculiar
+need, this meeting would be of greater significance than all else that
+had happened to him in France. The nearest soldier sat on a flattened
+pile of straw around which the ground was muddy. At first glance Kurt
+took him to be an African, so dark were face and eyes. No one heeded
+Kurt's approach. The moment was poignant to Kurt. He spoke French fairly
+well, so that it was emotion rather than lack of fluency which made his
+utterance somewhat unintelligible. The soldier raised his head. His face
+seemed a black flash--his eyes piercingly black, staring, deep, full of
+terrible shadow. They did not appear to see in Kurt the man, but only
+the trim, clean United States army uniform. Kurt repeated his address,
+this time more clearly.
+
+The Frenchman replied gruffly, and bent again over the faded worn coat
+he was scraping with a knife. Then Kurt noticed two things--the man's
+great, hollow, spare frame and the torn shirt, stained many colors, one
+of which was dark red. His hands resembled both those of a mason, with
+the horny callous inside, and those of a salt-water fisherman, with
+bludgy fingers and barked knuckles that never healed.
+
+Dorn had to choose his words slowly, because of unfamiliarity with
+French, but he was deliberate, too, because he wanted to say the right
+thing. His eagerness made the Frenchman glance up again. But while Dorn
+talked of the long waits, the long marches, the arrival at this place,
+the satisfaction at nearing the front, his listener gave no sign that he
+heard. But he did hear, and so did several of his comrades.
+
+"We're coming strong," he went on, his voice thrilling. "A million of us
+this year! We're untrained. We'll have to split up among English and
+French troops and learn how from you. But we've come--and we'll fight!"
+
+Then the Frenchman put on his coat. That showed him to be an officer. He
+wore medals. The dark glance he then flashed over Dorn was different
+from his first. It gave Dorn both a twinge of shame and a thrill of
+pride. It took in Dorn's characteristic Teutonic blond features, and
+likewise an officer's swift appreciation of an extraordinarily splendid
+physique.
+
+"You've German blood," he said.
+
+"Yes. But I'm American," replied Dorn, simply, and he met that
+soul-searching black gaze with all his intense and fearless spirit. Dorn
+felt that never in his life had he been subjected to such a test of his
+manhood, of his truth.
+
+"My name's Huon," said the officer, and he extended one of the huge
+deformed hands.
+
+"Mine's Dorn," replied Kurt, meeting that hand with his own.
+
+Whereupon the Frenchman spoke rapidly to the comrade nearest him, so
+rapidly that all Kurt could make of what he said was that here was an
+American soldier with a new idea. They drew closer, and it became
+manifest that the interesting idea was Kurt's news about the American
+army. It was news here, and carefully pondered by these Frenchmen, as
+slowly one by one they questioned him. They doubted, but Dorn convinced
+them. They seemed to like his talk and his looks. Dorn's quick faculties
+grasped the simplicity of these soldiers. After three terrible years of
+unprecedented warfare, during which they had performed the impossible,
+they did not want a fresh army to come along and steal their glory by
+administering a final blow to a tottering enemy. Gazing into those
+strange, seared faces, beginning to see behind the iron mask, Dorn
+learned the one thing a soldier lives, fights, and dies for--glory.
+
+Kurt Dorn was soon made welcome. He was made to exhaust his knowledge of
+French. He was studied by eyes that had gleamed in the face of death.
+His hand was wrung by hands that had dealt death. How terribly he felt
+that! And presently, when his excitement and emotion had subsided to the
+extent that he could really see what he looked at, then came the reward
+of reality, with all its incalculable meaning expressed to him in the
+gleaming bayonets, in the worn accoutrements, in the greatcoats like
+clapboards of mud, in the hands that were claws, in the feet that
+hobbled, in the strange, wonderful significance of bodily presence,
+standing there as proof of valor, of man's limitless endurance. In the
+faces, ah! there Dorn read the history that made him shudder and lifted
+him beyond himself. For there in those still, dark faces, of boys grown
+old in three years, shone the terror of war and the spirit that had
+resisted it.
+
+Dorn, in his intensity, in the over-emotion of his self-centered
+passion, so terribly driven to prove to himself something vague yet
+all-powerful, illusive yet imperious, divined what these Blue Devil
+soldiers had been through. His mind was more than telepathic. Almost it
+seemed that souls were bared to him. These soldiers, quiet, intent, made
+up a grim group of men. They seemed slow, thoughtful, plodding, wrapped
+and steeped in calm. But Dorn penetrated all this, and established the
+relation between it and the nameless and dreadful significance of their
+weapons and medals and uniforms and stripes, and the magnificent
+vitality that was now all but spent.
+
+Dorn might have resembled a curious, adventure-loving boy, to judge from
+his handling of rifles and the way he slipped a strong hand along the
+gleaming bayonet-blades. But he was more than the curious youth: he had
+begun to grasp a strange, intangible something for which he had no name.
+Something that must be attainable for him! Something that, for an hour
+or a moment, would make him a fighter not to be slighted by these
+supermen!
+
+Whatever his youth or his impelling spirit of manhood, the fact was that
+he inspired many of these veterans of the bloody years to Homeric
+narratives of the siege of Verdun, of the retreat toward Paris, of the
+victory of the Marne, and lastly of the Kaiser's battle, this last and
+most awful offensive of the resourceful and frightful foe.
+
+Brunelle told how he was the last survivor of a squad at Verdun who had
+been ordered to hold a breach made in a front stone wall along the out
+posts. How they had faced a bombardment of heavy guns--a whistling,
+shrieking, thundering roar, pierced by the higher explosion of a
+bursting shell--smoke and sulphur and gas--the crumbling of walls and
+downward fling of shrapnel. How the lives of soldiers were as lives of
+gnats hurled by wind and burned by flame. Death had a manifold and
+horrible diversity. A soldier's head, with ghastly face and conscious
+eyes, momentarily poised in the air while the body rode away invisibly
+with an exploding shell! He told of men blown up, shot through and
+riddled and brained and disemboweled, while their comrades, grim and
+unalterable, standing in a stream of blood, lived through the rain of
+shells, the smashing of walls, lived to fight like madmen the detachment
+following the bombardment, and to kill them every one.
+
+Mathie told of the great retreat--how men who had fought for days, who
+were unbeaten and unafraid, had obeyed an order they hated and could not
+understand, and had marched day and night, day and night, eating as they
+toiled on, sleeping while they marched, on and on, bloody-footed,
+desperate, and terrible, filled with burning thirst and the agony of
+ceaseless motion, on with dragging legs and laboring breasts and
+red-hazed eyes, on and onward, unquenchable, with the spirit of France.
+
+Sergeant Delorme spoke of the sudden fierce about-face at the Marne, of
+the irresistible onslaught of men whose homes had been invaded, whose
+children had been murdered, whose women had been enslaved, of a ruthless
+fighting, swift and deadly, and lastly of a bayonet charge by his own
+division, running down upon superior numbers, engaging them in
+hand-to-hand conflict, malignant and fatal, routing them over a field of
+blood and death.
+
+"Monsieur Dorn, do you know the French use of a bayonet?" asked Delorme.
+
+"No," replied Dorn.
+
+"_Allons!_ I will show you," he said, taking up two rifles and handing
+one to Dorn. "Come. It is so--and so--a trick. The boches can't face
+cold steel.... Ah, monsieur, you have the supple wrists of a juggler!
+You have the arms of a giant! You have the eyes of a duelist! You will
+be one grand spitter of German pigs!"
+
+Dorn felt the blanching of his face, the tingling of his nerves, the
+tightening of his muscles. A cold and terrible meaning laid hold of him
+even in the instant when he trembled before this flaming-eyed French
+veteran who complimented him while he instructed. How easily, Dorn
+thought, could this soldier slip the bright bayonet over his guard and
+pierce him from breast to back! How horrible the proximity of that
+sinister blade, with its glint, its turn, its edge, so potently
+expressive of its history! Even as Dorn crossed bayonets with this
+inspired Frenchman he heard a soldier comrade say that Delorme had let
+daylight through fourteen boches in that memorable victory of the Marne.
+
+"You are very big and strong and quick, monsieur," said the officer
+Huon, simply. "In bayonet-work you will be a killer of boches."
+
+In their talk and practice and help, in their intent to encourage the
+young American soldier, these Blue Devils one and all dealt in frank and
+inevitable terms of death. That was their meaning in life. It was
+immeasurably horrible for Dorn, because it seemed a realization of his
+imagined visions. He felt like a child among old savages of a war tribe.
+Yet he was fascinated by this close-up suggestion of man to man in
+battle, of German to American, of materialist to idealist, and beyond
+all control was the bursting surge of his blood. The exercises he had
+gone through, the trick he had acquired, somehow had strange power to
+liberate his emotion.
+
+The officer Huon spoke English, and upon his words Dorn hung spellbound.
+
+"You Americans have the fine dash, the nerve. You will perform wonders.
+But you don't realize what this war is. You will perish of sheer
+curiosity to see or eagerness to fight. But these are the least of the
+horrors of this war.
+
+"Actual fighting is to me a relief, a forgetfulness, an excitement, and
+is so with many of my comrades. We have survived wounds, starvation,
+shell-shock, poison gas and fire, the diseases of war, the awful toil of
+the trenches. And each and every one of us who has served long bears in
+his mind the particular horror that haunts him. I have known veterans to
+go mad at the screaming of shells. I have seen good soldiers stand upon
+a trench, inviting the fire that would end suspense. For a man who hopes
+to escape alive this war is indeed the ninth circle of hell.
+
+"My own particular horrors are mud, water, and cold. I have lived in
+dark, cold mud-holes so long that my mind concerning them is not right.
+I know it the moment I come out to rest. Rest! Do you know that we
+cannot rest? The comfort of this dirty old barn, of these fires, of this
+bare ground is so great that we cannot rest, we cannot sleep, we cannot
+do anything. When I think of the past winter I do not remember injury
+and agony for myself, or the maimed and mangled bodies of my comrades. I
+remember only the horrible cold, the endless ages of waiting, the
+hopeless misery of the dugouts, foul, black rat-holes that we had to
+crawl into through sticky mud and filthy water. Mud, water, and cold,
+with the stench of the dead clogging your nostrils! That to me is
+war!... _Les Misérables!_ You Americans will never know that, thank God.
+For it could not be endured by men who did not belong to this soil.
+After all, the filthy water is half blood and the mud is part of the
+dead of our people."
+
+Huon talked on and on, with the eloquence of a Frenchman who relieves
+himself of a burden. He told of trenches dug in a swamp, lived in and
+fought in, and then used for the graves of the dead, trenches that had
+to be lived in again months afterward. The rotting dead were everywhere.
+When they were covered the rain would come to wash away the earth,
+exposing them again. That was the strange refrain of this soldier's
+moody lament--the rain that fell, the mud that forever held him rooted
+fast in the tracks of his despair. He told of night and storm, of a
+weary squad of men, lying flat, trying to dig in under cover of rain and
+darkness, of the hell of cannonade over and around them. He told of
+hours that blasted men's souls, of death that was a blessing, of escape
+that was torture beyond the endurance of humans. Crowning that night of
+horrors piled on horrors, when he had seen a dozen men buried alive in
+mud lifted by a monster shell, when he had seen a refuge deep
+underground opened and devastated by a like projectile, came a
+cloud-burst that flooded the trenches and the fields, drowning soldiers
+whose injuries and mud-laden garments impeded their movements, and
+rendering escape for the others an infernal labor and a hideous
+wretchedness, unutterable and insupportable.
+
+Round the camp-fires the Blue Devils stood or lay, trying to rest. But
+the habit of the trenches was upon them. Dorn gazed at each and every
+soldier, so like in strange resemblance, so different in physical
+characteristics; and the sad, profound, and terrifying knowledge came to
+him of what they must have in their minds. He realized that all he
+needed was to suffer and fight and live through some little part of the
+war they had endured and then some truth would burst upon him. It was
+there in the restless steps, in the prone forms, in the sunken, glaring
+eyes. What soldiers, what men, what giants! Three and a half years of
+unnamable and indescribable fury of action and strife of thought! Not
+dead, nor stolid like oxen, were these soldiers of France. They had a
+simplicity that seemed appalling. We have given all; we have stood in
+the way, borne the brunt, saved you--this was flung at Dorn, not out of
+their thought, but from their presence. The fact that they were there
+was enough. He needed only to find these bravest of brave warriors real,
+alive, throbbing men.
+
+Dorn lingered there, loath to leave. The great lesson of his life held
+vague connection in some way with this squad of French privates. But he
+could not pierce the veil. This meeting came as a climax to four months
+of momentous meetings with the best and the riffraff of many nations.
+Dorn had studied, talked, listened, and learned. He who had as yet given
+nothing, fought no enemy, saved no comrade or refugee or child in all
+this whirlpool of battling millions, felt a profound sense of his
+littleness, his ignorance. He who had imagined himself unfortunate had
+been blind, sick, self-centered. Here were soldiers to whom comfort and
+rest were the sweetest blessings upon the earth, and they could not
+grasp them. No more could they grasp them than could the gaping
+civilians and the distinguished travelers grasp what these grand hulks
+of veteran soldiers had done. Once a group of civilians halted near the
+soldiers. An officer was their escort. He tried to hurry them on, but
+failed. Delorme edged away into the gloomy, damp barn rather than meet
+such visitors. Some of his comrades followed suit. Ferier, the
+incomparable of the Blue Devils, the wearer of all the French medals and
+the bearer of twenty-five wounds received in battle--he sneaked away,
+afraid and humble and sullen, to hide himself from the curious. That
+action of Ferier's was a revelation to Dorn. He felt a sting of shame.
+There were two classes of people in relation to this war--those who went
+to fight and those who stayed behind. What had Delorme or Mathie or
+Ferier to do with the world of selfish, comfortable, well-fed men? Dorn
+heard a million voices of France crying out the bitter truth--that if
+these war-bowed veterans ever returned alive to their homes it would be
+with hopes and hearts and faiths burned out, with hands forever lost to
+their old use, with bodies that the war had robbed.
+
+Dorn bade his new-made friends adieu, and in the darkening twilight he
+hurried toward his own camp.
+
+"If I could go back home now, honorably and well, I would never do it,"
+he muttered. "I couldn't bear to live knowing what I know now--unless I
+had laughed at this death, and risked it--and dealt it!"
+
+He was full of gladness, of exultation, in contemplation of the
+wonderful gift the hours had brought him. More than any men of history
+or present, he honored these soldiers the Germans feared. Like an
+Indian, Dorn respected brawn, courage, fortitude, silence, aloofness.
+
+"There was a divinity in those soldiers," he soliloquized. "I felt it in
+their complete ignorance of their greatness. Yet they had pride,
+jealousy. Oh, the mystery of it all!... When my day comes I'll last one
+short and terrible hour. I would never make a soldier like one of them.
+No American could. They are Frenchmen whose homes have been despoiled."
+
+In the tent of his comrades that night Dorn reverted from old habit, and
+with a passionate eloquence he told all he had seen and heard, and much
+that he had felt. His influence on these young men, long established,
+but subtle and unconscious, became in that hour a tangible fact. He
+stirred them. He felt them thoughtful and sad, and yet more unflinching,
+stronger and keener for the inevitable day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+The monstrous possibility that had consumed Kurt Dorn for many months at
+last became an event--he had arrived on the battle-front in France.
+
+All afternoon the company of United States troops had marched from far
+back of the line, resting, as darkness came on, at a camp of reserves,
+and then going on. Artillery fire had been desultory during this march;
+the big guns that had rolled their thunder miles and miles were now
+silent. But an immense activity and a horde of soldiers back of the
+lines brought strange leaden oppression to Kurt Dorn's heart.
+
+The last slow travel of his squad over dark, barren space and through
+deep, narrow, winding lanes in the ground had been a nightmare ending to
+the long journey. France had not yet become clear to him; he was a
+stranger in a strange land; in spite of his tremendous interest and
+excitement, all seemed abstract matters of his feeling, the plague of
+himself made actuality the substance of dreams. That last day, the
+cumulation of months of training and travel, had been one in which he
+had observed, heard, talked and felt in a nervous and fevered
+excitement. But now he imagined he could not remember any of it. His
+poignant experience with the Blue Devils had been a reality he could
+never forget, but now this blackness of subterranean cavern, this damp,
+sickening odor of earth, this presence of men, the strange, muffled
+sounds--all these were unreal. How had he come here? His mind labored
+with a burden strangely like that on his chest. A different, utterly
+unfamiliar emotion seemed rising over him. Maybe that was because he was
+very tired and very sleepy. Sometime that night he must go on duty. He
+ought to sleep. It was impossible. He could not close his eyes. An
+effort to attend to what he was actually doing disclosed the fact that
+he was listening with all his strength. For what? He could not answer
+then. He heard the distant, muffled sounds, and low voices nearer, and
+thuds and footfalls. His comrades were near him; he heard their
+breathing; he felt their presence. They were strained and intense; like
+him, they were locked up in their own prison of emotions.
+
+Always heretofore, on nights that he lay sleepless, Dorn had thought of
+the two things dearest on earth to him--Lenore Anderson and the golden
+wheat-hills of his home. This night he called up Lenore's image. It hung
+there in the blackness, a dim, pale phantom of her sweet face, her
+beautiful eyes, her sad lips, and then it vanished. Not at all could he
+call up a vision of his beloved wheat-fields. So the suspicion that
+something was wrong with his mind became a certainty. It angered him,
+quickened his sensitiveness, even while he despaired. He ground his
+teeth and clenched his fists and swore to realize his presence there,
+and to rise to the occasion as had been his vaunted ambition.
+
+Suddenly he felt something slimy and hairy against his wrist--then a
+stinging bite. A rat! A trench rat that lived on flesh! He flung his arm
+violently and beat upon the soft earth. The incident of surprise and
+disgust helped Dorn at least in one way. His mind had been set upon a
+strange and supreme condition of his being there, of an emotion about to
+overcome him. The bite of a rat, drawing blood, made a literal fact of
+his being a soldier, in a dugout at the front waiting in the blackness
+for his call to go on guard. This incident proved to Dorn his
+limitations, and that he was too terribly concerned with his feelings
+ever to last long as a soldier. But he could not help himself. His
+pulse, his heart, his brain, all seemed to beat, beat, beat with a
+nameless passion.
+
+Was he losing his nerve--was he afraid? His denial did not reassure him.
+He understood that patriotism and passion were emotions, and that the
+realities of a soldier's life were not.
+
+Dorn forced himself to think of realities, hoping thus to get a grasp
+upon his vanishing courage. And memory helped him. Not so many days,
+weeks, months back he had been a different man. At Bordeaux, when his
+squad first set foot upon French soil! That was a splendid reality. How
+he had thrilled at the welcome of the French sailors!
+
+Then he thought of the strenuous round of army duties, of training
+tasks, of traveling in cold box-cars, of endless marches, of camps and
+villages, of drills and billets. Never to be forgotten was that morning,
+now seemingly long ago, when an officer had ordered the battalion to
+pack. "We are going to the front!" he announced. Magic words! What
+excitement, what whooping, what bragging and joy among the boys, what
+hurry and bustle and remarkable efficiency! That had been a reality of
+actual experience, but the meaning of it, the terrible significance, had
+been beyond the mind of any American.
+
+"I'm here--at the front--now," whispered Dorn to himself. "A few rods
+away are Germans!" ... Inconceivable--no reality at all! He went on with
+his swift account of things, with his mind ever sharpening, with that
+strange, mounting emotion flooding to the full, ready to burst its
+barriers. When he and his comrades had watched their transport trains
+move away--when they had stood waiting for their own trains--had the
+idea of actual conflict yet dawned upon them? Dorn had to answer No. He
+remembered that he had made few friends among the inhabitants of towns
+and villages where he had stayed. What leisure time he got had been
+given to a seeking out of sailors, soldiers, and men of all races, with
+whom he found himself in remarkable contact. The ends of the world
+brought together by one war! How could his memory ever hold all that had
+come to him? But it did. Passion liberated it. He saw now that his eye
+was a lens, his mind a sponge, his heart a gulf.
+
+Out of the hundreds of thousands of American troops in France, what
+honor it was to be in the chosen battalion to go to the front! Dorn
+lived only with his squad, but he felt the envy of the whole army. What
+luck! To be chosen from so many--to go out and see the game through
+quickly! He began to consider that differently now. The luck might be
+with the soldiers left behind. Always, underneath Dorn's perplexity and
+pondering, under his intelligence and spirit at their best, had been a
+something deeply personal, something of the internal of him, a selfish
+instinct. It was the nature of man--self-preservation.
+
+Like a tempest swept over Dorn the most significant ordeal and lesson of
+his experience in France--that wonderful reality when he met the Blue
+Devils and they took him in. However long he lived, his life must
+necessarily be transformed from contact with those great men.
+
+The night march over the unending roads, through the gloom and the
+spectral starlight, with the dull rumblings of cannon shocking his
+heart--that Dorn lived over, finding strangely a minutest detail of
+observation and a singular veracity of feeling fixed in his memory.
+
+Afternoon of that very day, at the reserve camp somewhere back there,
+had brought an officer's address to the soldiers, a strong and emphatic
+appeal as well as order--to obey, to do one's duty, to take no chances,
+to be eternally vigilant, to believe that every man had advantage on his
+side, even in war, if he were not a fool or a daredevil. Dorn had
+absorbed the speech, remembered every word, but it all seemed futile
+now. Then had come the impressive inspection of equipment, a careful
+examination of gas-masks, rifles, knapsacks. After that the order to
+march!
+
+Dorn imagined that he had remembered little, but he had remembered all.
+Perhaps the sense of strange unreality was only the twist in his mind.
+Yet he did not know where he was--what part of France--how far north or
+south on the front line--in what sector. Could not that account for the
+sense of feeling lost?
+
+Nevertheless, he was there at the end of all this incomprehensible
+journey. He became possessed by an irresistible desire to hurry. Once
+more Dorn attempted to control the far-flinging of his thoughts--to come
+down to earth. The earth was there under his hand, soft, sticky, moldy,
+smelling vilely. He dug his fingers into it, until the feel of something
+like a bone made him jerk them out. Perhaps he had felt a stone. A tiny,
+creeping, chilly shudder went up his back. Then he remembered, he felt,
+he saw his little attic room, in the old home back among the wheat-hills
+of the Northwest. Six thousand miles away! He would never see that room
+again. What unaccountable vagary of memory had ever recalled it to him?
+It faded out of his mind.
+
+Some of his comrades whispered; now and then one rolled over; none
+snored, for none of them slept. Dorn felt more aloof from them than
+ever. How isolated each one was, locked in his own trouble! Every one of
+them, like himself, had a lonely soul. Perhaps they were facing it. He
+could not conceive of a careless, thoughtless, emotionless attitude
+toward this first night in the front-line trench.
+
+Dorn gradually grew more acutely sensitive to the many faint, rustling,
+whispering sounds in and near the dugout.
+
+A soldier came stooping into the opaque square of the dugout door. His
+rifle, striking the framework, gave out a metallic clink. This fellow
+expelled a sudden heavy breath as if throwing off an oppression.
+
+"Is that you, Sanborn?" This whisper Dorn recognized as Dixon's. It was
+full of suppressed excitement.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Guess it's my turn next. How--how does it go?"
+
+Sanborn's laugh had an odd little quaver. "Why, so far as I know, I
+guess it's all right. Damn queer, though. I wish we'd got here in
+daytime.... But maybe that wouldn't help."
+
+"Humph!... Pretty quiet out there?"
+
+"So Bob says, but what's he know--more than us? I heard guns up the
+line, and rifle-fire not so far off."
+
+"Can you see any--"
+
+"Not a damn thing--yet everything," interrupted Sanborn, enigmatically.
+
+"Dixon!" called Owens, low and quickly, from the darkness.
+
+Dixon did not reply. His sudden hard breathing, the brushing of his
+garments against the door, then swift, soft steps dying away attested to
+the fact of his going.
+
+Dorn tried to compose himself to rest, if not to sleep. He heard Sanborn
+sit down, and then apparently stay very still for some time. All of a
+sudden he whispered to himself. Dorn distinguished the word "hell."
+
+"What's ailin' you, pard?" drawled Brewer.
+
+Sanborn growled under his breath, and when some one else in the dugout
+quizzed him curiously he burst out: "I'll bet you galoots the state of
+California against a dill pickle that when your turn comes you'll be
+sick in your gizzards!"
+
+"We'll take our medicine," came in the soft, quiet voice of Purcell.
+
+No more was said. The men all pretended to fall asleep, each ashamed to
+let his comrade think he was concerned.
+
+A short, dull, heavy rumble seemed to burst the outer stillness. For a
+moment the dugout was silent as a tomb. No one breathed. Then came a jar
+of the earth, a creaking of shaken timbers. Some one gasped
+involuntarily. Another whispered:
+
+"By God! the real thing!"
+
+Dorn wondered how far away that jarring shell had alighted. Not so far!
+It was the first he had ever heard explode near him. Roaring of cannon,
+exploding of shell--this had been a source of every-day talk among his
+comrades. But the jar, the tremble of the earth, had a dreadful
+significance. Another rumble, another jar, not so heavy or so near this
+time, and then a few sharply connected reports, clamped Dorn as in a
+cold vise. Machine-gun shots! Many thousand machine-gun shots had he
+heard, but none with the life and the spite and the spang of these. Did
+he imagine the difference? Cold as he felt, he began to sweat, and
+continually, as he wiped the palms of his hands, they grew wet again. A
+queer sensation of light-headedness and weakness seemed to possess him.
+The roots of his will-power seemed numb. Nevertheless, all the more
+revolving and all-embracing seemed his mind.
+
+The officer in his speech a few hours back had said the sector to which
+the battalion had been assigned was alive. By this he meant that active
+bombardment, machine-gun fire, hand-grenade throwing, and gas-shelling,
+or attack in force might come any time, and certainly must come as soon
+as the Germans suspected the presence of an American force opposite
+them.
+
+That was the stunning reality to Dorn--the actual existence of the Huns
+a few rods distant. But realization of them had not brought him to the
+verge of panic. He would not flinch at confronting the whole German
+army. Nor did he imagine he put a great price upon his life. Nor did he
+have any abnormal dread of pain. Nor had the well-remembered teachings
+of the Bible troubled his spirit. Was he going to be a coward because of
+some incalculable thing in him or force operating against him? Already
+he sat there, shivering and sweating, with the load on his breast
+growing laborsome, with all his sensorial being absolutely at keenest
+edge.
+
+Rapid footfalls halted his heart-beats. They came from above, outside
+the dugout, from the trench.
+
+"Dorn, come out!" called the corporal.
+
+Dorn's response was instant. But he was as blind as if he had no eyes,
+and he had to feel his way to climb out. The indistinct, blurred form of
+the corporal seemed half merged in the pale gloom of the trench. A cool
+wind whipped at Dorn's hot face. Surcharged with emotion, the nature of
+which he feared, Dorn followed the corporal, stumbling and sliding over
+the wet boards, knocking bits of earth from the walls, feeling a sick
+icy gripe in his bowels. Some strange light flared up--died away.
+Another rumble, distinct, heavy, and vibrating! To his left somewhere
+the earth received a shock. Dorn felt a wave of air that was not wind.
+
+The corporal led the way past motionless men peering out over the top of
+the wall, and on to a widening, where an abutment of filled bags loomed
+up darkly. Here the corporal cautiously climbed up breaks in the wall
+and stooped behind the fortification. Dorn followed. His legs did not
+feel natural. Something was lost out of them. Then he saw the little
+figure of Rogers beside him. Dorn's turn meant Rogers's relief. How pale
+against the night appeared the face of Rogers! As he peered under his
+helmet at Dorn a low whining passed in the air overhead. Rogers started
+slightly. A thump sounded out there, interrupting the corporal, who had
+begun to speak. He repeated his order to Dorn, bending a little to peer
+into his face. Dorn tried to open his lips to say he did not understand,
+but his lips were mute. Then the corporal led Rogers away.
+
+That moment alone, out in the open, with the strange, windy pall of
+night--all-enveloping, with the flares, like sheet-lightning, along the
+horizon, with a rumble here and a roar there, with whistling fiends
+riding the blackness above, with a series of popping, impelling reports
+seemingly close in front--that drove home to Kurt Dorn a cruel and
+present and unescapable reality.
+
+At that instant, like bitter fate, shot up a rocket, or a star-flare of
+calcium light, bursting to expose all underneath in pitiless radiance.
+With a gasp that was a sob, Dorn shrank flat against the wall, staring
+into the fading circle, feeling a creep of paralysis. He must be seen.
+He expected the sharp, biting series of a machine-gun or the bursting of
+a bomb. But nothing happened, except that the flare died away. It had
+come from behind his own lines. Control of his muscles had almost
+returned when a heavy boom came from the German side. Miles away,
+perhaps, but close! That boom meant a great shell speeding on its
+hideous mission. It would pass over him. He listened. The wind came from
+that side. It was cold; it smelled of burned powder; it carried sounds
+he was beginning to appreciate--shots, rumbles, spats, and thuds,
+whistles of varying degree, all isolated sounds. Then he caught a
+strange, low moaning. It rose. It was coming fast. It became an
+o-o-o-O-O-O! Nearer and nearer! It took on a singing whistle. It was
+passing--no--falling!... A mighty blow was delivered to the earth--a
+jar--a splitting shock to windy darkness; a wave of heavy air was flung
+afar--and then came the soft, heavy thumping of falling earth.
+
+That shell had exploded close to the place where Dorn stood. It
+terrified him. It reduced him to a palpitating, stricken wretch, utterly
+unable to cope with the terror. It was not what he had expected. What
+were words, anyhow? By words alone he had understood this shell thing.
+Death was only a word, too. But to be blown to atoms! It came every
+moment to some poor devil; it might come to him. But that was not
+fighting. Somewhere off in the blackness a huge iron monster belched
+this hell out upon defenseless men. Revolting and inconceivable truth!
+
+It was Dorn's ordeal that his mentality robbed this hour of novelty and
+of adventure, that while his natural, physical fear incited panic and
+nausea and a horrible, convulsive internal retching, his highly
+organized, exquisitely sensitive mind, more like a woman's in its
+capacity for emotion, must suffer through imagining the infinite agonies
+that he might really escape. Every shell then must blow him to bits;
+every agony of every soldier must be his.
+
+But he knew what his duty was, and as soon as he could move he began to
+edge along the short beat. Once at the end he drew a deep and shuddering
+breath, and, fighting all his involuntary instincts, he peered over the
+top. An invisible thing whipped close over his head. It did not whistle;
+it cut. Out in front of him was only thick, pale gloom, with spectral
+forms, leading away to the horizon, where flares, like sheet-lightning
+of a summer night's storm, ran along showing smoke and bold, ragged
+outlines. Then he went to the other end to peer over there. His eyes
+were keen, and through long years of habit at home, going about at night
+without light, he could see distinctly where ordinary sight would meet
+only a blank wall. The flat ground immediately before him was bare of
+living or moving objects. That was his duty as sentinel here--to make
+sure of no surprise patrol from the enemy lines. It helped Dorn to
+realize that he could accomplish this duty even though he was in a
+torment.
+
+That space before him was empty, but it was charged with current. Wind,
+shadow, gloom, smoke, electricity, death, spirit--whatever that current
+was, Dorn felt it. He was more afraid of that than the occasional
+bullets which zipped across. Sometimes shots from his own squad rang out
+up and down the line. Off somewhat to the north a machine-gun on the
+Allies' side spoke now and then spitefully. Way back a big gun boomed.
+Dorn listened to the whine of shells from his own side with a far
+different sense than that with which he heard shells whine from the
+enemy. How natural and yet how unreasonable! Shells from the other side
+came over to destroy him; shells from his side went back to save him.
+But both were shot to kill! Was he, the unknown and shrinking novice of
+a soldier, any better than an unknown and shrinking soldier far across
+there in the darkness? What was equality? But these were Germans! That
+thing so often said--so beaten into his brain--did not convince out here
+in the face of death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Four o'clock! With the gray light came a gradually increasing number of
+shells. Most of them struck far back. A few, to right and left, dropped
+near the front line. The dawn broke--such a dawn as he never dreamed
+of--smoky and raw, with thunder spreading to a circle all around the
+horizon.
+
+He was relieved. On his way in he passed Purcell at the nearest post.
+The elegant New-Yorker bore himself with outward calm. But in the gray
+dawn he looked haggard and drawn. Older! That flashed through Dorn's
+mind. A single night had contained years, more than years. Others of the
+squad had subtly changed. Dixon gave him a penetrating look, as if he
+wore a mask, under which was a face of betrayal, of contrast to that
+soldier bearing, of youth that was gone forever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+The squad of men to which Dorn belonged had to be on the lookout
+continually for an attack that was inevitable. The Germans were feeling
+out the line, probably to verify spy news of the United States troops
+taking over a sector. They had not, however, made sure of this fact.
+
+The gas-shells came over regularly, making life for the men a kind of
+suffocation most of the time. And the great shells that blew enormous
+holes in front and in back of their position never allowed a relaxation
+from strain. Drawn and haggard grew the faces that had been so clean-cut
+and brown and fresh.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One evening at mess, when the sector appeared quiet enough to permit of
+rest, Rogers was talking to some comrades before the door of the dugout.
+
+"It sure got my goat, that little promenade of ours last night over into
+No Man's Land," he said. "We had orders to slip out and halt a German
+patrol that was supposed to be stealing over to our line. We crawled on
+our bellies, looking and listening every minute. If that isn't the
+limit! My heart was in my mouth. I couldn't breathe. And for the first
+moments, if I'd run into a Hun, I'd had no more strength than a rabbit.
+But all seemed clear. It was not a bright night--sort of opaque and
+gloomy--shadows everywhere. There wasn't any patrol coming. But Corporal
+Owens thought he heard men farther on working with wire. We crawled some
+more. And we must have got pretty close to the enemy lines--in fact, we
+had--when up shot one of those damned calcium flares. We all burrowed
+into the ground. I was paralyzed. It got as light as noon--strange
+greenish-white flare. It magnified. Flat as I lay, I saw the German
+embankments not fifty yards away. I made sure we were goners. Slowly the
+light burned out. Then that machine-gun you all heard began to rattle.
+Something queer about the way every shot of a machine-gun bites the air.
+We heard the bullets, low down, right over us. Say, boys, I'd almost
+rather be hit and have it done with!... We began to crawl back. I wanted
+to run. We all wanted to. But Owens is a nervy guy and he kept
+whispering. Another machine-gun cut loose, and bullets rained over us.
+Like hail they hit somewhere ahead, scattering the gravel. We'd almost
+reached our line when Smith jumped up and ran. He said afterward that he
+just couldn't help himself. The suspense was awful. I know. I've been a
+clerk in a bank! Get that? And there I was under a hail of Hun lead,
+without being able to understand why, or feel that any time had passed
+since giving up my job to go to war. Queer how I saw my old desk!...
+Well, that's how Smith got his. I heard the bullets spat him, sort of
+thick and soft.... Ugh!... Owens and I dragged him along, and finally
+into the trench. He had a bullet through his shoulder and leg. Guess
+he'll live, all right.... Boys, take this from me. Nobody can _tell_ you
+what a machine-gun is like. A rifle, now, is not so much. You get shot
+at, and you know the man must reload and aim. That takes time. But a
+machine-gun! Whew! It's a comb--a fine-toothed comb--and you're the
+louse it's after! You hear that steady rattle, and then you hear bullets
+everywhere. Think of a man against a machine-gun! It's not a square
+deal."
+
+Dixon was one of the listeners. He laughed.
+
+"Rogers, I'd like to have been with you. Next time I'll volunteer. You
+had action--a run for your money. That's what I enlisted for. Standing
+still--doing nothing but wait--that drives me half mad. My years of
+football have made action necessary. Otherwise I go stale in mind and
+body.... Last night, before you went on that scouting trip, I had been
+on duty two hours. Near midnight. The shelling had died down. All became
+quiet. No flares--no flashes anywhere. There was a luminous kind of glow
+in the sky--moonlight through thin clouds. I had to listen and watch.
+But I couldn't keep back my thoughts. There I was, a soldier, facing No
+Man's Land, across whose dark space were the Huns we have come to regard
+as devils in brutality, yet less than men.... And I thought of home. No
+man knows what home really is until he stands that lonely midnight
+guard. A shipwrecked sailor appreciates the comforts he once had; a
+desert wanderer, lost and starving, remembers the food he once wasted; a
+volunteer soldier, facing death in the darkness, thinks of his home! It
+is a hell of a feeling!... And, thinking of home, I remembered my girl.
+I've been gone four months--have been at the front seven days (or is it
+seven years?) and last night in the darkness she came to me. Oh yes! she
+was there! She seemed reproachful, as she was when she coaxed me not to
+enlist. My girl was not one of the kind who sends her lover to war and
+swears she will die an old maid unless he returns. Mine begged me to
+stay home, or at least wait for the draft. But I wasn't built that way.
+I enlisted. And last night I felt the bitterness of a soldier's fate.
+All this beautiful stuff is bunk!... My girl is a peach. She had many
+admirers, two in particular that made me run my best down the stretch.
+One is club-footed. He couldn't fight. The other is all yellow. Him she
+liked best. He had her fooled, the damned slacker.... I wish I could
+believe I'd get safe back home, with a few Huns to my credit--the Croix
+de Guerre--and an officer's uniform. That would be great. How I could
+show up those fellows!... But I'll get killed--as sure as God made
+little apples I'll get killed--and she will marry one of the men who
+would not fight!"
+
+It was about the middle of a clear morning, still cold, but the sun was
+shining. Guns were speaking intermittently. Those soldiers who were off
+duty had their gas-masks in their hands. All were gazing intently
+upward.
+
+Dorn sat a little apart from them. He, too, looked skyward, and he was
+so absorbed that he did not hear the occasional rumble of a distant gun.
+He was watching the airmen at work--the most wonderful and famous
+feature of the war. It absolutely enthralled Dorn. As a boy he had loved
+to watch the soaring of the golden eagles, and once he had seen a great
+wide-winged condor, swooping along a mountain-crest. How he had envied
+them the freedom of the heights--the loneliness of the unscalable
+crags--the companionship of the clouds! Here he gazed and marveled at
+the man-eagles of the air.
+
+German planes had ventured over the lines, flying high, and English
+planes had swept up to intercept them. One was rising then not far away,
+climbing fast, like a fish-hawk with prey in its claws. Its color, its
+framework, its propeller, and its aviator showed distinctly against the
+sky. The buzzing, high-pitched drone of its motor floated down.
+
+The other aeroplanes, far above, had lost their semblance to mechanical
+man-driven machines. They were now the eagles of the air. They were
+rising, circling, diving in maneuvers that Dorn knew meant pursuit. But
+he could not understand these movements. To him the air-battle looked as
+it must have looked to an Indian. Birds of prey in combat! Dorn recalled
+verses he had learned as a boy, written by a poet who sang of future
+wars in the air. What he prophesied had come true. Was there not a sage
+now who could pierce the veil of the future and sing of such a thing as
+sacred human life? Dorn had his doubts. Poets and dreamers appeared not
+to be the men who could halt materialism. Strangely then, as Dorn gazed
+bitterly up at these fierce fliers who fought in the heavens, he
+remembered the story of the three wise men and of Bethlehem. Was it only
+a story? Where on this sunny spring morning was Christ, and the love of
+man for man?
+
+At that moment one of the forward aeroplanes, which was drifting back
+over the enemy lines, lost its singular grace of slow, sweeping
+movement. It poised in the air. It changed shape. It pitched as if from
+wave to wave of wind. A faint puff of smoke showed. Tiny specks, visible
+to Dorn's powerful eyes, seemed to detach themselves and fall, to be
+followed by the plane itself in sheer downward descent.
+
+Dorn leaped to his feet. What a thrilling and terrible sight! His
+comrades stood bareheaded, red faces uplifted, open-mouthed and wild
+with excitement, not daring to disobey orders and yell at the top of
+their lungs. Dorn felt, strong above the softened wonder and thought of
+a moment back, a tingling, pulsating wave of gushing blood go over him.
+Like his comrades, he began to wave his arms and stamp and bite his
+tongue.
+
+Swiftly the doomed plane swept down out of sight. Gone! At that instant
+something which had seemed like a bird must have become a broken mass.
+The other planes drifted eastward.
+
+Dorn gasped, and broke the spell on him. He was hot and wet with sweat,
+quivering with a frenzy. How many thousand soldiers of the Allies had
+seen that downward flight of the boche? Dorn pitied the destroyed
+airman, hated himself, and had all the fury of savage joy that had been
+in his comrades.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dorn, relieved from guard and firing-post, rushed back to the dugout. He
+needed the dark of that dungeon. He crawled in and, searching out the
+remotest, blackest corner, hidden from all human eyes, and especially
+his own, he lay there clammy and wet all over, with an icy, sickening
+rend, like a wound, in the pit of his stomach. He shut his eyes, but
+that did not shut out what he saw. "_So help me God!_" he whispered to
+himself.... Six endless months had gone to the preparation of a deed
+that had taken one second! That transformed him! His life on earth, his
+spirit in the beyond, could never be now what they might have been. And
+he sobbed through grinding teeth as he felt the disintegrating,
+agonizing, irremediable forces at work on body, mind, and soul.
+
+He had blown out the brains of his first German.
+
+Fires of hell, in two long lines, bordering a barren, ghastly, hazy
+strip of land, burst forth from the earth. From holes where men hid
+poured thunder of guns and stream of smoke and screeching of iron. That
+worthless strip of land, barring deadly foes, shook as with repeated
+earthquakes. Huge spouts of black and yellow earth lifted,
+fountain-like, to the dull, heavy bursts of shells. Pound and jar,
+whistle and whine, long, broken rumble, and the rattling concatenation
+of quick shots like metallic cries, exploding hail-storm of iron in the
+air, a desert over which thousands of puffs of smoke shot up and swelled
+and drifted, the sliding crash far away, the sibilant hiss swift
+overhead. Boom! Weeeee--eeeeooooo! from the east. Boom!
+Weeeee--eeeeooooo! from the west.
+
+At sunset there was no let-up. The night was all the more hideous. Along
+the horizon flashed up the hot sheets of lightning that were not of a
+summer storm. Angry, lurid, red, these upflung blazes and flames
+illumined the murky sky, showing in the fitful and flickering intervals
+wagons driving toward the front, and patrols of soldiers running toward
+some point, and great upheavals of earth spread high.
+
+This heavy cannonading died away in the middle of the night until an
+hour before dawn, when it began again with redoubled fury and lasted
+until daybreak.
+
+Dawn came reluctantly, Dorn thought. He was glad. It meant a charge.
+Another night of that hellish shrieking and bursting of shells would
+kill his mind, if not his body. He stood on guard at a fighting-post.
+Corporal Owens lay at his feet, wounded slightly. He would not retire.
+As the cannons ceased he went to sleep. Rogers stood close on one side,
+Dixon on the other. The squad had lived through that awful night.
+Soldiers were bringing food and drink to them. All appeared grimly gay.
+
+Dorn was not gay. But he knew this was the day he would laugh in the
+teeth of death. A slumbrous, slow heat burned deep in him, like a
+covered fire, fierce and hot at heart, awaiting the wind. Watching
+there, he did not voluntarily move a muscle, yet all his body twitched
+like that of the trained athlete, strained to leap into the great race
+of his life.
+
+An officer came hurrying through. The talking hushed. Men on guard,
+backs to the trench, never moved their eyes from the forbidden land in
+front. The officer spoke. Look for a charge! Reserves were close behind.
+He gave his orders and passed on.
+
+Then an Allied gun opened up with a boom. The shell moaned on over. Dorn
+saw where it burst, sending smoke and earth aloft. That must have been a
+signal for a bombardment of the enemy all along this sector, for big and
+little guns began to thunder and crack.
+
+The spectacle before Dorn's hard, keen eyes was one that he thought
+wonderful. Far across No Man's Land, which sloped somewhat at that point
+in the plain, he saw movement of troops and guns. His eyes were
+telescopic. Over there the ground appeared grassy in places, with green
+ridges rising, and patches of brush and straggling trees standing out
+clearly. Faint, gray-colored squads of soldiers passed in sight with
+helmets flashing in the sun; guns were being hauled forward; mounted
+horsemen dashed here and there, vanishing and reappearing; and all
+through that wide area of color and action shot up live black spouts of
+earth crowned in white smoke that hung in the air after the earth fell
+back. They were beautiful, these shell-bursts. Round balls of white
+smoke magically appeared in the air, to spread and drift; long, yellow
+columns or streaks rose here, and there leaped up a fan-shaped, dirty
+cloud, savage and sinister; sometimes several shells burst close
+together, dashing the upflung sheets of earth together and blending
+their smoke; at intervals a huge, creamy-yellow explosion, like a
+geyser, rose aloft to spread and mushroom, then to detach itself from
+the heavier body it had upheaved, and float away, white and graceful, on
+the wind.
+
+Sinister beauty! Dorn soon lost sight of that. There came a gnawing at
+his vitals. The far scene of action could not hold his gaze. That dark,
+uneven, hummocky break in the earth, which was a goodly number of rods
+distant, yet now seemed close, drew a startling attention. Dorn felt his
+eyes widen and pop. Spots and dots, shiny, illusive, bobbed along that
+break, behind the mounds, beyond the farther banks. A yell as from one
+lusty throat ran along the line of which Dorn's squad held the center.
+Dorn's sight had a piercing intensity. All was hard under his grip--his
+rifle, the boards and bags against which he leaned. Corporal Owens rose
+beside him, bareheaded, to call low and fiercely to his men.
+
+The gray dots and shiny spots leaped up magically and appallingly into
+men. German soldiers! Boches! Huns on a charge! They were many, but wide
+apart. They charged, running low.
+
+Machine-gun rattle, rifle-fire, and strangled shouts blended along the
+line. From the charging Huns seemed to come a sound that was neither
+battle-cry nor yell nor chant, yet all of them together. The gray
+advancing line thinned at points opposite the machine-guns, but it was
+coming fast.
+
+Dorn cursed his hard, fumbling hands, which seemed so eager and fierce
+that they stiffened. They burned, too, from their grip on the hot rifle.
+Shot after shot he fired, missing. He could not hit a field full of
+Huns. He dropped shells, fumbled with them at the breech, loaded wildly,
+aimed at random, pulled convulsively. His brain was on fire. He had no
+anger, no fear, only a great and futile eagerness. Yell and crack filled
+his ears. The gray, stolid, unalterable Huns must be driven back. Dorn
+loaded, crushed his rifle steady, pointed low at a great gray bulk, and
+fired. That Hun pitched down out of the gray advancing line. The sight
+almost overcame Dorn. Dizzy, with blurred eyes, he leaned over his gun.
+His abdomen and breast heaved, and he strangled over his gorge. Almost
+he fainted. But violence beside him somehow, great heaps of dust and
+gravel flung over him, hoarse, wild yells in his ears, roused him. The
+boches were on the line! He leaped up. Through the dust he saw charging
+gray forms, thick and heavy. They plunged, as if actuated by one will.
+Bulky blond men, ashen of face, with eyes of blue fire and brutal mouths
+set grim--Huns!
+
+Up out of the shallow trench sprang comrades on each side of Dorn. No
+rats to be cornered in a hole! Dorn seemed drawn by powerful hauling
+chains. He did not need to climb! Four big Germans appeared
+simultaneously upon the embankment of bags. They were shooting. One
+swung aloft an arm and closed fist. He yelled like a demon. He was a
+bomb-thrower. On the instant a bullet hit Dorn, tearing at the side of
+his head, stinging excruciatingly, knocking him down, flooding his face
+with blood. The shock, like a weight, held him down, but he was not
+dazed. A body, khaki-clad, rolled down beside him, convulsively flopped
+against him. He bounded erect, his ears filled with a hoarse and
+clicking din, his heart strangely lifting in his breast.
+
+Only one German now stood upon the embankment of bags and he was the
+threatening bomb-thrower. The others were down--gray forms wrestling
+with brown. Dixon was lunging at the bomb-thrower, and, reaching him
+with the bayonet, ran him through the belly. He toppled over with an
+awful cry and fell hard on the other side of the wall of loaded bags.
+The bomb exploded. In the streaky burst Dixon seemed to charge in
+bulk--to be flung aside like a leaf by a gale.
+
+Little Rogers had engaged an enemy who towered over him. They feinted,
+swung, and cracked their guns together, then locked bayonets. Another
+German striding from behind stabbed Rogers in the back. He writhed off
+the bloody bayonet, falling toward Dorn, showing a white face that
+changed as he fell, with quiver of torture and dying eyes.
+
+That dormant inhibited self of Dorn suddenly was no more. Fast as a
+flash he was upon the murdering Hun. Bayonet and rifle-barrel lunged
+through him, and so terrible was the thrust that the German was thrown
+back as if at a blow from a battering-ram. Dorn whirled the bloody
+bayonet, and it crashed to the ground the rifle of the other German.
+Dorn saw not the visage of the foe--only the thick-set body, and this he
+ripped open in one mighty slash. The German's life spilled out horribly.
+
+Dorn leaped over the bloody mass. Owens lay next, wide-eyed, alive, but
+stricken. Purcell fought with clubbed rifle, backing away from several
+foes. Brewer was being beaten down. Gray forms closing in! Dorn saw
+leveled small guns,, flashes of red, the impact of lead striking him.
+But he heard no shots. The roar in his ears was the filling of a gulf.
+Out of that gulf pierced his laugh. Gray forms--guns--bullets--
+bayonets--death--he laughed at them. His moment had come. Here
+he would pay. His immense and terrible joy bridged the ages
+between the past and this moment when he leaped light and swift,
+like a huge cat, upon them. They fired and they hit, but Dorn sprang on,
+tigerishly, with his loud and nameless laugh. Bayonets thrust at him
+were straws. These enemies gave way, appalled. With sweep and lunge he
+killed one and split a second's skull before the first had fallen. A
+third he lifted and upset and gored, like a bull, in one single stroke.
+The fourth and last of that group, screaming his terror and fury, ran in
+close to get beyond that sweeping blade. He fired as he ran. Dorn
+tripped him heavily, and he had scarcely struck the ground when that
+steel transfixed his bulging throat.
+
+Brewer was down, but Purcell had been reinforced. Soldiers in brown came
+on the run, shooting, yelling, brandishing. They closed in on the
+Germans, and Dorn ran into that mêlée to make one thrust at each gray
+form he encountered.
+
+Shriller yells along the line--American yells--the enemy there had given
+ground! Dorn heard. He saw the gray line waver. He saw reserves running
+to aid his squad. The Germans would be beaten back. There was whirling
+blackness in his head through which he seemed to see. The laugh broke
+hoarse and harsh from his throat. Dust and blood choked him.
+
+Another gray form blocked his leaping way. Dorn saw only low down, the
+gray arms reaching with bright, unstained blade. His own bloody bayonet
+clashed against it, locked, and felt the helplessness of the arms that
+wielded it. An instant of pause--a heaving, breathless instinct of
+impending exhaustion--a moment when the petrific mace of primitive man
+stayed at the return of the human--then with bloody foam on his lips
+Dorn spent his madness.
+
+A supple twist--the French trick--and Dorn's powerful lunge, with all
+his ponderous weight, drove his bayonet through the enemy's lungs.
+
+"_Ka--ma--rod!_" came the strange, strangling cry.
+
+A weight sagged down on Dorn's rifle. He did not pull out the bayonet,
+but as it lowered with the burden of the body his eyes, fixed at one
+height, suddenly had brought into their range the face of his foe.
+
+A boy--dying on his bayonet! Then came a resurrection of Kurt Dorn's
+soul. He looked at what must be his last deed as a soldier. His mind
+halted. He saw only the ghastly face, the eyes in which he expected to
+see hate, but saw only love of life, suddenly reborn, suddenly surprised
+at death.
+
+"God save you, German! I'd give my life for yours!"
+
+Too late! Dorn watched the youth's last clutching of empty fingers, the
+last look of consciousness at his conqueror, the last quiver. The youth
+died and slid back off the rigid bayonet. War of men!
+
+A heavy thud sounded to the left of Dorn. A bursting flash hid the face
+of his German victim. A terrific wind, sharp and hard as nails, lifted
+Dorn into roaring blackness....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+"Many Waters" shone white and green under the bright May sunshine. Seen
+from the height of slope, the winding brooks looked like silver bands
+across a vast belt of rainy green and purple that bordered the broad
+river in the bottom-lands. A summer haze filled the air, and hints of
+gold on the waving wheat slopes presaged an early and bountiful harvest.
+
+It was warm up there on the slope where Lenore Anderson watched and
+brooded. The breeze brought fragrant smell of fresh-cut alfalfa and the
+rustling song of the wheat. The stately house gleamed white down on the
+terraced green knoll; horses and cattle grazed in the pasture; workmen
+moved like snails in the brown gardens; a motor-car crept along the road
+far below, with its trail of rising dust.
+
+Two miles of soft green wheat-slope lay between Lenore and her home. She
+had needed the loneliness and silence and memory of a place she had not
+visited for many months. Winter had passed. Summer had come with its
+birds and flowers. The wheat-fields were again waving, beautiful,
+luxuriant. But life was not as it had been for Lenore Anderson.
+
+Kurt Dorn, private, mortally wounded!--So had read the brief and
+terrible line in a Spokane newspaper, publishing an Associated Press
+despatch of Pershing's casualty-list. No more! That had been the only
+news of Kurt Dorn for a long time. A month had dragged by, of doubt, of
+hope, of slow despairing.
+
+Up to the time of that fatal announcement Lenore had scarcely noted the
+fleeting of the days. With all her spirit and energy she had thrown
+herself into the organizing of the women of the valley to work for the
+interests of the war. She had made herself a leader who spared no
+effort, no sacrifice, no expense in what she considered her duty.
+Conservation of food, intensive farm production, knitting for soldiers,
+Liberty Loans and Red Cross--these she had studied and mastered, to the
+end that the women of the great valley had accomplished work which won
+national honor. It had been excitement, joy, and a strange fulfilment
+for her. But after the shock caused by the fatal news about Dorn she had
+lost interest, though she had worked on harder than ever.
+
+Just a night ago her father had gazed at her and then told her to come
+to his office. She did so. And there he said: "You're workin' too hard.
+You've got to quit."
+
+"Oh no, dad. I'm only tired to-night," she had replied. "Let me go on.
+I've planned so--"
+
+"No!" he said, banging his desk. "You'll run yourself down."
+
+"But, father, these are war-times. Could I do less--could I think of--"
+
+"You've done wonders. You've been the life of this work. Some one else
+can carry it on now. You'd kill yourself. An' this war has cost the
+Andersons enough."
+
+"Should we count the cost?" she asked.
+
+Anderson had sworn. "No, we shouldn't. But I'm not goin' to lose my
+girl. Do you get that hunch?... I've bought bonds by the bushel. I've
+given thousands to your relief societies. I gave up my son Jim--an' that
+cost us mother.... I'm raisin' a million bushels of wheat this year that
+the government can have. An' I'm starvin' to death because I don't get
+what I used to eat.... Then this last blow--Dorn!--that fine young
+wheat-man, the best--Aw! Lenore..."
+
+"But, dad, is--isn't there any--any hope?"
+
+Anderson was silent.
+
+"Dad," she had pleaded, "if he were really dead--buried--oh! wouldn't I
+feel it?"
+
+"You've overworked yourself. Now you've got to rest," her father had
+replied, huskily.
+
+"But, dad ..."
+
+"I said no.... I've a heap of pride in what you've done. An' I sure
+think you're the best Anderson of the lot. That's all. Now kiss me an'
+go to bed."
+
+That explained how Lenore came to be alone, high up' on the vast
+wheat-slope, watching and feeling, with no more work to do. The slow
+climb there had proved to her how much she needed rest. But work even
+under strain or pain would have been preferable to endless hours to
+think, to remember, to fight despair.
+
+Mortally wounded! She whispered the tragic phrase. When? Where? How had
+her lover been mortally wounded? That meant death. But no other word had
+come and no spiritual realization of death abided in her soul. It seemed
+impossible for Lenore to accept things as her father and friends did.
+Nevertheless, equally impossible was it not to be influenced by their
+practical minds. Because of her nervousness, of her overstrain, she had
+lost a good deal of her mental poise; and she divined that the only help
+for that was certainty of Dorn's fate. She could bear the shock if only
+she could know positively. And leaning her face in her hands, with the
+warm wind blowing her hair and bringing the rustle of the wheat, she
+prayed for divination.
+
+No answer! Absolutely no mystic consciousness of death--of an end to her
+love here on earth! Instead of that breathed a strong physical presence
+of life all about her, in the swelling, waving slopes of wheat, in the
+beautiful butterflies, in the singing birds low down and the soaring
+eagles high above--life beating and surging in her heart, her veins,
+unquenchable and indomitable. It gave the lie to her morbidness. But it
+seemed only a physical state. How could she find any tangible hold on
+realities?
+
+She lifted her face to the lonely sky, and her hands pressed to her
+breast where the deep ache throbbed heavily.
+
+"It's not that I can't give him up," she whispered, as if impelled to
+speak. "I _can_. I _have_ given him up. It's this torture of suspense.
+Oh, not to _know!_... But if that newspaper had claimed him one of the
+killed, I'd not believe."
+
+So Lenore trusted more to the mystic whisper of her woman's soul than to
+all the unproven outward things. Still trust as she might, the voice of
+the world dinned in her ears, and between the two she was on the rack.
+Loss of Jim--loss of her mother--what unfilled gulfs in her heart! She
+was one who loved only few, but these deeply. To-day when they were gone
+was different from yesterday when they were here--different because
+memory recalled actual words, deeds, kisses of loved ones whose life was
+ended. Utterly futile was it for Lenore to try to think of Dorn in that
+way. She saw his stalwart form down through the summer haze, coming with
+his springy stride through the wheat. Yet--the words--mortally wounded!
+They had burned into her thought so that when she closed her eyes she
+saw them, darkly red, against the blindness of sight. Pain was a
+sluggish stream with source high in her breast, and it moved with her
+unquickened blood. If Dorn were really dead, what would become of her?
+Selfish question for a girl whose lover had died for his country! She
+would work, she would be worthy of him, she would never pine, she would
+live to remember. But, ah! the difference to her! Never for her who had
+so loved the open, the silken rustle of the wheat and the waving
+shadows, the green-and-gold slopes, the birds of the air and the beasts
+of the field, the voice of child and the sweetness of life--never again
+would these be the same to her, if Dorn were gone forever.
+
+That ache in her heart had communicated itself to all her being. It
+filled her mind and her body. Tears stung her eyes, and again they were
+dry when tears would have soothed. Just as any other girl she wept, and
+then she burned with fever. A longing she had only faintly known, a
+physical thing which she had resisted, had become real, insistent,
+beating. Through love and loss she was to be denied a heritage common to
+all women. A weariness dragged at her. Noble spirit was not a natural
+thing. It must be intelligence seeing the higher. But to be human was to
+love life, to hate death, to faint under loss, to throb and pant with
+heavy sighs, to lie sleepless in the long dark night, to shrink with
+unutterable sadness at the wan light of dawn, to follow duty with a
+laggard sense, to feel the slow ebb of vitality and not to care, to
+suffer with a breaking heart.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sunset hour reminded Lenore that she must not linger there on the slope.
+So, following the grass-grown lane between the sections of wheat, she
+wended a reluctant way homeward. Twilight was falling when she reached
+the yard. The cooling air was full of a fragrance of flowers freshly
+watered. Kathleen appeared on the path, evidently waiting for her. The
+girl was growing tall. Lenore remembered with a pang that her full mind
+had left little time for her to be a mother to this sister. Kathleen
+came running, excited and wide-eyed.
+
+"Lenore, I thought you'd never come," she said. "I know something. Only
+dad told me not to tell you."
+
+"Then don't," replied Lenore, with a little start.
+
+"But I'd never keep it," burst out Kathleen, breathlessly. "Dad's going
+to New York."
+
+Lenore's heart contracted. She did not know how she felt. Somehow it was
+momentous news.
+
+"New York! What for?" she asked.
+
+"He says it's about wheat. But he can't fool me. He told me not to
+mention it to you."
+
+The girl was keen. She wanted to prepare Lenore, yet did not mean to
+confide her own suppositions. Lenore checked a rush of curiosity. They
+went into the house. Lenore hurried to change her outing clothes and
+boots and then went down to supper. Rose sat at table, but her father
+had not yet come in. Lenore called him. He answered, and presently came
+tramping into the dining-room, blustering and cheerful. Not for many
+months had Lenore given her father such close scrutiny as she did then.
+He was not natural, and he baffled her. A fleeting, vague hope that she
+had denied lodgment in her mind seemed to have indeed been wild and
+unfounded. But the very fact that her father was for once unfathomable
+made this situation remarkable. All through the meal Lenore trembled,
+and she had to force herself to eat.
+
+"Lenore, I'd like to see you," said her father, at last, as he laid down
+his napkin and rose. Almost he convinced her then that nothing was amiss
+or different, and he would have done so if he had not been too clever,
+too natural. She rose to follow, catching Kathleen's whisper:
+
+"Don't let him put it over on you, now!"
+
+Anderson lighted a big cigar, as always after supper, but to Lenore's
+delicate sensitiveness he seemed to be too long about it.
+
+"Lenore, I'm takin' a run to New York--leave to-night at eight--an' I
+want you to sort of manage while I'm gone. Here's some jobs I want the
+men to do--all noted down here--an' you'll answer letters, 'phone calls,
+an' all that. Not much work, you know, but you'll have to hang around.
+Somethin' important might turn up."
+
+"Yes, dad. I'll be glad to," she replied. "Why--why this sudden trip?"
+
+Anderson turned away a little and ran his hand over the papers on his
+desk. Did she only imagine that his hand shook a little?
+
+"Wheat deals, I reckon--mostly," he said. "An' mebbe I'll run over to
+Washington."
+
+He turned then, puffing at his cigar, and calmly met her direct gaze. If
+there were really more than he claimed in his going, he certainly did
+not intend to tell her. Lenore tried to still her mounting emotion.
+These days she seemed all imagination. Then she turned away her face.
+
+"Will you try to find out if Kurt Dorn died of his wound--and all about
+him?" she asked, steadily, but very low.
+
+"Lenore, I sure will!" he exclaimed, with explosive emphasis. No doubt
+the sincerity of that reply was an immense relief to Anderson. "Once in
+New York, I can pull wires, if need be. I absolutely promise you I'll
+find out--what--all you want to know."
+
+Lenore bade him good-by and went to her room, where calmness deserted
+her for a while. Upon recovering, she found that the time set for her
+father's departure had passed. Strangely, then the oppression that had
+weighed upon her so heavily eased and lifted. The moment seemed one
+beyond her understanding. She attributed her relief, however, to the
+fact that her father would soon end her suspense in regard to Kurt Dorn.
+
+In the succeeding days Lenore regained her old strength and buoyancy,
+and something of a control over the despondency which at times had made
+life misery.
+
+A golden day of sunlight and azure blue of sky ushered in the month of
+June. "Many Waters" was a world of verdant green. Lenore had all she
+could do to keep from flying to the slopes. But as every day now brought
+nearer the possibility of word from her father, she stayed at home. The
+next morning about nine o'clock, while she was at her father's desk, the
+telephone-bell rang. It did that many times every morning, but this ring
+seemed to electrify Lenore. She answered the call hurriedly.
+
+"Hello, Lenore, my girl! How are you?" came rolling on the wire.
+
+"Dad! Dad! Is it--you?" cried Lenore, wildly.
+
+"Sure is. Just got here. Are you an' the girls O.K.?"
+
+"We're well--fine. Oh, dad ..."
+
+"You needn't send the car. I'll hire one."
+
+"Yes--yes--but, dad--Oh, tell me ..."
+
+"Wait! I'll be there in five minutes."
+
+She heard him slam up the receiver, and she leaned there, palpitating,
+with the queer, vacant sounds of the telephone filling her ear.
+
+"Five minutes!" Lenore whispered. In five more minutes she would know.
+They seemed an eternity. Suddenly a flood of emotion and thought
+threatened to overwhelm her. Leaving the office, she hurried forth to
+find her sisters, and not until she had looked everywhere did she
+remember that they were visiting a girl friend. After this her motions
+seemed ceaseless; she could not stand or sit still, and she was
+continually going to the porch to look down the shady lane. At last a
+car appeared, coming fast. Then she ran indoors quite aimlessly and out
+again. But when she recognized her father all her outward fears and
+tremblings vanished. The broad, brown flash of his face was reality. He
+got out of the car lightly for so heavy a man, and, taking his valise,
+he dismissed the chauffeur. His smile was one of gladness, and his
+greeting a hearty roar.
+
+Lenore met him at the porch steps, seeing in him, feeling as she
+embraced him, that he radiated a strange triumph and finality.
+
+"Say, girl, you look somethin' like your old self," he said, holding her
+by the shoulders. "Fine! But you're a woman now.... Where are the kids?"
+
+"They're away," replied Lenore.
+
+"How you stare!" laughed Anderson, as with arm round her he led her in.
+"Anythin' queer about your dad's handsome mug?"
+
+His jocular tone did not hide his deep earnestness. Never had Lenore
+felt him so forceful. His ruggedness seemed to steady her nerves that
+again began to fly. Anderson took her into his office, closed the door,
+threw down his valise.
+
+"Great to be home!" he exploded, with heavy breath.
+
+Lenore felt her face blanch; and that intense quiver within her suddenly
+stilled.
+
+"Tell me--quick!" she whispered.
+
+He faced her with flashing eyes, and all about him changed. "You're an
+Anderson! You can stand shock?"
+
+"Any--any shock but suspense."
+
+"I lied about the wheat deal--about my trip to New York. I got news of
+Dorn. I was afraid to tell you."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Dorn is alive," went on Anderson.
+
+Lenore's hands went out in mute eloquence.
+
+"He was all shot up. He can't live," hurried Anderson, hoarsely. "But
+he's alive--he'll live to see you."
+
+"Oh! I knew, I _knew!_" whispered Lenore clasping her hands. "Oh, thank
+God!"
+
+"Lenore, steady now. You're gettin' shaky. Brace there, my girl!...
+Dorn's alive. I've brought him home. He's here."
+
+"_Here!_" screamed Lenore.
+
+"Yes. They'll have him here in half an hour."
+
+Lenore fell into her father's arms, blind and deaf to all outward
+things. The light of day failed. But her consciousness did not fade.
+Before it seemed a glorious radiance that was the truth lost for the
+moment, blindly groping, in whirling darkness. When she did feel herself
+again it was as a weak, dizzy, palpitating child, unable to stand. Her
+father, in alarm, and probable anger with himself, was coaxing and
+swearing in one breath. Then suddenly the joy that had shocked Lenore
+almost into collapse forced out the weakness with amazing strength. She
+blazed. She radiated. She burst into utterance too swift to understand.
+
+"Hold on there, girl!" interrupted Anderson. "You've got the bit in your
+teeth.... Listen, will you? Let me talk. Well--well, there now.... Sure,
+it's all right, Lenore. You made me break it sudden-like.... Listen.
+There's all summer to talk. Just now you want to get a few details. Get
+'em straight.... Dorn is on the way here. They put his stretcher--we've
+been packin' him on one--into a motor-truck. There's a nurse come with
+me--a man nurse. We'd better put Dorn in mother's room. That's the
+biggest an' airiest. You hurry an' open up the windows an' fix the
+bed.... An' don't go out of your head with joy. It's sure more 'n we
+ever hoped for to see him alive, to get him home. But he's done for,
+poor boy! He can't live.... An' he's in such shape that I don't want you
+to see him when they fetch him in. Savvy, girl! You'll stay in your room
+till we call you. An' now rustle."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lenore paced and crouched and lay in her room, waiting, listening with
+an intensity that hurt. When a slow procession of men, low-voiced and
+soft-footed, carried Kurt Dorn into the house and up-stairs Lenore
+trembled with a storm of emotion. All her former agitation, love, agony,
+and suspense, compared to what she felt then, was as nothing. Not the
+joy of his being alive, not the terror of his expected death, had so
+charged her heart as did this awful curiosity to see him, to realize
+him.
+
+At last a step--a knock--her father's voice: "Lenore--come!"
+
+Her ordeal of waiting was over. All else she could withstand. That
+moment ended her weakness. Her blood leaped with the irresistable,
+revivifying current of her spirit. Unlocking the door, Lenore stepped
+out. Her father stood there with traces of extreme worry fading from his
+tired face. At sight of her they totally vanished.
+
+"Good! You've got nerve. You can see him now alone. He's unconscious.
+But he's not been greatly weakened by the trip. His vitality is
+wonderful. He comes to once in a while. Sometimes he's rational. Mostly,
+though, he's out of his head. An' his left arm is gone."
+
+Anderson said all this rapidly and low while they walked down the hall
+toward the end room which had not been used since Mrs. Anderson's death.
+The door was ajar. Lenore smelled strong, pungent odors of antiseptics.
+
+Anderson knocked softly.
+
+"Come out, you men, an' let my girl see him," he called.
+
+Doctor Lowell, the village practitioner Lenore had known for years,
+tiptoed out, important and excited.
+
+"Lenore, it's to bad," he said, kindly, and he shook his head.
+
+Another man glided out with the movements of a woman. He was not young.
+His aspect was pale, serious.
+
+"Lenore, this is Mr. Jarvis, the nurse.... Now--go in, an' don't forget
+what I said."
+
+She closed the door and leaned back against it, conscious of the supreme
+moment of her life. Dorn's face, strange yet easily recognizable,
+appeared against the white background of the bed. That moment was
+supreme because it showed him there alive, justifying the spiritual
+faith which had persisted in her soul. If she had ever, in moments of
+distraction, doubted God, she could never doubt again.
+
+The large room had been bright, with white curtains softly blowing
+inward from the open windows. As she crept forward, not sure on her
+feet, all seemed to blur, so that when she leaned over the still face to
+kiss it she could not see clearly. Her lips quivered with that kiss and
+with her sob of thankfulness.
+
+"My soldier!"
+
+She prayed then, with her head beside his on the pillow, and through
+that prayer and the strange stillness of her lover she received a subtle
+shock. Sweet it was to touch him as she bent with eyes hidden. Terrible
+it would be to look--to see how the war had wrecked him. She tried to
+linger there, all tremulous, all gratitude, all woman and mother. But an
+incalculable force lifted her up from her knees.
+
+"Ah!" she gasped, as she saw him with cleared sight. A knife-blade was
+at her heart. Kurt Dorn lay before her gaze--a man, and not the boy she
+had sacrificed to war--a man by a larger frame, and by older features,
+and by a change difficult to grasp.
+
+These features seemed a mask, transparent, unable to hide a beautiful,
+sad, stern, and ruthless face beneath, which in turn slowly gave to her
+startled gaze sloping lines of pain and shades of gloom, and the pale,
+set muscles of forced manhood, and the faint hectic flush of fever and
+disorder and derangement. A livid, angry scar, smooth, yet scarcely
+healed, ran from his left temple back as far as she could see. That
+established his identity as a wounded soldier brought home from the war.
+Otherwise to Lenore his face might have been that of an immortal
+suddenly doomed with the curse of humanity, dying in agony. She had
+expected to see Dorn bronzed, haggard, gaunt, starved, bearded and
+rough-skinned, bruised and battered, blinded and mutilated, with gray in
+his fair hair. But she found none of these. Her throbbing heart sickened
+and froze at the nameless history recorded in his face. Was it beyond
+her to understand what had been his bitter experience? Would she never
+suffer his ordeal? Never! That was certain. An insupportable sadness
+pervaded her soul. It was not his life she thought of, but the youth,
+the nobility, the splendor of him that war had destroyed. No intuition,
+no divination, no power so penetrating as a woman's love! By that
+piercing light she saw the transformed man. He knew. He had found out
+all of physical life. His hate had gone with his blood. Deeds--deeds of
+terror had left their imprint upon his brow, in the shadows under his
+eyes, that resembled blank walls potent with invisible meaning. Lenore
+shuddered through all her soul as she read the merciless record of the
+murder he had dealt, of the strong and passionate duty that had driven
+him, of the eternal remorse. But she did not see or feel that he had
+found God; and, stricken as he seemed, she could not believe he was near
+to death.
+
+This last confounding thought held her transfixed and thrilling, gazing
+down at Dorn, until her father entered to break the spell and lead her
+away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+It was night. Lenore should have been asleep, but she sat up in the dark
+by the window. Underneath on the porch, her father, with his men as
+audience, talked like a torrent. And Lenore, hearing what otherwise
+would never have gotten to her ears, found listening irresistible. Slow,
+dragging footsteps and the clinking of spurs attested to the approach of
+cowboys.
+
+"Howdy, boys! Sit down an' be partic'lar quiet. Here's some smokes. I'm
+wound up an' gotta go off or bust," Anderson said, "Well, as I was
+sayin', we folks don't know there's a war, from all outward sign here in
+the Northwest. But in that New York town I just come from--God Almighty!
+what goin's-on! Boys, I never knew before how grand it was to be
+American. New York's got the people, the money, an' it's the outgoin'
+an' incomin' place of all pertainin' to this war. The Liberty Loan drive
+was on. The streets were crowded. Bands an' parades, grand-opera stars
+singin' on the corners, famous actors sellin' bonds, flags an' ribbons
+an' banners everywhere, an' every third man you bumped into wearin' some
+kind of uniform! An' the women were runnin' wild, like a stampede of
+two-year-olds.... I rode down Fifth Avenue on one of them high-topped
+buses with seats on. Talk about your old stage-coach--why, these 'buses
+had 'em beat a mile! I've rode some in my day, but this was the ride of
+my life. I couldn't hear myself think. Music at full blast, roar of
+traffic, voices like whisperin' without end, flash of red an' white an'
+blue, shine of a thousand automobiles down that wonderful street that's
+like a canon! An' up overhead a huge cigar-shaped balloon, an' then an
+airplane sailin' swift an' buzzin' like a bee. Them was the first
+air-ships I ever seen. No wonder--Jim wanted to--"
+
+Anderson's voice broke a little at this juncture and he paused. All was
+still except the murmur of the running water and the song of the
+insects. Presently Anderson cleared his throat and resumed:
+
+    "I saw five hundred Australian soldiers just arrived in New York by
+    way of Panama. Lean, wiry boys like Arizona cowboys. Looked good to
+    me! You ought to have heard the cheerin'. Roar an' roar, everywhere
+    they marched along. I saw United States sailors, marines, soldiers,
+    airmen, English officers, an' Scotch soldiers. Them last sure got my
+    eye. Funny plaid skirts they wore--an' they had bare legs. Three I
+    saw walked lame. An' all had medals. Some one said the Germans
+    called these Scotch 'Ladies from hell.' ... When I heard that I had
+    to ask questions, an' I learned these queer-lookin'
+    half-women-dressed fellows were simply hell with cold steel. An'
+    after I heard that I looked again an' wondered why I hadn't seen it.
+    I ought to know men!... Then I saw the outfit of Blue Devil
+    Frenchmen that was sent over to help stimulate the Liberty Loan. An'
+    when I seen them I took off my hat. I've knowed a heap of tough men
+    an' bad men an' handy men an' fightin' men in my day, but I reckoned
+    I never seen the like of the Blue Devils. I can't tell you why,
+    boys. Blue Devils is another German name for a regiment of French
+    soldiers. They had it on the Scotch-men. Any Western man, just to
+    look at them, would think of Wild Bill an' Billy the Kid an'
+    Geronimo an' Custer, an' see that mebbe the whole four mixed in one
+    might have made a Blue Devil.
+
+    "My young friend Dorn, that's dyin' up-stairs, now--he had a name
+    given him. 'Pears that this war-time is like the old days when we
+    used to hit on right pert names for everybody.... Demon Dorn they
+    called him, an' he got that handle before he ever reached France.
+    The boys of his outfit gave it to him because of the way he run wild
+    with a bayonet. I don't want my girl Lenore ever to know that.
+
+    "A soldier named Owens told me a lot. He was the corporal of Dorn's
+    outfit, a sort of foreman, I reckon. Anyway, he saw Dorn every day
+    of the months they were in the service, an' the shell that done Dorn
+    made a cripple of Owens. This fellow Owens said Dorn had not got so
+    close to his bunk-mates until they reached France. Then he begun to
+    have influence over them. Owens didn't know how he did it--in fact,
+    never knew it at all until the outfit got to the front, somewhere in
+    northern France, in the first line. They were days in the first
+    line, close up to the Germans, watchin' an' sneakin' all the time,
+    shootin' an' dodgin', but they never had but one real fight.
+
+    "That was when one mornin' the Germans came pilin' over on a charge,
+    far outnumberin' our boys. Then it happened. Lord! I wish I could
+    remember how Owens told that scrap! Boys, you never heard about a
+    real scrap. It takes war like this to make men fighters.... Listen,
+    now, an' I'll tell you some of the things that come off durin' this
+    German charge. I'll tell them just as they come to mind. There was a
+    boy named Griggs who ran the German barrage--an' that's a
+    gantlet--seven times to fetch ammunition to his pards. Another boy,
+    on the same errand, was twice blown off the road by explodin'
+    shells, an' then went back. Owens told of two of his company who
+    rushed a bunch of Germans, killed eight of them, an' captured their
+    machine-gun. Before that German charge a big shell came over an'
+    kicked up a hill of mud. Next day the Americans found their sentinel
+    buried in mud, dead at his post, with his bayonet presented.
+
+    "Owens was shot just as he jumped up with his pards to meet the
+    chargin' Germans. He fell an' dragged himself against a wall of
+    bags, where he lay watchin' the fight. An' it so happened that he
+    faced Dorn's squad, which was attacked by three times their number.
+    He saw Dorn shot--go down, an' thought he was done--but no! Dorn
+    came up with one side of his face all blood. Dixon, a college
+    football man, rushed a German who was about to throw a bomb. Dixon
+    got him, an' got the bomb, too, when it went off. Little Rogers, an
+    Irish boy, mixed it with three Germans, an' killed one before he was
+    bayoneted in the back. Then Dorn, like the demon they'd named him,
+    went on the stampede. He had a different way with a bayonet, so
+    Owens claimed. An' Dorn was heavy, powerful, an' fast. He lifted an'
+    slung those two Germans, one after another, quick as that!--like
+    you'd toss a couple of wheat sheafs with your pitchfork, an' he sent
+    them rollin', with blood squirtin' all over. An' then four more
+    Germans were shootin' at him. Right into their teeth Dorn
+    run--laughin' wild an' terrible, Owens said, an' the Germans
+    couldn't stop that flashin' bayonet. Dorn ripped them all open, an'
+    before they'd stopped floppin' he was on the bunch that'd killed
+    Brewer an' were makin' it hard for his other pards.... Whew!--Owens
+    told it all as if it'd took lots of time, but that fight was like
+    lightnin' an' I can't remember how it was. Only Demon Dorn laid out
+    nine Germans before they retreated. _Nine!_ Owens seen him do it,
+    like a mad bull loose. Then the shell came over that put Dorn out,
+    an' Owens, too.
+
+    "Well, Dorn had a mangled arm, an' many wounds. They amputated his
+    arm in France, patched him up, an' sent him back to New York with a
+    lot of other wounded soldiers. They expected him to die long ago.
+    But he hangs on. He's full of lead now. What a hell of a lot of
+    killin' some men take!... My boy Jim would have been like that!
+
+    "So there, boys, you have a little bit of American fightin' come
+    home to you, straight an' true. I say that's what the Germans have
+    roused. Well, it was a bad day for them when they figgered
+    everythin' on paper, had it all cut an' dried, but failed to see the
+    spirit of men!"
+
+Lenore tore herself away from the window so that she could not hear any
+more, and in the darkness of her room she began to pace to and fro,
+beginning to undress for bed, shaking in some kind of a frenzy, scarcely
+knowing what she was about, until sundry knocks from furniture and the
+falling over a chair awakened her to the fact that she was in a tumult.
+
+"What--_am_ I--doing!" she panted, in bewilderment, reaching out in the
+dark to turn on the light.
+
+Like awakening from a nightmare, she saw the bright light flash up. It
+changed her feeling. Who was this person whose image stood reflected in
+the mirror? Lenore's recognition of herself almost stunned her. What had
+happened? She saw that her hair fell wildly over her bare shoulders; her
+face shone white, with red spots in her cheeks; her eyes seemed balls of
+fire; her lips had a passionate, savage curl; her breast, bare and
+heaving, showed a throbbing, tumultuous heart. And as she realized how
+she looked, it struck her that she felt an inexplicable passion. She
+felt intense as steel, hot as fire, quivering with the pulsation of
+rapid blood, a victim to irrepressible thrills that rushed over her from
+the very soles of her feet to the roots of her hair. Something glorious,
+terrible, and furious possessed her. When she understood what it was she
+turned out the light and fell upon the bed, where, as the storm slowly
+subsided, she thought and wondered and sorrowed, and whispered to
+herself.
+
+The tale of Dorn's tragedy had stirred to the depths the primitive,
+hidden, and unplumbed in the unknown nature of her. Just now she had
+looked at herself, at her two selves--the white-skinned and fair-haired
+girl that civilization had produced--and the blazing, panting, savage
+woman of the bygone ages. She could not escape from either. The story of
+Demon Dorn's terrible fight had retrograded her, for the moment, to the
+female of the species, more savage and dangerous than the male. No use
+to lie! She had gloried in his prowess. He was her man, gone out with
+club, to beat down the brutes that would steal her from him.
+
+"Alas! What are we? What am I?" she whispered. "Do I know myself? What
+could I not have done a moment ago?"
+
+She had that primitive thing in her, and, though she shuddered to
+realize it, she had no regret. Life was life. That Dorn had laid low so
+many enemies was grand to her, and righteous, since these enemies were
+as cavemen come for prey. Even now the terrible thrills chased over her.
+Demon Dorn! What a man! She had known just what he would do--and how his
+spiritual life would go under. The woman of her gloried in his fight and
+the soul of her sickened at its significance. No hope for any man or any
+woman except in God!
+
+These men, these boys, like her father and Jake, like Dorn and his
+comrades--how simple, natural, inevitable, elemental they were! They
+loved a fight. They might hate it, too, but they loved it most. Life of
+men was all strife, and the greatness in them came out in war. War
+searched out the best and the worst in men. What were wounds, blood,
+mangled flesh, agony, and death to men--to those who went out for
+liberation of something unproven in themselves? Life was only a breath.
+The secret must lie in the beyond, for men could not act that way for
+nothing. Some hidden purpose through the ages!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Anderson had summoned a great physician, a specialist of world renown.
+Lenore, of course, had not been present when the learned doctor examined
+Kurt Dorn, but she was in her father's study when the report was made.
+To Lenore this little man seemed all intellect, all science, all
+electric current.
+
+He stated that Dorn had upward of twenty-five wounds, some of them
+serious, most trivial, and all of them combined not necessarily fatal.
+Many soldiers with worse wounds had totally recovered. Dorn's vitality
+and strength had been so remarkable that great loss of blood and almost
+complete lack of nourishment had not brought about the present grave
+condition.
+
+"He will die, and that is best for him," said the specialist. "His case
+is not extraordinary. I saw many like it in France during the first year
+of war when I was there. But I will say that he must have been both
+physically and mentally above the average before he went to fight. My
+examination extended through periods of his unconsciousness and
+aberration. Once, for a little time, he came to, apparently sane. The
+nurse said he had noticed several periods of this rationality during the
+last forty-eight hours. But these, and the prolonged vitality, do not
+offer any hope.
+
+"An emotion of exceeding intensity and duration has produced lesions in
+the kinetic organs. Some passion has immeasurably activated his brain,
+destroying brain cells which might not be replaced. If he happened to
+live he might be permanently impaired. He might be neurasthenic,
+melancholic, insane at times, or even grow permanently so.... It is very
+sad. He appears to have been a fine young man. But he will die, and that
+really is best for him."
+
+Thus the man of science summed up the biological case of Kurt Dorn. When
+he had gone Anderson wore the distressed look of one who must abandon
+his last hope. He did not understand, though he was forced to believe.
+He swore characteristically at the luck, and then at the great
+specialist.
+
+"I've known Indian medicine-men who could give that doctor cards an'
+spades," he exploded, with gruff finality.
+
+Lenore understood her father perfectly and imagined she understood the
+celebrated scientist. The former was just human and the latter was
+simply knowledge. Neither had that which caused her to go out alone into
+the dark night and look up beyond the slow-rising slope to the stars.
+These men, particularly the scientist, lacked something. He possessed
+all the wonderful knowledge of body and brain, of the metabolism and
+chemistry of the organs, but he knew nothing of the source of life.
+Lenore accorded science its place in progress, but she hated its
+elimination of the soul. Stronger than ever, strength to endure and to
+trust pervaded her spirit. The dark night encompassing her, the vast,
+lonely heave of wheat-slope, the dim sky with its steady stars--these
+were voices as well as tangible things of the universe, and she was in
+mysterious harmony with them. "Lift thine eyes to the hills from whence
+cometh thy help!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The day following the specialist's visit Dorn surprised the family
+doctor, the nurse, Anderson, and all except Lenore by awakening to a
+spell of consciousness which seemed to lift, for the time at least, the
+shadow of death.
+
+Kathleen was the first to burst in upon Lenore with the wonderful news.
+Lenore could only gasp her intense eagerness and sit trembling, hands
+over her heart, while the child babbled.
+
+"I listened, and I peeped in," was Kathleen's reiterated statement.
+"Kurt was awake. He spoke, too, but very soft. Say, he knows he's at
+'Many Waters.' I heard him say, 'Lenore'.... Oh, I'm so happy,
+Lenore--that before he dies he'll know you--talk to you."
+
+"Hush, child!" whispered Lenore. "Kurt's not going to die."
+
+"But they all say so. That funny little doctor yesterday--he made me
+tired--but he said so. I heard him as dad put him into the car."
+
+"Yes, Kathie, I heard him, too, but I do not believe," replied Lenore,
+dreamily.
+
+"Kurt doesn't look so--so sick," went on Kathleen. "Only--only I don't
+know what--different, I guess. I'm crazy to go in--to see him. Lenore,
+will they ever let me?"
+
+Their father's abrupt entrance interrupted the conversation. He was
+pale, forceful, as when issues were at stake but were undecided.
+
+"Kathie, go out," he said.
+
+Lenore rose to face him.
+
+"My girl--Dorn's come to--an' he's asked for you. I was for lettin' him
+see you. But Lowell an' Jarvis say no--not yet.... Now he might die any
+minute. Seems to me he ought to see you. It's right. An' if you say
+so--"
+
+"Yes," replied Lenore.
+
+"By Heaven! He shall see you, then," said Anderson, breathing hard. "I'm
+justified even--even if it..." He did not finish his significant speech,
+but left her abruptly.
+
+Presently Lenore was summoned. When she left her room she was in the
+throes of uncontrolled agitation, and all down the long hallway she
+fought herself. At the half-open door she paused to lean against the
+wall. There she had the will to still her nerves, to acquire serenity;
+and she prayed for wisdom to make her presence and her words of infinite
+good to Dorn in this crisis.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She was not aware of when she moved--how she ever got to Dorn's bedside.
+But seemingly detached from her real self, serene, with emotions locked,
+she was there looking down upon him.
+
+"Lenore!" he said, with far-off voice that just reached her. Gladness
+shone from his shadowy eyes.
+
+"Welcome home--my soldier boy!" she replied. Then she bent to kiss his
+cheek and to lay hers beside it.
+
+"I never--hoped--to see you--again," he went on.
+
+"Oh, but I knew!" murmured Lenore, lifting her head. His right hand,
+brown, bare, and rough, lay outside the coverlet upon his breast. It was
+weakly reaching for her. Lenore took it in both hers, while she gazed
+steadily down into his eyes. She seemed to see then how he was comparing
+the image he had limned upon his memory with her face.
+
+"Changed--you're older--more beautiful--yet the same," he said. "It
+seems--long ago."
+
+"Yes, long ago. Indeed I am older. But--all's well that ends well. You
+are back."
+
+"Lenore, haven't you--been told--I can't live?"
+
+"Yes, but it's untrue," she replied, and felt that she might have been
+life itself speaking.
+
+"Dear, something's gone--from me. Something vital gone--with the shell
+that--took my arm."
+
+_"No!"_ she smiled down upon him. All the conviction of her soul and
+faith she projected into that single word and serene smile--all that was
+love and woman in her opposing death. A subtle, indefinable change came
+over Dorn.
+
+"Lenore--I paid--for my father," he whispered. "I killed Huns!... I
+spilled the--blood in me--I hated!... But all was wrong--wrong!"
+
+"Yes, but you could not help that," she said, piercingly. "Blame can
+never rest upon you. You were only an--American soldier.... Oh, I know!
+You were magnificent.... But your duty that way is done. A higher duty
+awaits you."
+
+His eyes questioned sadly and wonderingly.
+
+"You must be the great sower of wheat."
+
+"Sower of wheat?" he whispered, and a light quickened in that
+questioning gaze.
+
+"There will be starving millions after this war. Wheat is the staff of
+life. You _must_ get well.... Listen!"
+
+She hesitated, and sank to her knees beside the bed. "Kurt, the day
+you're able to sit up I'll marry you. Then I'll take you home--to your
+wheat-hills."
+
+For a second Lenore saw him transformed with her spirit, her faith, her
+love, and it was that for which she had prayed. She had carried him
+beyond the hopelessness, beyond incredulity. Some guidance had divinely
+prompted her. And when his mute rapture suddenly vanished, when he lost
+consciousness and a pale gloom and shade fell upon his face, she had no
+fear.
+
+In her own room she unleashed the strange bonds on her feelings and
+suffered their recurrent surge and strife, until relief and calmness
+returned to her. Then came a flashing uplift of soul, a great and
+beautiful exaltation. Lenore felt that she had been gifted with
+incalculable power. She had pierced Dorn's fatalistic consciousness with
+the truth and glory of possible life, as opposed to the dark and evil
+morbidity of war. She saw for herself the wonderful and terrible stairs
+of sand which women had been climbing all the ages, and must climb on to
+the heights of solid rock, of equality, of salvation for the human race.
+She saw woman, the primitive, the female of the species, but she saw her
+also as the mother of the species, made to save as well as perpetuate,
+learning from the agony of child-birth and child-care the meaning of Him
+who said, "Thou shalt not kill!" Tremendous would be the final
+resistance of woman to the brutality of man. Women were to be the
+saviors of humanity. It seemed so simple and natural that it could not
+be otherwise. Lenore realized, with a singular conception of the
+splendor of its truth, that when most women had found themselves, their
+mission in life, as she had found hers, then would come an end to
+violence, to greed, to hate, to war, to the black and hideous
+imperfection of mankind.
+
+With all her intellect and passion Lenore opposed the theory of the
+scientist and biologists. If they proved that strife and fight were
+necessary to the development of man, that without violence and bloodshed
+and endless contention the race would deteriorate, then she would say
+that it would be better to deteriorate and to die. Women all would
+declare against that, and in fact would never believe. She would never
+believe with her heart, but if her intellect was forced to recognize
+certain theories, then she must find a way to reconcile life to the
+inscrutable designs of nature. The theory that continual strife was the
+very life of plants, birds, beasts, and men seemed verified by every
+reaction of the present; but if these things were fixed materialistic
+rules of the existence of animated forms upon the earth, what then was
+God, what was the driving force in Kurt Dorn that made war-duty some
+kind of murder which overthrew his mind, what was the love in her heart
+of all living things, and the nameless sublime faith in her soul?
+
+"If we poor creatures _must_ fight," said Lenore, and she meant this for
+a prayer, "let the women fight eternally against violence, and let the
+men forever fight their destructive instincts!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From that hour the condition of Kurt Dorn changed for the better. Doctor
+Lowell admitted that Lenore had been the one medicine which might defeat
+the death that all except she had believed inevitable.
+
+Lenore was permitted to see him a few minutes every day, for which
+fleeting interval she must endure the endless hours. But she discovered
+that only when he was rational and free from pain would they let her go
+in. What Dorn's condition was all the rest of the time she could not
+guess. But she began to get inklings that it was very bad.
+
+"Dad, I'm going to insist on staying with Kurt as--as long as I want,"
+asserted Lenore, when she had made up her mind.
+
+This worried Anderson, and he appeared at a loss for words.
+
+"I told Kurt I'd marry him the very day he could sit up," continued
+Lenore.
+
+"By George! that accounts," exclaimed her father. "He's been tryin' to
+sit up, an' we've had hell with him."
+
+"Dad, he will get well. And all the sooner if I can be with him more. He
+loves me. I feel I'm the only thing that counteracts--the--the madness
+in his mind--the death in his soul."
+
+Anderson made one of his violent gestures. "I believe you. That hits me
+with a bang. It takes a woman!... Lenore, what's your idea?"
+
+"I want to--to marry him," murmured Lenore. "To nurse him--to take him
+home to his wheat-fields."
+
+"You shall have your way," replied Anderson, beginning to pace the
+floor. "It can't do any harm. It might save him. An' anyway, you'll be
+his wife--if only for ... By George! we'll do it. You never gave me a
+wrong hunch in your life ... but, girl, it'll be hard for you to see him
+when--when he has the spells."
+
+"Spells!" echoed Lenore.
+
+"Yes. You've been told that he raves. But you didn't know how. Why, it
+gets even my nerve! It fascinated me, but once was enough. I couldn't
+stand to see his face when his Huns come back to him."
+
+"His Huns!" ejaculated Lenore, shuddering. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Those Huns he killed come back to him. He fights them. You see him go
+through strange motions, an' it's as if his left arm wasn't gone. He
+used his right arm--an' the motions he makes are the ones he made when
+he killed the Huns with his bayonet. It's terrible to watch him--the
+look on his face!.... I heard at the hospital in New York that in France
+they photographed him when he had one of the spells.... I'd hate to have
+you see him then. But maybe after Doctor Lowell explains it, you'll
+understand."
+
+"Poor boy! How terrible for him to live it all over! But when he gets
+well--when he has his wheat-hills and me to fill his mind--those spells
+will fade."
+
+"Maybe--maybe. I hope so. Lord knows it's all beyond me. But you're
+goin' to have your way."
+
+Doctor Lowell explained to Lenore that Dorn, like all mentally deranged
+soldiers, dreamed when he was asleep, and raved when he was out of his
+mind, of only one thing--the foe. In his nightmares Dorn had to be held
+forcibly. The doctor said that the remarkable and hopeful indication
+about Dorn's condition was a gradual daily gain in strength and a
+decline in the duration and violence of his bad spells.
+
+This assurance made Lenore happy. She began to relieve the worn-out
+nurse during the day, and she prepared herself for the first ordeal of
+actual experience of Dorn's peculiar madness. But Dorn watched her many
+hours and would not or could not sleep while she was there; and the
+tenth day of his stay at "Many Waters" passed without her seeing what
+she dreaded. Meanwhile he grew perceptibly better.
+
+The afternoon came when Anderson brought a minister. Then a few moments
+sufficed to make Lenore Dorn's wife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+The remarkable happened. Scarcely had the minister left when Kurt Dorn's
+smiling wonder and happiness sustained a break, as sharp and cold and
+terrible as if nature had transformed him from man to beast.
+
+His face became like that of a gorilla. Struggling up, he swept his
+right arm over and outward with singular twisting energy. A
+bayonet-thrust! And for him his left arm was still intact! A savage,
+unintelligible battle-cry, yet unmistakably German, escaped his lips.
+
+Lenore stood one instant petrified. Her father, grinding his teeth,
+attempted to lead her away. But as Dorn was about to pitch off the bed,
+Lenore, with piercing cry, ran to catch him and force him back. There
+she held him, subdued his struggles, and kept calling with that
+intensity of power and spirit which must have penetrated even his
+delirium. Whatever influence she exerted, it quieted him, changed his
+savage face, until he relaxed and lay back passive and pale. It was
+possible to tell exactly when his reason returned, for it showed in the
+gaze he fixed upon Lenore.
+
+"I had--one--of my fits!" he said, huskily.
+
+"Oh--I don't know what it was," replied Lenore, with quavering voice.
+Her strength began to leave her now. Her arms that had held him so
+firmly began to slip away.
+
+"Son, you had a bad spell," interposed Anderson, with his heavy
+breathing. "First one she's seen."
+
+"Lenore, I laid out my Huns again," said Dorn, with a tragic smile.
+"Lately I could tell when--they were coming back."
+
+"Did you know just now?" queried Lenore.
+
+"I think so. I wasn't really out of my head. I've known when I did that.
+It's a strange feeling--thought--memory ... and action drives it away.
+Then I seem always to _want_ to--kill my Huns all over again."
+
+Lenore gazed at him with mournful and passionate tenderness. "Do you
+remember that we were just married?" she asked.
+
+"My wife!" he whispered.
+
+"Husband!... I knew you were coming home to me.... I knew you would not
+die.... I know you will get well."
+
+"I begin to feel that, too. Then--maybe the black spells will go away."
+
+"They must or--or you'll lose me," faltered Lenore. "If you go on
+killing your Huns over and over--it'll be I who will die."
+
+She carried with her to her room a haunting sense of Dorn's reception of
+her last speech. Some tremendous impression it made on him, but whether
+of fear of domination or resolve, or all combined, she could not tell.
+She had weakened in mention of the return of his phantoms. But neither
+Dorn nor her father ever guessed that, once in her room, she collapsed
+from sheer feminine horror at the prospect of seeing Dorn change from a
+man to a gorilla, and to repeat the savage orgy of remurdering his Huns.
+That was too much for Lenore. She who had been invincible in faith, who
+could stand any tests of endurance and pain, was not proof against a
+spectacle of Dorn's strange counterfeit presentment of the actual and
+terrible killing he had performed with a bayonet.
+
+For days after that she was under a strain which she realized would
+break her if it was not relieved. It appeared to be solely her fear of
+Dorn's derangement. She was with him almost all the daylight hours,
+attending him, watching him sleep, talking a little to him now and then,
+seeing with joy his gradual improvement, feeling each day the slow
+lifting of the shadow over him, and yet every minute of every hour she
+waited in dread for the return of Dorn's madness. It did not come. If it
+recurred at night she never was told. Then after a week a more
+pronounced change for the better in Dorn's condition marked a lessening
+of the strain upon Lenore. A little later it was deemed safe to dismiss
+the nurse. Lenore dreaded the first night vigil. She lay upon a couch in
+Dorn's room and never closed her eyes. But he slept, and his slumber
+appeared sound at times, and then restless, given over to dreams. He
+talked incoherently, and moaned; and once appeared to be drifting into a
+nightmare, when Lenore awakened him. Next day he sat up and said he was
+hungry. Thereafter Lenore began to lose her dread.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, son, let's talk wheat," said Anderson, cheerily, one beautiful
+June morning, as he entered Dorn's room.
+
+"Wheat!" sighed Dorn, with a pathetic glance at his empty sleeve. "How
+can I even do a man's work again in the fields?"
+
+Lenore smiled bravely at him. "You will sow more wheat than ever, and
+harvest more, too."
+
+"I should smile," corroborated Anderson.
+
+"But how? I've only one arm," said Dorn.
+
+"Kurt, you hug me better with that one arm than you ever did with two
+arms." replied Lenore, in sublime assurance.
+
+"Son, you lose that argument," roared Anderson. "Me an' Lenore stand
+pat. You'll sow more an' better wheat than ever--than any other man in
+the Northwest. Get my hunch?... Well, I'll tell you later.... Now see
+here, let me declare myself about you. I seen it worries you more an'
+more, now you're gettin' well. You miss that good arm, an' you feel the
+pain of bullets that still lodge somewhere's in you, an' you think
+you'll be a cripple always. Look things in the face square. Sure,
+compared to what you once was, you'll be a cripple. But Kurt Dorn
+weighin' one hundred an' ninety let loose on a bunch of Huns was some
+man! My Gawd!... Forget that, an' forget that you'll never chop a cord
+of wood again in a day. Look at facts like me an' Lenore. We gave you
+up. An' here you're with us, comin' along fine, an' you'll be able to do
+hard work some day, if you're crazy about it. Just think how good that
+is for Lenore, an' me, too.... Now listen to this." Anderson unfolded a
+newspaper and began to read:
+
+    "Continued improvement, with favorable weather conditions, in the
+    winter-wheat states and encouraging messages from the Northwest
+    warrant an increase of crop estimates made two weeks ago and based
+    mainly upon the government's report. In all probability the yield
+    from winter fields will slightly exceed 600,000,000 bushels.
+    Increase of acreage in the spring states in unexpectedly large. For
+    example, Minnesota's Food Administrator says the addition in his
+    state is 40 per cent, instead of the early estimate of 20 per cent.
+    Throughout the spring area the plants have a good start and are in
+    excellent condition. It may be that the yield will rise to
+    300,000,000 bushels, making a total of about 900,000,000. From such
+    a crop 280,000,000 could be exported in normal times, and by
+    conservation the surplus can easily be enlarged to 350,000,000 or
+    even 400,000,000. In Canada also estimates of acreage increase have
+    been too low. It was said that the addition in Alberta was 20 per
+    cent., but recent reports make it 40 per cent. Canada may harvest a
+    crop of 300,000,000 bushels, or nearly 70,000,000 more than last
+    year's. Our allies in Europe can safely rely upon the shipment of
+    500,000,000 bushels from the United States and Canada.
+
+    "After the coming harvest there will be an ample supply of wheat for
+    the foes of Germany at ports which can easily be reached. In
+    addition, the large surplus stocks in Australia and Argentina will
+    be available when ships can be spared for such service. And the
+    ships are coming from the builders. For more than a year to come
+    there will be wheat enough for our war partners, the Belgians, and
+    the northern European neutral countries with which we have trade
+    agreements."
+
+Lenore eagerly watched her husband's face in pleasurable anticipation,
+yet with some anxiety. Wheat had been a subject little touched upon and
+the war had never been mentioned.
+
+"Great!" he exclaimed, with a glow in his cheeks. "I've been wanting to
+ask.... Wheat for the Allies and neutrals--for more than a year!...
+Anderson, the United States will feed and save the world!"
+
+"I reckon. Son, we're sendin' thousands of soldiers a day now--ships are
+buildin' fast--aeroplanes comin' like a swarm of bees--money for the
+government to burn--an' every American gettin' mad.... Dorn, the Germans
+don't know they're ruined!... What do you say?"
+
+Dorn looked very strange. "Lenore, help me stand up," he asked, with
+strong tremor in his voice.
+
+"Oh, Kurt, you're not able yet," appealed Lenore.
+
+"Help me. I want _you_ to do it."
+
+Lenore complied, wondering and frightened, yet fascinated, too. She
+helped him off the bed and steadied him on his feet. Then she felt him
+release himself so he stood free.
+
+"What do I say? Anderson I say this. I killed Germans who had grown up
+with a training and a passion for war. I've been a farmer. I did not
+want to fight. Duty and hate forced me. The Germans I met fell before
+me. I was shell-shot, shocked, gassed, and bayoneted. I took twenty-five
+wounds, and then it was a shell that downed me. I saw my comrades kill
+and kill before they fell. That is American. Our enemies are driven,
+blinded, stolid, brutal, obsessed, and desperate. They are German. They
+lack--not strength nor efficiency nor courage--but soul."
+
+White and spent, Dorn then leaned upon Lenore and got back upon his bed.
+His passion had thrilled her. Anderson responded with an excitement he
+plainly endeavored to conceal.
+
+"I get your hunch," he said. "If I needed any assurance, you've given it
+to me. To hell with the Germans! Let's don't talk about them any
+more.... An' to come back to our job. Wheat! Son, I've plans that 'll
+raise your hair. We'll harvest a bumper crop at 'Many Waters' in July.
+An' we'll sow two thousand acres of winter wheat. So much for 'Many
+Waters.'--I got mad this summer. I blowed myself. I bought about all the
+farms around yours up in the Bend country. Big harvest of spring wheat
+comin'. You'll superintend that harvest, an' I'll look after ours
+here.... An' you'll sow ten thousand acres of fallow on your own rich
+hills--this fall. Do you get that? Ten thousand acres?"
+
+"Anderson!" gasped Dorn.
+
+"Yes, Anderson," mimicked the rancher. "My blood's up. But I'd never
+have felt so good about it if you hadn't come back. The land's not all
+paid for, but it's ours. We'll meet our notes. I've been up there twice
+this spring. You'd never know a few hills had burned over last harvest.
+Olsen, an' your other neighbors, or most of them, will work the land on
+half-shares. You'll be boss. An' sure you'll be well for fall sowin'.
+That'll make you the biggest sower of wheat in the Northwest."
+
+"My sower of wheat!" murmured Lenore, seeing his rapt face through
+tears.
+
+"Dreams are coming true," he said, softly. "Lenore, just after I saw you
+the second time--and fell so in love with you--I had vain dreams of you.
+But even my wildest never pictured you as the wife of a wheat farmer. I
+never dreamed you loved wheat."
+
+"But, ah, I do!" replied Lenore. "Why, when I was born dad bought 'Many
+Waters' and sowed the slopes in wheat. I remember how he used to take me
+up to the fields all green or golden. I've grown up with wheat. I'd
+never want to live anywhere away from it. Oh, you must listen to me some
+day while I tell you what _I_ know--about the history and romance of
+wheat."
+
+"Begin," said Dorn, with a light of pride and love and wonder in his
+gaze.
+
+"Leave that for some other time," interposed Anderson. "Son, would it
+surprise you if I'd tell you that I've switched a little in my ideas
+about the I.W.W.?"
+
+"No," replied Dorn.
+
+"Well, things happen. What made me think hard was the way that
+government man got results from the I.W.W. in the lumber country. You
+see, the government had to have an immense amount of timber for ships,
+an' spruce for aeroplanes. Had to have it quick. An' all the lumbermen
+an' loggers were I.W.W.--or most of them. Anyhow, all the strikin'
+lumbermen last summer belonged to the I.W.W. These fellows believed that
+under the capitalistic order of labor the workers an' their employers
+had nothin' in common, an' the government was hand an' glove with
+capital. Now this government official went up there an' convinced the
+I.W.W. that the best interest of the two were identical. An' he got the
+work out of them, an' the government got the lumber. He dealt with them
+fairly. Those who were on the level he paid high an' considered their
+wants. Those who were crooked he punished accordin' to their offense.
+An' the innocent didn't have to suffer with the guilty.
+
+"That deal showed me how many of the I.W.W. could be handled. An' we've
+got to reckon with the I.W.W. Most all the farm-hands in the country
+belong to it. This summer I'll give the square harvesters what they
+want, an' that's a big come-down for me. But I won't stand any
+monkey-bizness from sore-headed disorganizers. If men want to work they
+shall have work at big pay. You will follow out this plan up in the Bend
+country. We'll meet this labor union half-way. After the war there may
+come trouble between labor an capital. It begins to seem plain to me
+that men who work hard ought to share somethin' of the profits. If that
+doesn't settle the trouble, then we'll know we're up against an outfit
+with socialist an' anarchist leaders. Time enough then to resort to
+measures I regret we practised last summer."
+
+"Anderson, you're fine--you're as big as the hills!" burst out Dorn.
+"But you know there was bad blood here last summer. Did you ever get
+proof that German money backed the I.W.W. to strike and embarrass our
+government?"
+
+"No. But I believe so, or else the I.W.W. leaders took advantage of a
+critical time. I'm bound to say that now thousands of I.W.W. laborers
+are loyal to the United States, and that made me switch."
+
+"I'll deal with them the same way," responded Dorn, with fervor.
+
+Then Lenore interrupted their discussion, and, pleading that Dorn was
+quite worn out from excitement and exertion, she got her father to leave
+the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following several days Lenore devoted to the happy and busy task of
+packing what she wanted to take to Dorn's home. She had set the date,
+but had reserved the pleasure of telling him. Anderson had agreed to her
+plan and decided to accompany them.
+
+"I'll take the girls," he said. "It'll be a fine ride for them. We'll
+stay in the village overnight an' come back home next day.... Lenore, it
+strikes me sudden-like, your leavin'.... What will become of me?"
+
+All at once he showed the ravages of pain and loss that the last year
+had added to his life of struggle. Lenore embraced him and felt her
+heart full.
+
+"Dad, I'm not leaving you," she protested. "He'll get well up
+there--find his balance sooner among those desert wheat-hills. We will
+divide our time between the two places. Remember, you can run up there
+any day. Your interests are there now. Dad, don't think of it as
+separation. Kurt has come into our family--and we're just going to be
+away some of the time."
+
+Thus she won back a smile to the worn face.
+
+"We've all got a weak spot," he said, musingly. "Mine is here--an' it's
+a fear of growin' old an' bein' left alone. That's selfish. But I've
+lived, an' I reckon I've no more to ask for."
+
+Lenore could not help being sad in the midst of her increasing
+happiness. Joy to some brought to others only gloom! Life was sunshine
+and storm--youth and age.
+
+This morning she found Kathleen entertaining Dorn. This was the second
+time the child had been permitted to see him, and the immense novelty
+had not yet worn off. Kathleen was a hero-worshiper. If she had been
+devoted to Dorn before his absence, she now manifested symptoms of
+complete idolatry. Lenore had forbidden her to question Dorn about
+anything in regard to the war. Kathleen never broke her promises, but it
+was plain that Dorn had read the mute, anguished wonder and flame in her
+eyes when they rested upon his empty sleeve, and evidently had told her
+things. Kathleen was white, wide-eyed, and beautiful then, with all a
+child's imagination stirred.
+
+"I've been telling Kathie how I lost my arm," explained Dorn.
+
+"I hate Germans! I hate war!" cried Kathleen, passionately.
+
+"My dear, hate them always," said Dorn.
+
+When Kathleen had gone Lenore asked Dorn if he thought it was right to
+tell the child always to hate Germans.
+
+"Right!" exclaimed Dorn, with a queer laugh. Every day now he showed
+signs of stronger personality. "Lenore, what I went through has confused
+my sense of right and wrong. Some day perhaps it will all come clear.
+But, Lenore, all my life, if I live to be ninety, I shall hate Germans."
+
+"Oh, Kurt, it's too soon for you to--to be less narrow, less
+passionate," replied Lenore, with hesitation. "I understand. The day
+will come when you'll not condemn a people because of a form of
+government--of military class."
+
+"It will never come," asserted Dorn, positively. "Lenore, people in our
+country do not understand. They are too far away from realities. But I
+was six months in France. I've seen the ruined villages, thousands of
+refugees--and I've met the Huns at the front. I _know_ I've seen the
+realities. In regard to this war I can only feel. You've got to go over
+there and see for yourself before you realize. You _can_ understand
+this--that but for you and your power over me I'd be a worn-out,
+emotionally _burnt_ out man. But through you I seem to be reborn. Still,
+I shall hate Germans all my life, and in the after-life, what ever that
+may be. I could give you a thousand reasons. One ought to suffice.
+You've read, of course, about the regiment of Frenchmen called Blue
+Devils. I met some of them--got friendly with them. They are
+great--beyond words to tell! One of them told me that when his regiment
+drove the Huns out of his own village he had found his mother
+disemboweled, his wife violated and murdered, his sister left a maimed
+thing to become the mother of a Hun, his daughter carried off, and his
+little son crippled for life! ... These are cold facts. As long as I
+live I will never forget the face of that Frenchman when he told me. Had
+he cause to hate the Huns? Have I?... I saw all that in the faces of
+those Huns who would have killed me if they could."
+
+Lenore covered her face with her hands. "Oh--horrible! ... Is there
+nothing--no hope--only...?" She faltered and broke down.
+
+"Lenore, because there's hate does not prove there's nothing left....
+Listen. The last fight I had was with a boy. I didn't know it when we
+met. I was rushing, head down, bayonet low. I saw only his body, his
+blade that clashed with mine. To me his weapon felt like a toy in the
+hands of a child. I swept it aside--and lunged. He screamed '_Kamarad_!'
+before the blade reached him. Too late! I ran him through. Then I
+looked. A boy of nineteen! He never ought to have been forced to meet
+me. It was murder. I saw him die on my bayonet. I saw him slide off it
+and stretch out.... I did not hate _him_ then. I'd have given my life
+for his. I hated what he represented.... That moment was the end of me
+as a soldier. If I had not been in range of the exploding shell that
+downed me I would have dropped my rifle and have stood strengthless
+before the next Hun.... So you see, though I killed them, and though I
+hate now, there's something--something strange and inexplicable."
+
+"That something is the divine in you. It is God!... Oh, believe it, my
+husband!" cried Lenore.
+
+Dorn somberly shook his head. "God! I did not find God out there. I
+cannot see God's hand in this infernal war."
+
+"But _I_ can. What called you so resistlessly? What made you go?"
+
+"You know. The debt I thought I ought to pay. And duty to my country."
+
+"Then when the debt was paid, the duty fulfilled--when you stood
+stricken at sight of that poor boy dying on your bayonet--what happened
+in your soul?"
+
+"I don't know. But I saw the wrong of war. The wrong to him--the wrong
+to me! I thought of no one else. Certainly not of God!"
+
+"If you had stayed your bayonet--if you had spared that boy, as you
+would have done had you seen or heard him in time--what would that have
+been?"
+
+"Pity, maybe, or scorn to slay a weaker foe."
+
+"No, no, no--I can't accept that," replied Lenore, passionately. "Can
+you see beyond the physical?"
+
+"I see only that men will fight and that war will come again. Out there
+I learned the nature of men."
+
+"If there's divinity in you there's divinity in every man. That will
+oppose war--end it eventually. Men are not taught right. Education and
+religion will bring peace on earth, good-will to man."
+
+"No, they will not. They never have done so. We have educated men and
+religious men. Yet war comes despite them. The truth is that life is a
+fight. Civilization is only skin-deep. Underneath man is still a savage.
+He is a savage still because he wants the same he had to have when he
+lived in primitive state. War isn't necessary to show how every man
+fights for food, clothing, shelter. To-day it's called competition in
+business. Look at your father. He has fought and beaten men like Neuman.
+Look at the wheat farmers in my country. Look at the I.W.W. They all
+fight. Look at the children. They fight even at their games. Their play
+is a make-believe battle or escaping or funeral or capture. It must be
+then that some kind of strife was implanted in the first humans and that
+it is necessary to life."
+
+"Survival of the fittest!" exclaimed Lenore, in earnest bitterness.
+"Kurt, we have changed. You are facing realities and I am facing the
+infinite. You represent the physical, and I the spiritual. We must grow
+into harmony with each other. We can't ever hope to learn the
+unattainable truth of life. There is something beyond us--something
+infinite which I believe is God. My soul finds it in you.... The first
+effects of the war upon you have been trouble, sacrifice, pain, and
+horror. You have come out of it impaired physically and with mind still
+clouded. These will pass, and therefore I beg of you don't grow fixed in
+absolute acceptance of the facts of evolution and materialism. They
+cannot be denied, I grant. I see that they are realities. But also I see
+beyond them. There is some great purpose running through the ages. In
+our day the Germans have risen, and in the eyes of most of the world
+their brutal force tends to halt civilization and kill idealism. But
+that's only apparent--only temporary. We shall come out of this dark
+time better, finer, wiser. The history of the world is a proof of a slow
+growth and perfection. It will never be attained. But is not the growth
+a beautiful and divine thing? Does it now oppose a hopeless prospect?...
+Life is inscrutable. When I think--only think without faith--all seems
+so futile. The poet says we are here as on a darkling plain, swept by
+confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by
+night.... Trust me, my husband! There is something in woman--the
+instinct of creation--the mother--that feels what cannot be expressed.
+It is the hope of the world."
+
+"The mother!" burst out Dorn. "I think of that--in you.... Suppose I
+have a son, and war comes in his day. Suppose he is killed, as I killed
+that poor boy!... How, then, could I reconcile that with this, this
+something you feel so beautifully? This strange sense of God! This faith
+in a great purpose of the ages!"
+
+Lenore trembled in the exquisite pain of the faith which she prayed was
+beginning to illumine Dorn's dark and tragic soul.
+
+"If we are blessed with a son--and if he must go to war--to kill and be
+killed--you will reconcile that with God because our son shall have been
+taught what you should have been taught--what must be taught to all the
+sons of the future."
+
+"What will--that be?" queried Dorn.
+
+"The meaning of life--the truth of immortality," replied Lenore. "We
+live on--we improve. That is enough for faith."
+
+"How will that prevent war?"
+
+"It will prevent it--in the years to come. Mothers will take good care
+that children from babyhood shall learn the _consequences_ of fight--of
+war. Boys will learn that if the meaning of war to them is the wonder of
+charge and thunder of cannon and medals of distinction, to their mothers
+the meaning is loss and agony. They will learn the terrible difference
+between your fury and eagerness to lunge with bayonet and your horror of
+achievement when the disemboweled victims lie before you. The glory of a
+statue to the great general means countless and nameless graves of
+forgotten soldiers. The joy of the conquering army contrasts terribly
+with the pain and poverty and unquenchable hate of the conquered."
+
+"I see what you mean," rejoined Dorn. "Such teaching of children would
+change the men of the future. It would mean peace for the generations to
+come. But as for my boy--it would make him a poor soldier. He would not
+be a fighter. He would fall easy victim to the son of the father who had
+not taught this beautiful meaning of life and terror of war. I'd want my
+son to be a man."
+
+"That teaching--would make him--all the more a man," said Lenore,
+beginning to feel faint.
+
+"But not in the sense of muscle, strength, courage, endurance. I'd
+rather there never was peace than have my son inferior to another
+man's."
+
+"My hope for the future is that _all_ men will come to teach their sons
+the wrong of violence."
+
+"Lenore, never will that day come," replied Dorn.
+
+She saw in him the inevitableness of the masculine attitude; the
+difference between man and woman; the preponderance of blood and energy
+over the higher motives. She felt a weak little woman arrayed against
+the whole of mankind. But she could not despair. Unquenchable as the sun
+was this fire within her.
+
+"But it _might_ come?" she insisted, gently, but with inflexible spirit.
+
+"Yes, it might--if men change!"
+
+"You have changed."
+
+"Yes. I don't know myself."
+
+"If we do have a boy, will you let me teach him what I think is right?"
+Lenore went on, softly.
+
+"Lenore! As if I would not!" he exclaimed. "I try to see your way, but
+just because I can't I'll never oppose you. Teach _me_ if you can!"
+
+She kissed him and knelt beside his bed, grieved to see shadow return to
+his face, yet thrilling that the way seemed open for her to inspire. But
+she must never again choose to talk of war, of materialism, of anything
+calculated to make him look into darkness of his soul, to ponder over
+the impairment of his mind. She remembered the great specialist speaking
+of lesions of the organic system, of a loss of brain cells. Her
+inspiration must be love, charm, care--a healing and building process.
+She would give herself in all the unutterableness and immeasurableness
+of her woman's heart. She would order her life so that it would be a
+fulfilment of his education, of a heritage from his fathers, a passion
+born in him, a noble work through which surely he could be saved--the
+cultivation of wheat.
+
+"Do you love me?" she whispered.
+
+"Do I!... Nothing could ever change my love for you."
+
+"I am your wife, you know."
+
+The shadow left his face.
+
+"Are you? Really? Lenore Anderson..."
+
+"Lenore Dorn. It is a beautiful name now."
+
+"It does sound sweet. But you--my wife? Never will I believe!"
+
+"You will have to--very soon."
+
+"Why?" A light, warm and glad and marveling, shone in his eyes. Indeed,
+Lenore felt then a break in the strange aloofness of him--in his
+impersonal, gentle acceptance of her relation to him.
+
+"To-morrow I'm going to take you home to your wheat-hills."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+Lenore told her conception of the history and the romance of wheat to
+Dorn at this critical time when it was necessary to give a trenchant
+call to hope and future.
+
+In the beginning man's struggle was for life and the mainstay of life
+was food. Perhaps the original discoverer of wheat was a meat-eating
+savage who, in roaming the forests and fields, forced by starvation to
+eat bark and plant and berry, came upon a stalk of grain that chewed
+with strange satisfaction. Perhaps through that accident he became a
+sower of wheat.
+
+Who actually were the first sowers of wheat would never be known. They
+were older than any history, and must have been among the earliest of
+the human race.
+
+The development of grain produced wheat, and wheat was ground into
+flour, and flour was baked into bread, and bread had for untold
+centuries been the sustenance and the staff of life.
+
+Centuries ago an old Chaldean priest tried to ascertain if wheat had
+ever grown wild. That question never was settled. It was universally
+believed, however, that wheat had to have the cultivation of man.
+Nevertheless, the origin of the plant must have been analogous to that
+of other plants. Wheat-growers must necessarily have been people who
+stayed long in one place. Wandering tribes could not till and sow the
+fields. The origin of wheat furnished a legendary theme for many races,
+and mythology contained tales of wheat-gods favoring chosen peoples.
+Ancient China raised wheat twenty-seven centuries before Christ; grains
+of wheat had been found in prehistoric ruins; the dwellers along the
+Nile were not blind to the fertility of the valley. In the days of the
+Pharaohs the old river annually inundated its low banks, enriching the
+soil of vast areas, where soon a green-and-gold ocean of wheat waved and
+shone under the hot Egyptian sun. The Arabs, on their weird beasts of
+burden, rode from the desert wastes down to the land of waters and of
+plenty. Rebekah, when she came to fill her earthen pitcher at the
+palm-shaded well, looked out with dusky, dreamy eyes across the golden
+grain toward the mysterious east. Moses, when he stood in the night,
+watching his flock on the starlit Arabian waste, felt borne to him on
+the desert wind a scent of wheat. The Bible said, "He maketh peace in
+thy borders and filleth thee with the finest of the wheat."
+
+Black-bread days of the Middle Ages, when crude grinding made impure
+flour, were the days of the oppressed peasant and the rich landowner,
+dark days of toil and poverty and war, of blight and drought and famine;
+when common man in his wretchedness and hunger cried out, "Bread or
+blood!"
+
+But with the spreading of wheat came the dawn of a higher civilization;
+and the story of wheat down to modern times showed the development of
+man. Wheat-fields of many lands, surrounding homes of prosperous
+farmers; fruitful toil of happy peoples; the miller and his humming
+mill!
+
+When wheat crossed the ocean to America it came to strange and wonderful
+fulfilment of its destiny. America, fresh, vast, and free, with its
+sturdy pioneers ever spreading the golden grain westward; with the
+advancing years when railroad lines kept pace with the indomitable
+wheat-sowers; with unprecedented harvests yielding records to each
+succeeding year; with boundless fields tilled and planted and harvested
+by machines that were mechanical wonders; with enormous flour-mills,
+humming and whirring, each grinding daily ten thousand barrels of flour,
+pouring like a white stream from the steel rolls, pure, clean, and
+sweet, the whitest and finest in the world!
+
+America, the new county, became in 1918 the salvation of starving
+Belgium, the mainstay of England, the hope of France! Wheat for the
+world! Wheat--that was to say food, strength, fighting life for the
+armies opposed to the black, hideous, medieval horde of Huns! America to
+succor and to save, to sacrifice and to sow, rising out of its peaceful
+slumber to a mighty wrath, magnificent and unquenchable, throwing its
+vast resources of soil, its endless streams of wheat, into the gulf of
+war! It was an exalted destiny for a people. Its truth was a blazing
+affront in the face of age-old autocracy. Fields and toil and grains of
+wheat, first and last, the salvation of mankind, the freedom and the
+food of the world!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Far up the slow-rising bulge of valley slope above the gleaming river
+two cars climbed leisurely and rolled on over the height into what
+seemed a bare and lonely land of green.
+
+It was a day in June, filled with a rich, thick, amber light, with a
+fragrant warm wind blowing out of the west.
+
+At a certain point on this road, where Anderson always felt compelled to
+halt, he stopped the car this day and awaited the other that contained
+Lenore and Dorn.
+
+Lenore's joy in the ride was reflected in her face. Dorn rested
+comfortably beside her, upon an improvised couch. As he lay half propped
+up by pillows he could see out across the treeless land that he knew.
+His eyes held a look of the returned soldier who had never expected to
+see his native land again. Lenore, sensitive to every phase of his
+feeling, watched him with her heart mounting high.
+
+Anderson got out of his car, followed by Kathleen, who looked glad and
+mischievous and pretty as a wild rose.
+
+"I just never can get by this place," explained the rancher, as he came
+and stood so that he could put a hand on Dorn's knee. "Look, son--an'
+Lenore, don't you miss this."
+
+"Never fear, dad," replied Lenore, "it was I who first told you to look
+here."
+
+"Terrible big and bare, but grand!" exclaimed Kathleen.
+
+Lenore looked first at Dorn's face as he gazed away across the length
+and breadth of land. Could that land mean as much to him as it did
+before he went to war? Infinitely more, she saw, and rejoiced. Her faith
+was coming home to her in verities. Then she thrilled at the wide
+prospect before her.
+
+It was a scene that she knew could not be duplicated in the world. Low,
+slow-sloping, billowy green hills, bare and smooth with square brown
+patches, stretched away to what seemed infinite distance. Valleys and
+hills, with less fallow ground than ever before, significant and
+striking: lost the meager details of clumps of trees and dots of houses
+in a green immensity. A million shadows out of the west came waving over
+the wheat. They were ripples of an ocean of grain. No dust-clouds, no
+bleached roads, no yellow hills to-day! June, and the desert found its
+analogy only in the sweep and reach! A thousand hills billowing away
+toward that blue haze of mountain range where rolled the Oregon. Acreage
+and mileage seemed insignificant. All was green--green, the fresh and
+hopeful color, strangely serene and sweet and endless under the azure
+sky. Beautiful and lonely hills they were, eloquent of toil, expressive
+with the brown squares in the green, the lowly homes of men, the long
+lines of roads running everywhither, overwhelmingly pregnant with
+meaning--wheat--wheat--wheat--nothing but wheat, a staggering visual
+manifestation of vital need, of noble promise.
+
+"That--that!" rolled out Anderson, waving his big hand, as if words were
+useless. "Only a corner of the great old U.S.!... What would the Germans
+say if they could look out over this?... What do _you_ say, Lenore?"
+
+"Beautiful!" she replied, softly. "Like the rainbow in the sky--God's
+promise of life!"
+
+"An', Kathie, what do _you_ say?" went on Anderson.
+
+"Some wheat-fields!" replied Kathleen, with an air of woman's wisdom.
+"Fetch on your young wheat-sowers, dad, and I'll pick out a husband."
+
+"An' _you_, son?" finished Anderson, as if wistfully, yet heartily
+playing his last card. He was remembering Jim--the wild but beloved
+son--the dead soldier. He was fearful for the crowning hope of his
+years.
+
+"As ye sow--so shall ye reap!" was Dorn's reply, strong and thrilling.
+And Lenore felt her father's strange, heart-satisfying content.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Twilight crept down around the old home on the hill.
+
+Dorn was alone, leaning at the window. He had just strength to lean
+there, with uplifted head. Lenore had left him alone, divining his wish.
+As she left him there came a sudden familiar happening in his brain,
+like a snap-back, and the contending tide of gray forms--the
+Huns--rushed upon him. He leaned there at the window, but just the same
+he awaited the shock on the ramparts of the trench. A ferocious and
+terrible storm of brain, that used to have its reaction in outward
+violence, now worked inside him, like a hot wind that drove his blood.
+During the spell he fought out his great fight--again for the thousandth
+time he rekilled his foes. That storm passed through him without an
+outward quiver.
+
+His Huns--charged again--bayoneted again--and he felt acute pain in the
+left arm that was gone. He felt the closing of the hand which was not
+there. His Huns lay in the shadow, stark and shapeless, with white faces
+upward--a line of dead foes, remorseless and abhorrent to him, forever
+damned by his ruthless spirit. He saw the boy slide off his bayonet,
+beyond recall, murdered by some evil of which Dorn had been the motion.
+Then the prone, gray forms vanished in the black gulf of Dorn's brain.
+
+"Lenore will never know--how my Huns come back to me," he whispered.
+
+Night with its trains of stars! Softly the darkness unfolded down over
+the dim hills, lonely, tranquil, sweet. A night-bird caroled. The song
+of insects, very faint and low, came to him like a still, sad music of
+humanity, from over the hills, far away, in the strife-ridden world. The
+world of men was there and life was incessant, monstrous, and
+inconceivable. This old home of his--the old house seemed full of
+well-remembered sounds of mouse and cricket and leaf against the roof
+and soft night wind at the eaves--sounds that brought his boyhood back,
+his bare feet on the stairs, his father's aloofness, his mother's love.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then clearly floated to him a slow sweeping rustle of the wheat.
+Breast-high it stood down there, outside his window, a moving body,
+higher than the gloom. That rustle was a voice of childhood, youth, and
+manhood, whispering to him, thrilling as never before. It was a growing
+rustle, different from that when the wheat had matured. It seemed to
+change and grow in volume, in meaning. The night wind bore it, but
+life--bursting life was behind it, and behind that seemed to come a
+driving and a mighty spirit. Beyond the growth of the wheat, beyond its
+life and perennial gift, was something measureless and obscure, infinite
+and universal. Suddenly Dorn saw that something as the breath and the
+blood and the spirit of wheat--and of man. Dust and to dust returned
+they might be, but this physical form was only the fleeting inscrutable
+moment on earth, springing up, giving birth to seed, dying out for that
+ever-increasing purpose which ran through the ages.
+
+A soft footfall sounded on the stairs. Lenore came. She leaned over him
+and the starlight fell upon her face, sweet, luminous, beautiful. In the
+sense of her compelling presence, in the tender touch of her hands, in
+the whisper of woman's love, Dorn felt uplifted high above the dark pale
+of the present with its war and pain and clouded mind to wheat--to the
+fertile fields of a golden age to come.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Desert of Wheat, by Zane Grey
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Desert of Wheat, by Zane Grey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Desert of Wheat
+
+Author: Zane Grey
+
+Release Date: November 21, 2003 [EBook #10201]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DESERT OF WHEAT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, David Kline and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <div class="Section1">
+        <h1>ZANE GREY</h1>
+
+        <h1>&nbsp;</h1>
+
+        <h1>THE DESERT</h1>
+
+        <h1>of</h1>
+
+        <h1>WHEAT</h1>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:2em; text-align:center">1919</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Late in June the vast northwestern
+        desert of wheat began to take on a tinge of gold, lending
+        an austere beauty to that endless, rolling, smooth world of
+        treeless hills, where miles of fallow ground and miles of
+        waving grain sloped up to the far-separated homes of the
+        heroic men who had conquered over sage and sand.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">These simple homes of farmers seemed
+        lost on an immensity of soft gray and golden billows of
+        land, insignificant dots here and there on distant hills,
+        so far apart that nature only seemed accountable for those
+        broad squares of alternate gold and brown, extending on and
+        on to the waving horizon-line. A lonely, hard, heroic
+        country, where flowers and fruit were not, nor birds and
+        brooks, nor green pastures. Whirling strings of dust looped
+        up over fallow ground, the short, dry wheat lay back from
+        the wind, the haze in the distance was drab and smoky,
+        heavy with substance.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A thousand hills lay bare to the sky,
+        and half of every hill was wheat and half was fallow
+        ground; and all of them, with the shallow valleys between,
+        seemed big and strange and isolated. The beauty of them was
+        austere, as if the hand of man had been held back from
+        making green his home site, as if the immensity of the task
+        had left no time for youth and freshness. Years, long
+        years, were there in the round-hilled, many-furrowed gray
+        old earth. And the wheat looked a century old. Here and
+        there a straight, dusty road stretched from hill to hill,
+        becoming a thin white line, to disappear in the distance.
+        The sun shone hot, the wind blew hard; and over the
+        boundless undulating expanse hovered a shadow that was
+        neither hood of dust nor hue of gold. It was not physical,
+        but lonely, waiting, prophetic, and weird. No wild desert
+        of wastelands, once the home of other races of man, and now
+        gone to decay and death, could have shown so barren an
+        acreage. Half of this wandering patchwork of squares was
+        earth, brown and gray, curried and disked, and rolled and
+        combed and harrowed, with not a tiny leaf of green in all
+        the miles. The other half had only a faint golden promise
+        of mellow harvest; and at long distance it seemed to
+        shimmer and retreat under the hot sun. A singularly
+        beautiful effect of harmony lay in the long, slowly rising
+        slopes, in the rounded hills, in the endless curving lines
+        on all sides. The scene was heroic because of the labor of
+        horny hands; it was sublime because not a hundred harvests,
+        nor three generations of toiling men, could ever rob nature
+        of its limitless space and scorching sun and sweeping dust,
+        of its resistless age-long creep back toward the desert
+        that it had been.</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Here was grown the most bounteous, the
+        richest and finest wheat in all the world. Strange and
+        unfathomable that so much of the bread of man, the staff of
+        life, the hope of civilization in this tragic year 1917,
+        should come from a vast, treeless, waterless, dreary
+        desert!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">This wonderful place was an immense
+        valley of considerable altitude called the Columbia Basin,
+        surrounded by the Cascade Mountains on the west, the Coeur
+        d'Alene and Bitter Root Mountains on the east, the Okanozan
+        range to the north, and the Blue Mountains to the south.
+        The valley floor was basalt, from the lava flow of
+        volcanoes in ages past. The rainfall was slight except in
+        the foot-hills of the mountains. The Columbia River, making
+        a prodigious and meandering curve, bordered on three sides
+        what was known as the Bend country. South of this vast
+        area, across the range, began the fertile, many-watered
+        region that extended on down into verdant Oregon. Among the
+        desert hills of this Bend country, near the center of the
+        Basin, where the best wheat was raised, lay widely
+        separated little towns, the names of which gave evidence of
+        the mixed population. It was, of course, an exceedingly
+        prosperous country, a fact manifest in the substantial
+        little towns, if not in the crude and unpretentious homes
+        of the farmers. The acreage of farms ran from a section,
+        six hundred and forty acres, up into the thousands.</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Upon a morning in early July, exactly
+        three months after the United States had declared war upon
+        Germany, a sturdy young farmer strode with darkly troubled
+        face from the presence of his father. At the end of a
+        stormy scene he had promised his father that he would
+        abandon his desire to enlist in the army.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt Dorn walked away from the gray
+        old clapboard house, out to the fence, where he leaned on
+        the gate. He could see for miles in every direction, and to
+        the southward, away on a long yellow slope, rose a stream
+        of dust from a motor-car.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Must be Anderson&mdash;coming to dun
+        father," muttered young Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">This was the day, he remembered, when
+        the wealthy rancher of Ruxton was to look over old Chris
+        Dorn's wheat-fields. Dorn owed thirty-thousand dollars and
+        interest for years, mostly to Anderson. Kurt hated the debt
+        and resented the visit, but he could not help acknowledging
+        that the rancher had been lenient and kind. Long since Kurt
+        had sorrowfully realized that his father was illiterate,
+        hard, grasping, and growing worse with the burden of
+        years.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If we had rain now&mdash;or
+        soon&mdash;that section of Bluestem would square father,"
+        soliloquized young Dorn, as with keen eyes he surveyed a
+        vast field of wheat, short, smooth, yellowing in the sun.
+        But the cloudless sky, the haze of heat rather betokened a
+        continued drought.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">There were reasons, indeed, for Dorn
+        to wear a dark and troubled face as he watched the
+        motor-car speed along ahead of its stream of dust, pass out
+        of sight under the hill, and soon reappear, to turn off the
+        main road and come toward the house. It was a big, closed
+        car, covered with dust. The driver stopped it at the gate
+        and got out.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Is this Chris Dorn's farm?" he
+        asked.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes," replied Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Whereupon the door of the car opened
+        and out stepped a short, broad man in a long linen
+        coat.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Come out, Lenore, an' shake off the
+        dust," he said, and he assisted a young woman to step out.
+        She also wore a long linen coat, and a veil besides. The
+        man removed his coat and threw it into the car. Then he
+        took off his sombrero to beat the dust off of that.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Phew! The Golden Valley never seen
+        dust like this in a million years!&hellip; I'm chokin' for
+        water. An' listen to the car. She's boilin'!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then, as he stepped toward Kurt, the
+        rancher showed himself to be a well-preserved man of
+        perhaps fifty-five, of powerful form beginning to sag in
+        the broad shoulders, his face bronzed by long exposure to
+        wind and sun. He had keen gray eyes, and their look was
+        that of a man used to dealing with his kind and well
+        disposed toward them.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hello! Are you young Dorn?" he
+        asked.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, sir," replied Kurt, stepping
+        out.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm Anderson, from Ruxton, come to
+        see your dad. This is my girl Lenore."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt acknowledged the slight bow from
+        the veiled young woman, and then, hesitating, he added,
+        "Won't you come in?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No, not yet. I'm chokin' for air an'
+        water. Bring us a drink," replied Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt hurried away to get a bucket and
+        tin cup. As he drew water from the well he was thinking
+        rather vaguely that it was somehow embarrassing&mdash;the
+        fact of Mr. Anderson being accompanied by his daughter.
+        Kurt was afraid of his father. But then, what did it
+        matter? When he returned to the yard he found the rancher
+        sitting in the shade of one of the few apple-trees, and the
+        young lady was standing near, in the act of removing bonnet
+        and veil. She had thrown the linen coat over the seat of an
+        old wagon-bed that lay near.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Good water is scarce here, but I'm
+        glad we have some," said Kurt; then as he set down the
+        bucket and offered a brimming cupful to the girl he saw her
+        face, and his eyes met hers. He dropped the cup and stared.
+        Then hurriedly, with flushing face, he bent over to recover
+        and refill it.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Ex-excuse me. I'm&mdash;clumsy," he
+        managed to say, and as he handed the cup to her he averted
+        his gaze. For more than a year the memory of this very girl
+        had haunted him. He had seen her twice&mdash;the first time
+        at the close of his one year of college at the University
+        of California, and the second time on the street in
+        Spokane. In a glance he had recognized the strong, lithe
+        figure, the sunny hair, the rare golden tint of her
+        complexion, the blue eyes, warm and direct. And he had
+        sustained a shock which momentarily confused him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Good water, hey?" dissented Anderson,
+        after drinking a second cup. "Boy that's wet, but it ain't
+        water to drink. Come down in the foot-hills an' I'll show
+        you. My ranch 's called 'Many Waters,' an' you can't keep
+        your feet dry."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I wish we had some of it here,"
+        replied Kurt, wistfully, and he waved a hand at the broad,
+        swelling slopes. The warm breath that blew in from the
+        wheatlands felt dry and smelled dry.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You're in for a dry spell?" inquired
+        Anderson, with interest that was keen, and kindly as
+        well.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Father says so. And I fear it,
+        too&mdash;for he never makes a mistake in weather or
+        crops."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"A hot, dry spell!&hellip; This
+        summer?&hellip; Hum!&hellip; Boy, do you know that wheat is
+        the most important thing in the world to-day?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You mean on account of the war,"
+        replied Kurt. "Yes, I know. But father doesn't see that.
+        All he sees is&mdash;if we have rain we'll have bumper
+        crops. That big field there would be a record&mdash;at war
+        prices.&hellip; And he wouldn't be ruined!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Ruined?&hellip; Oh, he means I'd close
+        on him.&hellip; Hum!&hellip; Say, what do you see in a big
+        wheat yield&mdash;if it rains?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Mr. Anderson, I'd like to see our
+        debt paid, but I'm thinking most of wheat for starving
+        peoples. I&mdash;I've studied this wheat question. It's the
+        biggest question in this war."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt had forgotten the girl and was
+        unaware of her eyes bent steadily upon him. Anderson had
+        roused to the interest of wheat, and to a deeper study of
+        the young man.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Say, Dorn, how old are you?" he
+        asked.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Twenty-four. And Kurt's my first
+        name," was the reply.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Will this farm fall to you?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, if my father does not lose
+        it."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hum!&hellip; Old Dorn won't lose it,
+        never fear. He raises the best wheat in this section."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But father never owned the land. We
+        have had three bad years. If the wheat fails this
+        summer&mdash;we lose the land, that's all."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Are you an&mdash;American?" queried
+        Anderson, slowly, as if treading on dangerous ground.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I am," snapped Kurt. "My mother was
+        American. She's dead. Father is German. He's old. He's
+        rabid since the President declared war. He'll never
+        change."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That's hell. What 're you goin' to do
+        if your country calls you?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Go!" replied Kurt, with flashing
+        eyes. "I wanted to enlist. Father and I quarreled over that
+        until I had to give in. He's hard&mdash;he's
+        impossible.&hellip; I'll wait for the draft and hope I'm
+        called."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Boy, it's that spirit Germany's
+        roused, an' the best I can say is, God help her!&hellip;
+        Have you a brother?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No. I'm all father has."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well, it makes a tough place for him,
+        an' you, too. Humor him. He's old. An' when you're
+        called&mdash;go an' fight. You'll come back."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If I only knew that&mdash;it wouldn't
+        be so hard."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hard? It sure is hard. But it'll be
+        the makin' of a great country. It'll weed out the
+        riffraff.&hellip; See here, Kurt, I'm goin' to give you a
+        hunch. Have you had any dealin's with the I.W.W.?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, last harvest we had trouble, but
+        nothing serious. When I was in Spokane last month I heard a
+        good deal. Strangers have approached us here,
+        too&mdash;mostly aliens. I have no use for them, but they
+        always get father's ear. And now!&hellip; To tell the truth,
+        I'm worried."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Boy, you need to be," replied
+        Anderson, earnestly. "We're all worried. I'm goin' to let
+        you read over the laws of that I.W.W. organization. You're
+        to keep mum now, mind you. I belong to the Chamber of
+        Commerce in Spokane. Somebody got hold of these by-laws of
+        this so-called labor union. We've had copies made, an'
+        every honest farmer in the Northwest is goin' to read them.
+        But carryin' one around is dangerous, I reckon, these days.
+        Here."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson hesitated a moment, peered
+        cautiously around, and then, slipping folded sheets of
+        paper from his inside coat pocket, he evidently made ready
+        to hand them to Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, where's the driver?" he
+        asked.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"He's under the car," replied the
+        girl</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt thrilled at the soft sound of her
+        voice. It was something to have been haunted by a girl's
+        face for a year and then suddenly hear her voice.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"He's new to me&mdash;that
+        driver&mdash;an' I ain't trustin' any new men these days,"
+        went on Anderson. "Here now, Dorn. Read that. An' if you
+        don't get red-headed&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Without finishing his last muttered
+        remark, he opened the sheets of manuscript and spread them
+        out to the young man.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Curiously, and with a little rush of
+        excitement, Kurt began to read. The very first rule of the
+        I.W.W. aimed to abolish capital. Kurt read on with slowly
+        growing amaze, consternation, and anger. When he had
+        finished, his look, without speech, was a question Anderson
+        hastened to answer.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It's straight goods," he declared.
+        "Them's the sure-enough rules of that gang. We made certain
+        before we acted. Now how do they strike you?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why, that's no labor union!" replied
+        Kurt, hotly. "They're outlaws, thieves, blackmailers,
+        pirates. I&mdash;I don't know what!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dorn, we're up against a bad outfit
+        an' the Northwest will see hell this summer. There's
+        trouble in Montana and Idaho. Strangers are driftin' into
+        Washington from all over. We must organize to meet
+        them&mdash;to prevent them gettin' a hold out here. It's a
+        labor union, mostly aliens, with dishonest an' unscrupulous
+        leaders, some of them Americans. They aim to take advantage
+        of the war situation. In the newspapers they rave about
+        shorter hours, more pay, acknowledgment of the union. But
+        any fool would see, if he read them laws I showed you, that
+        this I.W.W. is not straight."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Mr. Anderson, what steps have you
+        taken down in your country?" queried Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"So far all I've done was to hire my
+        hands for a year, give them high wages, an' caution them
+        when strangers come round to feed them an' be civil an'
+        send them on."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But we can't do that up here in the
+        Bend," said Dorn, seriously. "We need, say, a hundred
+        thousand men in harvest-time, and not ten thousand all the
+        rest of the year."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure you can't. But you'll have to
+        organize somethin'. Up here in this desert you could have a
+        heap of trouble if that outfit got here strong enough.
+        You'd better tell every farmer you can trust about this
+        I.W.W."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I've only one American neighbor, and
+        he lives six miles from here," replied Dorn. "Olsen over
+        there is a Swede, and not a naturalized citizen, but I
+        believe he's for the U.S. And there's&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dad," interrupted the girl, "I
+        believe our driver is listening to your very uninteresting
+        conversation."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She spoke demurely, with laughter in
+        her low voice. It made Dorn dare to look at her, and he met
+        a blue blaze that was instantly averted.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson growled, evidently some very
+        hard names, under his breath; his look just then was full
+        of characteristic Western spirit. Then he got up.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, I reckon your talk 'll be
+        more interesting than mine," he said, dryly. "I'll go see
+        Dorn an' get this business over."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'd rather go with you," hurriedly
+        replied Kurt; and then, as though realizing a seeming
+        discourtesy in his words, his face flamed, and he
+        stammered: "I&mdash;I don't mean that. But father is in bad
+        mood. We just quarreled.&mdash;I told you&mdash;about the
+        war. And&mdash;Mr. Anderson,&mdash;I'm&mdash;I'm a little
+        afraid he'll&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well, son, I'm not afraid,"
+        interrupted the rancher. "I'll beard the old lion in his
+        den. You talk to Lenore."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Please don't speak of the war," said
+        Kurt, appealingly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Not a word unless he starts roarin'
+        at Uncle Sam," declared Anderson, with a twinkle in his
+        eyes, and turned toward the house.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"He'll roar, all right," said Kurt,
+        almost with a groan. He knew what an ordeal awaited the
+        rancher, and he hated the fact that it could not be
+        avoided. Then Kurt was confused, astounded, infuriated with
+        himself over a situation he had not brought about and could
+        scarcely realize. He became conscious of pride and shame,
+        and something as black and hopeless as despair.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Haven't I seen you&mdash;before?"
+        asked the girl.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The query surprised and thrilled Kurt
+        out of his self-centered thought.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I don't know. Have you? Where?" he
+        answered, facing her. It was a relief to find that she
+        still averted her face.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"At Berkeley, in California, the first
+        time, and the second at Spokane, in front of the
+        Davenport," she replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"First&mdash;and&mdash;second?&hellip;
+        You&mdash;you remembered both times!" he burst out,
+        incredulously.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes. I don't see how I could have
+        helped remembering." Her laugh was low, musical, a little
+        hurried, yet cool.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn was not familiar with girls. He
+        had worked hard all his life, there among those desert
+        hills, and during the few years his father had allowed him
+        for education. He knew wheat, but nothing of the eternal
+        feminine. So it was impossible for him to grasp that this
+        girl was not wholly at her ease. Her words and the cool
+        little laugh suddenly brought home to Kurt the immeasurable
+        distance between him and a daughter of one of the richest
+        ranchers in Washington.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You mean I&mdash;I was impertinent,"
+        he began, struggling between shame and pride. "I&mdash;I
+        stared at you.&hellip; Oh, I must have been rude.&hellip;
+        But, Miss Anderson, I&mdash;I didn't mean to be. I didn't
+        think you saw me&mdash;at all. I don't know what made me do
+        that. It never happened before. I beg your pardon."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A subtle indefinable change,
+        perceptible to Dorn, even in his confused state, came over
+        the girl.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I did not say you were impertinent,"
+        she returned. "I remembered seeing you&mdash;notice me,
+        that is all."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Self-possessed, aloof, and kind, Miss
+        Anderson now became an impenetrable mystery to Dorn. But
+        that only accentuated the distance she had intimated lay
+        between them. Her kindness stung him to recover his
+        composure. He wished she had not been kind. What a singular
+        chance that had brought her here to his home&mdash;the
+        daughter of a man who came to demand a long-unpaid debt!
+        What a dispelling of the vague thing that had been only a
+        dream! Dorn gazed away across the yellowing hills to the
+        dim blue of the mountains where rolled the Oregon. Despite
+        the color, it was gray&mdash;like his future.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I heard you tell father you had
+        studied wheat," said the girl, presently, evidently trying
+        to make conversation.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, all my life," replied Kurt. "My
+        study has mostly been under my father. Look at my hands."
+        He held out big, strong hands, scarred and knotted, with
+        horny palms uppermost, and he laughed. "I can be proud of
+        them, Miss Anderson.&hellip; But I had a splendid year in
+        California at the university and I graduated from the
+        Washington State Agricultural College."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You love wheat&mdash;the raising of
+        it, I mean?" she inquired.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It must be that I do, though I never
+        had such a thought. Wheat is so wonderful. No one can guess
+        who does not know it!&hellip; The clean, plump grain, the
+        sowing on fallow ground, the long wait, the first tender
+        green, and the change day by day to the deep waving fields
+        of gold&mdash;then the harvest, hot, noisy, smoky, full of
+        dust and chaff, and the great combine-harvesters with
+        thirty-four horses. Oh! I guess I do love it all.&hellip; I
+        worked in a Spokane flour-mill, too, just to learn how
+        flour is made. There is nothing in the world so white, so
+        clean, so pure as flour made from the wheat of these
+        hills!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Next you'll be telling me that you
+        can bake bread," she rejoined, and her laugh was low and
+        sweet. Her eyes shone with soft blue gleams.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Indeed I can! I bake all the bread we
+        use," he said, stoutly. "And I flatter myself I can beat
+        any girl you know."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You can beat mine, I'm sure. Before I
+        went to college I did pretty well. But I learned too much
+        there. Now my mother and sisters, and brother Jim, all the
+        family except dad, make fun of my bread."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You have a brother? How old is
+        he?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"One brother&mdash;Jim, we call him.
+        He&mdash;he is just past twenty-one." She faltered the last
+        few words.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt felt on common ground with her
+        then. The sudden break in her voice, the change in her
+        face, the shadowing of the blue eyes&mdash;these were
+        eloquent.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, it's horrible&mdash;this need of
+        war!" she exclaimed.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes," he replied, simply. "But maybe
+        your brother will not be called."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Called! Why, he refused to wait for
+        the draft! He went and enlisted. Dad patted him on the
+        back.&hellip; If anything happens to him it'll kill my
+        mother. Jim is her idol. It'd break my heart.&hellip; Oh, I
+        hate the very name of Germans!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My father is German," said Kurt.
+        "He's been fifty years in America&mdash;eighteen years here
+        on this farm. He always hated England. Now he's bitter
+        against America.&hellip; I can see a side you can't see. But
+        I don't blame you&mdash;for what you said."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Forgive me. I can't conceive of
+        meaning that against any one who's lived here so
+        long.&hellip; Oh, it must be hard for you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll let my father think I'm forced
+        to join the army. But I'm going to fight against his
+        people. We are a house divided against itself."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, what a pity!" The girl sighed and
+        her eyes were dark with brooding sorrow.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A step sounded behind them. Mr.
+        Anderson appeared, sombrero off, mopping a very red face.
+        His eyes gleamed, with angry glints; his mouth and chin
+        were working. He flopped down with a great, explosive
+        breath.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt, your old man is
+        a&mdash;a&mdash;son of a gun!" he exclaimed, vociferously;
+        manifestly, liberation of speech was a relief.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The young man nodded seriously and
+        knowingly. "I hope, sir&mdash;he&mdash;he&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"He did&mdash;you just bet your life!
+        He called me a lot in German, but I know cuss words when I
+        hear them. I tried to reason with him&mdash;told him I
+        wanted my money&mdash;was here to help him get that money
+        off the farm, some way or other. An' he swore I was a
+        capitalist&mdash;an enemy to labor an' the
+        Northwest&mdash;that I an' my kind had caused the war."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt gazed gravely into the disturbed
+        face of the rancher. Miss Anderson had wide-open eyes of
+        wonder.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure I could have stood all that,"
+        went on Anderson, fuming. "But he ordered me out of the
+        house. I got mad an' wouldn't go. Then&mdash;by George! he
+        pulled my nose an' called me a bloody Englishman!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt groaned in the disgrace of the
+        moment. But, amazingly, Miss Anderson burst into a silvery
+        peal of laughter.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, dad!&hellip; that's&mdash;just
+        too&mdash;good for&mdash;anything! You met your&mdash;match
+        at last.&hellip; You know you always&mdash;boasted of your
+        drop of English blood.&hellip; And you're
+        sensitive&mdash;about your big nose!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"He must be over seventy," growled
+        Anderson, as if seeking for some excuse to palliate his
+        restraint. "I'm mad&mdash;but it was funny." The working of
+        his face finally set in the huge wrinkles of a laugh.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Young Dorn struggled to repress his
+        own mirth, but unguardedly he happened to meet the dancing
+        blue eyes of the girl, merry, provocative, full of youth
+        and fun, and that was too much for him. He laughed with
+        them.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"The joke's on me," said Anderson.
+        "An' I can take one.&hellip; Now, young man, I think I
+        gathered from your amiable dad that if the crop of wheat
+        was full I'd get my money. Otherwise I could take over the
+        land. For my part, I'd never do that, but the others
+        interested might do it, even for the little money involved.
+        I tried to buy them out so I'd have the whole mortgage.
+        They would not sell."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Mr. Anderson, you're a square man,
+        and I'll do&mdash;" declared Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Come out an' show me the wheat,"
+        interrupted Anderson. "Lenore, do you want to go with
+        us?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I do," replied the daughter, and she
+        took up her hat to put it on.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt led them through the yard, out
+        past the old barn, to the edge of the open slope where the
+        wheat stretched away, down and up, as far as the eye could
+        see.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We've got over sixteen hundred acres
+        in fallow ground, a half-section in rye, another half in
+        wheat&mdash;Turkey Red&mdash;and this section you see, six
+        hundred and forty acres, in Bluestem," said Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson's keen eyes swept from near
+        at hand to far away, down the gentle, billowy slope and up
+        the far hillside. The wheat was two feet high, beginning to
+        be thick and heavy at the heads, as if struggling to burst.
+        A fragrant, dry, wheaty smell, mingled with dust, came on
+        the soft summer breeze, and a faint silken rustle. The
+        greenish, almost blue color near at hand gradually in the
+        distance grew lighter, and then yellow, and finally took on
+        a tinge of gold. There was a living spirit in that vast
+        wheat-field.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dorn, it's the finest wheat I've
+        seen!" exclaimed Anderson, with the admiration of the
+        farmer who aspired high. "In fact, it's the only fine field
+        of wheat I've seen since we left the foot-hills. How is
+        that?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Late spring and dry weather," replied
+        Dorn. "Most of the farmers' reports are poor. If we get
+        rain over the Bend country we'll have only an average yield
+        this year. If we don't get rain&mdash;then flat
+        failure."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Miss Anderson evinced an interest in
+        the subject and she wanted to know why this particular
+        field, identical with all the others for miles around,
+        should have a promise of a magnificent crop when the others
+        had no promise at all.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"This section lay fallow a long time,"
+        replied Dorn. "Snow lasted here on this north slope quite a
+        while. My father used a method of soil cultivation intended
+        to conserve moisture. The seed wheat was especially
+        selected. And if we have rain during the next ten days this
+        section of Bluestem will yield fifty bushels to the
+        acre."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Fifty bushels!" ejaculated
+        Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Bluestem? Why do you call it that
+        when it's green and yellow?" queried the girl.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It's a name. There are many varieties
+        of wheat. Bluestem is best here in this desert country
+        because it resists drought, it produces large yield, it
+        does not break, and the flour-mills rate it very high.
+        Bluestem is not good in wet soils."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson tramped along the edge of the
+        field, peering down, here and there pulling a shaft of
+        wheat and examining it. The girl gazed with dreamy eyes
+        across the undulating sea. And Dorn watched her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We have a ranch&mdash;thousands of
+        acres&mdash;but not like this," she said.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What's the difference?" asked
+        Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She appeared pensive and in doubt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I hardly know. What would you call
+        this&mdash;this scene?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why, I call it the desert of wheat!
+        But no one else does," he replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I named father's ranch 'Many Waters.'
+        I think those names tell the difference."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Isn't my desert beautiful?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No. It has a sameness&mdash;a
+        monotony that would drive me mad. It looks as if the whole
+        world had gone to wheat. It makes me think&mdash;oppresses
+        me. All this means that we live by wheat alone. These bare
+        hills! They're too open to wind and sun and snow. They look
+        like the toil of ages."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Miss Anderson, there is such a thing
+        as love for the earth&mdash;the bare brown earth. You know
+        we came from dust, and to dust we return! These fields are
+        human to my father. And they have come to speak to
+        me&mdash;a language I don't understand yet. But I
+        mean&mdash;what you see&mdash;the growing wheat here, the
+        field of clods over there, the wind and dust and glare and
+        heat, the eternal sameness of the open space&mdash;these
+        are the things around which my life has centered, and when
+        I go away from them I am not content."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson came back to the young
+        couple, carrying some heads of wheat in his hand.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Smut!" he exclaimed, showing both
+        diseased and healthy specimens of wheat. "Had to hunt hard
+        to find that. Smut is the bane of all wheat-growers. I
+        never saw so little of it as there is here. In fact, we
+        know scarcely nothin' about smut an' its cure, if there is
+        any. You farmers who raise only grain have got the work
+        down to a science. This Bluestem is not bearded wheat, like
+        Turkey Red. Has that beard anythin' to do with smut?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I think not. The parasite, or fungus,
+        lives inside the wheat."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Never heard that before. No wonder
+        smut is the worst trouble for wheat-raisers in the
+        Northwest. I've fields literally full of smut. An' we never
+        are rid of it. One farmer has one idea, an' some one else
+        another. What could be of greater importance to a farmer?
+        We're at war. The men who claim to know say that wheat will
+        win the war. An' we lose millions of bushels from this
+        smut. That's to say it's a terrible fact to face. I'd like
+        to get your ideas."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn, happening to glance again at
+        Miss Anderson, an act that seemed to be growing habitual,
+        read curiosity and interest, and something more, in her
+        direct blue eyes. The circumstance embarrassed him, though
+        it tugged at the flood-gates of his knowledge. He could
+        talk about wheat, and he did like to. Yet here was a girl
+        who might be supposed to be bored. Still, she did not
+        appear to be. That warm glance was not politeness.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, I'd like to hear every word you
+        can say about wheat," she said, with an encouraging little
+        nod.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure she would," added Anderson, with
+        an affectionate hand on her shoulder. "She's a farmer's
+        daughter. She'll be a farmer's wife."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He laughed at this last sally. The
+        girl blushed. Dorn smiled and shook his head
+        doubtfully.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I imagine that good fortune will
+        never befall a farmer," he said.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well, if it should," she replied,
+        archly, "just consider how I might surprise him with my
+        knowledge of wheat.&hellip; Indeed, Mr. Dorn, I am
+        interested. I've never been in the Bend before&mdash;in
+        your desert of wheat. I never before felt the greatness of
+        loving the soil&mdash;or caring for it&mdash;of growing
+        things from seed. Yet the Bible teaches that, and I read my
+        Bible. Please tell us. The more you say the more I'll like
+        it."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn was not proof against this
+        eloquence. And he quoted two of his authorities, Heald and
+        Woolman, of the State Agricultural Experiment Station,
+        where he had studied for two years.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Bunt, or stinking smut, is caused by
+        two different species of microscopic fungi which live as
+        parasites in the wheat plant. Both are essentially similar
+        in their effects and their life-history. <i>Tilletia
+        tritici</i>, or the rough-spored variety, is the common
+        stinking smut of the Pacific regions, while <i>Tilletia
+        foetans</i>, or the smooth-spored species, is the one
+        generally found in the eastern United States.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"The smut 'berries,' or 'balls,' from
+        an infected head contain millions of minute bodies, the
+        spores or 'seeds' of the smut fungus. These reproduce the
+        smut in somewhat the same way that a true seed develops
+        into a new plant. A single smut ball of average size
+        contains a sufficient number of spores to give one for each
+        grain of wheat in five or six bushels. It takes eight smut
+        spores to equal the diameter of a human hair. Normal wheat
+        grains from an infected field may have so many spores
+        lodged on their surface as to give them a dark color, but
+        other grains which show no difference in color to the naked
+        eye may still contain a sufficient number of spores to
+        produce a smutty crop if seed treatment is not
+        practised.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"When living smut spores are
+        introduced into the soil with the seed wheat, or exist in
+        the soil in which smut-free wheat is sown, a certain
+        percentage of the wheat plants are likely to become
+        infected. The smut spore germinates and produces first a
+        stage of the smut plant in the soil. This first stage never
+        infects a young seedling direct, but gives rise to
+        secondary spores, or sporida, from which infection threads
+        may arise and penetrate the shoot of a young seedling and
+        reach the growing point. Here the fungus threads keep pace
+        with the growth of the plant and reach maturity at or
+        slightly before harvest-time.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Since this disease is caused by an
+        internal parasite, it is natural to expect certain
+        responses to its presence. It should be noted first that
+        the smut fungus is living at the expense of its host plant,
+        the wheat, and its effect on the host may be summarized as
+        follows: The consumption of food, the destruction of food
+        in the sporulating process, and the stimulating or
+        retarding effect on normal physiological processes.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Badly smutted plants remain in many
+        cases under-size and produce fewer and smaller heads. In
+        the Fife and Bluestem varieties the infected heads previous
+        to maturity exhibit a darker green color, and remain green
+        longer than the normal heads. In some varieties the
+        infected heads stand erect, when normal ones begin to droop
+        as a result of the increasing weight of the ripening
+        grain.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"A crop may become infected with smut
+        in a number of different ways. Smut was originally
+        introduced with the seed, and many farmers are still
+        planting it every season with their seed wheat. Wheat taken
+        from a smutty crop will have countless numbers of loose
+        spores adhering to the grains, also a certain number of
+        unbroken smut balls. These are always a source of danger,
+        even when the seed is treated with fungicides before
+        sowing.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"There are also chances for the
+        infection of a crop if absolutely smut-free seed is
+        employed. First, soil infection from a previous smutty
+        crop; second, soil infection from wind-blown spores.
+        Experiments have shown that separated spores from crushed
+        smut balls lose their effective power in from two to three
+        months, provided the soil is moist and loose, and in no
+        case do they survive a winter.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It does not seem probable that wheat
+        smut will be controlled by any single practice, but rather
+        by the combined use of various methods: crop rotation; the
+        use of clean seed; seed treatment with fungicides; cultural
+        practices and breeding; and selection of varieties.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Failure to practise crop rotation is
+        undoubtedly one of the main explanations for the general
+        prevalence of smut in the wheat-fields of eastern
+        Washington. Even with an intervening summer fallow, the
+        smut from a previous crop may be a source of infection.
+        Experience shows that a fall stubble crop is less liable to
+        smut infection than a crop following summer fallow. The
+        apparent explanation for this condition is the fact that
+        the summer fallow becomes infected with wind-blown spores,
+        while in a stubble crop the wind-blown spores, as well as
+        those originating from the previous crop, are buried in
+        plowing.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If clean seed or properly treated
+        seed had been used by all farmers we should never have had
+        a smut problem. High per cents. of smut indicate either
+        soil infection or imperfect treatment. The principle of the
+        chemical treatment is to use a poison which will kill the
+        superficial spores of the smut and not materially injure
+        the germinating power of the seed. The hot-water treatment
+        is only recommended when one of the chemical 'steeps' is
+        not effective.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Certain cultural practices are
+        beneficial in reducing the amount of smut in all cases,
+        while the value of others depends to some extent upon the
+        source of the smut spores. The factors which always
+        influence the amount of smut are the temperature of the
+        soil during the germinating period, the amount of soil
+        moisture, and the depth of seeding. Where seed-borne spores
+        are the only sources of infection, attention to the three
+        factors mentioned will give the only cultural practices for
+        reducing the amount of smut.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Early seeding has been practised by
+        various farmers, and they report a marked reduction in
+        smut.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"The replowing of the summer fallow
+        after the first fall rains is generally effective in
+        reducing the amount of smut.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Very late planting&mdash;that is,
+        four or five weeks after the first good fall rains&mdash;is
+        also an effective practice. Fall tillage of summer fallow,
+        other than plowing, seems to be beneficial.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No smut-immune varieties of wheat are
+        known, but the standard varieties show varying degrees of
+        resistance. Spring wheats generally suffer less from smut
+        than winter varieties. This is not due to any superior
+        resistance, but rather to the fact that they escape
+        infection. If only spring wheats were grown our smut
+        problem would largely disappear; but a return to this
+        practice is not suggested, since the winter wheats are much
+        more desirable. It seems probable that the conditions which
+        prevail during the growing season may have considerable
+        influence on the per cent of smut in any given
+        variety."</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">When Dorn finished his discourse, to
+        receive the thanks of his listeners, they walked back
+        through the yard toward the road. Mr. Anderson, who led the
+        way, halted rather abruptly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hum! Who're those men talkin' to my
+        driver?" he queried.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn then saw a couple of strangers
+        standing near the motor-car, engaged in apparently close
+        conversation with the chauffeur. Upon the moment they
+        glanced up to see Mr. Anderson approaching, and they rather
+        hurriedly departed. Dorn had noted a good many strangers
+        lately&mdash;men whose garb was not that of farmers, whose
+        faces seemed foreign, whose actions were suspicious.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll bet a hundred they're I.W.W.'s,"
+        declared Anderson. "Take my hunch, Dorn."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The strangers passed on down the road
+        without looking back.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wonder where they'll sleep to-night?"
+        muttered Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson rather sharply asked his
+        driver what the two men wanted. And the reply he got was
+        that they were inquiring about work.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Did they speak English?" went on the
+        rancher.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well enough to make themselves
+        understood," replied the driver.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn did not get a good impression
+        from the shifty eyes and air of taciturnity of Mr.
+        Anderson's man, and it was evident that the blunt rancher
+        restrained himself. He helped his daughter into the car,
+        and then put on his long coat. Next he shook hands with
+        Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Young man, I've enjoyed meetin' you,
+        an' have sure profited from same," he said. "Which makes up
+        for your dad! I'll run over here again to see
+        you&mdash;around harvest-time. An' I'll be wishin' for that
+        rain."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Thank you. If it does rain I'll be
+        happy to see you," replied Dorn, with a smile.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well, if it doesn't rain I won't
+        come. I'll put it off another year, an' cuss them other
+        fellers into holdin' off, too."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You're very kind. I don't know how
+        I'd&mdash;we'd ever repay you in that case."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Don't mention it. Say, how far did
+        you say it was to Palmer? We'll have lunch there."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It's fifteen miles&mdash;that way,"
+        answered Dorn. "If it wasn't for&mdash;for father I'd like
+        you to stay&mdash;and break some of my bread."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn was looking at the girl as he
+        spoke. Her steady gaze had been on him ever since she
+        entered the car, and in the shade of her hat and the veil
+        she was adjusting her eyes seemed very dark and sweet and
+        thoughtful. She brightly nodded her thanks as she held the
+        veil aside with both hands.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I wish you luck. Good-by," she said,
+        and closed the veil.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Still, Dorn could see her eyes through
+        it, and now they were sweeter, more mysterious, more
+        provocative of haunting thoughts. It flashed over him with
+        dread certainty that he had fallen in love with her. The
+        shock struck him mute. He had no reply for the rancher's
+        hearty farewell. Then the car lurched away and dust rose in
+        a cloud.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">With a strange knocking of his heart,
+        high up toward his throat, Kurt Dorn stood stock-still,
+        watching the moving cloud of dust until it disappeared over
+        the hill.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">No doubt entered his mind. The truth,
+        the fact, was a year old&mdash;a long-familiar and dreamy
+        state&mdash;but its meaning had not been revealed to him
+        until just a moment past. Everything had changed when she
+        looked out with that sweet, steady gaze through the parted
+        veil and then slowly closed it. She had changed. There was
+        something intangible about her that last moment, baffling,
+        haunting. He leaned against a crooked old gate-post that as
+        a boy he had climbed, and the thought came to him that this
+        spot would all his life be vivid and poignant in his
+        memory. The first sight of a blue-eyed, sunny-haired girl,
+        a year and more before, had struck deep into his
+        unconscious heart; a second sight had made her an
+        unforgettable reality: and a third had been the realization
+        of love.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was sad, regrettable,
+        incomprehensible, and yet somehow his inner being swelled
+        and throbbed. Her name was Lenore Anderson. Her father was
+        one of the richest men in the state of Washington. She had
+        one brother, Jim, who would not wait for the army draft.
+        Kurt trembled and a hot rush of tears dimmed his eyes. All
+        at once his lot seemed unbearable. An immeasurable barrier
+        had arisen between him and his old father&mdash;a hideous
+        thing of blood, of years, of ineradicable difference; the
+        broad acres of wheatland so dear to him were to be taken
+        from him; love had overcome him with headlong rush, a love
+        that could never be returned; and cruelest of all, there
+        was the war calling him to give up his home, his father,
+        his future, and to go out to kill and to be killed.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It came to him while he leaned there,
+        that, remembering the light of Lenore Anderson's eyes, he
+        could not give up to bitterness and hatred, whatever his
+        misfortunes and his fate. She would never be anything to
+        him, but he and her brother Jim and many other young
+        Americans must be incalculable all to her. That thought
+        saved Kurt Dorn. There were other things besides his own
+        career, his happiness; and the way he was placed, however
+        unfortunate from a selfish point of view, must not breed a
+        morbid self-pity.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The moment of his resolution brought a
+        flash, a revelation of what he owed himself. The work and
+        the thought and the feeling of his last few weeks there at
+        home must be intensified. He must do much and live greatly
+        in little time. This was the moment of his renunciation,
+        and he imagined that many a young man who had decided to go
+        to war had experienced a strange spiritual division of
+        self. He wondered also if that moment was not for many of
+        them a let-down, a throwing up of ideals, a helpless
+        retrograding and surrender to the brutalizing spirit of
+        war. But it could never be so for him. It might have been
+        had not that girl come into his life.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The bell for the midday meal roused
+        Kurt from his profound reverie, and he plodded back to the
+        house. Down through the barnyard gate he saw the hired men
+        coming, and a second glance discovered to him that two
+        unknown men were with them. Watching for a moment, Kurt
+        recognized the two strangers that had been talking to Mr.
+        Anderson's driver. They seemed to be talking earnestly now.
+        Kurt saw Jerry, a trusty and long-tried employee, rather
+        unceremoniously break away from these strangers. But they
+        followed him, headed him off, and with vehement nods and
+        gesticulations appeared to be arguing with him. The other
+        hired men pushed closer, evidently listening. Finally Jerry
+        impatiently broke away and tramped toward the house. These
+        strangers sent sharp words after him&mdash;words that Kurt
+        could not distinguish, though he caught the tone of scorn.
+        Then the two individuals addressed themselves to the other
+        men; and in close contact the whole party passed out of
+        sight behind the barn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Thoughtfully Kurt went into the house.
+        He meant to speak to Jerry about the strangers, but he
+        wanted to consider the matter first. He had misgivings. His
+        father was not in the sitting-room, nor in the kitchen.
+        Dinner was ready on the table, and the one servant, an old
+        woman who had served the Dorns for years, appeared
+        impatient at the lack of promptness in the men. Both father
+        and son, except on Sundays, always ate with the hired help.
+        Kurt stepped outside to find Jerry washing at the
+        bench.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jerry, what's keeping the men?"
+        queried Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, they're palaverin' out there
+        with two I.W.W. fellers," replied Jerry.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt reached for the rope of the
+        farm-bell, and rang it rather sharply. Then he went in to
+        take his place at the table, and Jerry soon followed. Old
+        man Dorn did not appear, which fact was not unusual. The
+        other hired men did not enter until Jerry and Kurt were
+        half done with the meal. They seemed excited and somewhat
+        boisterous, Kurt thought, but once they settled down to
+        eating, after the manner of hungry laborers, they had
+        little to say. Kurt, soon finishing his dinner, went
+        outdoors to wait for Jerry. That individual appeared to be
+        long in coming, and loud voices in the kitchen attested to
+        further argument. At last, however, he lounged out and
+        began to fill a pipe.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jerry, I want to talk to you," said
+        Kurt. "Let's get away from the house."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The hired man was a big, lumbering
+        fellow, gnarled like an old oak-tree. He had a good-natured
+        face and honest eyes.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I reckon you want to hear about them
+        I.W.W. fellers?" he asked, as they walked away.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes," replied Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"There's been a regular procession of
+        them fellers, the last week or so, walkin' through the
+        country," replied Jerry. "To-day's the first time any of
+        them got to me. But I've heerd talk. Sunday when I was in
+        Palmer the air was full of rumors."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Rumors of what?" queried Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"All kinds," answered Jerry,
+        nonchalantly scratching his stubby beard. "There's an army
+        of I.W.W.'s comin' in from eastward. Idaho an' Montana are
+        gittin' a dose now. Short hours; double wages; join the
+        union; sabotage, whatever thet is; capital an' labor fight;
+        threats if you don't fall in line; an' Lord knows what
+        all."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What did those two fellows want of
+        you?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wanted us to join the I.W.W.,"
+        replied the laborer.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Did they want a job?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Not as I heerd. Why, one of them had
+        a wad of bills thet would choke a cow. He did most of the
+        talkin'. The little feller with the beady eyes an' the
+        pock-marks, he didn't say much. He's Austrian an' not long
+        in this country. The big stiff&mdash;Glidden, he called
+        himself&mdash;must be some shucks in thet I.W.W. He looked
+        an' talked oily at first&mdash;very persuadin'; but when I
+        says I wasn't goin' to join no union he got sassy an'
+        bossy. They made me sore, so I told him to go to hell. Then
+        he said the I.W.W. would run the whole Northwest this
+        summer&mdash;wheat-fields, lumberin', fruit-harvestin',
+        railroadin'&mdash;the whole kaboodle, an' thet any workman
+        who wouldn't join would git his, all right."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well, Jerry, what do you think about
+        this organization?" queried Kurt, anxiously.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Not much. It ain't a square deal. I
+        ain't got no belief in them. What I heerd of their
+        threatenin' methods is like the way this Glidden talks. If
+        I owned a farm I'd drive such fellers off with a whip.
+        There's goin' to be bad doin's if they come driftin' strong
+        into the Bend."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jerry, are you satisfied with your
+        job?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure. I won't join the I.W.W. An'
+        I'll talk ag'in' it. I reckon a few of us will hev to do
+        all the harvestin'. An', considerin' thet, I'll take a
+        dollar a day more on my wages."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If father does not agree to that, I
+        will," said Kurt. "Now how about the other men?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, they all air leanin' toward
+        promises of little work an' lots of pay," answered Jerry,
+        with a laugh. "Morgan's on the fence about joinin'. But
+        Andrew agreed. He's Dutch an' pig-headed. Jansen's only too
+        glad to make trouble fer his boss. They're goin' to lay off
+        the rest of to-day an' talk with Glidden. They all agreed
+        to meet down by the culvert. An' thet's what they was
+        arguin' with me fer&mdash;wanted me to come."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Where's this man Glidden?" demanded
+        Kurt. "I'll give him a piece of my mind."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I reckon he's hangin' round the
+        farm&mdash;out of sight somewhere."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"All right, Jerry. Now you go back to
+        work. You'll never lose anything by sticking to us, I
+        promise you that. Keep your eyes and ears open."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt strode back to the house, and his
+        entrance to the kitchen evidently interrupted a colloquy of
+        some kind. The hired men were still at table. They looked
+        down at their plates and said nothing. Kurt left the
+        sitting-room door open, and, turning, he asked Martha if
+        his father had been to dinner.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No, an' what's more, when I called he
+        takes to roarin' like a mad bull," replied the woman.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt crossed the sitting-room to knock
+        upon his father's door. The reply forthcoming did justify
+        the old woman's comparison. It certainly caused the hired
+        men to evacuate the kitchen with alacrity. Old Chris Dorn's
+        roar at his son was a German roar, which did not soothe the
+        young man's rising temper. Of late the father had taken
+        altogether to speaking German. He had never spoken English
+        well. And Kurt was rapidly approaching the point where he
+        would not speak German. A deadlock was in sight, and Kurt
+        grimly prepared to meet it. He pounded on the locked
+        door.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"The men are going to lay off," he
+        called.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Who runs this farm?" was the
+        thundered reply.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"The I.W.W. is going to run it if you
+        sulk indoors as you have done lately," yelled Kurt. He
+        thought that would fetch his father stamping out, but he
+        had reckoned falsely. There was no further sound. Leaving
+        the room in high dudgeon, Kurt hurried out to catch the
+        hired men near at hand and to order them back to work. They
+        trudged off surlily toward the barn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then Kurt went on to search for the
+        I.W.W. men, and after looking up and down the road, and all
+        around, he at length found them behind an old strawstack.
+        They were comfortably sitting down, backs to the straw,
+        eating a substantial lunch. Kurt was angry and did not
+        care. His appearance, however, did not faze the strangers.
+        One of them, an American, was a man of about thirty years,
+        clean-shaven, square-jawed, with light, steely, secretive
+        gray eyes, and a look of intelligence and assurance that
+        did not harmonize with his motley garb. His companion was a
+        foreigner, small of stature, with eyes like a ferret and
+        deep pits in his sallow face.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Do you know you're trespassing?"
+        demanded Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You grudge us a little shade, eh,
+        even to eat a bite?" said the American. He wrapped a paper
+        round his lunch and leisurely rose, to fasten penetrating
+        eyes upon the young man. "That's what I heard about you
+        rich farmers of the Bend."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What business have you coming here?"
+        queried Kurt, with sharp heat. "You sneak out of sight of
+        the farmers. You trespass to get at our men and with a lot
+        of lies and guff you make them discontented with their
+        jobs. I'll fire these men just for listening to you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Mister Dorn, we want you to fire
+        them. That's my business out here," replied the
+        American.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Who are you, anyway?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That's my business, too."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt passed from hot to cold. He could
+        not miss the antagonism of this man, a bold and menacing
+        attitude.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My foreman says your name's Glidden,"
+        went on Kurt, cooler this time, "and that you're talking
+        I.W.W. as if you were one of its leaders; that you don't
+        want a job; that you've got a wad of money; that you coax,
+        then threaten; that you've intimidated three of our
+        hands."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Your Jerry's a marked man," said
+        Glidden, shortly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You impudent scoundrel!" exclaimed
+        Kurt. "Now you listen to this. You're the first I.W.W. man
+        I've met. You look and talk like an American. But if you
+        are American you're a traitor. We've a war to fight! War
+        with a powerful country! Germany! And you come spreading
+        discontent in the wheat-fields,&hellip; when wheat means
+        life!&hellip; Get out of here before I&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We'll mark you, too, Mister Dorn, and
+        your wheat-fields," snapped Glidden.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">With one swift lunge Kurt knocked the
+        man flat and then leaped to stand over him, watching for a
+        move to draw a weapon. The little foreigner slunk back out
+        of reach.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll start a little marking myself,"
+        grimly said Kurt. "Get up!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Slowly Glidden moved from elbow to
+        knees, and then to his feet. His cheek was puffing out and
+        his nose was bleeding. The light-gray eyes were lurid.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That's for your I.W.W.!" declared
+        Kurt. "The first rule of your I.W.W. is to abolish capital,
+        hey?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt had not intended to say that. It
+        slipped out in his fury. But the effect was striking.
+        Glidden gave a violent start and his face turned white.
+        Abruptly he hurried away. His companion shuffled after him.
+        Kurt stared at them, thinking the while that if he had
+        needed any proof of the crookedness of the I.W.W. he had
+        seen it in Glidden's guilty face. The man had been suddenly
+        frightened, and surprise, too, had been prominent in his
+        countenance. Then Kurt remembered how Anderson had
+        intimated that the secrets of the I.W.W. had been long
+        hidden. Kurt, keen and quick in his sensibilities, divined
+        that there was something powerful back of this Glidden's
+        cunning and assurance. Could it be only the power of a new
+        labor organization? That might well be great, but the idea
+        did not convince Kurt. During a hurried and tremendous
+        preparation by the government for war, any disorder such as
+        menaced the country would be little short of a calamity. It
+        might turn out a fatality. This so-called labor union
+        intended to take advantage of a crisis to further its own
+        ends. Yet even so, that fact did not wholly explain Glidden
+        and his subtlety. Some nameless force loomed dark and
+        sinister back of Glidden's meaning, and it was not peril to
+        the wheatlands of the Northwest alone.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Like a huge dog Kurt shook himself and
+        launched into action. There were sense and pleasure in
+        muscular activity, and it lessened the habit of worry. Soon
+        he ascertained that only Morgan had returned to work in the
+        fields. Andrew and Jansen were nowhere to be seen. Jansen
+        had left four horses hitched to a harrow. Kurt went out to
+        take up the work thus abandoned.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was a long field, and if he had
+        earned a dollar for every time he had traversed its length,
+        during the last ten years, he would have been a rich man.
+        He could have walked it blindfolded. It was fallow ground,
+        already plowed, disked, rolled, and now the last stage was
+        to harrow it, loosening the soil, conserving the
+        moisture.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Morgan, far to the other side of this
+        section, had the better of the job, for his harrow was a
+        new machine and he could ride while driving the horses. But
+        Kurt, using an old harrow, had to walk. The four big horses
+        plodded at a gait that made Kurt step out to keep up with
+        them. To keep up, to drive a straight line, to hold back on
+        the reins, was labor for a man. It spoke well for Kurt that
+        he had followed that old harrow hundreds of miles, that he
+        could stand the strain, that he loved both the physical
+        sense and the spiritual meaning of the toil.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Driving west, he faced a wind laden
+        with dust as dry as powder. At every sheeted cloud,
+        whipping back from the hoofs of the horses and the steel
+        spikes of the harrow, he had to bat his eyes to keep from
+        being blinded. The smell of dust clogged his nostrils. As
+        soon as he began to sweat under the hot sun the dust caked
+        on his face, itching, stinging, burning. There was dust
+        between his teeth.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Driving back east was a relief. The
+        wind whipped the dust away from him. And he could catch the
+        fragrance of the newly turned soil. How brown and clean and
+        earthy it looked! Where the harrow had cut and ridged, the
+        soil did not look thirsty and parched. But that which was
+        unharrowed cried out for rain. No cloud in the hot sky,
+        except the yellow clouds of dust!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">On that trip east across the field,
+        which faced the road, Dorn saw pedestrians in twos and
+        threes passing by. Once he was hailed, but made no answer.
+        He would not have been surprised to see a crowd, yet
+        travelers were scarce in that region. The sight of these
+        men, some of them carrying bags and satchels, was
+        disturbing to the young farmer. Where were they going? All
+        appeared outward bound toward the river. They came, of
+        course, from the little towns, the railroads, the cities.
+        At this season, with harvest-time near at hand, it had been
+        in former years no unusual sight to see strings of laborers
+        passing by. But this year they came earlier, and in greater
+        numbers.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">With the wind in his face, however,
+        Dorn saw nothing but the horses and the brown line ahead,
+        and half the time they were wholly obscured in yellow dust.
+        He began thinking about Lenore Anderson, just pondering
+        that strange, steady look of a girl's eyes; and then he did
+        not mind the dust or heat or distance. Never could he be
+        cheated of his thoughts. And those of her, even the painful
+        ones, gave birth to a comfort that he knew must abide with
+        him henceforth on lonely labors such as this, perhaps in
+        the lonelier watches of a soldier's duty. She had been
+        curious, aloof, then sympathetic; she had studied his face;
+        she had been an eloquent-eyed listener to his discourse on
+        wheat. But she had not guessed his secret. Not until her
+        last look&mdash;strange, deep, potent&mdash;had he guessed
+        that secret himself.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">So, with mind both busy and absent,
+        Kurt Dorn harrowed the fallow ground abandoned by his men;
+        and when the day was done, with the sun setting hot and
+        coppery beyond the dim, dark ranges, he guided the tired
+        horses homeward and plodded back of them, weary and
+        spent.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He was to learn from Morgan, at the
+        stables, that the old man had discharged both Andrew and
+        Jansen. And Jansen, liberating some newly assimilated
+        poison, had threatened revenge. He would see that any hired
+        men would learn a thing or two, so that they would not sign
+        up with Chris Dorn. In a fury the old man had driven Jansen
+        out into the road.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Sober and moody, Kurt put the horses
+        away, and, washing the dust grime from sunburnt face and
+        hands, he went to his little attic room, where he changed
+        his damp and sweaty clothes. Then he went down to supper
+        with mind made up to be lenient and silent with his old and
+        sorely tried father.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Chris Dorn sat in the light of the
+        kitchen lamps. He was a huge man with a great, round,
+        bullet-shaped head and a shock of gray hair and bristling,
+        grizzled beard. His face was broad, heavy, and seemed
+        sodden with dark, brooding thought. His eyes, under bushy
+        brows, were pale gleams of fire. He looked immovable as to
+        both bulk and will.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Never before had Kurt Dorn so acutely
+        felt the fixed, contrary, ruthless nature of his parent.
+        Never had the distance between them seemed so great. Kurt
+        shivered and sighed at once. Then, being hungry, he fell to
+        eating in silence. Presently the old man shoved his plate
+        back, and, wiping his face, he growled, in German:</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I discharged Andrew and Jansen."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, I know," replied Kurt. "It
+        wasn't good judgment. What'll we do for hands?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll hire more. Men are coming for
+        the harvest."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But they all belong to the I.W.W.,"
+        protested Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"And what's that?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">In scarcely subdued wrath Kurt
+        described in detail, and to the best of his knowledge, what
+        the I.W.W. was, and he ended by declaring the organization
+        treacherous to the United States.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"How's that?" asked old Dorn,
+        gruffly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt was actually afraid to tell his
+        father, who never read newspapers, who knew little of what
+        was going on, that if the Allies were to win the war it was
+        wheat that would be the greatest factor. Instead of that he
+        said if the I.W.W. inaugurated strikes and disorder in the
+        Northwest it would embarrass the government.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Then I'll hire I.W.W. men," said old
+        Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt battled against a rising temper.
+        This blind old man was his father.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But I'll not have I.W.W. men on the
+        farm," retorted Kurt. "I just punched one I.W.W.
+        solicitor."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll run this farm. If you don't like
+        my way you can leave," darkly asserted the father.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt fell back in his chair and stared
+        at the turgid, bulging forehead and hard eyes before him.
+        What could be behind them? Had the war brought out a twist
+        in his father's brain? Why were Germans so impossible?</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My Heavens! father, would you turn me
+        out of my home because we disagree?" he asked,
+        desperately.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"In my country sons obey their fathers
+        or they go out for themselves."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I've not been a disobedient son,"
+        declared Kurt. "And here in America sons have more
+        freedom&mdash;more say."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"America has no sense of family
+        life&mdash;no honest government. I hate the country."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A ball of fire seemed to burst in
+        Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That kind of talk infuriates me," he
+        blazed. "I don't care if you are my father. Why in the hell
+        did you come to America? Why did you stay? Why did you
+        marry my mother&mdash;an American woman?&hellip; That's
+        rot&mdash;just spiteful rot! I've heard you tell what life
+        was in Europe when you were a boy. You ran off. You stayed
+        in this country because it was a better country than
+        yours.&hellip; Fifty years you've been in America&mdash;many
+        years on this farm. And you love this land.&hellip; My God!
+        father, can't you and men like you see the truth?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Aye, I can," gloomily replied the old
+        man. "The truth is we'll lose the land. That greedy
+        Anderson will drive me off."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"He will not. He's
+        fine&mdash;generous," asserted Kurt, earnestly. "All he
+        wanted was to see the prospects of the harvest and perhaps
+        to help you. Anderson has not had interest on his money for
+        three years. I'll bet he's paid interest demanded by the
+        other stockholders in that bank you borrowed from. Why,
+        he's our friend!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Aye, and I see more," boomed the
+        father. "He fetched his lass up here to make eyes at my
+        son. I saw her&mdash;the sly wench!&hellip; Boy, you'll not
+        marry her!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt choked back his mounting
+        rage.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Certainly I never will," he said,
+        bitterly. "But I would if she'd have me."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What!" thundered Dorn, his white
+        locks standing up and shaking like the mane of a lion.
+        "That wheat banker's daughter! Never! I forbid it. You
+        shall not marry any American girl."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Father, this is idle, foolish rant,"
+        cried Kurt, with a high warning note in his voice. "I've no
+        idea of marrying.&hellip; But if I had one&mdash;whom else
+        could I marry except an American girl?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll sell the wheat&mdash;the land.
+        We'll go back to Germany!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">That was maddening to Kurt. He sprang
+        up, sending dishes to the floor with a crash. He bent over
+        to pound the table with a fist. Violent speech choked him
+        and he felt a cold, tight blanching of his face.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Listen!" he rang out. "If I go to
+        Germany it'll be as a soldier&mdash;to kill Germans!&hellip;
+        I'm done&mdash;I'm through with the very name.&hellip;
+        Listen to the last words I'll ever speak to you in
+        German&mdash;the last! <i>To hell with Germany</i>!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then Kurt plunged, blind in his
+        passion, out of the door into the night. And as he went he
+        heard his father cry out, brokenly:</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My son! Oh, my son!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The night was dark and cool. A faint
+        wind blew across the hills, and it was dry, redolent,
+        sweet. The sky seemed an endless curving canopy of dark
+        blue blazing with myriads of stars.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt staggered out of the yard, down
+        along the edge of a wheat-field, to one of the
+        straw-stacks, and there he flung himself down in an
+        agony.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, I'm ruined&mdash;ruined!" he
+        moaned. "The break&mdash;has come!&hellip; Poor old
+        dad!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He leaned there against the straw,
+        shaking and throbbing, with a cold perspiration bathing
+        face and body. Even the palms of his hands were wet. A
+        terrible fit of anger was beginning to loose its hold upon
+        him. His breathing was labored in gasps and sobs.
+        Unutterable stupidity of his father&mdash;horrible cruelty
+        of his position! What had he ever done in all his life to
+        suffer under such a curse? Yet almost he clung to his
+        wrath, for it had been righteous. That thing, that infernal
+        twist in the brain, that was what was wrong with his
+        father. His father who had been fifty years in the United
+        States! How simple, then, to understand what was wrong with
+        Germany.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"By God! I am&mdash;American!" he
+        panted, and it was as if he called to the grave of his
+        mother, over there on the dark, windy hill.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">That tremendous uprising of his
+        passion had been a vortex, an end, a decision. And he
+        realized that even to that hour there had been a drag in
+        his blood. It was over now. The hell was done with. His
+        soul was free. This weak, quaking body of his housed his
+        tainted blood and the emotions of his heart, but it could
+        not control his mind, his will. Beat by beat the helpless
+        fury in him subsided, and then he fell back and lay still
+        for a long time, eyes shut, relaxed and still.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A hound bayed mournfully; the insects
+        chirped low, incessantly; the night wind rustled the silken
+        heads of wheat.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">After a while the young man sat up and
+        looked at the heavens, at the twinkling white stars, and
+        then away across the shadows of round hills in the dusk.
+        How lonely, sad, intelligible, and yet mystic the night and
+        the scene!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">What came to him then was revealing,
+        uplifting&mdash;a source of strength to go on. He was not
+        to blame for what had happened; he could not change the
+        future. He had a choice between playing the part of a man
+        or that of a coward, and he had to choose the former. There
+        seemed to be a spirit beside him&mdash;the spirit of his
+        mother or of some one who loved him and who would have him
+        be true to an ideal, and, if needful, die for it. No night
+        in all his life before had been like this one. The dreaming
+        hills with their precious rustling wheat meant more than
+        even a spirit could tell. Where had the wheat come from
+        that had seeded these fields? Whence the first and original
+        seeds, and where were the sowers? Back in the ages! The
+        stars, the night, the dark blue of heaven hid the secret in
+        their impenetrableness. Beyond them surely was the answer,
+        and perhaps peace.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Material things&mdash;life,
+        success&mdash;such as had inspired Kurt Dorn, on this calm
+        night lost their significance and were seen clearly. They
+        could not last. But the wheat there, the hills, the
+        stars&mdash;they would go on with their task. Passion was
+        the dominant side of a man declaring itself, and that was a
+        matter of inheritance. But self-sacrifice, with its mercy,
+        its succor, its seed like the wheat, was as infinite as the
+        stars. He had long made up his mind, yet that had not given
+        him absolute restraint. The world was full of little men,
+        but he refused to stay little. This war that had come
+        between him and his father had been bred of the fumes of
+        self-centered minds, turned with an infantile fatality to
+        greedy desires. His poor old blinded father could be
+        excused and forgiven. There were other old men, sick,
+        crippled, idle, who must suffer pain, but whose pain could
+        be lightened. There were babies, children, women, who must
+        suffer for the sins of men, but that suffering need no
+        longer be, if men became honest and true.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">His sudden up-flashing love had a few
+        hours back seemed a calamity. But out there beside the
+        whispering wheat, under the passionless stars, in the
+        dreaming night, it had turned into a blessing. He asked
+        nothing but to serve. To serve her, his country, his
+        future! All at once he who had always yearned for something
+        unattainable had greatness thrust upon him. His tragical
+        situation had evoked a spirit from the gods.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">To kiss that blue-eyed girl's sweet
+        lips would be a sum of joy, earthly, all-satisfying,
+        precious. The man in him trembled all over at the daring
+        thought. He might revel in such dreams, and surrender to
+        them, since she would never know, but the divinity he
+        sensed there in the presence of those stars did not dwell
+        on a woman's lips. Kisses were for the present, the all too
+        fleeting present; and he had to concern himself with what
+        he might do for one girl's future. It was exquisitely sad
+        and sweet to put it that way, though Kurt knew that if he
+        had never seen Lenore Anderson he would have gone to war
+        just the same. He was not making an abstract sacrifice.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The wheat-fields rolling before him,
+        every clod of which had been pressed by his bare feet as a
+        boy; the father whose changeless blood had sickened at the
+        son of his loins; the life of hope, freedom, of action, of
+        achievement, of wonderful possibility&mdash;these seemed
+        lost to Kurt Dorn, a necessary renunciation when he yielded
+        to the call of war.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">But no loss, no sting of bullet or
+        bayonet, no torturing victory of approaching death, could
+        balance in the scale against the thought of a picture of
+        one American girl&mdash;blue-eyed, red-lipped,
+        golden-haired&mdash;as she stepped somewhere in the future,
+        down a summer lane or through a blossoming orchard, on soil
+        that was free.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Toward the end of July eastern
+        Washington sweltered under the most torrid spell of heat on
+        record. It was a dry, high country, noted for an equable
+        climate, with cool summers and mild winters. And this
+        unprecedented wave would have been unbearable had not the
+        atmosphere been free from humidity.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The haze of heat seemed like a pall of
+        thin smoke from distant forest fires. The sun rose, a
+        great, pale-red ball, hot at sunrise, and it soared
+        blazing-white at noon, to burn slowly westward through a
+        cloudless, coppery sky, at last to set sullen and crimson
+        over the ranges.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Spokane, being the only center of
+        iron, steel, brick, and masonry in this area, resembled a
+        city of furnaces. Business was slack. The asphalt of the
+        streets left clean imprints of a pedestrian's feet; bits of
+        newspaper stuck fast to the hot tar. Down by the gorge,
+        where the great green river made its magnificent plunges
+        over the falls, people congregated, tarried, and were loath
+        to leave, for here the blowing mist and the air set into
+        motion by the falling water created a temperature that was
+        relief.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Citizens talked of the protracted hot
+        spell, of the blasted crops, of an almost sure disaster to
+        the wheat-fields, and of the activities of the I.W.W. Even
+        the war, for the time being, gave place to the nearer
+        calamities impending.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Montana had taken drastic measures
+        against the invading I.W.W. The Governor of Idaho had sent
+        word to the camps of the organization that they had five
+        days to leave that state. Spokane was awakening to the
+        menace of hordes of strange, idle men who came in on the
+        westbound freight-trains. The railroads had been unable to
+        handle the situation. They were being hard put to it to run
+        trains at all. The train crews that refused to join the
+        I.W.W. had been threatened, beaten, shot at, and otherwise
+        intimidated.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The Chamber of Commerce sent an
+        imperative appeal to representative wheat-raisers,
+        ranchers, lumbermen, farmers, and bade them come to Spokane
+        to discuss the situation. They met at the Hotel Davenport,
+        where luncheon was served in one of the magnificently
+        appointed dining-halls of that most splendid hotel in the
+        West.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The lion of this group of Spokane
+        capitalists was Riesinberg, a man of German forebears, but
+        all American in his sympathies, with a son already in the
+        army. Riesinberg was president of a city bank and of the
+        Chamber of Commerce. His first words to the large assembly
+        of clean-cut, square-jawed, intent-eyed Westerners were:
+        "Gentlemen, we are here to discuss the most threatening and
+        unfortunate situation the Northwest was ever called upon to
+        meet." His address was not long, but it was stirring. The
+        Chamber of Commerce could provide unlimited means, could
+        influence and control the state government; but it was from
+        the visitors invited to this meeting, the men of the
+        outlying districts which were threatened, that objective
+        proofs must come and the best methods of procedure.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The first facts to come out were that
+        many crops were ruined already, but, owing to the increased
+        acreage that year, a fair yield was expected; that wheat in
+        the Bend would be a failure, though some farmers here and
+        there would harvest well; that the lumber districts were
+        not operating, on account of the I.W.W.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then it was that the organization of
+        men who called themselves the Industrial Workers of the
+        World drew the absorbed attention of the meeting.
+        Depredations already committed stunned the members of the
+        Chamber of Commerce.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">President Riesinberg called upon
+        Beardsley, a prominent and intelligent rancher of the
+        southern wheat-belt. Beardsley said:</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"It is difficult to speak with any
+        moderation of the outrageous eruption of the I.W.W. It is
+        nothing less than rebellion, and the most effective means
+        of suppressing rebellion is to apply a little of that
+        'direct action' which is the favorite diversion of the
+        I.W.W.'s.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"The I.W.W. do not intend to accomplish
+        their treacherous aims by anything so feeble as speech;
+        they scorn the ballot-box. They are against the war, and
+        their method of making known their protest is by burning
+        our grain, destroying our lumber, and blowing up
+        freight-trains. They seek to make converts not by argument,
+        but by threats and intimidation.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"We read that Western towns are seeking
+        to deport these rebels. In the old days we can imagine more
+        drastic measures would have been taken. The Westerners were
+        handy with the rope and the gun in those days. We are not
+        counseling lynch law, but we think deportation is too mild
+        a punishment.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"We are too 'civilized' to apply the
+        old Roman law, 'Spare the conquered and extirpate the
+        rebels,' but at least we could intern them. The British
+        have found it practicable to put German prisoners to work
+        at useful employment. Why couldn't we do the same with our
+        rebel I.W.W.'s?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Jones, a farmer from the Yakima
+        Valley, told that business men, housewives, professional
+        men, and high-school boys and girls would help to save the
+        crop of Washington to the nation in case of labor trouble.
+        Steps already had been taken to mobilize workers in stores,
+        offices, and homes for work in the orchards and
+        grain-fields, should the I.W.W. situation seriously
+        threaten harvests.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Pledges to go into the hay or grain
+        fields or the orchards, with a statement of the number of
+        days they were willing to work, had been signed by
+        virtually all the men in North Yakima.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Helmar, lumberman from the Blue
+        Mountains, spoke feelingly; he said:</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"My company is the owner of a
+        considerable amount of timbered lands and timber purchased
+        from the state and from individuals. We have been engaged
+        in logging that land until our operations have been stopped
+        and our business paralyzed by an organization which calls
+        itself the Industrial Workers of the World, and by members
+        of that organization, and other lawless persons acting in
+        sympathy with them.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"Our employees have been threatened
+        with physical violence and death.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"Our works are picketed by individuals
+        who camp out in the forests and who intimidate and threaten
+        our employees.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"Open threats have been made that our
+        works, our logs, and our timber will all be burned.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"Sabotage is publicly preached in the
+        meetings, and in the literature of the organization it is
+        advised and upheld.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"The open boast is made that the
+        lumbering industry, with all other industry, will be
+        paralyzed by this organization, by the destruction of
+        property used in industry and by the intimidation of
+        laborers who are willing to work.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"A real and present danger to the
+        property of my company exists. Unless protection is given
+        to us it will probably be burned and destroyed. Our lawful
+        operations cannot be conducted because laborers who are
+        willing to work are fearful of their lives and are subject
+        to abuse, threats, and violence. Our camps, when in
+        operation, are visited by individuals belonging to the said
+        organization, and the men peaceably engaged in them
+        threatened with death if they do not cease work. All sorts
+        of injury to property by the driving of spikes in logs, the
+        destruction of logs, and other similar acts are encouraged
+        and recommended.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"As I pointed out to the sheriff of our
+        county, the season is a very dry one and the woods are and
+        will be, unless rain comes, in danger of disastrous fires.
+        The organization and its members have openly and repeatedly
+        asserted that they will burn the logs in the woods and burn
+        the forests of this company and other timber-holders before
+        they will permit logging operations to continue.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"Many individuals belonging to the
+        organization are camped in the open in the timbered
+        country, and their very presence is a fire menace. They are
+        engaged in no business except to interfere with the
+        industry and to interfere with the logging of this company
+        and others who engaged in the logging business.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"We have done what we could in a lawful
+        manner to continue our operations and to protect our
+        employees. We are now helpless, and place the
+        responsibility for the protection of our property and the
+        protection of our employees upon the board of county
+        commissioners and upon the officers of the county."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Next President Riesinberg called upon
+        a young reporter to read paragraphs of an I.W.W. speech he
+        had heard made to a crowd of three hundred workmen. It was
+        significant that several members of the Chamber of Commerce
+        called for a certain paragraph to be reread. It was
+        this:</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"If you working-men could only stand
+        together you could do in this country what has been done in
+        Russia," declared the I.W.W. orator. "You know what the
+        working-men did there to the slimy curs, the gunmen, and
+        the stool-pigeons of the capitalistic class. They bumped
+        them off. They sent them up to say, 'Good morning,
+        Jesus.'"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">After a moment of muttering and
+        another silence the president again addressed the
+        meeting:</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"Gentlemen, we have Anderson of Golden
+        Valley with us to-day. If there are any of you present who
+        do not know him, you surely have heard of him. His people
+        were pioneers. He was born in Washington. He is a type of
+        the men who have made the Northwest. He fought the Indians
+        in early days and packed a gun for the outlaws&mdash;and
+        to-day, gentlemen, he owns a farm as big as Spokane County.
+        We want to hear from him."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">When Anderson rose to reply it was
+        seen that he was pale and somber. Slowly he gazed at the
+        assembly of waiting men, bowed; then he began,
+        impressively:</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"Gentlemen an' friends, I wish I didn't
+        have to throw a bomb into this here camp-fire talk. But
+        I've got to. You're all talkin' I.W.W. Facts have been told
+        showin' a strange an' sudden growth of this here four-flush
+        labor union. We've had dealin's with them for several
+        years. But this year it's different.&hellip; All at once
+        they've multiplied and strengthened. There's somethin'
+        behind them. A big unseen hand is stackin' the deck.&hellip;
+        An', countrymen, that tremendous power is German gold!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson's deep voice rang like a
+        bell. His hearers sat perfectly silent. No surprise showed,
+        but faces grew set and hard. After a pause of suspense, in
+        which his denunciation had time to sink in, Anderson
+        resumed:</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"A few weeks ago a young man, a
+        stranger, came to me an' asked for a job. He could do
+        anythin', he said. An' I hired him to drive my car. But he
+        wasn't much of a driver. We went up in the Bend country one
+        day, an' on that trip I got suspicious of him. I caught him
+        talkin' to what I reckoned was I.W.W. men. An' then, back
+        home again, I watched him an' kept my ears open. It didn't
+        take long for me to find discontent among my farm-hands. I
+        hire about a hundred hands on my ranches durin' the long
+        off season, an' when harvest comes round a good many more.
+        All I can get, in fact.&hellip; Well, I found my hands
+        quittin' me, which was sure onusual. An' I laid it to that
+        driver.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"One day not long ago I run across him
+        hobnobbin' with the strange man I'd seen talkin' with him
+        on the Bend trip. But my driver&mdash;Nash, he calls
+        himself&mdash;didn't see me. That night I put a cowboy to
+        watch him. An' what this cowboy heard, put together two an'
+        two, was that Nash was assistant to an I.W.W. leader named
+        Glidden. He had sent for Glidden to come to look over my
+        ranch. Both these I.W.W. men had more money than they could
+        well carry&mdash;lots of it gold! The way they talked of
+        this money proved that they did not know the source, but
+        the supply was unlimited.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"Next day Glidden could not be found.
+        But my cowboy had learned enough to show his methods. If
+        these proselyters could not coax or scare trusted men to
+        join the I.W.W., they tried to corrupt them with money. An'
+        in most cases they're successful. I've not yet sprung
+        anythin' on my driver, Nash. But he can't get away, an'
+        meanwhile I'll learn much by watchin' him. Maybe through
+        Nash I can catch Glidden. An' so, gentlemen, here we have a
+        plain case. An' the menace is enough to chill the heart of
+        every loyal citizen. Any way you put it, if harvests can't
+        be harvested, if wheat-fields an' lumber forests are
+        burned, if the state militia has to be called out&mdash;any
+        way you put it our government will be hampered, our
+        supplies kept from our allies&mdash;an' so the cause of
+        Germany will be helped.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"The I.W.W. have back of them an
+        organized power with a definite purpose. There can hardly
+        be any doubt that that power is Germany. The agitators an'
+        leaders throughout the country are well paid. Probably
+        they, as individuals, do not know who pays them.
+        Undoubtedly a little gang of men makes the deals, handles
+        the money. We read that every U.S. attorney is
+        investigating the I.W.W. The government has determined to
+        close down on them. But lawyers an' law are slow to act.
+        Meanwhile the danger to us is at hand.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"Gentlemen, to finish let me say that
+        down in my country we're goin' to rustle the I.W.W. in the
+        good old Western way."</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Golden Valley was the Garden of Eden
+        of the Northwest. The southern slope rose to the Blue
+        Mountains, whence flowed down the innumerable brooks that,
+        uniting to form streams and rivers, abundantly watered the
+        valley.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The black reaches of timber extended
+        down to the grazing-uplands, and these bordered on the
+        sloping golden wheat-fields, which in turn contrasted so
+        vividly with the lower green alfalfa-pastures; then came
+        the orchards with their ruddy, mellow fruit, and lastly the
+        bottom-lands where the vegetable-gardens attested to the
+        wonderful richness of the soil. From the mountain-side the
+        valley seemed a series of colored benches, stepping down,
+        black to gray, and gray to gold, and gold to green with
+        purple tinge, and on to the perfectly ordered, many-hued
+        floor with its innumerable winding, tree-bordered streams
+        glinting in the sunlight.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The extremes of heat and cold never
+        visited Golden Valley. Spokane and the Bend country, just
+        now sweltering in a torrid zone, might as well have been in
+        the Sahara, for all the effect it had on this garden spot
+        of all the Inland Empire. It was hot in the valley, but not
+        unpleasant. In fact, the greatest charm in this secluded
+        vale was its pleasant climate all the year round. No summer
+        cyclones, no winter blizzards, no cloudbursts or bad
+        thunderstorms. It was a country that, once lived in, could
+        never be left.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">There were no poor inhabitants in that
+        great area of twenty-five hundred miles; and there were
+        many who were rich. Prosperous little towns dotted the
+        valley floor; and the many smooth, dusty, much-used roads
+        all led to Ruxton, a wealthy and fine city.</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson, the rancher, had driven his
+        car to Spokane. Upon his return he had with him a
+        detective, whom he expected to use in the I.W.W.
+        investigations, and a neighbor rancher. They had left
+        Spokane early and had endured almost insupportable dust and
+        heat. A welcome change began as they slid down from the
+        bare desert into the valley; and once across the Copper
+        River, Anderson began to breathe freer and to feel he was
+        nearing home.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"God's country!" he said, as he struck
+        the first low swell of rising land, where a cool wind from
+        off the wooded and watered hills greeted his face. Dust
+        there still was, but it seemed a different kind and smelled
+        of apple-orchards and alfalfa-fields. Here were hard,
+        smooth roads, and Anderson sped his car miles and miles
+        through a country that was a verdant fragrant bower, and
+        across bright, shady streams and by white little
+        hamlets.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">At Huntington he dropped his neighbor
+        rancher, and also the detective, Hall, who was to go
+        disguised into the districts overrun by the I.W.W. A
+        further run of forty miles put him on his own property.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson owned a string of farms and
+        ranches extending from the bottom-lands to the timber-line
+        of the mountains. They represented his life of hard work
+        and fair dealing. Many of these orchard and vegetable lands
+        he had tenant farmers work on shares. The uplands or wheat
+        and grass he operated himself. As he had accumulated
+        property he had changed his place of residence from time to
+        time, at last to build a beautiful and permanent home
+        farther up on the valley slope than any of the others.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was a modern house, white, with a
+        red roof. Situated upon a high level bench, with the waving
+        gold fields sloping up from it and the green squares of
+        alfalfa and orchards below, it appeared a landmark from all
+        around, and could be plainly seen from Vale, the nearest
+        little town, five miles away.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson had always loved the open,
+        and he wanted a place where he could see the sun rise over
+        the distant valley gateway, and watch it set beyond the
+        bold black range in the west. He could sit on his front
+        porch, wide and shady, and look down over two thousand
+        acres of his own land. But from the back porch no eye could
+        have encompassed the limit of his broad, swelling slopes of
+        grain and grass.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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&mdash;a little village in itself.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The sounds he heard were a welcome
+        home&mdash;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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Nash, the suspected driver, was among
+        those who hurried to meet the car.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson's keen, covert glance made
+        note of the driver's worried and anxious face.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Nash, she'll need a lookin' over," he
+        said, as he uncovered bundles in the back seat and lifted
+        them out.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"All right, sir," replied Nash,
+        eagerly. A note of ended strain was significant in his
+        voice.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Here, you Jake," cheerily called
+        Anderson to a raw-boned, gaunt-faced fellow who wore the
+        garb of a cowboy.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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-hoss."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Nawthin' come off, boss," he drawled,
+        "but I'm glad you're home."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Did Nash leave the place?" queried
+        Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Any sign of his pard&mdash;that
+        Glidden?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Nope. But there's been more'n one new
+        feller snookin' round."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Have you heard from any of the boys
+        with the cattle?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hum!&hellip; 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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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&hellip; Boss, if they
+        git ugly we're goin' to lose stock, wheat, an' mebbe some
+        blood."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"So many as that!" ejaculated the
+        rancher, in amaze.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"They come an' go, an' lately they're
+        most comin'," replied Jake.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"When do we begin cuttin' grain?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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&mdash;if we can git the
+        men."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"An' has Adams hired any?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"An' so we've got to take a chance if
+        we're goin' to harvest two thousand acres of wheat?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I reckon, boss."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Any reports from Ruxton way?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, yes. But I reckon you'd better
+        git your supper 'fore I tell you, boss."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jake, you said nothin' had come
+        off."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, nawthin' has around here. Come
+        on now, boss. Miss Lenore says I was to keep my mouth
+        shut."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jake, who's your boss? Me or
+        Lenore?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, you air. But I ain't disobeyin'
+        Miss Lenore."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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&mdash;not perfect, for Anderson's joy held
+        a bitter drop, the absence of his only son!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, dad, what-all did you fetch me?"
+        cried Kathleen, and she deserted her father for the
+        bundle-laden Jake.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"And me!" echoed Rose.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Even Lenore, in the happiness of her
+        father's return, was not proof against the wonder and
+        promise of those many bundles.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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:</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Any&mdash;news of&mdash;Jim?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why&mdash;yes," replied Anderson,
+        hesitatingly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Suddenly the three sisters were
+        silent. How closely they resembled one another
+        then&mdash;Lenore, a budding woman; Rose, a budding girl;
+        and Kathleen, a rosy, radiant child! Lenore lost a little
+        of her bloom.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What news, father?" she asked.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Haven't you heard from him?" returned
+        Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Not for a whole week. He wrote the
+        day he reached Spokane. But then he hardly knew anything
+        except that he'd enlisted."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Then he means to&mdash;to be an
+        aviator," said Lenore, with quivering lips.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But&mdash;the danger!" whispered the
+        boy's mother, with a shudder.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jake, you run along," she said to the
+        waiting cowboy. "Wait till after supper before you worry
+        father."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll do thet, Miss Lenore," drawled
+        Jake, "an' if he wants worryin' he'll hev to look me
+        up."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lass, I'm only tired, not worried,"
+        replied Anderson, as Jake shuffled out with jingling
+        spurs.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Did anything serious happen in
+        Spokane?" she asked anxiously.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No. But Spokane men are alive to
+        serious trouble ahead," replied her father. "I spoke to the
+        Chamber of Commerce&mdash;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!&hellip; I'd rather die here than live in Spokane, in
+        summer."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Did you see the Governor?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Father, we met one American," said
+        Lenore, dreamily.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"By George! we did!&hellip; 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&mdash;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&mdash;bread&mdash;that's our great gun in this war,
+        Lenore!&hellip; 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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Father, I'm glad you spoke well of
+        the young man," said Lenore, still dreamily.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore gave a little start, as if the
+        question had surprised her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I&mdash;I hardly think so," she
+        replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It's just as well," he said. "That'll
+        be a hard ride.&hellip; Guess I'll clean up a little for
+        supper."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson left the room, and, while
+        Kathleen and Rose gleefully squabbled over the bundles,
+        Lenore continued to gaze dreamily out of the window.</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">In the very first place, he had been
+        unforgettable for two reasons&mdash;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&mdash;a strong, lithe-limbed, blond giant, with a
+        handsome, frank face, clear-cut and smooth, ruddy-cheeked
+        and blue-eyed.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Could it be&mdash;love at first
+        sight?" she whispered, incredulously, as she stared out
+        over the shadowing fields.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"For me? Why, how
+        absurd&mdash;impossible!&hellip; I&mdash;I only remembered
+        him&mdash;a big handsome boy with blazing eyes.&hellip; And
+        now I'm sorry for him!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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?</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I wonder&mdash;will he and
+        Jim&mdash;meet over there&mdash;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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">At last encroaching drowsiness dulled
+        the poignancy of her feelings and she sank to sleep.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson laid down his knife and fork
+        and his eyes opened wide in surprise. "Changed your mind!"
+        he exclaimed.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That's a privilege I have, you know,"
+        she replied, calmly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Mrs. Anderson appeared more anxious
+        than surprised. "Daughter, don't go. That will be a fearful
+        ride."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hum! Sure glad to have you, lass,"
+        added Anderson, with his keen eyes on her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Let me go, too," begged Rose.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kathleen was solemnly gazing at
+        Lenore, with the wise, penetrating eyes of extreme
+        youth.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, I'll bet you've got a new
+        beau up there," she declared.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kitty, you forget your manners," she
+        said, sharply.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kit is fresh. She's an awful child,"
+        added Rose, with a superior air.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I didn't say a thing," cried
+        Kathleen, hotly. "Lenore, if it isn't true, why'd you blush
+        so red?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hush, you silly children!" ordered
+        the mother, reprovingly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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&mdash;must know the
+        bigness of this question. The women of the country would be
+        called upon to help, to do their share.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She ran down through the grove and
+        across the bridge, coming abruptly upon Nash, her father's
+        driver. He had the car out.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Good morning," he said, with a smile,
+        doffing his cap.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore returned his greeting and asked
+        if her father intended to go anywhere.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No. I'm taking telegrams to
+        Huntington."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Telegrams? What's the matter with the
+        'phone?" she queried.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wire was cut yesterday."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"By I.W.W. men?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"So your father says. I don't
+        know."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Something ought to be done to those
+        men," said Lenore, severely.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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&mdash;he had driven her to town several
+        times&mdash;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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Between you and me, Lenore, I've
+        sympathy for those poor devils," he said.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore drew back rather haughtily at
+        this familiar use of her first name. "It doesn't concern
+        me," she said, coldly and turned away.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Won't you ride along with me? I'm
+        driving around for the mail," he called after her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No," returned Lenore, shortly, and
+        hurried on out of earshot. The impertinence of the
+        fellow!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Good morning, Jake! Where's my
+        dad?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, he's with Adams, an' I wouldn't
+        be Adams for no money," replied the cowboy.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Neither would I," laughed Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Reckon you ain't ridin' this mawnin'.
+        You sure look powerful fine, Miss Lenore, but you can't
+        ride in thet dress."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jake, nothing but an aeroplane would
+        satisfy me to-day."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Want to fly, hey? Wal, excuse me from
+        them birds. I seen one, an' thet's enough for me.&hellip;
+        An', changin' the subject, Miss Lenore, beggin' your
+        pardon&mdash;you ain't ridin' in the car much these
+        days."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, I'm sure glad. I heerd Nash call
+        an' ask you to go with him. I seen his eyes when he said
+        it.&hellip; Sure I know you'd never look at the likes of
+        him. But I want to tell you&mdash;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&mdash;He's&mdash;I&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Thank you, Jake," replied Lenore, as
+        the cowboy floundered. "I appreciate your thought of me.
+        But you needn't worry."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I was worryin' a little," he said.
+        "You see, I know men better 'n your dad, an' I reckon this
+        Nash would do anythin'."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What's father keeping him for?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, Anderson wants to find out a lot
+        about thet I.W.W., an' he ain't above takin' risks to do
+        it, either."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Some of them bosses are bad," he
+        insisted.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"To be sure they are&mdash;when wicked
+        cowboys cuff and kick them," replied Lenore,
+        laughingly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, if I'm wicked, I'm a-goin' to
+        war," said Jake, reflectively. "Them Germans bother
+        me."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But, Jake, you don't come in the
+        draft age, do you?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jest how old do you think I am?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sometimes about fourteen, Jake."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll bet so, too, Jake. But I hope
+        you won't go. We absolutely could not run this ranch
+        without you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure I knew thet. Wal then, I reckon
+        I'll hang around till you're married, Miss Lenore," he
+        drawled.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Again the scarlet mantled Lenore's
+        cheeks.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Good. We'll have many harvests then,
+        Jake, and many rides," she replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Aw, I don't know&mdash;" he
+        began.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">But Lenore ran away so that she could
+        hear no more.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What's the matter with me that
+        people&mdash;that Jake should&mdash;?" 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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But married! I? Not much. Do I want a
+        husband getting shot?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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'."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, Silas, it's a grand morning!" she
+        replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I wonder&mdash;how will I
+        feel&mdash;when I see him&mdash;again.&hellip; Oh, I
+        wonder!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She rose and went on. Another field
+        lay beyond, a gradual slope, covered with a new growth of
+        alfalfa. It was a light green&mdash;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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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&mdash;a
+        colorful and mixed gleam, delightful to the eye.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Is your father with you?" he
+        asked.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No; he's too slow for me," replied
+        Lenore. "Who are these men?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"They're strangers looking for
+        jobs."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I.W.W. men?" queried Lenore, in lower
+        voice.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I hope he doesn't," said Lenore,
+        bluntly. "Father has a way with him, you know."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, I know. And it's the way we're
+        needing here in the Valley," replied the foreman,
+        significantly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Is that the new harvester-thresher
+        father just bought?" asked Lenore, pointing to the huge
+        machine, shining and creeping behind the twelve horses.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Howdy, miss! Reckon this 's a regular
+        I.W.W. hold-up."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Watch out fer yer dress," he said,
+        pointing with grimy hand to the dusty wheels and braces so
+        near her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Let me drive, Bill?" she asked.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, now, I wisht I could," he
+        replied, dryly. "You sure can drive, miss. But drivin'
+        ain't all this here job."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What can't I do? I'll bet
+        you&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I never seen a girl that could throw
+        anythin' straight. Did you?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well, not so very. I forgot how you
+        drove the horses.&hellip; Go ahead. Don't let me delay the
+        harvest."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It developed then that Adams had
+        walked along with the machine, and he now addressed
+        her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Will you be staying here till your
+        father comes?" he asked.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No, Mr. Adams. Why do you ask?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You oughtn't come out here alone or
+        go back alone.&hellip; All these strange men! Some of them
+        hard customers! You'll excuse me, miss, but this harvest is
+        not like other harvests."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No use lying to myself!" she
+        soliloquized. "I think of him!.. I can't help it&hellip; I
+        ran out here, wild, restless, unable to reason&hellip; just
+        because I'd decided to see him again&mdash;to make sure
+        I&mdash;I really didn't care.&hellip; How furious&mdash;how
+        ridiculous I'll feel&mdash;when&mdash;when&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A succeeding blankness of mind awoke
+        to the clip-clop of hoofs and her father's cheery
+        halloo.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson dismounted and, throwing his
+        bridle, he sat down heavily beside her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You can ride back home," he said.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore knew she had been reproved for
+        her wandering out there, and she made a motion to rise. His
+        big hand held her down.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No hurry, now I'm here. Grand day,
+        ain't it? An' I see the barley's goin'. Them sacks look
+        good to me."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jake says that Nash has been tryin'
+        to make up to you. Any sense in what he says?" asked her
+        father, bluntly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why, hardly. Oh, I've noticed Nash
+        is&mdash;is rather fresh, as Rose calls it," replied
+        Lenore, somewhat relieved at this unexpected query.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, he's been makin' eyes at Rose.
+        She told me," replied Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Discharge him," said Lenore,
+        forcibly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"So I ought. But let me tell you,
+        Lenore. I've been hopin' to get Nash dead to rights."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What more do you want?" she
+        demanded.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I mean regardin' his relation to the
+        I.W.W.&hellip; 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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore had started shudderingly and
+        her look showed her voiceless fear.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You needn't tell your mother," he
+        went on, more intimately. "I can trust you an' &hellip; To
+        come back to Nash. He an' this Glidden&mdash;you remember,
+        one of those men at Dorn's house&mdash;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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Plots! What for?" queried Lenore,
+        breathlessly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why, that is terrible!" declared
+        Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I've a hunch from Jake&mdash;there's
+        a whisper of a plot to put me out of the way," said
+        Anderson, darkly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh&mdash;good Heavens! You don't mean
+        it!" cried Lenore, distractedly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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&mdash;bread for your own brother Jim&mdash;an' for
+        your own land?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Fight! Would I?" burst out Lenore,
+        with a passionate little cry.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Good! Now you're talkin'!" exclaimed
+        her father.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll find out about this
+        Nash&mdash;if you'll let me," declared Lenore, as if
+        inspired.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"How? What do you mean, girl?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll encourage him. I'll make him
+        think I'm a wishy-washy moonstruck girl, smitten with him.
+        All's fair in war!&hellip; If he means ill by my
+        father&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson muttered low under his breath
+        and his big hand snapped hard at the nodding goldenrod.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"For my sake&mdash;to help
+        me&mdash;you'd encourage Nash&mdash;flirt with him a
+        little&mdash;find out all you could?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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.&hellip; 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&mdash;I
+        felt I'd never look upon his face again!&hellip; I gave him
+        up. I could have held him back&mdash;got exemption for him.
+        But, no, by God! I gave him up&mdash;to make safety and
+        happiness and prosperity for&mdash;say, your children, an'
+        Rose's, an' Kathleen's.&hellip; 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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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.&hellip; 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&mdash;worth the trouble&mdash;will ever
+        be found out from him. But I don't figure that way. I say
+        play their own game an' take a chance.&hellip; 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.&hellip; 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?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes," whispered Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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.&hellip; 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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He turned away without looking at her,
+        and he hesitated, bending over to pluck a stem of
+        goldenrod.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lass&mdash;you're&mdash;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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore wanted to say something, to
+        show her feeling, to make her task seem lighter, but she
+        could not speak.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We're pards now&mdash;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."</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"This's a good a chance as we'll get,"
+        he said, in an eager, hurried whisper.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"For what?" asked Lenore, aghast.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"To run off," he replied, huskily.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh no! no!" she murmured. "I&mdash;I
+        can't think of that&mdash;yet."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But why not?" he demanded, in shrill
+        violence. His gloved hand clenched on the tool he held.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Mother has been so unhappy&mdash;with
+        my brother Jim&mdash;off to the war. I&mdash;I just
+        couldn't&mdash;now. Harry, you must give me time. It's all
+        so&mdash;so sudden. Please wait!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wait?" he was expostulating. "But
+        it's going to get hot for me."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh!&hellip; What do you mean?" she
+        begged. "You frighten me."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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&mdash;that I don't like, since I fell in
+        love with you. Come, run off with me and I'll give it
+        up."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore trembled at this admission. She
+        appeared to be close upon further discovery.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Harry, how wildly you talk!" she
+        exclaimed. "I hardly know you. You frighten me with your
+        mysterious talk.&hellip; Have&mdash;a&mdash;a little
+        consideration for me."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Nash strode back to lean into the car.
+        Behind his huge goggles his eyes gleamed. His gloved hand
+        closed hard on her arm.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It is sudden. It's got to be sudden,"
+        he said, in fierce undertone. "You must trust me."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I will. But you must confide in me,"
+        she replied, earnestly. "I'm not quite a fool. You're
+        rushing me&mdash;too&mdash;too&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Go in an' get a bite an' a drink,"
+        said Anderson to the driver. "An' hurry."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Nash obeyed. Jake's eyes never left
+        him until he entered the door. Then Jake stepped in beside
+        Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Thet water's wet, anyhow," he
+        drawled.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We'll get a good cold drink at
+        Dorn's," said Anderson. "Lass, how are you makin' it?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Fine," she replied, smiling.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"So I seen," significantly added Jake,
+        with a piercing glance at her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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&mdash;later."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The cowboy looked anything but
+        convinced; and he glanced with narrowed eyes at Nash as
+        that worthy hurried back to the car.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Near at hand Lenore saw the short
+        immature dirty-whitish wheat, and she realized that it was
+        ruined.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Father, you remember Dorn's section,
+        that promised so well?" asked Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes. But it promised only in case of
+        rain. I look for the worst," replied Anderson,
+        regretfully.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It looks like storm-clouds over
+        there," said Lenore, pointing far ahead.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"By George! there's a thunderhead!"
+        exclaimed Anderson. "Jake, what do you make of that?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Looks good to me," replied Jake, who
+        was always hopeful.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Suddenly Jake leaned forward.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Boss, I seen somethin' throwed out of
+        thet car&mdash;into the wheat," he said.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What?&mdash;Mebbe it was a bottle,"
+        replied Anderson, peering ahead.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Nope. Sure wasn't thet.&hellip; There!
+        I seen it again. Watch, boss!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"There! Seen it again," said Jake.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I saw!&hellip; Jake, mark that
+        spot.&hellip; Nash, slow down," yelled Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I reckon about here," said Jake,
+        waving his hand.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Stop her," ordered Anderson, and as
+        the car came to a halt he got out, followed by Jake.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, I marked it by thet rock,"
+        declared the cowboy.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"So did I," responded Anderson. "Let's
+        get over the fence an' find what it was they threw in
+        there."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore saw Jake pick up something and
+        scrutinize it.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll be dog-goned!" he muttered. Then
+        he approached Anderson. "What is thet?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jake, you can lambaste me if I ever
+        saw the likes," replied Anderson. "But it looks bad. Let's
+        rustle after that car."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">As Anderson clambered into his seat
+        once more he looked dark and grim.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Catch that car ahead," he tersely
+        ordered Nash. Whereupon the driver began to go through his
+        usual motions in starting.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I don't know what it is," replied
+        Lenore, wonderingly. "Do you?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No. An' I'd give a lot&mdash;Say,
+        Nash, hurry! Overhaul that car!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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&mdash;then came a tremendous buzzing roar, a violent
+        shaking of the car, followed by sharp explosions, and
+        silence.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You stripped the gears!" shouted
+        Anderson, with the red fading out of his face.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No; but something's wrong," replied
+        Nash. He got out to examine the engine.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Looks as bad as any," said Anderson.
+        "Good-by to my money."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">When next the car slowed down she
+        heard her father say, "Drive in by the house."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Nash, blow your horn an' then hunt
+        around for somebody," said Anderson. "Come, get out,
+        Lenore. You must be half dead."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Miss Lenore, I seen thet Nash pawin'
+        you," said the cowboy, "an' by Gosh! I couldn't believe my
+        eyes!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Not so loud! Jake, the young
+        gentleman imagines I'm in love with him," replied
+        Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wall, I'll remove his imagining',"
+        declared Jake, coolly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jake, you will do nothing."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Ahuh! Then you air in love with
+        <i>him?</i>"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Footsteps and voices sounded on the
+        path, upon which presently appeared Anderson and young
+        Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Good! I sure hope it rains. An' that
+        thunder sounds hopeful," responded Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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&mdash;I didn't see&mdash;you had brought your
+        daughter."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson surveyed the young man with
+        friendly glance.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What's your first name?" he queried,
+        with his blunt frankness.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt," was the reply.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Is that American?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No. Neither is Dorn. But Kurt Dorn is
+        an American."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hum! So I see, an' I'm powerful
+        glad.&hellip; An' you've saved the big section of promisin'
+        wheat?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sixty? Whew!" ejaculated
+        Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore smiled at these wheat men, and
+        said: "It surely will rain&mdash;and likely storm to-day. I
+        am a prophet who never fails."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"By George! that's true! Lenore has
+        anybody beat when it comes to figurin' the weather,"
+        declared Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Say, Lenore, how many bushels in a
+        section at sixty per acre?" went on Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Thirty-eight thousand four hundred,"
+        replied Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"An' what'll you sell for?" asked
+        Anderson of Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Father has sold at two dollars and
+        twenty-five cents a bushel," replied Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Good! But he ought to have waited.
+        The government will set a higher price.&hellip; How much
+        will that come to, Lenore?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn's smile, as he watched Lenore do
+        her mental arithmetic, attested to the fact that he already
+        had figured out the sum.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Eighty-six thousand four hundred
+        dollars," replied Lenore. "Is that right?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"An' you'll have thirty thousand
+        dollars left after all debts are paid?" inquired
+        Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, sir. I can hardly realize it.
+        That's a fortune&mdash;for one section of wheat. But we've
+        had four bad seasons.&hellip; Oh, if it only rains
+        to-day!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I knew a girl who could feel things
+        move when no one else could," said Lenore. "I'm sensitive
+        like that&mdash;at least about wind and rain. Right now I
+        can feel rain in the air."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Are you&mdash;going away?" asked
+        Lenore, in surprise.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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.&hellip; My number was the
+        first called!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Drafted!" echoed Lenore, and she
+        seemed to be standing on the threshold of an amazing and
+        terrible truth.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lass, we forget," said her father,
+        rather thickly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, but&mdash;why?" cried Lenore. She
+        had voiced the same poignant appeal to her brother Jim. Why
+        need he&mdash;why must he go to war? What for? And Jim had
+        called out a bitter curse on the Germans he meant to
+        kill.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why?" returned Dorn, with the sad,
+        thoughtful shadow returning to his eyes. "How many times
+        have I asked myself that?&hellip; In one way, I don't
+        know.&hellip; I haven't told father yet!&hellip; It's not for
+        his sake.&hellip; But when I think deeply&mdash;when I can
+        feel and see&mdash;I mean I'm going for my country.&hellip;
+        For you and your sisters."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Young Dorn seized it quickly, felt and
+        smelled and bit it.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Where'd you get this?" he asked, with
+        excitement.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson related the circumstance of
+        its discovery.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It's a preparation, mostly
+        phosphorus," replied Dorn. "When the moisture evaporates it
+        will ignite&mdash;set fire to any dry substance.&hellip;
+        That is a trick of the I.W.W. to burn the
+        wheat-fields."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"By all that's &mdash;&mdash;!" swore
+        Anderson, with his jaw bulging. "Jake an' I knew it meant
+        bad. But we didn't know what."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I've been expecting tricks of all
+        kinds," said Dorn. "I have four men watching the
+        section."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Good! Say, that car turned off to the
+        right back here some miles.&hellip; But, worse luck, the
+        I.W.W.'s can work at night."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We'll watch at night, too," replied
+        Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore was conscious of anger
+        encroaching upon the melancholy splendor of her emotions,
+        and the change was bitter.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"When the rain comes, won't it
+        counteract the ignition of that phosphorus?" she asked,
+        eagerly, for she knew that rain would come.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Only for the time being. It 'll be
+        just as dry this time to-morrow as it is now."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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&mdash;or five, counting me, watch a square mile of
+        wheat day and night?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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?</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, it is hard!" said Lenore to Dorn.
+        "I'm so sorry! But don't give up. While there's life
+        there's hope!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He looked up with tears in his
+        eyes.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Thank you.&hellip; I did weaken. You
+        see I've let myself believe too much&mdash;for dad's sake.
+        I don't care about the money for myself.&hellip; Money! What
+        good will money be to me&mdash;now? It's over for
+        me.&hellip; To get the wheat
+        cut&mdash;harvested&mdash;that's all I hoped.&hellip; The
+        army&mdash;war&mdash;France&mdash;I go to be&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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!&hellip; It's going to rain!&hellip; Father
+        will find some way to save the wheat!&hellip; And you are
+        coming home&mdash;after the war!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He crushed her hand to his hot
+        lips.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You make me&mdash;ashamed. I won't
+        give&mdash;up," he said, brokenly. "And when I'm
+        over&mdash;there&mdash;in the trenches, I'll
+        think&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dorn, listen to this," rang out
+        Anderson. "We'll fool that I.W.W. gang.&hellip;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&mdash;that fire can't
+        do no more harm&mdash;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.&hellip; Boy, it can
+        be done!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He ended with a big fist held aloft in
+        triumph.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I never thought of that," he burst
+        out, radiantly. "We can save the wheat.&hellip; Mr.
+        Anderson, I&mdash;I can't thank you enough."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Don't try," replied the rancher.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I tell you it will rain," cried
+        Lenore, gaily. "Let's walk out there&mdash;watch the storm
+        come across the hills. I love to see the shadows blow over
+        the wheat."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Listen!" exclaimed Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Boy, there's your
+        thirty-thousand-dollar rain!" shouted Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The journey homeward held many
+        incalculable differences from the uncertain doubts and
+        fears that had tormented Lenore on the outward trip.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The whisper was trenchant with meaning
+        and thoroughly aroused Lenore. But she gave no sign and
+        moved away.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I seen strangers sneakin' off in the
+        dark," Jake was whispering to Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Keep your eyes peeled," replied
+        Anderson. "I'll take Lenore up to the house an' come
+        back."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was pitch black up the path through
+        the grove and Lenore had to cling to her father.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Is there&mdash;any danger?" she
+        whispered.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We're lookin' for anythin'," replied
+        Anderson, slowly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Will you be careful?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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&mdash;he spots
+        some prowlin' coyotes the minute we reach home."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson unlocked and opened the door.
+        The hall was dark and quiet. He turned on the electric
+        light. Lenore was detaching her veil.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You look pale," he said,
+        solicitously. "No wonder. That was a ride. But I'm glad we
+        went. I saved Dorn's wheat."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm glad, too, father.
+        Good-night!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She was awakened from deep slumber by
+        Kathleen, who pulled and tugged at her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenorry, I thought you was dead, your
+        eyes were shut so tight," declared the child. "Breakfast is
+        waiting. Did you fetch me anything?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, a new sister," replied Lenore,
+        dreamily.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kathleen's eyes opened wide.
+        "Where?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore place a hand over her
+        heart.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Here."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, you do look funny.&hellip; Get up,
+        Lenorry. Did you hear the shooting last night?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Instantly Lenore sat up and
+        stared.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No. Was there any?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You bet. But I don't know what it was
+        all about."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore dispelled her dreamy state,
+        and, hurriedly dressing, she went down to breakfast. Her
+        father and Rose were still at the table.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hello, big eyes!" was his
+        greeting.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">And Rose, not to be outdone, chirped,
+        "Hello, old sleepy-head!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jake shot to frighten them?" inquired
+        Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Not much. He stung one I.W.W., that's
+        sure. We heard a cry, an' this mornin' we found some
+        blood."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What do you suppose these&mdash;these
+        night visitors wanted?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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&mdash;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'?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore told what had transpired
+        between her and the driver. Anderson's face turned fiery
+        red.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That ain't much to help us,"
+        declared, angrily. "But it shows him up.&hellip; 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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore took the front seat in the car
+        beside the driver. He showed unconscious response to that
+        action.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jake, aren't you coming?" she asked,
+        of the cowboy.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Say, you ought to be drivin' a
+        hay-wagon," called Anderson, sarcastically.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Ah! I see you get letters&mdash;from
+        a woman," she said, pretending a poison sweetness of
+        jealousy.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Certainly. I'm not married yet," he
+        replied. "Lenore, last night&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You will never be married&mdash;to
+        me&mdash;while you write to other women. Let me see that
+        letter!&hellip; Let me read it&mdash;all of them!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No, Lenore&mdash;not here. And don't
+        speak so loud. Your father will be coming any
+        minute.&hellip; Lenore, he suspects me. And that cowboy
+        knows things. I can't go back to the ranch."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, you must come!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No. If you love me you've got to run
+        off with me to-day."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But why the hurry?" she appealed.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It's getting hot for me."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Nash grew pale and earnest, and his
+        hands shook.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But if I do confide in you, then will
+        you come with me?" he queried, breathlessly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll not promise. Maybe what you have
+        to tell will prove&mdash;you&mdash;you don't care for
+        me."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It 'll prove I do," he replied,
+        passionately.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Listen. I tell you it's getting hot
+        for me," he whispered. "I've been put here&mdash;close to
+        Anderson&mdash;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&mdash;and harm
+        comes to him&mdash;I'll never get you. Is that clear?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It certainly is," replied Lenore, and
+        she felt a tightness at her throat.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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.&hellip; 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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Germany!" whispered Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I can't say. But men are all over,
+        and these men work in secret. There are American citizens
+        in the Northwest&mdash;one right in this valley&mdash;who
+        have plotted to ruin your father."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Do you know who they are?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No, I do not."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You are for Germany, of course?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"So it's Glidden!" exclaimed
+        Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Nash bit his lip, and for the first
+        time looked at Lenore without thinking of himself. And
+        surprise dawned in his eyes.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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.&hellip;Now
+        I'll save your father if you'll stick to me."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore could no longer restrain
+        herself. This man was not even big in his wickedness.
+        Lenore divined that his later words held no truth.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Mr. Ruenke, you are a detestable
+        coward," she said, with quivering scorn. "I let you
+        imagine&mdash;Oh! I can't speak it!&hellip;
+        You&mdash;you&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"God! You fooled me!" he ejaculated,
+        his jaw falling in utter amaze.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You were contemptibly easy. You'd
+        better jump out of this car and run. My father will shoot
+        you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You deceitful&mdash;cat!" he cried,
+        haltingly, as anger overcame his astonishment.
+        "I'll&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Say, Mister Ruenke, the postmaster
+        says you get letters here under different names," said
+        Anderson, bluntly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;get
+        them&mdash;for a friend," stammered the driver, as his face
+        turned white.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You lyin' German pup!&hellip; 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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Nash made a slow movement, as if to
+        comply, then suddenly he threw on the power. The car jerked
+        forward.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sit still, or you'll kill yourself."
+        shouted Nash, hoarsely.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore fell back, almost fainting,
+        with the swift realization of what had happened.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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&mdash;a country where foreign-born
+        people predominate."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Will you smoke?" he asked, offering
+        one.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Have you been drafted?" abruptly
+        queried Mr. Hall.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, sir. Mine was the first number,"
+        replied Kurt, with a little pride.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Do you want exemption?" swiftly came
+        the second query.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It shocked Dorn, then stung him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No," he said, forcibly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Your father's sympathy is with
+        Germany, I understand."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well, sir, I don't know how you
+        understand that, but it's true&mdash;to my regret and
+        shame."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You want to fight?" went on the
+        official.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I hate the idea of war. But I&mdash;I
+        guess I want to fight. Maybe that's because I'm feeling
+        scrappy over these I.W.W. tricks."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I accept. I'll do my best," replied
+        Kurt, grimly. "I'll be going some the next two weeks."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes? Where?" ejaculated Kurt, quick
+        to catch a significance in the other's words.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I've motored direct from Wheatly. And
+        I'm sorry to say that what I have now to tell you is not
+        pleasant.&hellip; 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.&hellip; And your father
+        is reported to be suspiciously interested in the I.W.W. men
+        now at Wheatly."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, that's awful!" exclaimed Kurt,
+        with a groan. "How did you learn that?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"From American farmers&mdash;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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Father has not been rational since
+        the President declared war. He's very old. I've had trouble
+        with him. He might do anything."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My boy, there are multitudes of
+        irrational men nowadays and the number is growing.&hellip; 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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt produced the cake of phosphorus
+        and explained its significance to the curious official.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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:</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It appears that you are in
+        earnest!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm inclined to think that Uncle Sam
+        would not deplore your shooting a little higher.&hellip;
+        Dorn, you're fine! You're all I heard you were! Shake
+        hands!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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&mdash;an ambulance-driver at the front or an
+        aeroplane scout.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then Kurt went out and accosted a man
+        leaning against a hitching-rail.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What's going on in this town?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The man stood rather indistinctly in
+        the uncertain light. Kurt, however, made out his eyes and
+        they were regarding him suspiciously.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Nothin' onusual," was the reply.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Has harvesting begun in these
+        parts?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Some barley cut, but no wheat. Next
+        week, I reckon."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"How's the wheat?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Some bad an' some good."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Is this town a headquarters for the
+        I.W.W.?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No. But there's a big camp of
+        I.W.W.'s near here. Reckon you're one of them union
+        fellers?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I am not," declared Kurt,
+        bluntly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Reckon you sure look like one, with
+        thet gun under your coat."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Are you going to hire I.W.W. men?"
+        asked Kurt, ignoring the other's observation.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm only a farm-hand," was the sullen
+        reply. "An' I tell you I won't join no I.W.W."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm not sure," replied Kurt. "Will
+        you let me look at the register?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The man shoved the book around. Kurt
+        did not find the name he sought.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My father, Chris Dorn, is in town.
+        Can you tell me where I'll find him?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"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."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Who's the big man with my father?" he
+        asked.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"He is a big man, both ways. Don't you
+        know him?" rejoined the proprietor, in a lower voice.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm not sure," answered Kurt. The
+        lowered tone had a significance that decided Kurt to admit
+        nothing.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That's Neuman from Ruxton, one of the
+        biggest wheat men in Washington."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">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?</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I thought he was Neuman," replied
+        Kurt, feeling his way. "Is he in on the big deal with
+        father?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Which one?" queried the proprietor,
+        with shrewd eyes, taking Kurt's measure. "You're in on
+        both, of course."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure. I mean the wheat sale, not the
+        I.W.W. deal," replied Kurt. He hazarded a guess with that
+        mention of the I.W.W. No sooner had the words passed his
+        lips than he divined he was on the track of sinister
+        events.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Your father sold out to that Spokane
+        miller. No, Neuman is not in on that."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I was surprised to hear father had
+        sold the wheat. Was it speculation or guarantee?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Old Chris guaranteed sixty bushels.
+        There were friends of his here who advised against it. Did
+        you have rain over there?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Fine. The wheat will go over sixty
+        bushels. I'm sorry I couldn't get here sooner."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"When it rained you hurried over to
+        boost the price. Well, it's too late."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Is Glidden here?" queried Kurt,
+        hazarding another guess.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Don't talk so loud," warned the
+        proprietor. "Yes, he just got here in a car with two other
+        men. He's up-stairs having supper in his room."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Supper!" Kurt echoed the word, and
+        averted his face to hide the leap of his blood. "That
+        reminds me, I'm hungry."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He went into the big, dimly lighted
+        dining-room. There was a shelf on one side as he went in,
+        and here, with his back turned to the room, he laid the
+        disjointed gun and his hat. Several newspapers lying near
+        attracted his eye. Quickly he slipped them under and around
+        the gun, and then took a seat at the nearest table. A buxom
+        German waitress came for his order. He gave it while he
+        gazed around at his grim-faced old father and the burly
+        Neuman, and his ears throbbed to the beat of his blood. His
+        hand trembled on the table. His thoughts flashed almost too
+        swiftly for comprehension. It took a stern effort to gain
+        self-control.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Evil of some nature was afoot.
+        Neuman's presence there was a strange, disturbing fact.
+        Kurt had made two guesses, both alarmingly correct. If he
+        had any more illusions or hopes, he dispelled them. His
+        father had been won over by this arch conspirator of the
+        I.W.W. And, despite his father's close-fistedness where
+        money was concerned, that eighty thousand dollars, or part
+        of it, was in danger.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt wondered how he could get
+        possession of it. If he could he would return it to the
+        bank and wire a warning to the Spokane buyer that the wheat
+        was not safe. He might persuade his father to turn over the
+        amount of the debt to Anderson. While thinking and
+        planning, Kurt kept an eye on his father and rather
+        neglected his supper. Presently, when old Dorn and Neuman
+        rose and left the dining-room, Kurt followed them. His
+        father was whispering to the proprietor over the desk, and
+        at Kurt's touch he glared his astonishment.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You here! What for?" he demanded,
+        gruffly, in German.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I had to see you," replied Kurt, in
+        English.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Did it rain?" was the old man's
+        second demand, husky and serious.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"The wheat is made, if we can harvest
+        it," answered Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The blaze of joy on old Dorn's face
+        gave Kurt a twinge of pain. He hated to dispel it. "Come
+        aside, here, a minute," he whispered, and drew his father
+        over to a corner under a lamp. "I've got bad news. Look at
+        this!" He produced the cake of phosphorus, careful to hide
+        it from other curious eyes there, and with swift, low words
+        he explained its meaning. He expected an outburst of
+        surprise and fury, but he was mistaken.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I know about that," whispered his
+        father, hoarsely. "There won't be any thrown in my
+        wheat."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Father! What assurance have you of
+        that?" queried Kurt, astounded.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The old man nodded his gray head
+        wisely. He knew, but he did not speak.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Do you think these I.W.W. plotters
+        will spare your wheat?" asked Kurt. "You are wrong. They
+        may lie to your face. But they'll betray you. The I.W.W. is
+        backed by&mdash;by interests that want to embarrass the
+        government."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What government?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why, ours&mdash;the U.S.
+        government!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That's not my government. The more
+        it's embarrassed the better it will suit me."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">In the stress of the moment Kurt had
+        forgotten his father's bitter and unchangeable hatred.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But you're&mdash;you're stupid," he
+        hissed, passionately. "That government has protected you
+        for fifty years."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Old Dorn growled into his beard. His
+        huge ox-eyes rolled. Kurt realized then finally how
+        implacable and hopeless he was&mdash;how utterly German.
+        Then Kurt importuned him to return the eighty thousand
+        dollars to the bank until he was sure the wheat was
+        harvested and hauled to the railroad.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My wheat won't burn," was old Dorn's
+        stubborn reply.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well, then, give me Anderson's thirty
+        thousand. I'll take it to him at once. Our debt will be
+        paid. We'll have it off our minds."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No hurry about that," replied his
+        father.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But there is hurry," returned Kurt,
+        in a hot whisper. "Anderson came to see you to-day. He
+        wants his money."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Neuman holds the small end of that
+        debt. I'll pay him. Anderson can wait."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt felt no amaze. He expected
+        anything. But he could scarcely contain his fury. How this
+        old man, his father, whom he had loved&mdash;how he had
+        responded to the influences that must destroy him!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Anderson shall not wait," declared
+        Kurt. "I've got some say in this matter. I've worked like a
+        dog in those wheat-fields. I've a right to demand
+        Anderson's money. He needs it. He has a tremendous harvest
+        on his hands."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Old Dorn shook his huge head in somber
+        and gloomy thought. His broad face, his deep eyes, seemed
+        to mask and to hide. It was an expression Kurt had seldom
+        seen there, but had always hated. It seemed so old to Kurt,
+        that alien look, something not born of his time.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Anderson is a capitalist," said Chris
+        Dorn, deep in his beard. "He seeks control of farmers and
+        wheat in the Northwest. Ranch after ranch he's gained by
+        taking up and foreclosing mortgages. He's against labor. He
+        grinds down the poor. He cheated Neuman out of a hundred
+        thousand bushels of wheat. He bought up my debt. He meant
+        to ruin me. He&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You're talking I.W.W. rot," whispered
+        Kurt, shaking with the effort to subdue his feelings.
+        "Anderson is fine, big, square&mdash;a developer of the
+        Northwest. Not an enemy! He's our friend. Oh! if only you
+        had an American's eyes, just for a minute!&hellip; Father, I
+        want that money for Anderson."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My son, I run my own business,"
+        replied Dorn, sullenly, with a pale fire in his opaque
+        eyes. "You're a wild boy, unfaithful to your blood. You've
+        fallen in love with an American girl.&hellip; Anderson says
+        he needs money!"&hellip; With hard, gloomy face the old man
+        shook his head. "He thinks he'll harvest!" Again that
+        strange shake of finality. "I know what I know.&hellip; I
+        keep my money.&hellip; We'll have other rule.&hellip; I keep
+        my money."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt had vibrated to those most
+        significant words and he stared speechless at his
+        father.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Go home. Get ready for harvest,"
+        suddenly ordered old Dorn, as if he had just awakened to
+        the fact of Kurt's disobedience in lingering here.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"All right, father," replied Kurt,
+        and, turning on his heel, he strode outdoors.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">When he got beyond the light he turned
+        and went back to a position where in the dark he could
+        watch without being seen. His father and the hotel
+        proprietor were again engaged in earnest colloquy. Neuman
+        had disappeared. Kurt saw the huge shadow of a man pass
+        across a drawn blind in a room up-stairs. Then he saw
+        smaller shadows, and arms raised in vehement gesticulation.
+        The very shadows were sinister. Men passed in and out of
+        the hotel. Once old Dorn came to the door and peered all
+        around. Kurt observed that there was a dark side entrance
+        to this hotel. Presently Neuman returned to the desk and
+        said something to old Dorn, who shook his head
+        emphatically, and then threw himself into a chair, in a
+        brooding posture that Kurt knew well. He had seen it so
+        often that he knew it had to do with money. His father was
+        refusing demands of some kind. Neuman again left the
+        office, this time with the proprietor. They were absent
+        some little time.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">During this period Kurt leaned against
+        a tree, hidden in the shadow, with keen eyes watching and
+        with puzzled, anxious mind. He had determined, in case his
+        father left that office with Neuman, on one of those
+        significant disappearances, to slip into the hotel at the
+        side entrance and go up-stairs to listen at the door of the
+        room with the closely drawn blind. Neuman returned soon
+        with the hotel man, and the two of them half led, half
+        dragged old Dorn out into the street. They took the
+        direction toward the railroad. Kurt followed at a safe
+        distance on the opposite side of the street. Soon they
+        passed the stores with lighted windows, then several dark
+        houses, and at length the railroad station. Perhaps they
+        were bound for the train. Kurt heard rumbling in the
+        distance. But they went beyond the station, across the
+        track, and turned to the right.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt was soft-footed and keen-eyed. He
+        just kept the dim shadows in range. They were heading for
+        some freight-cars that stood upon a side-track. The dark
+        figures disappeared behind them. Then one figure
+        reappeared, coming back. Kurt crouched low. This man passed
+        within a few yards of Kurt and he was whispering to
+        himself. After he was safely out of earshot Kurt stole on
+        stealthily until he reached the end of the freight-cars.
+        Here he paused, listening. He thought he heard low voices,
+        but he could not see the men he was following. No doubt
+        they were waiting in the secluded gloom for the other men
+        apparently necessary for that secret conference. Kurt had
+        sensed this event and he had determined to be present. He
+        tried not to conjecture. It was best for him to apply all
+        his faculties to the task of slipping unseen and unheard
+        close to these men who had involved his father in some dark
+        plot.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Not long after Kurt hid himself on the
+        other side of the freight-car he heard soft-padded
+        footsteps and subdued voices. Dark shapes appeared to come
+        out of the gloom. They passed him. He distinguished low,
+        guttural voices, speaking German. These men, three in
+        number, were scarcely out of sight when Kurt laid his rifle
+        on the projecting shelf of the freight-car and followed
+        them.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Presently he came to deep shadow,
+        where he paused. Low voices drew him on again, then a light
+        made him thrill. Now and then the light appeared to be
+        darkened by moving figures. A dark object loomed up to cut
+        off Kurt's view. It was a pile of railroad ties, and beyond
+        it loomed another. Stealing along these, he soon saw the
+        light again, quite close. By its glow he recognized his
+        father's huge frame, back to him, and the burly Neuman on
+        the other side, and Glidden, whose dark face was working as
+        he talked. These three were sitting, evidently on a flat
+        pile of ties, and the other two men stood behind. Kurt
+        could not make out the meaning of the low voices. Pressing
+        closer to the freight-car, he cautiously and noiselessly
+        advanced.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Glidden was importuning with
+        expressive hands and swift, low utterance. His face gleamed
+        dark, hard, strong, intensely strung with corded, quivering
+        muscles, with eyes apparently green orbs of fire. He spoke
+        in German.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt dared not go closer unless he
+        wanted to be discovered, and not yet was he ready for that.
+        He might hear some word to help explain his father's
+        strange, significant intimations about Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"&hellip;must&mdash;have&mdash;money,"
+        Glidden was saying. To Kurt's eyes treachery gleamed in
+        that working face. Neuman bent over to whisper gruffly in
+        Dorn's ear. One of the silent men standing rubbed his hands
+        together. Old Dorn's head was bowed. Then Glidden spoke so
+        low and so swiftly that Kurt could not connect sentences,
+        but with mounting blood he stood transfixed and horrified,
+        to gather meaning from word on word, until he realized
+        Anderson's doom, with other rich men of the Northwest, was
+        sealed&mdash;that there were to be burnings of wheat-fields
+        and of storehouses and of freight-trains&mdash;destruction
+        everywhere.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I give money," said old Dorn, and
+        with heavy movement he drew from inside his coat a large
+        package wrapped in newspaper. He laid it before him in the
+        light and began to unwrap it. Soon there were disclosed two
+        bundles of bills&mdash;the eighty thousand dollars.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt thrilled in all his being. His
+        poor father was being misled and robbed. A melancholy flash
+        of comfort came to Kurt! Then at sight of Glidden's hungry
+        eyes and working face and clutching hands Kurt pulled his
+        hat far down, drew his revolver, and leaped forward with a
+        yell, "Hands up!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He discharged the revolver right in
+        the faces of the stunned plotters, and, snatching up the
+        bundle of money, he leaped over the light, knocking one of
+        the men down, and was gone into the darkness, without
+        having slowed in the least his swift action.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Wheeling round the end of the
+        freight-car, he darted back, risking a hard fall in the
+        darkness, and ran along the several cars to the first one,
+        where he grasped his rifle and kept on. He heard his
+        father's roar, like that of a mad bull, and shrill yells
+        from the other men. Kurt laughed grimly. They would never
+        catch him in the dark. While he ran he stuffed the money
+        into his inside coat pockets. Beyond the railroad station
+        he slowed down to catch his breath. His breast was heaving,
+        his pulse hammering, and his skin was streaming. The
+        excitement was the greatest under which he had ever
+        labored.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Now&mdash;what shall&mdash;I do?" he
+        panted. A freight-train was lumbering toward him and the
+        head-light was almost at the station. The train appeared to
+        be going slowly through without stopping. Kurt hurried on
+        down the track a little farther. Then he waited. He would
+        get on that train and make his way somehow to Ruxton, there
+        to warn Anderson of the plot against his life.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt rode to Adrian on that freight,
+        and upon arriving in the yards there he jumped off, only to
+        mount another, headed south. He meant to be traveling while
+        it was dark. No passenger-trains ran at night and he wanted
+        to put as much distance between him and Wheatly as possible
+        before daylight.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He had piled into an open box-car. It
+        was empty, at least of freight, and the floor appeared to
+        have a thin covering of hay. The train, gathering headway,
+        made a rattling rolling roar. Kurt hesitated about getting
+        up and groping back in the pitch-black corners of the car.
+        He felt that it contained a presence besides his own. And
+        suddenly he was startled by an object blacker than the
+        shadow, that sidled up close to him. Kurt could not keep
+        the cold chills from chasing up and down his back. The
+        object was a man, who reached for Kurt and felt of him with
+        a skinny hand.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I.W.W.?" he whispered, hoarsely, in
+        Kurt's ear.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes," replied Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Was that Adrian where you got
+        on?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It sure was," answered Kurt, with
+        grim humor.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Than you're the feller?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure," replied Kurt. It was evident
+        that he had embarked upon an adventure.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"When do we stall this freight?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Not while we're on it, you can
+        gamble."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Other dark forms sidled out of the
+        gloomy depths of that cavern-like corner and drew close to
+        Kurt. He realized that he had fallen in with I.W.W. men who
+        apparently had taken him for an expected messenger or
+        leader. He was importuned for tobacco, drink, and money,
+        and he judged that his begging companions consisted of an
+        American tramp, an Austrian, a negro, and a German. Fine
+        society to fall into! That eighty thousand dollars became a
+        tremendous burden.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"How many men on this freight?"
+        queried Kurt, thinking he could ask questions better than
+        answer them. And he was told there were about twenty-five,
+        all of whom expected money. At this information Kurt rather
+        closely pressed his hand upon the revolver in his side coat
+        pocket. By asking questions and making judicious replies he
+        passed what he felt was the dark mark in that mixed company
+        of I.W.W. men; and at length, one by one, they melted away
+        to their warmer corners, leaving Kurt by the door. He did
+        not mind the cold. He wanted to be where, at the first
+        indication of a stop, he could jump off the train.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">With his hand on his gun and hugging
+        the bulging coat pockets close to him, Kurt settled himself
+        for what he believed would be interminable hours. He
+        strained eyes and ears for a possible attack from the
+        riffraff I.W.W. men hidden there in the car. And that was
+        why, perhaps, that it seemed only a short while until the
+        train bumped and slowed, preparatory to stopping. The
+        instant it was safe Kurt jumped out and stole away in the
+        gloom. A fence obstructed further passage. He peered around
+        to make out that he was in a road. Thereupon he hurried
+        along it until he was out of hearing of the train. There
+        was light in the east, heralding a dawn that Kurt surely
+        would welcome. He sat down to wait, and addressed to his
+        bewildered judgment a query as to whether or not he ought
+        to keep on carrying the burdensome rifle. It was not only
+        heavy, but when daylight came it might attract attention,
+        and his bulging coat would certainly invite curiosity. He
+        was in a predicament; nevertheless, he decided to hang on
+        to the rifle.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He almost fell asleep, waiting there
+        with his back against a fence-post. The dawn came, and then
+        the rosy sunrise. And he discovered, not half a mile away,
+        a good-sized town, where he believed he surely could hire
+        an automobile.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Waiting grew to be so tedious that he
+        decided to risk the early hour, and proceeded toward the
+        town. Upon the outskirts he met a farmer boy, who, in reply
+        to a question, said that the town was Connell. Kurt found
+        another early riser in the person of a blacksmith who
+        evidently was a Yankee and proud of it. He owned a car that
+        he was willing to hire out on good security. Kurt satisfied
+        him on that score, and then proceeded to ask how to get
+        across the Copper River and into Golden Valley. The highway
+        followed the railroad from that town to Kahlotus, and there
+        crossed a big trunk-line railroad, to turn south toward the
+        river.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">In half an hour, during which time
+        Kurt was enabled to breakfast, the car was ready. It was a
+        large car, rather ancient and the worse for wear, but its
+        owner assured Kurt that it would take him where he wanted
+        to go and he need not be afraid to drive fast. With that
+        inspiring knowledge Kurt started off.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Before ten o'clock Kurt reached Kilo,
+        far across the Copper River, with the Blue Mountains in
+        sight, and from there less confusing directions to follow.
+        He had been lucky. He had passed the wreck of the
+        freight-train upon which he had ridden from Adrian; his car
+        had been surrounded by rough men, and only quick wits saved
+        him at least delay; he had been hailed by more than one
+        group of tramping I.W.W. men; and he had passed camps and
+        freight-yards where idlers were congregated. And lastly, he
+        had seen, far across the valley, a pall of smoke from
+        forest fire.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He was going to reach "Many Waters" in
+        time to warn Anderson, and that fact gave him strange
+        exultation. When it was assured and he had the eighty
+        thousand dollars deposited in a bank he could feel that his
+        gray, gloomy future would have several happy memories. How
+        would Lenore Anderson feel toward a man who had saved her
+        father? The thought was too rich, too sweet for Kurt to
+        dwell upon.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Before noon Kurt began to climb
+        gradually up off the wonderfully fertile bottom-lands where
+        the endless orchards and boundless gardens delighted his
+        eye, and the towns grew fewer and farther between. Kurt
+        halted at Huntington for water, and when he was about ready
+        to start a man rushed out of a store, glanced hurriedly up
+        and down the almost deserted street, and, espying Kurt, ran
+        to him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Message over 'phone! I.W.W.! Hell to
+        pay!" he cried, excitedly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What's up? Tell me the message,"
+        replied Kurt, calmly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It just come&mdash;from Vale.
+        Anderson, the big rancher! He 'phoned to send men out on
+        all roads&mdash;to stop his car! His daughter's in it!
+        She's been made off with! I.W.W.'s!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt's heart leaped. The bursting
+        blood burned through him and receded to leave him cold,
+        tingling. Anything might happen to him this day! He reached
+        inside the seat to grasp the disjointed rifle, and three
+        swift movements seemed to serve to unwrap it and put the
+        pieces together.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What else did Anderson say?" he
+        asked, sharply.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That likely the car would head for
+        the hills, where the I.W.W.'s are camped."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What road from here leads that
+        way?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Take the left-hand road at the end of
+        town," replied the man, more calmly. "Ten miles down you'll
+        come to a fork. There's where the I.W.W.'s will turn off to
+        go up into the foot-hills. Anderson just 'phoned. You can
+        head off his car if it's on the hill road. But you'll have
+        to drive.&hellip; Do you know Anderson's car? Don't you want
+        men with you?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No time!" called Kurt, as he leaped
+        into the seat and jammed on the power.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll send cars all over," shouted the
+        man, as Kurt whirred away.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt's eyes and hands and feet hurt
+        with the sudden intensity of strain. All his nervous force
+        seemed set upon the one great task of driving and guiding
+        that car at the limit of its speed. Huntington flashed
+        behind, two indistinct streaks of houses. An open road,
+        slightly rising, stretched ahead. The wind pressed so hard
+        that he could scarcely breathe. The car gave forth a
+        humming roar.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt's heart labored, swollen and
+        tight, high in his breast, and his thoughts were swift,
+        tumultuous. An agony of dread battled with a dominating but
+        strange certainty. He felt belief in his luck.
+        Circumstances one by one had led to this drive, and in
+        every one passed by he felt the direction of chance.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He sped by fields of wheat, a wagon
+        that he missed by an inch, some stragglers on the road, and
+        then, far ahead, he saw a sign-post of the forks. As he
+        neared it he gradually shut off the power, to stop at the
+        cross-roads. There he got out to search for fresh car
+        tracks turning up to the right. There were none. If
+        Anderson's car was coming on that road he would meet
+        it.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt started again, but at reasonable
+        speed, while his eyes were sharp on the road ahead. It was
+        empty. It sloped down for a long way, and made a wide curve
+        to the right, along the base of hilly pastureland, and then
+        again turned. And just as Kurt's keen gaze traveled that
+        far a big automobile rounded the bend, coming fast. He
+        recognized the red color, the shape of the car.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Anderson's!" he cried, with that same
+        lift of his heart, that bursting gush of blood. "No
+        dream!&hellip; I see it!&hellip; And I'll stop it!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The advantage was all his. He would
+        run along at reasonable speed, choose a narrow place, stop
+        his car so as to obstruct the road, and get out with his
+        rifle.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It seemed a long stretch down that
+        long slope, and his car crept along while the other
+        gradually closed the gap. Slower and slower Kurt ran, then
+        turned half across the road and stopped. When he stepped
+        out the other car was two hundred yards or more distant.
+        Kurt saw when the driver slackened his speed. There
+        appeared to be only two people in the car, both in front.
+        But Kurt could not be sure of that until it was only fifty
+        yards away.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then he swung out his rifle and waved
+        for the driver to stop. But he did not stop. Kurt heard a
+        scream. He saw a white face. He saw the driver swing his
+        hand across that white face, dashing it back.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Halt!" yelled Kurt, at the top of his
+        lungs.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">But the driver hunched down and put on
+        the power. The red car leaped. As it flashed by Kurt
+        recognized Nash and Anderson's daughter. She looked
+        terrified. Kurt dared not shoot, for fear of hitting the
+        girl. Nash swerved, took the narrow space left him,
+        smashing the right front wheel of Kurt's car, and got
+        by.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt stepped aside and took a quick
+        shot at the tire of Nash's left hind wheel. He missed. His
+        heart sank and he was like ice as he risked another. The
+        little high-power bullet struck and blew the tire off the
+        wheel. Nash's car lurched, skidded into the bank not thirty
+        yards away.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">With a bound Kurt started for it, and
+        he was there when Nash had twisted out of his seat and over
+        the door.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Far enough! Don't move!" ordered
+        Kurt, presenting the rifle.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Nash was ghastly white, with hunted
+        eyes and open mouth, and his hands shook.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh it's&mdash;Kurt Dorn!" cried a
+        broken voice.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt saw the girl fumble with the door
+        on her side, open it, and stagger out of his sight. Then
+        she reappeared round the car. Bareheaded, disheveled, white
+        as chalk, with burning eyes and bleeding lips, she gazed at
+        Kurt as if to make sure of her deliverance.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Miss Anderson&mdash;if he's harmed
+        you&mdash;" broke out Kurt, hoarsely.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh!&hellip; Don't kill him!&hellip; He
+        hasn't touched me," she replied, wildly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But your lips are bleeding."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Are they?" She put a trembling hand
+        to them. "He&mdash;he struck me.&hellip; That's
+        nothing&hellip; But you&mdash;you have saved me&mdash;from
+        God only knows what!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I have! From him?" demanded Kurt.
+        "What is he?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"He's a German!" returned Lenore, and
+        red burned out of the white of her cheeks. "Secret
+        agent&mdash;I.W.W.!&hellip; Plotter against my father's
+        life!&hellip; Oh, he knocked father off the
+        car&mdash;dragged him!&hellip; He ran the car
+        away&mdash;with me&mdash;forced me back&mdash;he struck
+        me!&hellip; Oh, if I were a man!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Nash responded with a passion that
+        made his face drip with sweat and distort into savage fury
+        of defeat and hate.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You two-faced cat!" he hissed. "You
+        made love to me! You fooled me! You let me&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Shut up!" thundered Kurt. "You German
+        dog! I can't murder you, because I'm American. Do you get
+        that? But I'll beat you within an inch of your life!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">As Kurt bent over to lay down the
+        rifle, Nash darted a hand into the seat for weapon of some
+        kind. But Kurt, in a rush, knocked him over the front
+        guard. Nash howled. He scrambled up with bloody mouth. Kurt
+        was on him again.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Take that!" cried Kurt, low and hard,
+        as he swung his arm. The big fist that had grasped so many
+        plow-handles took Nash full on that bloody mouth and laid
+        him flat. "Come on, German! Get out of the trench!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Like a dog Nash thrashed and crawled,
+        scraping his hands in the dirt, to jump up and fling a rock
+        that Kurt ducked by a narrow margin. Nash followed it,
+        swinging wildly, beating at his adversary.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Passion long contained burst in Kurt.
+        He tasted the salt of his own blood where he had bitten his
+        lips. Nash showed as in a red haze. Kurt had to get his
+        hands on this German, and when he did it liberated a
+        strange and terrible joy in him. No weapon would have
+        sufficed. Hardly aware of Nash's blows, Kurt tore at him,
+        swung and choked him, bore him down on the bank, and there
+        beat him into a sodden, bloody-faced heap.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Only then did a cry of distress,
+        seemingly from far off, pierce Kurt's ears. Miss Anderson
+        was pulling at him with frantic hands.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, don't kill him! Please don't kill
+        him!" she was crying. "Kurt!&mdash;for my sake, don't kill
+        him!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">That last poignant appeal brought Kurt
+        to his senses. He let go of Nash. He allowed the girl to
+        lead him back. Panting hard, he tried to draw a deep, full
+        breath.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, he doesn't move!" whispered
+        Lenore, with wide eyes on Nash.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Miss Anderson&mdash;he's
+        not&mdash;even insensible," panted Kurt. "But he's
+        licked&mdash;good and hard."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The girl leaned against the side of
+        the car, with a hand buried in her heaving breast. She was
+        recovering. The gray shade left her face. Her eyes, still
+        wide and dark and beginning to glow with softer emotions,
+        were upon Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You&mdash;you were the one to come,"
+        she murmured. "I prayed. I was terribly frightened. Ruenke
+        was taking me&mdash;to the I.W.W. camp, up in the
+        hills."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Ruenke?" queried Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, that's his German name."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt awoke to the exigencies of the
+        situation. Searching in the car, he found a leather belt.
+        With this he securely bound Ruenke's hands behind his back,
+        then rolled him down into the road.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My first German prisoner," said Kurt,
+        half seriously. "Now, Miss Anderson, we must be doing
+        things. We don't want to meet a lot of I.W.W.'s out here.
+        My car is out of commission. I hope yours is not
+        broken."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt got into the car and found, to
+        his satisfaction, that it was not damaged so far as
+        running-gear was concerned. After changing the ruined tire
+        he backed down the road and turned to stop near where
+        Ruenke lay. Opening the rear door, Kurt picked him up as if
+        he had been a sack of wheat and threw him into the car.
+        Next he secured the rifle that had been such a burden and
+        had served him so well in the end.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Get in, Miss Anderson," he said, "and
+        show me where to drive you home."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She got in beside him, making a
+        grimace as she saw Ruenke lying behind her. Kurt started
+        and ran slowly by the damaged car.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"He knocked a wheel off. I'll have to
+        send back."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, I thought it was all over when we
+        hit!" said the girl.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt experienced a relaxation that was
+        weakening. He could hardly hold the wheel and his mood
+        became one of exaltation.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Father suspected this Ruenke," went
+        on Lenore. "But he wanted to find out things from him. And
+        I&mdash;I undertook&mdash;to twist Mr. Germany round my
+        finger. I made a mess of it.&hellip; He lied. I didn't make
+        love to him. But I listened to his love-making, and
+        arrogant German love-making it was! I'm afraid I made eyes
+        at him and let him believe I was smitten.&hellip; Oh, and
+        all for nothing! I'm ashamed&hellip; But he lied!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Her confidence, at once pathetic and
+        humorous and contemptuous, augmented Kurt's Homeric mood.
+        He understood that she would not even let him, for a
+        moment, have a wrong impression of her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It must have been hard," agreed Kurt.
+        "Didn't you find out anything at all?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Not much," she replied. Then she put
+        a hand on his sleeve. "Your knuckles are all bloody."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"So they are. I got that punching our
+        German friend."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, how you did beat him!" she cried.
+        "I had to look. My ire was up, too!&hellip; It wasn't very
+        womanly&mdash;of me&mdash;that I gloried in the sight."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But you cried out&mdash;you pulled me
+        away!" exclaimed Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That was because I was afraid you'd
+        kill him," she replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt swerved his glance, for an
+        instant, to her face. It was at once flushed and pale, with
+        the deep blue of downcast eyes shadowy through her long
+        lashes, exceedingly sweet and beautiful to Kurt's sight. He
+        bent his glance again to the road ahead. Miss Anderson felt
+        kindly and gratefully toward him, as was, of course,
+        natural. But she was somehow different from what she had
+        seemed upon the other occasions he had seen her. Kurt's
+        heart was full to bursting.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I might have killed him," he said.
+        "I'm glad&mdash;you stopped me. That&mdash;that frenzy of
+        mine seemed to be the breaking of a dam. I have been dammed
+        up within. Something had to break. I've been unhappy for a
+        long time."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I saw that. What about?" she
+        replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"The war, and what it's done to
+        father. We're estranged. I hate everything German. I loved
+        the farm. My chance in life is gone. The wheat
+        debt&mdash;the worry about the I.W.W.&mdash;and that's not
+        all."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Again she put a gentle hand on his
+        sleeve and left it there for a moment. The touch thrilled
+        all through Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm sorry. Your position is sad. But
+        maybe it is not utterly hopeless. You&mdash;you'll come
+        back after the war."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I don't know that I want to come
+        back," he said. "For then&mdash;it'd be just as
+        bad&mdash;worse.&hellip; Miss Anderson, it won't hurt to
+        tell you the truth.&hellip; A year ago&mdash;that first time
+        I saw you&mdash;I fell in love with you. I think&mdash;when
+        I'm away&mdash;over in France&mdash;I'd like to feel that
+        you know. It can't hurt you. And it'll be sweet to
+        me.&hellip; I fought against the&mdash;the madness. But fate
+        was against me.&hellip; I saw you again.&hellip; And it was
+        all over with me!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He paused, catching his breath. She
+        was perfectly quiet. He looked on down the winding road.
+        There were dust-clouds in the distance.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm afraid I grew bitter and moody,"
+        he went on. "But the last forty-eight hours have changed me
+        forever&hellip; I found that my poor old dad had been won
+        over by these unscrupulous German agents of the I.W.W. But
+        I saved his name.&hellip; I've got the money he took for the
+        wheat we may never harvest. But if we do harvest I can pay
+        all our debt.&hellip; Then I learned of a plot to ruin your
+        father&mdash;to kill him!&hellip; I was on my way to 'Many
+        Waters.' I can warn him.&hellip; Last of all I have saved
+        you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The little hand dropped away from his
+        coat sleeve. A soft, half-smothered cry escaped her. It
+        seemed to him she was about to weep in her exceeding
+        pity.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Miss Anderson, I&mdash;I'd rather not
+        have&mdash;you pity me."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Mr. Dorn, I certainly don't pity
+        you," she replied, with an unexpected, strange tone. It was
+        full. It seemed to ring in his ears.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I know there never was and never
+        could be any hope for me. I&mdash;I&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, you know that!" murmured the
+        soft, strange voice.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">But Kurt could not trust his ears and
+        he had to make haste to terminate the confession into which
+        his folly and emotion had betrayed him. He scarcely heard
+        her words.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes.&hellip; I told you why I wanted
+        you to know.&hellip; And now forget that&mdash;and when I'm
+        gone&mdash;if you think of me ever, let it be about how
+        much better it made me&mdash;to have all this good
+        luck&mdash;to help your father and to save you!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The dust-cloud down the road came from
+        a string of automobiles, flying along at express speed.
+        Kurt saw them with relief.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Here come the cars on your trail," he
+        called out. "Your father will be in one of them."</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt opened the door of the car and
+        stepped down. He could not help his importance or his
+        pride. Anderson, who came running between two cars that had
+        stopped abreast, was coatless and hatless, covered with
+        dust, pale and fire-eyed.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Mr. Anderson, your daughter is
+        safe&mdash;unharmed," Kurt assured him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My girl!" cried the father, huskily,
+        and hurried to where she leaned out of her seat.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"All right, dad," she cried, as she
+        embraced him. "Only a little shaky yet."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was affecting for Dorn to see that
+        meeting, and through it to share something of its meaning.
+        Anderson's thick neck swelled and colored, and his
+        utterance was unintelligible. His daughter loosened her arm
+        from round him and turned her face toward Kurt. Then he
+        imagined he saw two blue stars, sweetly, strangely shining
+        upon him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Father, it was our friend from the
+        Bend," she said. "He happened along."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson suddenly changed to the cool,
+        smiling man Kurt remembered.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Howdy, Kurt?" he said, and crushed
+        Kurt's hand. "What'd you do to him?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt made a motion toward the back of
+        the car. Then Anderson looked over the seats. With that he
+        opened the door and in one powerful haul he drew Ruenke
+        sliding out into the road. Ruenke's bruised and bloody face
+        was uppermost, a rather gruesome sight. Anderson glared
+        down upon him, while men from the other cars crowded
+        around. Ruenke's eyes resembled those of a cornered rat.
+        Anderson's jaw bulged, his big hands clenched.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Bill, you throw this fellow in your
+        car and land him in jail. I'll make a charge against him,"
+        said the rancher.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Mr. Anderson, I can save some
+        valuable time," interposed Kurt. "I've got to return a car
+        I broke down. And there's my wheat. Will you have one of
+        these men drive me back?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure. But won't you come home with
+        us?" said Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'd like to. But I must get home,"
+        replied Kurt. "Please let me speak a few words for your ear
+        alone." He drew Anderson aside and briefly told about the
+        eighty thousand dollars; threw back his coat to show the
+        bulging pockets. Then he asked Anderson's advice.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'd deposit the money an' wire the
+        Spokane miller," returned the rancher. "I know him. He'll
+        leave the money in the bank till your wheat is safe. Go to
+        the national bank in Kilo. Mention my name."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then Kurt told Anderson of the plot
+        against his fortunes and his life.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Neuman! I.W.W.! German intrigue!"
+        growled the rancher. "All in the same class!&hellip; Dorn,
+        I'm forewarned, an' that's forearmed. I'll beat this outfit
+        at their own game."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">They returned to Anderson's car. Kurt
+        reached inside for his rifle.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Aren't you going home with us?" asked
+        the girl.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why, Miss Anderson, I&mdash;I'm
+        sorry. I&mdash;I'd love to see 'Many Waters,'" floundered
+        Kurt. "But I can't go now. There's no need. I must hurry
+        back to&mdash;to my troubles."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I wanted to tell you
+        something&mdash;at home," she returned, shyly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Tell me now," said Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She gave him such a glance as he had
+        never received in his life. Kurt felt himself as wax before
+        those blue eyes. She wanted to thank him. That would be
+        sweet, but would only make his ordeal harder. He steeled
+        himself.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You won't come?" she asked, and her
+        smile was wistful.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No&mdash;thank you ever so much."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Will you come to see me before
+        you&mdash;you go to war?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll try."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But you must promise. You've done so
+        much for me and my father.&hellip; I&mdash;I want you to
+        come to see me&mdash;at my home."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Then I'll come," he replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson clambered into the car beside
+        his daughter and laid his big hands on the wheel.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure he'll come, or we'll go after
+        him," he declared, heartily. "So long, son."</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Late in the forenoon of the next day
+        Kurt Dorn reached home. A hot harvest wind breathed off the
+        wheat-fields. It swelled his heart to see the change in the
+        color of that section of Bluestem&mdash;the gold had a
+        tinge of rich, ripe brown.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt's father awaited him, a haggard,
+        gloomy-faced man, unkempt and hollow-eyed.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Was it you who robbed me?" he shouted
+        hoarsely.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes," replied Kurt. He had caught the
+        eager hope and fear in the old man's tone. Kurt expected
+        that confession would bring on his father's terrible fury,
+        a mood to dread. But old Dorn showed immense relief. He sat
+        down in his relaxation from what must have been intense
+        strain. Kurt saw a weariness, a shade, in the gray lined
+        face that had never been there before.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What did you do with the money?"
+        asked the old man.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I banked it in Kilo," replied Kurt.
+        "Then I wired your miller in Spokane.&hellip; So you're safe
+        if we can harvest the wheat."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Old Dorn nodded thoughtfully. There
+        had come a subtle change in him. Presently he asked Kurt if
+        men had been hired for the harvest.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No. I've not seen any I would trust,"
+        replied Kurt, and then he briefly outlined Anderson's plan
+        to insure a quick and safe harvesting of the grain. Old
+        Dorn objected to this on account of the expense. Kurt
+        argued with him and patiently tried to show him the
+        imperative need of it. Dorn, apparently, was not to be won
+        over; however, he was remarkably mild in comparison with
+        what Kurt had expected.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Father, do you realize now that the
+        men you were dealing with at Wheatly are dishonest? I mean
+        with you. They would betray you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Old Dorn had no answer for this.
+        Evidently he had sustained some kind of shock that he was
+        not willing to admit.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Look here, father," went on Kurt, in
+        slow earnestness. He spoke in English, because nothing
+        would make him break his word and ever again speak a word
+        of German. And his father was not quick to comprehend
+        English. "Can't you see that the I.W.W. mean to cripple us
+        wheat farmers this harvest?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No," replied old Dorn,
+        stubbornly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But they do. They don't <i>want</i>
+        work. If they accept work it is for a chance to do damage.
+        All this I.W.W. talk about more wages and shorter hours is
+        deceit. They make a bold face of discontent. That is all a
+        lie. The I.W.W. is out to ruin the great wheat-fields and
+        the great lumber forests of the Northwest."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I do not believe that," declared his
+        father, stoutly. "What for?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt meant to be careful of that
+        subject.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No matter what for. It does not make
+        any difference what it's for. We've got to meet it to save
+        our wheat.&hellip; Now won't you believe me? Won't you let
+        me manage the harvest?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I will not believe," replied old
+        Dorn, stubbornly. "Not about <i>my</i> wheat. I know they
+        mean to destroy. They are against rich men like Anderson.
+        But not me or my wheat!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"There is where you are wrong. I'll
+        prove it in a very few days. But in that time I can prepare
+        for them and outwit them. Will you let me?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Go ahead," replied old Dorn,
+        gruffly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was a concession that Kurt was
+        amazed and delighted to gain. And he set about at once to
+        act upon it. He changed his clothes and satisfied his
+        hunger; then, saddling his horse, he started out to visit
+        his farmer neighbors.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The day bade fair to be rich in
+        experience. Jerry, the foreman, was patrolling his long
+        beat up and down the highway. Jerry carried a shot-gun and
+        looked like a sentry. The men under him were on the other
+        side of the section of wheat, and the ground was so rolling
+        that they could not be seen from the highway. Jerry was
+        unmistakably glad and relieved to see Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Some goin's-on," he declared, with a
+        grin. "Since you left there's been one hundred and sixteen
+        I.W.W. tramps along this here road."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Have you had any trouble?" inquired
+        Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, I reckon it wasn't trouble, but
+        every time I took a peg at some sneak I sort of broke out
+        sweatin' cold."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You shot at them?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure I shot when I seen any loafin'
+        along in the dark. Two of them shot back at me, an' after
+        thet I wasn't particular to aim high.&hellip; Reckon I'm
+        about dead for sleep."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll relieve you to-night," replied
+        Kurt. "Jerry, doesn't the wheat look great?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, I reckon. An' walkin' along here
+        when it's quiet an' no wind blowin', I can just hear the
+        wheat crack. It's gittin' ripe fast, an' sure the biggest
+        crop we ever raised.&hellip; But I'm tellin' you&mdash;when
+        I think how we'll ever harvest it my insides just sinks
+        like lead!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt then outlined Anderson's plan,
+        which was received by the foreman with eager approval and
+        the assurance that the neighbor farmers would rally to his
+        call.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt found his nearest neighbor,
+        Olsen, cutting a thin, scarcely ripe barley. Olsen was
+        running a new McCormack harvester, and appeared delighted
+        with the machine, but cast down by the grain prospects. He
+        did not intend to cut his wheat at all. It was a dead
+        loss.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Two sections&mdash;twelve hundred an'
+        eighty acres!" he repeated, gloomily. "An' the third bad
+        year! Dorn, I can't pay the interest to my bank."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Olsen's sun-dried and wind-carved
+        visage was as hard and rugged and heroic as this desert
+        that had resisted him for years. Kurt saw under the lines
+        and the bronze all the toil and pain and unquenchable hope
+        that had made Olsen a type of the men who had cultivated
+        this desert of wheat.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll give you five hundred dollars to
+        help me harvest," said Kurt, bluntly, and briefly stated
+        his plan.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Olsen whistled. He complimented
+        Anderson's shrewd sense. He spoke glowingly of that
+        magnificent section of wheat that absolutely must be saved.
+        He promised Kurt every horse and every man on his farm. But
+        he refused the five hundred dollars.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, say, you'll have to accept it,"
+        declared Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You've done me good turns," asserted
+        Olsen.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But nothing like this. Why, this will
+        be a rush job, with all the men and horses and machines and
+        wagons I can get. It'll cost ten&mdash;fifteen thousand
+        dollars to harvest that section. Even at that, and paying
+        Anderson, we'll clear twenty thousand or more. Olsen,
+        you've got to take the money."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"All right, if you insist. I'm needin'
+        it bad enough," replied Olsen.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Further conversation with Olsen
+        gleaned the facts that he was the only farmer in their
+        immediate neighborhood who did not have at least a little
+        grain worth harvesting. But the amount was small and would
+        require only slight time. Olsen named farmers that very
+        likely would not take kindly to Dorn's proposition, and had
+        best not be approached. The majority, however, would stand
+        by him, irrespective of the large wage offered, because the
+        issue was one to appeal to the pride of the Bend farmers.
+        Olsen appeared surprisingly well informed upon the tactics
+        of the I.W.W., and predicted that they would cause trouble,
+        but be run out of the country. He made the shrewd
+        observation that when even those farmers who sympathized
+        with Germany discovered that their wheat-fields were being
+        menaced by foreign influences and protected by the home
+        government, they would experience a change of heart. Olsen
+        said the war would be a good thing for the United States,
+        because they would win it, and during the winning would
+        learn and suffer and achieve much.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt rode away from Olsen in a more
+        thoughtful frame of mind. How different and interesting the
+        points of view of different men! Olsen had never taken the
+        time to become a naturalized citizen of the United States.
+        There had never been anything to force him to do it. But
+        his understanding of the worth of the United States and his
+        loyalty to it were manifest in his love for his wheatlands.
+        In fact, they were inseparable. Probably there were
+        millions of pioneers, emigrants, aliens, all over the
+        country who were like Olsen, who needed the fire of the
+        crucible to mold them into a unity with Americans. Of such,
+        Americans were molded!</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt rode all day, and when, late that
+        night, he got home, weary and sore and choked, he had
+        enlisted the services of thirty-five farmers to help him
+        harvest the now famous section of wheat.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">His father had plainly doubted the
+        willingness of these neighbors to abandon their own labors,
+        for the Bend exacted toil for every hour of every season,
+        whether rich or poor in yield. Likewise he was plainly
+        moved by the facts. His seamed and shaded face of gloom had
+        a moment of light.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"They will make short work of this
+        harvest," he said, thoughtfully.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I should say so," retorted Kurt.
+        "We'll harvest and haul that grain to the railroad in just
+        three days."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Impossible!" ejaculated Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You'll see," declared Kurt. "You'll
+        see who's managing this harvest."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He could not restrain his little
+        outburst of pride. For the moment the great overhanging
+        sense of calamity that for long had haunted him faded into
+        the background. It did seem sure that they would save this
+        splendid yield of wheat. How much that meant to
+        Kurt&mdash;in freedom from debt, in natural love of the
+        fruition of harvest, in the loyalty to his government! He
+        realized how strange and strong was the need in him to
+        prove he was American to the very core of his heart. He did
+        not yet understand that incentive, but he felt it.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">After eating dinner Kurt took his
+        rifle and went out to relieve Jerry.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Only a few more days and nights!" he
+        exclaimed to his foreman. "Then we'll have all the
+        harvesters in the country right in our wheat."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, a hell of a lot can happen
+        before then," declared Jerry, pessimistically.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt was brought back to realities
+        rather suddenly. But questioning Jerry did not elicit any
+        new or immediate cause for worry. Jerry appeared tired
+        out.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You go get some sleep," said
+        Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"All right. Bill's been dividin' this
+        night watch with me. I reckon he'll be out when he wakes
+        up," replied Jerry, and trudged away.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt shouldered his rifle and slowly
+        walked along the road with a strange sense that he was
+        already doing army duty in protecting property which was at
+        once his own and his country's.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The night was dark, cool, and quiet.
+        The heavens were starry bright. A faint breeze brought the
+        tiny crackling of the wheat. From far distant came the bay
+        of a hound. The road stretched away pale and yellow into
+        the gloom. In the silence and loneliness and darkness, in
+        all around him, and far across the dry, whispering fields,
+        there was an invisible presence that had its affinity in
+        him, hovered over him shadowless and immense, and waved in
+        the bursting wheat. It was life. He felt the wheat
+        ripening. He felt it in reawakened tenderness for his old
+        father and in the stir of memory of Lenore Anderson. The
+        past active and important hours had left little room for
+        thought of her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">But now she came back to him, a spirit
+        in keeping with his steps, a shadow under the stars, a
+        picture of sweet, wonderful young womanhood. His whole
+        relation of thought toward her had undergone some marvelous
+        change. The most divine of gifts had been granted
+        him&mdash;an opportunity to save her from harm, perhaps
+        from death. He had served her father. How greatly he could
+        not tell, but if measured by the gratitude in her eyes it
+        would have been infinite. He recalled that
+        expression&mdash;blue, warm, soft, and indescribably
+        strange with its unuttered hidden meaning. It was
+        all-satisfying for him to realize that she had been
+        compelled to give him a separate and distinct place in her
+        mind. He must stand apart from all others she knew. It had
+        been his fortune to preserve her happiness and the
+        happiness that she must be to sisters and mother, and that
+        some day she would bestow upon some lucky man. They would
+        all owe it to him. And Lenore Anderson knew he loved
+        her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">These things had transformed his
+        relation of thought toward her. He had no regret, no
+        jealousy, no fear. Even the pang of suppressed and
+        overwhelming love had gone with his confession.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">But he did remember her presence, her
+        beauty, her intent blue glance, and the faint, dreaming
+        smile of her lips&mdash;remembered them with a thrill, and
+        a wave of emotion, and a contraction of his heart. He had
+        promised to see her once more, to afford her the
+        opportunity, no doubt, to thank him, to try to make him see
+        her gratitude. He would go, but he wished it need not be.
+        He asked no more. And seeing her again might change his
+        fulness of joy to something of pain.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">So Kurt trod the long road in the
+        darkness and silence, pausing, and checking his dreams now
+        and then, to listen and to watch. He heard no suspicious
+        sounds, nor did he meet any one. The night was melancholy,
+        with a hint of fall in its cool breath.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Soon he would be walking a beat in one
+        of the training-camps, with a bugle-call in his ears and
+        the turmoil of thousands of soldiers in the making around
+        him: soon, too, he would be walking the deck of a
+        transport, looking back down the moon-blanched wake of the
+        ship toward home, listening to the mysterious moan of the
+        ocean; and then soon feeling under his feet the soil of a
+        foreign country, with hideous and incomparable war
+        shrieking its shell furies and its man anguish all about
+        him. But no matter how far away he ever got, he knew Lenore
+        Anderson would be with him as she was there on that dim,
+        lonely starlit country road.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">And in these long hours of his vigil
+        Kurt Dorn divined a relation between his love for Lenore
+        Anderson and a terrible need that had grown upon him. A
+        need of his heart and his soul! More than he needed her, if
+        even in his wildest dreams he had permitted himself visions
+        of an earthly paradise, he needed to prove to his blood and
+        his spirit that he was actually and truly American. He had
+        no doubt of his intelligence, his reason, his choice. The
+        secret lay hidden in the depths of him, and he knew it came
+        from the springs of the mother who had begotten him. His
+        mother had given him birth, and by every tie he was mostly
+        hers.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt had been in college during the
+        first year of the world war. And his name, his fair hair
+        and complexion, his fluency in German, and his remarkable
+        efficiency in handicrafts had opened him to many a hint,
+        many a veiled sarcasm that had stung him like a poison
+        brand. There was injustice in all this war spirit. It
+        changed the minds of men and women. He had not doubted
+        himself until those terrible scenes with his father, and,
+        though he had reacted to them as an American, he had felt
+        the drawing, burning blood tie. He hated everything German
+        and he knew he was wrong in doing so. He had clear
+        conception in his mind of the difference between the German
+        war motives and means, and those of the other nations.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt's problem was to understand
+        himself. His great fight was with his own soul. His
+        material difficulties and his despairing love had suddenly
+        been transformed, so that they had lent his spirit wings.
+        How many poor boys and girls in America must be helplessly
+        divided between parents and country! How many faithful and
+        blind parents, obedient to the laws of mind and heart, set
+        for all time, must see a favorite son go out to fight
+        against all they had held sacred!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">That was all bad enough, but Kurt had
+        more to contend with. No illusions had he of a chastened
+        German spirit, a clarified German mind, an unbrutalized
+        German heart. Kurt knew his father. What would change his
+        father? Nothing but death! Death for himself or death for
+        his only son! Kurt had an incalculable call to prove
+        forever to himself that he was free. He had to spill his
+        own blood to prove himself, or he had to spill that of an
+        enemy. And he preferred that it should be his own. But that
+        did not change a vivid and terrible picture which haunted
+        him at times. He saw a dark, wide, and barren shingle of
+        the world, a desert of desolation made by man, where
+        strange, windy shrieks and thundering booms and awful cries
+        went up in the night, and where drifting palls of smoke
+        made starless sky, and bursts of reddish fires made
+        hell.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Suddenly Kurt's slow pacing along the
+        road was halted, as was the trend of his thought. He was
+        not sure he had heard a sound. But he quivered all over.
+        The night was far advanced now; the wind was almost still;
+        the wheat was smooth and dark as the bosom of a resting
+        sea. Kurt listened. He imagined he heard, far away, the
+        faint roar of an automobile. But it might have been a train
+        on the railroad. Sometimes on still nights he caught sounds
+        like that.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then a swish in the wheat, a soft
+        thud, very low, unmistakably came to Kurt's ear. He
+        listened, turning his ear to the wind. Presently he heard
+        it again&mdash;a sound relating both to wheat and earth. In
+        a hot flash he divined that some one had thrown fairly
+        heavy bodies into the wheat-fields. Phosphorus cakes! Kurt
+        held his breath while he peered down the gloomy road, his
+        heart pounding, his hands gripping the rifle. And when he
+        descried a dim form stealthily coming toward him he yelled,
+        "Halt!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Instantly the form wavered, moved
+        swiftly, with quick pad of footfalls. Kurt shot
+        once&mdash;twice&mdash;three times&mdash;and aimed as best
+        he could to hit. The form either fell or went on out of
+        sight in the gloom. Kurt answered the excited shouts of his
+        men, calling them to come across to him. Then he went
+        cautiously down the road, peering on the ground for a dark
+        form. But he failed to find it, and presently had to admit
+        that in the dark his aim had been poor. Bill came out to
+        relieve Kurt, and together they went up and down the road
+        for a mile without any glimpse of a skulking form. It was
+        almost daylight when Kurt went home to get a few hours'
+        sleep.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Next day was one of the rare,
+        blistering-hot days with a furnace wind that roared over
+        the wheat-fields. The sky was steely and the sun like
+        copper. It was a day which would bring the wheat to a
+        head.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">At breakfast Jerry reported that fresh
+        auto tracks had been made on the road during the night; and
+        that dust and wheat all around the great field showed a
+        fresh tramping.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt believed a deliberate and
+        particular attempt had been made to insure the destruction
+        of the Dorn wheat-field. And he ordered all hands out to
+        search for the dangerous little cakes of phosphorus.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was difficult to find them. The
+        wheat was almost as high as a man's head and very thick. To
+        force a way through it without tramping it down took care
+        and time. Besides, the soil was soft, and the agents who
+        had perpetrated this vile scheme had perfectly matched the
+        color. Kurt almost stepped on one of the cakes before he
+        saw it. His men were very slow in finding any. But Kurt's
+        father seemed to walk fatally right to them, for in a short
+        hundred yards he found three. They caused a profound change
+        in this gloomy man. Not a word did he utter, but he became
+        animated by a tremendous energy.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The search was discouraging. It was
+        like hunting for dynamite bombs that might explode at any
+        moment. All Kurt's dread of calamity returned fourfold. The
+        intense heat of the day, that would ripen the wheat to
+        bursting, would likewise sooner or later ignite the cakes
+        of phosphorus. And when Jerry found a cake far inside the
+        field, away from the road, showing that powerful had been
+        the arm that had thrown it there, and how impossible it
+        would be to make a thorough search, Kurt almost succumbed
+        to discouragement. Still, he kept up a frenzied hunting and
+        inspired the laborers to do likewise.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">About ten o'clock an excited shout
+        from Bill drew Kurt's attention, and he ran along the edge
+        of the field. Bill was sweaty and black, yet through it all
+        Kurt believed he saw the man was pale. He pointed with
+        shaking hand toward Olsen's hill.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt vibrated to a shock. He saw a
+        long circular yellow column rising from the hill, slanting
+        away on the strong wind.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dust!" he cried, aghast.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Smoke!" replied Bill, hoarsely.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The catastrophe had fallen. Olsen's
+        wheat was burning. Kurt experienced a profound sensation of
+        sadness. What a pity! The burning of wheat&mdash;the
+        destruction of bread&mdash;when part of the world was
+        starving! Tears dimmed his eyes as he watched the swelling
+        column of smoke.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Bill was cursing, and Kurt gathered
+        that the farm-hand was predicting fires all around. This
+        was inevitable. But it meant no great loss for most of the
+        wheat-growers whose yield had failed. For Kurt and his
+        father, if fire got a hold in their wheat, it meant ruin.
+        Kurt's sadness was burned out by a slow and growing
+        rage.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Bill, go hitch up to the big mower,"
+        ordered Kurt. "We'll have to cut all around our field.
+        Bring drinking water and whatever you can lay a hand on
+        &hellip; anything to fight fire!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Bill ran thumping away over the clods.
+        Then it happened that Kurt looked toward his father. The
+        old man was standing with his arms aloft, his face turned
+        toward the burning wheat, and he made a tragic figure that
+        wrung Kurt's heart.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Jerry came running up. "Fire! Fire!
+        Olsen's burnin'! Look! By all thet's dirty, them I.W.W.'s
+        hev done it!&hellip; Kurt, we're in fer hell! Thet wind's
+        blowin' straight this way."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jerry, we'll fight till we drop,"
+        replied Kurt. "Tell the men and father to keep on searching
+        for phosphorus cakes.&hellip; Jerry, you keep to the high
+        ground. Watch for fires starting on our land. If you see
+        one yell for us and make for it. Wheat burns slow till it
+        gets started. We can put out fires if we're quick."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt, there ain't no chance on earth
+        fer us!" yelled Jerry, pale with anger. His big red hands
+        worked. "If fire starts we've got to hev a lot of
+        men.&hellip; By Gawd! if I ain't mad!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Don't quit, Jerry," said Kurt,
+        fiercely. "You never can tell. It looks hopeless. But we'll
+        never give up. Hustle now!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Jerry shuffled off as old Dorn came
+        haltingly, as if stunned, toward Kurt. But Kurt did not
+        want to face his father at that moment. He needed to fight
+        to keep up his own courage.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Never mind that!" yelled Kurt,
+        pointing at Olsen's hill. "Keep looking for those damned
+        pieces of phosphorus!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">With that Kurt dove into the wheat,
+        and, sweeping wide his arms to make a passage, he strode
+        on, his eyes bent piercingly upon the ground close about
+        him. He did not penetrate deeper into the wheat from the
+        road than the distance he estimated a strong arm could send
+        a stone. Almost at once his keen sight was rewarded. He
+        found a cake of phosphorus half buried in the soil. It was
+        dry, hard and hot either from the sun or its own generating
+        power. That inspired Kurt. He hurried on. Long practice
+        enabled him to slip through the wheat as a barefoot country
+        boy could run through the corn-fields. And his passion gave
+        him the eyes of a hunting hawk sweeping down over the
+        grass. To and fro he passed within the limits he had
+        marked, oblivious to time and heat and effort. And covering
+        that part of the wheat-field bordering the road he
+        collected twenty-seven cakes of phosphorus, the last few of
+        which were so hot they burnt his hands.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then he had to rest. He appeared as
+        wet as if he had been plunged into water; his skin burned,
+        his eyes pained, his breast heaved. Panting and spent, he
+        lay along the edge of the wheat, with closed eyelids and
+        lax muscles.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">When he recovered he rose and went
+        back along the road. The last quarter of the immense
+        wheat-field lay upon a slope of a hill, and Kurt had to
+        mount this before he could see the valley. From the summit
+        he saw a sight that caused him to utter a loud exclamation.
+        Many columns of smoke were lifting from the valley, and
+        before him the sky was darkened. Olsen's hill was as if
+        under a cloud. No flames showed anywhere, but in places the
+        line of smoke appeared to be approaching.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It's a thousand to one against us,"
+        he said, bitterly, and looked at his watch. He was amazed
+        to see that three hours had passed since he had given
+        orders to the men. He hurried back to the house. No one was
+        there except the old servant, who was wringing her hands
+        and crying that the house would burn. Throwing the cakes of
+        phosphorus into a watering-trough, Kurt ran into the
+        kitchen, snatched a few biscuits, and then made for the
+        fields, eating as he went.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He hurried down a lane that bordered
+        the big wheat-field. On this side was fallow ground for
+        half the length of the section, and the other half was ripe
+        barley, dry as tinder, and beyond that, in line with the
+        burning fields, a quarter-section of blasted wheat. The men
+        were there. Kurt saw at once that other men with horses and
+        machines were also there. Then he recognized Olsen and two
+        other of his neighbors. As he ran up he was equally
+        astounded and out of breath, so that he could not speak.
+        Old Dorn sat with gray head bowed on his hand.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hello!" shouted Olsen. His grimy face
+        broke into a hard smile. "Fires all over! Wheat's burnin'
+        like prairie grass! Them chips of phosphorus are sure from
+        hell!&hellip; We've come over to help."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You&mdash;did! You left&mdash;your
+        fields!" gasped Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure. They're not much to leave. And
+        we're goin' to save this section of yours or bust
+        tryin'!&hellip; I sent my son in his car, all over, to hurry
+        men here with horses, machines, wagons."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt was overcome. He could only wring
+        Olsen's hand. Here was an answer to one of his brooding,
+        gloomy queries. Something would be gained, even if the
+        wheat was lost. Kurt had scarcely any hope left.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What's to be done?" he panted,
+        hoarsely. In this extremity Olsen seemed a tower of
+        strength. This sturdy farmer was of Anderson's breed, even
+        if he was a foreigner. And he had fought fires before.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If we have time we'll mow a line all
+        around your wheat," replied Olsen.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Reckon we won't have time,"
+        interposed Jerry, pointing to a smoke far down in the
+        corner of the stunted wheat. "There's a fire startin'."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"They'll break out all over," said
+        Olsen, and he waved a couple of his men away. One had a
+        scythe and the other a long pole with a wet burlap bag tied
+        on one end. They hurried toward the little cloud of
+        smoke.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I found a lot of cakes over along the
+        road," declared Kurt, with a grim surety that he had done
+        that well.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"They've surrounded your wheat,"
+        returned Olsen. "But if enough men get here we'll save the
+        whole section.&hellip; Lucky you've got two wells an' that
+        watertank. We'll need all the water we can get. Keep a man
+        pumpin'. Fetch all the bags an' brooms an' scythes. I'll
+        post lookouts along this lane to watch for fires breakin'
+        out in the big field. When they do we've got to run an' cut
+        an' beat them out.&hellip; It won't be long till most of
+        this section is surrounded by fire."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Thin clouds of smoke were then blowing
+        across the fields and the wind that carried them was laden
+        with an odor of burning wheat. To Kurt it seemed to be the
+        fragrance of baking bread.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"How'd it be to begin harvestin'?"
+        queried Jerry. "Thet wheat's ripe."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No combines should be risked in there
+        until we're sure the danger's past," replied Olsen. "There!
+        I see more of our neighbors comin' down the road. We're
+        goin' to beat the I.W.W."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">That galvanized Kurt into action and
+        he found himself dragging Jerry back to the barns. They
+        hitched a team to a heavy wagon, in record time, and then
+        began to load with whatever was available for fighting
+        fire. They loaded a barrel, and with huge buckets filled it
+        with water. Leaving Jerry to drive, Kurt rushed back to the
+        fields. During his short absence more men, with horses and
+        machines, had arrived; fire had broken out in the stunted
+        wheat, and also, nearer at hand, in the barley. Kurt saw
+        his father laboring like a giant. Olsen was taking charge,
+        directing the men. The sky was obscured now, and all the
+        west was thick with yellow smoke. The south slopes and
+        valley floor were clouding. Only in the east, over the
+        hill, did the air appear clear. Back of Kurt, down across
+        the barley and wheat on the Dorn land, a line of fire was
+        creeping over the hill. This was on the property adjoining
+        Olsen's. Gremniger, the owner, had abandoned his own
+        fields. At the moment he was driving a mower along the edge
+        of the barley, cutting a nine-foot path. Men behind him
+        were stacking the sheaves. The wind was as hot as if from a
+        blast-furnace; the air was thick and oppressive; the light
+        of day was growing dim.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt, mounted on the seat of one of
+        the combine threshers, surveyed with rapid and anxious gaze
+        all the points around him, and it lingered over the
+        magnificent sweep of golden wheat. The wheat bowed in waves
+        before the wind, and the silken rustle, heard above the
+        confusion of yelling men, was like a voice whispering to
+        Kurt. Somehow his dread lessened then and other emotions
+        predominated. He saw more and more farmers arrive, in cars,
+        in wagons, with engines and threshers, until the lane was
+        lined with them and men were hurrying everywhere.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Suddenly Kurt espied a slender column
+        of smoke rising above the wheat out in front of him toward
+        the highway. This was the first sign of fire in the great
+        section that so many farmers had come to protect. Yelling
+        for help, he leaped off the seat and ran with all his might
+        toward the spot. Breasting that thick wheat was almost as
+        hard as breasting waves. Jerry came yelling after him,
+        brandishing a crude beater; and both of them reached the
+        fire at once. It was a small circle, burning slowly. Madly
+        Kurt rushed in to tear and stamp as if the little hissing
+        flames were serpents. He burned his hands through his
+        gloves and his feet through his boots. Jerry beat hard,
+        accompanying his blows with profane speech plainly
+        indicating that he felt he was at work on the I.W.W. In
+        short order they put out this little fire. Returning to his
+        post, Kurt watched until he was called to lend a hand down
+        in the stunted wheat.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Fire had crossed and had gotten a hold
+        on Dorn's lower field. Here the wheat was blasted and so
+        burned all the more fiercely. Horses and mowers had to be
+        taken away to the intervening barley-field. A weird, smoky,
+        and ruddy darkness enveloped the scene. Dim red fire, in
+        lines and dots and curves, appeared on three sides, growing
+        larger and longer, meeting in some places, crisscrossed by
+        black figures of threshing men belaboring the flames. Kurt
+        came across his father working like a mad-man. Kurt warned
+        him not to overexert himself, and the father never heard.
+        Now and then his stentorian yell added to the medley of
+        cries and shouts and blows, and the roar of the wind
+        fanning the flames.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt was put to beating fire in the
+        cut wheat. He stood with flames licking at his boots. It
+        was astonishing how tenacious the fire appeared, how it
+        crept along, eating up the mowed wheat. All the men that
+        could be spared there were unable to check it and keep it
+        out of the standing grain. When it reached this line it
+        lifted a blaze, flamed and roared, and burned like wildfire
+        in grass. The men were driven back, threshing and beating,
+        all to no avail. Kurt fell into despair. There was no hope.
+        It seemed like an inferno.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Flaring high, the light showed the
+        black, violently agitated forms of the fighters, and the
+        clouds of yellow smoke, coalescing and drifting, changing
+        to dark and soaring high.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Olsen had sent three mowers abreast
+        down the whole length of the barley-field before the fire
+        reached that line. It was a wise move, and if anything
+        could do so it would save the day. The leaping flame, thin
+        and high, and a mile long, curled down the last of the
+        standing wheat and caught the fallen barley. But here its
+        speed was checked. It had to lick a way along the
+        ground.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">In desperation, in unabated fury, the
+        little army of farmers and laborers, with no thought of
+        personal gain, with what seemed to Kurt a wonderful and
+        noble spirit, attacked this encroaching line of fire like
+        men whose homes and lives and ideals had been threatened
+        with destruction. Kurt's mind worked as swiftly as his
+        tireless hands. This indeed was being in a front line of
+        battle. The scene was weird, dark, fitful, at times
+        impressive and again unreal. These neighbors of his, many
+        of them aliens, some of them Germans, when put to this
+        vital test, were proving themselves. They had shown little
+        liking for the Dorns, but here was love of wheat, and so,
+        in some way, loyalty to the government that needed it. Here
+        was the answer of the Northwest to the I.W.W. No doubt if
+        the perpetrators of that phosphorus trick could have been
+        laid hold of then, blood would have been shed. Kurt sensed
+        in the fierce energy, in the dark, grimy faces, shining and
+        wet under the light, in the hoarse yell and answering
+        shout, a nameless force that was finding itself and
+        centering on one common cause.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">His old father toiled as ten men. That
+        burly giant pushed ever in the lead, and his hoarse call
+        and strenuous action told of more than a mercenary rage to
+        save his wheat.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Fire never got across that swath of
+        cut barley. It was beaten out as if by a thousand men.
+        Shadow and gloom enveloped the fighters as they rested
+        where their last strokes had fallen. Over the hills faint
+        reflection of dying flames lit up the dark clouds of smoke.
+        The battle seemed won.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then came the thrilling cry: "Fire!
+        Fire!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">One of the outposts came running out
+        of the dark.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Fire! the other side! Fire!" rang out
+        Olsen's yell.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt ran with the gang pell-mell
+        through the dark, up the barley slope, to see a long red
+        line, a high red flare, and lifting clouds of ruddy smoke.
+        Fire in the big wheat-field! The sight inflamed him,
+        carried him beyond his powers, and all he knew was that he
+        became the center of a dark and whirling m&ecirc;l&eacute;e
+        encircled by living flames that leaped only to be beaten
+        down. Whether that threshing chaos of fire and smoke and
+        wheat was short or long was beyond him to tell but the fire
+        was extinguished to the last spark.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Walking back with the weary crowd,
+        Kurt felt a clearer breeze upon his face. Smoke was not
+        flying so thickly. Over the western hill, through a rift in
+        the clouds, peeped a star. The only other light he saw
+        twinkled far down the lane. It was that of a lantern. Dark
+        forms barred it now and then. Slowly Kurt recovered his
+        breath. The men were talking and tired voices rang with
+        assurance that the fire was beaten.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Some one called Kurt. The voice was
+        Jerry's. It seemed hoarse and strained. Kurt could see the
+        lean form of his man, standing in the light of the lantern.
+        A small dark group of men, silent and somehow impressive,
+        stood off a little in the shadow.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Here I am, Jerry," called Kurt,
+        stepping forward. Just then Olsen joined Jerry.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Boy, we've beat the I.W.W.'s,
+        but&mdash;but&mdash;" he began, and broke off huskily.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What's the matter?" queried Kurt, and
+        a cold chill shot over him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Jerry plucked at his sleeve.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Your old man&mdash;your
+        dad&mdash;he's overworked hisself," whispered Jerry. "It's
+        tough.&hellip; Nobody could stop him."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt felt that the fulfilment of his
+        icy, sickening dread had come. Jerry's dark face, even in
+        the uncertain light, was tragic.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Boy, his heart went back on
+        him&mdash;he's dead!" said Olsen, solemnly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt pushed the kind hands aside. A
+        few steps brought him to where, under the light of the
+        lantern, lay his father, pale and still, with a strange
+        softening of the iron cast of intolerance.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dead!" whispered Kurt, in awe and
+        horror. "Father! Oh, he's gone!&mdash;without a
+        word&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Again Jerry plucked at Kurt's
+        sleeve.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I was with him," said Jerry. "I heard
+        him fall an' groan.&hellip; I had the light. I bent over,
+        lifted his head.&hellip; An' he said, speaking English,
+        'Tell my son&mdash;I was wrong!'&hellip; Then he died. An'
+        thet was all."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt staggered away from the
+        whispering, sympathetic foreman, out into the darkness,
+        where he lifted his face in the thankfulness of a breaking
+        heart.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It had, indeed, taken the approach of
+        death to change his hard old father. "Oh, he
+        meant&mdash;that if he had his life to live over
+        again&mdash;he would be different!" whispered Kurt. That
+        was the one great word needed to reconcile Kurt to his
+        father.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The night had grown still except for
+        the murmuring of the men. Smoke veiled the horizon. Kurt
+        felt an intense and terrible loneliness. He was indeed
+        alone in the world. A hard, tight contraction of throat
+        choked back a sob. If only he could have had a word with
+        his father! But no grief, nothing could detract from the
+        splendid truth of his father's last message. In the black
+        hours soon to come Kurt would have that to sustain him.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The bright sun of morning disclosed
+        that wide, rolling region of the Bend to be a dreary,
+        blackened waste surrounding one great wheat-field, rich and
+        mellow and golden.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt Dorn's neighbor, Olsen, in his
+        kind and matter-of-fact way, making obligation seem slight,
+        took charge of Kurt's affairs, and made the necessary and
+        difficult decisions. Nothing must delay the harvesting and
+        transporting of the wheat. The women folk arranged for the
+        burial of old Chris Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt sat and moved about in a gloomy
+        kind of trance for a day and a half, until his father was
+        laid to rest beside his mother, in the little graveyard on
+        the windy hill. After that his mind slowly cleared. He kept
+        to himself the remainder of that day, avoiding the crowd of
+        harvesters camping in the yard and adjacent field; and at
+        sunset he went to a lonely spot on the verge of the valley,
+        where with sad eyes he watched the last rays of sunlight
+        fade over the blackened hills. All these hours had seemed
+        consecrated to his father's memory, to remembered acts of
+        kindness and of love, of the relation that had gone and
+        would never be again. Reproach and remorse had abided with
+        him until that sunset hour, when the load eased off his
+        heart.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Next morning he went out to the
+        wheat-field.</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">What a wonderful harvesting scene
+        greeted Kurt Dorn! Never had its like been seen in the
+        Northwest, nor perhaps in any other place. A huge pall of
+        dust, chaff, and smoke hung over the vast wheat-field, and
+        the air seemed charged with a roar. The glaring gold of the
+        wheat-field appeared to be crisscrossed everywhere with
+        bobbing black streaks of horses&mdash;bays, blacks, whites,
+        and reds; by big, moving painted machines, lifting arms and
+        puffing straw; by immense wagons piled high with sheaves of
+        wheat, lumbering down to the smoking engines and the
+        threshers that sent long streams of dust and chaff over the
+        lifting straw-stacks; by wagons following the combines to
+        pick up the plump brown sacks of wheat; and by a string of
+        empty wagons coming in from the road.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Olsen was rushing thirty combine
+        threshers, three engine threshing-machines, forty
+        wagon-teams, and over a hundred men well known to him.
+        There was a guard around the field. This unprecedented
+        harvest had attracted many spectators from the little
+        towns. They had come in cars and on horseback and on foot.
+        Olsen trusted no man on that field except those he
+        knew.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The wonderful wheat-field was cut into
+        a thousand squares and angles and lanes and curves. The big
+        whirring combines passed one another, stopped and waited
+        and turned out of the way, leaving everywhere little
+        patches and cubes of standing wheat, that soon fell before
+        the onslaught of the smaller combines. This scene had no
+        regularity. It was one of confusion; of awkward halts,
+        delays, hurries; of accident. The wind blew clouds of dust
+        and chaff, alternately clearing one space to cloud another.
+        And a strange roar added the last heroic touch to this
+        heroic field. It was indeed the roar of battle&mdash;men
+        and horses governing the action of machinery, and all
+        fighting time. For in delay was peril to the wheat.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Once Kurt ran across the tireless and
+        implacable Olsen. He seemed a man of dust and sweat and
+        fury.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"She's half cut an' over twenty
+        thousand bushels gone to the railroad!" he exclaimed. "An'
+        we're speedin' up."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Olsen, I don't get what's going on,"
+        replied Kurt. "All this is like a dream."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wake up. You'll be out of debt an' a
+        rich man in three days," added Olsen, and went his way.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">In the afternoon Kurt set out to work
+        as he had never worked in his life. There was need of his
+        strong hands in many places, but he could not choose any
+        one labor and stick by it for long. He wanted to do all. It
+        was as if this was not a real and wonderful harvest of his
+        father's greatest wheat yield, but something that embodied
+        all years, all harvests, his father's death, the lifting of
+        the old, hard debt, the days when he had trod the fields
+        barefoot, and this day when, strangely enough, all seemed
+        over for him. Peace dwelt with him, yet no hope. Behind his
+        calm he could have found the old dread, had he cared to
+        look deeply. He loved these heroic workers of the fields.
+        It had been given to him&mdash;a great task&mdash;to be the
+        means of creating a test for them, his neighbors under a
+        ban of suspicion; and now he could swear they were as true
+        as the gold of the waving wheat. More than a harvest was
+        this most strenuous and colorful of all times ever known in
+        the Bend; it had a significance that uplifted him. It was
+        American.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">First Kurt began to load bags of
+        wheat, as they fell from the whirring combines, into the
+        wagons. For his powerful arms a full bag, containing two
+        bushels, was like a toy for a child. With a lift and a
+        heave he threw a bag into a wagon. They were everywhere,
+        these brown bags, dotting the stubble field, appearing as
+        if by magic in the wake of the machines. They rolled off
+        the platforms. This toil, because it was hard and heavy,
+        held Kurt for an hour, but it could not satisfy his
+        enormous hunger to make that whole harvest his own. He
+        passed to pitching sheaves of wheat and then to driving in
+        the wagons. From that he progressed to a seat on one of the
+        immense combines, where he drove twenty-four horses. No
+        driver there was any surer than Kurt of his aim with the
+        little stones he threw to spur a lagging horse. Kurt had
+        felt this when, as a boy, he had begged to be allowed to
+        try his hand; he liked the shifty cloud of fragrant chaff,
+        now and then blinding and choking him; and he liked the
+        steady, rhythmic tramps of hooves and the roaring whir of
+        the great complicated machine. It fascinated him to see the
+        wide swath of nodding wheat tremble and sway and fall, and
+        go sliding up into the inside of that grinding maw, and
+        come out, straw and dust and chaff, and a slender stream of
+        gold filling the bags.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">This day Kurt Dorn was gripped by the
+        unknown. Some far-off instinct of future drove him, set his
+        spiritual need, and made him register with his senses all
+        that was so beautiful and good and heroic in the scene
+        about him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Strangely, now and then a thought of
+        Lenore Anderson entered his mind and made sudden havoc. It
+        tended to retard action. He trembled and thrilled with a
+        realization that every hour brought closer the meeting he
+        could not avoid. And he discovered that it was whenever
+        this memory recurred that he had to leave off his present
+        task and rush to another. Only thus could he forget
+        her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The late afternoon found him feeding
+        sheaves of wheat to one of the steam-threshers. He stood
+        high upon a platform and pitched sheaves from the wagons
+        upon the sliding track of the ponderous, rattling
+        threshing-machine. The engine stood off fifty yards or
+        more, connected by an endless driving-belt to the thresher.
+        Here indeed were whistle and roar and whir, and the shout
+        of laborers, and the smell of smoke, sweat, dust, and
+        wheat. Kurt had arms of steel. If they tired he never knew
+        it. He toiled, and he watched the long spout of chaff and
+        straw as it streamed from the thresher to lift, magically,
+        a glistening, ever-growing stack. And he felt, as a last
+        and cumulative change, his physical effort, and the
+        physical adjuncts of the scene, pass into something
+        spiritual, into his heart and his memory.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The end of that harvest-time came as a
+        surprise to Kurt. Obsessed with his own emotions, he had
+        actually helped to cut the wheat and harvest it; he had
+        seen it go swath by swath, he had watched the huge wagons
+        lumber away and the huge straw-stacks rise without
+        realizing that the hours of this wonderful harvest were
+        numbered.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Sight of Olsen coming in from across
+        the field, and the sudden cessation of roar and action,
+        made Kurt aware of the end. It seemed a calamity. But Olsen
+        was smiling through his dust-caked face. About him were
+        relaxation, an air of finality, and a subtle pride.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We're through," he said. "She tallies
+        thirty-eight thousand, seven hundred an' forty-one bushels.
+        It's too bad the old man couldn't live to hear that."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Olsen gripped Kurt's hand and wrung
+        it.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Boy, I reckon you ought to take that
+        a little cheerfuller," he went on. "But&mdash;well it's
+        been a hard time.&hellip; The men are leavin' now. In two
+        hours the last wagons will unload at the railroad. The
+        wheat will all be in the warehouse. An' our worry's
+        ended."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I&mdash;I hope so," responded Kurt.
+        He seemed overcome with the passionate longing to show his
+        gratitude to Olsen. But the words would not flow.
+        "I&mdash;I don't know how to thank you.&hellip; All my
+        life&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We beat the I.W.W.," interposed the
+        farmer, heartily. "An' now what'll you do, Dorn?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why, I'll hustle to Kilo, get my
+        money, send you a check for yourself and men, pay off the
+        debt to Anderson, and then&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">But Kurt did not conclude his speech.
+        His last words were thought-provoking.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It's turned out well," said Olsen,
+        with satisfaction, and, shaking hands again with Kurt, he
+        strode back to his horses.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">At last the wide, sloping field was
+        bare, except for the huge straw-stacks. A bright procession
+        lumbered down the road, led by the long strings of wagons
+        filled with brown bags. A strange silence had settled down
+        over the farm. The wheat was gone. That waving stretch of
+        gold had fallen to the thresher and the grain had been
+        hauled away. The neighbors had gone, leaving Kurt rich in
+        bushels of wheat, and richer for the hearty farewells and
+        the grips of horny hands. Kurt's heart was full.</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was evening. Kurt had finished his
+        supper. Already he had packed a few things to take with him
+        on the morrow. He went out to the front of the house. Stars
+        were blinking. There was a low hum of insects from the
+        fields. He missed the soft silken rustle of the wheat. And
+        now it seemed he could sit there in the quiet darkness, in
+        that spot which had been made sweet by Lenore Anderson's
+        presence, and think of her, the meeting soon to come. The
+        feeling abiding with him then must have been happiness,
+        because he was not used to it. Without deserving anything,
+        he had asked a great deal of fate, and, lo! it had been
+        given him. All was well that ended well. He realized now
+        the terrible depths of despair into which he had allowed
+        himself to be plunged. He had been weak, wrong, selfish.
+        There was something that guided events.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He needed to teach himself all this,
+        with strong and repeated force, so that when he went to
+        give Lenore Anderson the opportunity to express her
+        gratitude, to see her sweet face again, and to meet the
+        strange, warm glance of her blue eyes, so mysterious and
+        somehow mocking, he could be a man of restraint, of pride,
+        like any American, like any other college man she knew.
+        This was no time for a man to leave a girl bearing a burden
+        of his unsolicited love, haunted, perhaps, by a generous
+        reproach that she might have been a little to blame. He had
+        told her the truth, and so far he had been dignified. Now
+        let him bid her good-by, leaving no sorrow for her, and,
+        once out of her impelling presence, let come what might
+        come. He could love her then; he could dare what he had
+        never dared; he could surrender himself to the furious,
+        insistent sweetness of a passion that was sheer bliss in
+        its expression. He could imagine kisses on the red lips
+        that were not for him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A husky shout from somewhere in the
+        rear of the house diverted Kurt's attention. He listened.
+        It came again. His name! It seemed a strange call from out
+        of the troubled past that had just ended. He hurried
+        through the house to the kitchen. The woman stood holding a
+        lamp, staring at Jerry.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Jerry appeared to have sunk against
+        the wall. His face was pallid, with drops of sweat standing
+        out, with distorted, quivering lower jaw. He could not look
+        at Kurt. He could not speak. With shaking hand he pointed
+        toward the back of the house.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Filled with nameless dread, Kurt
+        rushed out. He saw nothing unusual, heard nothing. Rapidly
+        he walked out through the yard, and suddenly he saw a glow
+        in the sky above the barns. Then he ran, so that he could
+        get an unobstructed view of the valley.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The instant he obtained this he halted
+        as if turned to stone. The valley was a place of yellow
+        light. He stared. With the wheat-fields all burned, what
+        was the meaning of such a big light? That broad flare had a
+        center, low down on the valley floor. As he gazed a
+        monstrous flame leaped up, lighting colossal pillars of
+        smoke that swirled upward, and showing plainer than in day
+        the big warehouse and lines of freight-cars at the railroad
+        station, eight miles distant.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My God!" gasped Kurt. "The
+        warehouse&mdash;my wheat&mdash;on fire!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Clear and unmistakable was the
+        horrible truth. Kurt heard the roar of the sinister flames.
+        Transfixed, he stood there, at first hardly able to see and
+        to comprehend. For miles the valley was as light as at
+        noonday. An awful beauty attended the scene. How lurid and
+        sinister the red heart of that fire? How weird and hellish
+        and impressive of destruction those black, mountain-high
+        clouds of smoke! He saw the freight-cars disappear under
+        this fierce blazing and smoking pall. He watched for what
+        seemed endless moments. He saw the changes of that fire,
+        swift and terrible. And only then did Kurt Dorn awaken to
+        the full sense of the calamity.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"All that work&mdash;Olsen's
+        sacrifice&mdash;and the farmers'&mdash;my father's
+        death&mdash;all for nothing!" whispered Kurt. "They only
+        waited&mdash;those fiends&mdash;to fire the warehouse and
+        the cars!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The catastrophe had fallen. The wheat
+        was burning. He was ruined. His wheatland must go to
+        Anderson. Kurt thought first and most poignantly of the
+        noble farmers who had sacrificed the little in their
+        wheat-fields to save the much in his. Never could he repay
+        them.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then he became occupied with a
+        horrible heat that seemed to have come from the burning
+        warehouse to all his pulses and veins and to his heart and
+        his soul.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">This fiendish work, as had been
+        forecast, was the work of the I.W.W. Behind it was Glidden
+        and perhaps behind him was the grasping, black lust of
+        German might. Kurt's loss was no longer abstract or
+        problematical. It was a loss so real and terrible that it
+        confounded him. He shook and gasped and reeled. He wrung
+        his hands and beat his breast while the tumult swayed him,
+        the physical hate at last yielding up its significance.
+        What then, was his great loss? He could not tell. The thing
+        was mighty, like the sense of terror and loneliness in the
+        black night. Not the loss for his farmer neighbors, so true
+        in his hour of trial! Not the loss of his father, nor the
+        wheat, nor the land, nor his ruined future! But it must be
+        a loss, incalculable and insupportable, to his soul. His
+        great ordeal had been the need, a terrible and
+        incomprehensible need, to kill something intangible in
+        himself. He had meant to do it. And now the need was
+        shifted, subject to a baser instinct. If there was German
+        blood in him, poisoning the very wells of his heart he
+        could have spilled it, and so, whether living or dead, have
+        repudiated the taint. That was now clear in his
+        consciousness. But a baser spark had ignited all the
+        primitive passion of the forebears he felt burning and
+        driving within him. He felt no noble fire. He longed to
+        live, to have a hundredfold his strength and fury, to be
+        gifted with a genius for time and place and bloody deed, to
+        have the war-gods set him a thousand opportunities, to beat
+        with iron mace and cut with sharp bayonet and rend with
+        hard hand&mdash;to kill and kill and kill the hideous thing
+        that was German.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt rushed back to the house.
+        Encountering Jerry, he ordered him to run and saddle a
+        couple of horses. Then Kurt got his revolver and a box of
+        shells, and, throwing on his coat, he hurried to the barn.
+        Jerry was leading out the horses. It took but short work to
+        saddle them. Jerry was excited and talkative. He asked Kurt
+        many questions, which excited few replies.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">When Kurt threw himself into the
+        saddle Jerry yelled, "Which way?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Down the trail!" replied Kurt, and
+        was off.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Aw, we'll break our necks!" came
+        Jerry's yell after him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt had no fear of the dark. He knew
+        that trail almost as well by night as by day. His horse was
+        a mettlesome colt that had not been worked during the
+        harvest, and he plunged down the dim, winding trail as if,
+        indeed, to verify Jerry's fears. Presently the thin, pale
+        line that was the trail disappeared on the burned
+        wheat-ground. Here Kurt was at fault as to direction, but
+        he did not slacken the pace for that. He heard Jerry
+        pounding along in the rear, trying to catch up. The way the
+        colt jumped ditches and washes and other obstructions
+        proved his keen sight. Kurt let him go. And then the ride
+        became both perilous and thrilling.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt could not see anything on the
+        blackened earth. But he knew from the contour of the hills
+        just about where to expect to reach the fence and the road.
+        And he did not pull the horse too soon. When he found the
+        gate he waited for Jerry, who could be heard calling from
+        the darkness. Kurt answered him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Here's the gate!" yelled Kurt, as
+        Jerry came galloping up. "Good road all the way now!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lickity-cut then!" shouted Jerry to
+        whom the pace had evidently communicated enthusiasm.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The ride then became a race, with Kurt
+        drawing ahead. Kurt could see the road, a broad, pale belt,
+        dividing the blackness on either side; and he urged the
+        colt to a run. The wind cut short Kurt's breath, beat at
+        his ears, and roared about them. Closer and closer drew the
+        red flare of the dying fire, casting long rays of light
+        into Kurt's eyes.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The colt was almost run out when he
+        entered the circle of reddish flare. Kurt saw the glowing
+        ruins of the elevators and a long, fiery line of box-cars
+        burned to the wheels. Men were running and shouting round
+        in front of the little railroad station, and several were
+        on the roof with brooms and buckets. The freight-house had
+        burned, and evidently the station itself had been on fire.
+        Across the wide street of the little village the roof of a
+        cottage was burning. Men were on top of it, beating the
+        shingles. Hoarse yells greeted Kurt as he leaped out of the
+        saddle. He heard screams of frightened women. On the other
+        side of the burned box-cars a long, thin column of sparks
+        rose straight upward. Over the ruins of the elevators hung
+        a pall of heavy smoke. Just then Jerry came galloping up,
+        his lean face red in the glow.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Thet you, Kurt! Say, the sons of guns
+        are burnin' down the town." He leaped off. "Lemme have your
+        bridle. I'll tie the hosses up. Find out what we can
+        do."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt ran here and there, possessed by
+        impotent rage. The wheat was gone! That fact gave him a
+        hollow, sickening pang. He met farmers he knew. They all
+        threw up their hands at sight of him. Not one could find a
+        voice. Finally he met Olsen. The little wheat farmer was
+        white with passion. He carried a gun.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hello, Dorn! Ain't this hell? They
+        got your wheat!" he said hoarsely.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Olsen! How'd it happen? Wasn't
+        anybody set to guard the elevators?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes. But the I.W.W.'s drove all the
+        guards off but Grimm, an' they beat him up bad. Nobody had
+        nerve enough to shoot."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Olsen, if I run into the Glidden I'll
+        kill him," declared Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"So will I.&hellip; But, Dorn, they're
+        a hard crowd. They're over there on the side, watchin' the
+        fire. A gang of them! Soon as I can get the men together
+        we'll drive them out of town. There'll be a fight, if I
+        don't miss my guess."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hurry the men! Have all of them get
+        their guns! Come on!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Not yet, Dorn. We're fightin' fire
+        yet. You an' Jerry help all you can."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Indeed, it appeared there was danger
+        of more than one cottage burning. The exceedingly dry
+        weather of the past weeks had made shingles like tinder,
+        and wherever a glowing spark fell on them there straightway
+        was a smoldering fire. Water, a scarce necessity in that
+        region, had been used until all wells and pumps became dry.
+        It was fortunate that most of the roofs of the little
+        village had been constructed of galvanized iron. Beating
+        out blazes and glowing embers with brooms was not effective
+        enough. When it appeared that the one cottage nearest the
+        rain of sparks was sure to go, Kurt thought of the railroad
+        watertank below the station. He led a number of men with
+        buckets to the tank, and they soon drowned out the
+        smoldering places.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile the blazes from the box-cars
+        died out, leaving only the dull glow from the red heap that
+        had once been the elevators. However, this gave forth light
+        enough for any one to be seen a few rods distant. Sparks
+        had ceased to fall, and from that source no further danger
+        need be apprehended. Olsen had been going from man to man,
+        sending those who were not armed home for guns. So it came
+        about that half an hour after Kurt's arrival a score of
+        farmers, villagers, and a few railroaders were collected in
+        a group, listening to the pale-faced Olsen.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Men, there's only a few of us, an'
+        there's hundreds, mebbe, in thet I.W.W. gang, but we've got
+        to drive them off," he said, doggedly. "There's no tellin'
+        what they'll do if we let them hang around any longer. They
+        know we're weak in numbers. We've got to do some shootin'
+        to scare them away."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt seconded Olsen in ringing
+        voice.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"They've threatened your homes," he
+        said. "They've burned my wheat&mdash;ruined me. They were
+        the death of my father.&hellip; These are facts I'm telling
+        you. We can't wait for law or for militia. We've got to
+        meet this I.W.W. invasion. They have taken advantage of the
+        war situation. They're backed by German agents. It's now a
+        question of our property. We've got to fight!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The crowd made noisy and determined
+        response. Most of them had small weapons; a few had
+        shot-guns or rifles.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Come on, men," called Olsen. "I'll do
+        the talkin'. An' if I say shoot, why, you shoot!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was necessary to go around the long
+        line of box-cars. Olsen led the way, with Kurt just back of
+        him. The men spoke but little and in whispers. At the left
+        end of the line the darkness was thick enough to make
+        objects indistinct.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Once around the corner, Kurt plainly
+        descried a big dark crowd of men whose faces showed red in
+        the glow of the huge pile of embers which was all that
+        remained of the elevators. They did not see Olsen's
+        men.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hold on," whispered Olsen. "If we get
+        in a fight here we'll be in a bad place. We've nothin' to
+        hide behind. Let's go off&mdash;more to the left&mdash;an'
+        come up behind those freight-cars on the switches. That'll
+        give us cover an' we'll have the I.W.W.'s in the
+        light."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">So he led off to the left, keeping in
+        the shadow, and climbed between several lines of
+        freight-cars, all empty, and finally came out behind the
+        I.W.W.'s. Olsen led to within fifty yards of them, and was
+        halted by some observant member of the gang who sat with
+        the others on top of a flat-car.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">This man's yell stilled the coarse
+        talk and laughter of the gang.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What's that?" shouted a cold, clear
+        voice with authority in it.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt thought he recognized the voice,
+        and it caused a bursting, savage sensation in his
+        blood.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Here's a bunch of farmers with guns!"
+        yelled the man from the flat-car.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Olsen halted his force near one of the
+        detached lines of box-cars, which he probably meant to take
+        advantage of in case of a fight.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hey, you I.W.W.'s!" he shouted, with
+        all his might.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">There was a moment's silence.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"There's no I.W.W.'s here," replied
+        the authoritative voice.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt was sure now that he recognized
+        Glidden's voice. Excitement and anger then gave place to
+        deadly rage.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Who are you?" yelled Olsen.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We're tramps watchin' the fire," came
+        the reply.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You set that fire!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No, we didn't."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt motioned Olsen to be silent, as
+        with lifting breast he took an involuntary step
+        forward.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Glidden, I know you!" he shouted, in
+        hard, quick tones. "I'm Kurt Dorn. I've met you. I know
+        your voice.&hellip; Take your gang&mdash;get out of
+        here&mdash;or we'll kill you!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">This pregnant speech caused a blank
+        dead silence. Then came a white flash, a sharp report. Kurt
+        heard the thud of a bullet striking some one near him. The
+        man cried out, but did not fall.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Spread out an' hide!" ordered Olsen.
+        "An' shoot fer keeps!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The little crowd broke and melted into
+        the shadows behind and under the box-cars. Kurt crawled
+        under a car and between the wheels, from which
+        vantage-point he looked out. Glidden's gang were there in
+        the red glow, most of them now standing. The sentry who had
+        given the alarm still sat on top of the flat-car, swinging
+        his legs. His companions, however, had jumped down. Kurt
+        heard men of his own party crawling and whispering behind
+        him, and he saw dim, dark, sprawling forms under the far
+        end of the car.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Boss, the hayseeds have run off,"
+        called the man from the flat car.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Laughter and jeers greeted this
+        sally.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt concluded it was about time to
+        begin proceedings. Resting his revolver on the side of the
+        wheel behind which he lay, he took steady aim at the
+        sentry, holding low. Kurt was not a good shot with a
+        revolver and the distance appeared to exceed fifty yards.
+        But as luck would have it, when he pulled trigger the
+        sentry let out a loud bawl of terror and pain, and fell off
+        the car to the ground. Flopping and crawling like a
+        crippled chicken, he got out of sight below.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt's shot was a starter for Olsen's
+        men. Four or five of the shot-guns boomed at once; then the
+        second barrels were discharged, along with a sharper
+        cracking of small arms. Pandemonium broke loose in
+        Glidden's gang. No doubt, at least, of the effectiveness of
+        the shot-guns! A medley of strange, sharp, enraged, and
+        anguished cries burst upon the air, a prelude to a wild
+        stampede. In a few seconds that lighted spot where the
+        I.W.W. had grouped was vacant, and everywhere were fleeing
+        forms, some swift, others slow. So far as Kurt could see,
+        no one had been fatally injured. But many had been hurt,
+        and that fact augured well for Olsen's force.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Presently a shot came from some hidden
+        enemy. It thudded into the wood of the car over Kurt. Some
+        one on his side answered it, and a heavy bullet, striking
+        iron, whined away into the darkness. Then followed flash
+        here and flash there, with accompanying reports and
+        whistles of lead. From behind and under and on top of cars
+        opened up a fire that proved how well armed these so-called
+        laborers were. Their volley completely drowned the
+        desultory firing of Olsen's squad.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt began to wish for one of the
+        shot-guns. It was this kind of weapon that saved Olsen's
+        followers. There were a hundred chances to one of missing
+        an I.W.W. with a single bullet, while a shot-gun, aimed
+        fairly well, was generally productive of results. Kurt
+        stopped wasting his cartridges. Some one was hurt behind
+        his car and he crawled out to see. A villager named Schmidt
+        had been wounded in the leg, not seriously, but bad enough
+        to disable him. He had been using a double-barreled
+        breech-loading shot-gun, and he wore a vest with rows of
+        shells in the pockets across the front. Kurt borrowed gun
+        and ammunition; and with these he hurried back to his
+        covert, grimly sure of himself. At thought of Glidden he
+        became hot all over, and this heat rather grew with the
+        excitement of battle.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">With the heavy fowling-piece loaded,
+        Kurt peeped forth from behind his protecting wheel and
+        watched keenly for flashes or moving dark figures. The
+        I.W.W. had begun to reserve their fire, to shift their
+        positions, and to spread out, judging from a wider range of
+        the reports. It looked as if they meant to try and surround
+        Olsen's band. It was extraordinary&mdash;the assurance and
+        deadly intent of this riffraff gang of tramp
+        labor-agitators. In preceding years a crowd of I.W.W. men
+        had been nothing to worry a rancher. Vastly different it
+        seemed now. They acted as if they had the great war back of
+        them.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt crawled out of his hiding-place,
+        and stole from car to car, in search of Olsen. At last he
+        found the rancher, in company with several men, peering
+        from behind a car. One of his companions was sitting down
+        and trying to wrap something round his foot.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Olsen, they're spreading out to
+        surround us," whispered Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That's what Bill here just said,"
+        replied Olsen, nervously. "If this keeps up we'll be in a
+        tight place. What'll we do, Dorn?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We mustn't break and run, of all
+        things," said Kurt. "They'd burn the village. Tell our men
+        to save their shells.&hellip; If I only could get some
+        cracks at a bunch of them together&mdash;with this big
+        shot-gun!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Say, we've been watchin' that
+        car&mdash;the half-size one, there&mdash;next the high
+        box-car," whispered Olsen.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It's full of them. Sometimes we see a
+        dozen shots come from it, all at once."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Olsen, I've an idea," returned Kurt,
+        excitedly. "You fellows keep shooting&mdash;attract their
+        attention. I'll slip below, climb on top of a box-car, and
+        get a rake-off at that bunch."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It's risky, Dorn," said Olsen, with
+        hesitation. "But if you could get in a few tellin'
+        shots&mdash;start that gang on the run!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll try it," rejoined Kurt, and
+        forthwith stole off back toward the shadow. It struck him
+        that there was more light then when the attack began. The
+        fire had increased, or perhaps the I.W.W. had started
+        another; at any rate, the light was growing stronger, and
+        likewise the danger greater. As he crossed an open space a
+        bullet whizzed by him, and then another zipped by to strike
+        up the gravel ahead. These were not random shots. Some one
+        was aiming at him. How strange and rage-provoking to be
+        shot at deliberately! What a remarkable experience for a
+        young wheat farmer! Raising wheat in the great Northwest
+        had assumed responsibilities. He had to run, and he was the
+        more furious because of that. Another bullet, flying wide,
+        hummed to his left before he gained the shelter of the
+        farthest line of freight-cars. Here he hid and watched. The
+        firing appeared to be all behind him, and, thus encouraged,
+        he stole along to the end of the line of cars, and around.
+        A bright blaze greeted his gaze. An isolated car was on
+        fire. Kurt peered forth to make sure of his bearings, and
+        at length found the high derrick by which he had marked the
+        box-car that he intended to climb.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He could see plainly, and stole up to
+        his objective point, with little risk to himself until he
+        climbed upon the box-car. He crouched low, almost on hands
+        and knees, and finally gained the long shadow of a shed
+        between the tracks. Then he ran past the derrick to the
+        dark side of the car. He could now plainly see the revolver
+        flashes and could hear the thud and spang of their bullets
+        striking. Drawing a deep breath, Kurt climbed up the iron
+        ladder on the dark side of the car.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He had the same sensation that
+        possessed him when he was crawling to get a pot-shot at a
+        flock of wild geese. Only this was mightily more exciting.
+        He did not forget the risk. He lay flat and crawled little
+        by little. Every moment he expected to be discovered. Olsen
+        had evidently called more of his men to his side, for they
+        certainly were shooting diligently. Kurt heard a continuous
+        return fire from the car he was risking so much to get a
+        shot at. At length he was within a yard of the end of the
+        car&mdash;as far as he needed to go. He rested a moment. He
+        was laboring for breath, sweating freely, on fire with
+        thrills.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">His plan was to raise himself on one
+        knee and fire as many double shots as possible. Presently
+        he lifted his head to locate the car. It was half in the
+        bright light, half in the shadow, lengthwise toward him,
+        about sixty or seventy yards distant, and full of men. He
+        dropped his head, tingling all over. It was a
+        disappointment that the car stood so far away. With fine
+        shot he could not seriously injure any of the I.W.W.
+        contingent, but he was grimly sure of the fright and hurt
+        he could inflict. In his quick glance he had seen flashes
+        of their guns, and many red faces, and dark, huddled
+        forms.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt took four shells and set them,
+        end up, on the roof of the car close to him. Then, cocking
+        the gun, he cautiously raised himself to one knee. He
+        discharged both barrels at once. What a boom and what a
+        terrified outburst of yells! Swiftly he broke the gun,
+        reloaded, fired as before, and then again. The last two
+        shots were fired at the men piling frantically over the
+        side of the car, yelling with fear. Kurt had heard the
+        swishing pattering impact of those swarms of small shot.
+        The I.W.W. gang ran pell-mell down the open track, away
+        from Kurt and toward the light. As he reloaded the gun he
+        saw men running from all points to join the gang. With an
+        old blunderbuss of a shot-gun he had routed the I.W.W. It
+        meant relief to Olsen's men; but Kurt had yet no
+        satisfaction for the burning of his wheat, for the cruel
+        shock that had killed his father.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Come on, Olsen!" he yelled, at the
+        top of his lungs. "They're a lot of cowards!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then in his wild eagerness he leaped
+        off the car. The long jump landed him jarringly, but he did
+        not fall or lose hold of the gun. Recovering his balance,
+        he broke into a run. Kurt was fast on his feet. Not a young
+        man of his neighborhood nor any of his college-mates could
+        outfoot him in a race. And then these I.W.W. fellows ran
+        like stiff-legged tramps, long unused to such mode of
+        action. And some of them were limping as they ran. Kurt
+        gained upon them. When he got within range he halted short
+        and freed two barrels. A howl followed the report. Some of
+        the fleeing ones fell, but were dragged up and on by
+        companions. Kurt reloaded and, bounding forward like a
+        deer, yelling for Olsen, he ran until he was within range,
+        then stopped to shoot again. Thus he continued until the
+        pursued got away from the circle of light. Kurt saw the
+        gang break up, some running one way and some another. There
+        were sheds and cars and piles of lumber along the track,
+        affording places to hide. Kurt was halted by the discovery
+        that he had no more ammunition. Panting, he stopped short,
+        realizing that he had snapped an empty gun at men either
+        too tired or too furious or too desperate to run any
+        farther.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"He's out of shells!" shouted a low,
+        hard voice that made Kurt leap. He welcomed the rush of
+        dark forms, and, swinging the gun round his head, made
+        ready to brain the first antagonist who neared him. But
+        some one leaped upon him from behind. The onslaught carried
+        him to his knees. Bounding up, he broke the gun stock on
+        the head of his assailant, who went down in a heap. Kurt
+        tried to pull his revolver. It became impossible, owing to
+        strong arms encircling him. Wrestling, he freed himself,
+        only to be staggered by a rush of several men, all pouncing
+        upon him at once. Kurt went down, but, once down, he heaved
+        so powerfully that he threw off the whole crew. Up again,
+        like a cat, he began to fight. Big and strong and swift,
+        with fists like a blacksmith's, Kurt bowled over this
+        assailant and that one. He thought he recognized Glidden in
+        a man who kept out of his reach and who was urging on the
+        others. Kurt lunged at him and finally got his hands on
+        him. That was fatal for Kurt, because in his fury he forgot
+        Glidden's comrades. In one second his big hand wrenched a
+        yell of mortal pain out of Glidden; then a combined attack
+        of the others rendered Kurt powerless. A blow on the head
+        stunned him&mdash;made all dark.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It seemed that Kurt did not altogether
+        lose consciousness, for he had vague sensations of being
+        dragged along the ground. Presently the darkness cleared
+        from his mind and he opened his eyes. He lay on his back.
+        Looking up, he saw stars through the thin, broken clouds of
+        smoke. A huge pile of railroad ties loomed up beside
+        him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He tried to take note of his
+        situation. His hands were tied in front of him, not so
+        securely, he imagined, that he could not work them free.
+        His legs had not been tied. Both his head and shoulder, on
+        the left side, pained him severely. Upon looking around,
+        Kurt presently made out the dark form of a man. He appeared
+        rigid with attention, but that evidently had no relation to
+        Kurt. The man was listening and watching for his comrades.
+        Kurt heard no voices or shots. After a little while,
+        however, he thought he heard distant footsteps on the
+        gravel. He hardly knew what to make of his predicament. If
+        there was only one guard over him, escape did not seem
+        difficult, unless that guard had a gun.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hello, you!" he called.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hello, yourself" replied the man,
+        jerking up in evident surprise.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What's your name?" inquired Kurt,
+        amiably.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well, it ain't J.J. Hill or
+        Anderson," came the gruff response.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt laughed. "But you would be one of
+        those names if you could, now wouldn't you?" went on
+        Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My name is Dennis," gloomily returned
+        the man.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It certainly is. <i>That</i> is the
+        name of all I.W.W.'s," said Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Say, are you the fellow who had the
+        shot-gun?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I sure am," replied Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I ought to knock you on the
+        head."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Because I'll have to eat standing up
+        for a month."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes?" queried Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"The seat of my pants must have made a
+        good target, for you sure pasted it full of birdshot."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt smothered a laugh. Then he felt
+        the old anger leap up. "Didn't you burn my wheat?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Are you that young Dorn?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, I am," replied Kurt, hotly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well, I didn't burn one damn straw of
+        your old wheat."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You didn't! But you're with these
+        men? You're an I.W.W. You've been fighting these farmers
+        here."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If you want to know, I'm a tramp,"
+        said the man, bitterly. "Years ago I was a prosperous
+        oil-producer in Ohio. I had a fine oil-field. Along comes a
+        big fellow, tries to buy me out, and, failing that, he shot
+        off dynamite charges into the ground next my
+        oil-field.&hellip; Choked my wells! Ruined me!&hellip; I came
+        west&mdash;went to farming. Along comes a corporation,
+        steals my water for irrigation&mdash;and my land went back
+        to desert.&hellip; So I quit working and trying to be
+        honest. It doesn't pay. The rich men are getting all the
+        richer at the expense of the poor. So now I'm a tramp."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Friend, that's a hard-luck story,"
+        said Kurt. "It sure makes me think.&hellip; But I'll tell
+        you what&mdash;you don't belong to this I.W.W. outfit, even
+        if you are a tramp."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why not?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Because you're American! That's
+        why."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well, I know I am. But I can be
+        American and travel with a labor union, can't I?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No. This I.W.W. is no labor union. It
+        never was. Their very first rule is to abolish capital.
+        They're anarchists. And now they're backed by German money.
+        The I.W.W. is an enemy to America. All this hampering of
+        railroads, destruction of timber and wheat, is an aid to
+        Germany in the war. The United States is at war! My God!
+        man, can't you see it's your own country that must suffer
+        for such deals as this wheat-burning to-night?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"The hell you say!" ejaculated the
+        man, in amaze.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"This Glidden is a German
+        agent&mdash;perhaps a spy. He's no labor leader. What does
+        he care for the interests of such men as you?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Young man, if you don't shut up
+        you'll give me a hankering to go back to real work."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I hope I do. Let me give you a hunch.
+        Throw down this I.W.W. outfit. Go to Ruxton and get
+        Anderson of 'Many Waters' ranch to give you a job. Tell him
+        who you are and that I sent you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Anderson of 'Many Waters,' hey? Well,
+        maybe it'll surprise you to know that Glidden is operating
+        there, has a lot of men there, and is going there from
+        here."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No, it doesn't surprise me. I hope he
+        does go there. For if he does he'll get killed."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sssssh!" whispered the guard. "Here
+        comes some of the gang."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt heard low voices and soft
+        footfalls. Some dark forms loomed up.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Bradford, has he come to yet?"
+        queried the brutal voice of Glidden.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Nope," replied the guard. "I guess he
+        had a hard knock. He's never budged."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We've got to beat it out of here,"
+        said Glidden. "It's long after midnight. There's a
+        freight-train down the track. I want all the gang to board
+        it. You run along, Bradford, and catch up with the
+        others."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What're you going to do with this
+        young fellow?" queried Bradford, curiously.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That's none of your business,"
+        returned Glidden.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Maybe not. But I reckon I'll ask,
+        anyhow. You want me to join your I.W.W., and I'm asking
+        questions. Labor strikes&mdash;standing up for your
+        rights&mdash;is one thing, and burning wheat or slugging
+        young farmers is another. Are you going to let this Dorn
+        go?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt could plainly see the group of
+        five men, Bradford standing over the smaller Glidden, and
+        the others strung and silent in the intensity of the
+        moment.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll cut his throat," hissed
+        Glidden.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Bradford lunged heavily. The blow he
+        struck Glidden was square in the face. Glidden would have
+        had a hard fall but for the obstruction in the shape of his
+        comrades, upon whom he was knocked. They held him up.
+        Glidden sagged inertly, evidently stunned or unconscious.
+        Bradford backed guardedly away out of their reach, then,
+        wheeling, he began to run with heavy, plodding strides.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Glidden's comrades seemed anxiously
+        holding him up, peering at him, but no one spoke. Kurt saw
+        his opportunity. With one strong wrench he freed his hands.
+        Feeling in his pocket for his gun, he was disturbed to find
+        that it had been taken. He had no weapon. But he did not
+        hesitate. Bounding up, he rushed like a hurricane upon the
+        unprepared group. He saw Glidden's pale face upheld to the
+        light of the stars, and by it saw that Glidden was
+        recovering. With all his might Kurt swung as he rushed, and
+        the blow he gave the I.W.W. leader far exceeded Bradford's.
+        Glidden was lifted so powerfully against one of his men
+        that they both fell. Then Kurt, striking right and left,
+        beat down the other two, and, leaping over them, he bounded
+        away into the darkness. Shrill piercing yells behind him
+        lent him wings.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">But he ran right into another group of
+        I.W.W. men, dozens in number, he thought, and by the light
+        of what appeared to be a fire they saw him as quickly as he
+        saw them. The yells behind were significant enough. Kurt
+        had to turn to run back, and he had to run the gauntlet of
+        the men he had assaulted. They promptly began to shoot at
+        Kurt. The whistle of lead was uncomfortably close. Never
+        had he run so fleetly. When he flashed past the end of the
+        line of cars, into comparative open, he found himself in
+        the light of a new fire. This was a shed perhaps a score of
+        rods or less from the station. Some one was yelling beyond
+        this, and Kurt thought he recognized Jerry's voice, but he
+        did not tarry to make sure. Bullets scattering the gravel
+        ahead of him and singing around his head, and hoarse cries
+        behind, with a heavy-booted tread of pursuers, gave Kurt
+        occasion to hurry. He flew across the freight-yard,
+        intending to distance his pursuers, then circle round the
+        station to the village.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Once he looked back. The gang, well
+        spread out, was not far behind him, just coming into the
+        light of the new fire. No one in it could ever catch him,
+        of that Kurt was sure.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Suddenly a powerful puff of air, like
+        a blast of wind, seemed to lift him. At the same instant a
+        dazzling, blinding, yellow blaze illuminated the whole
+        scene. The solid earth seemed to rock under Kurt's flying
+        feet, and then a terrific roar appalled him. He was thrown
+        headlong through the air, and all about him seemed streaks
+        and rays and bursts of fire. He alighted to plow through
+        the dirt until the momentum of force had been expended.
+        Then he lay prone, gasping and choking, almost blind, but
+        sensitive to the rain of gravel and debris, the fearful
+        cries of terrified men, taste of smoke and dust, and the
+        rank smell of exploded gasoline.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt got up to grope his way through
+        the murky darkness. He could escape now. If that explosion
+        had not killed his pursuers it had certainly scared them
+        off. He heard men running and yelling off to the left. A
+        rumble of a train came from below the village. Finally Kurt
+        got clear of the smoke, to find that he had wandered off
+        into one of the fields opposite the station. Here he halted
+        to rest a little and to take cognizance of his condition.
+        It surprised him to find out that he was only bruised,
+        scratched, and sore. He had expected to find himself full
+        of bullets.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Whew! They blew up the
+        gasoline-shed!" he soliloquized. "But some of them
+        miscalculated, for if I don't lose my guess there was a
+        bunch of I.W.W. closer to that gasoline than I was.&hellip;
+        Some adventure!&hellip; I got another punch at Glidden. I
+        felt it in my bones that I'd get a crack at him. Oh, for
+        another!&hellip; And that Bradford! He did make me think.
+        How he slugged Glidden! Good! Good! There's your old
+        American spirit coming out."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt sat down to rest and to listen.
+        He found he needed a rest. The only sound he heard was the
+        rumbling of a train, gradually drawing away. A heavy smoke
+        rose from the freight-yard, but there were no longer any
+        blazes or patches of red fire. Perhaps the explosion had
+        smothered all the flames.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It had been a rather strenuous
+        evening, he reflected. A good deal of satisfaction lay in
+        the fact that he had severely punished some of the I.W.W.
+        members, if he had not done away with any of them.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">When he thought of Glidden, however,
+        he did not feel any satisfaction. His fury was gone, but in
+        its place was a strong judgment that such men should be
+        made examples. He certainly did not want to run across
+        Glidden again, because if he did he would have blood on his
+        hands.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt's chance meeting with the man
+        Bradford seemed far the most interesting, if not thrilling,
+        incident of the evening. It opened up a new point of view.
+        How many of the men of that motley and ill-governed I.W.W.
+        had grievances like Bradford's? Perhaps there were many.
+        Kurt tried to remember instances when, in the Northwest
+        wheat country, laborers and farmers had been cheated or
+        deceived by men of large interests. It made him grave to
+        discover that he could recall many such instances. His own
+        father had long nursed a grievance against Anderson.
+        Neuman, his father's friend, had a hard name. And there
+        were many who had profited by the misfortune of others.
+        That, after all, was a condition of life. He took it for
+        granted, then, that all members of the I.W.W. were not
+        vicious or dishonest. He was glad to have this proof. The
+        I.W.W. had been organized by labor agitators, and they were
+        the ones to blame, and their punishment should be severest.
+        Kurt began to see where the war, cruel as it would be, was
+        going to be of immeasurable benefit to the country.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It amazed Kurt, presently, to note
+        that dawn was at hand. He waited awhile longer, wanting to
+        be sure not to meet any lingering members of the I.W.W. It
+        appeared, indeed, that they had all gone.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He crossed the freight-yard. A black
+        ruin, still smoldering, lay where the elevators had been.
+        That wonderful wheat yield of his had been destroyed. In
+        the gray dawn it was hard to realize. He felt a lump in his
+        throat. Several tracks were littered with the remains of
+        burned freight-cars. When Kurt reached the street he saw
+        men in front of the cottages. Some one hailed him, and then
+        several shouted. They met him half-way. Jerry and Olsen
+        were in the party.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We was pretty much scared," said
+        Jerry, and his haggard face showed his anxiety.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Boy, we thought the I.W.W. had made
+        off with you," added Olsen, extending his hand.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Not much! Where are they?" replied
+        Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Gone on a freight-train. When Jerry
+        blew up the gasoline-shed that fixed the I.W.W."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jerry, did you do that?" queried
+        Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I reckon."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well, you nearly blew me off the map.
+        I was running, just below the shed. When that explosion
+        came I was lifted and thrown a mile. Thought I'd never
+        light!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"So far as we can tell, nobody was
+        killed," said Olsen. "Some of our fellows have got
+        bullet-holes to nurse. But no one is bad hurt."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That's good. I guess we came out
+        lucky," replied Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You must have had some fight, runnin'
+        off that way after the I.W.W.'s. We heard you shootin' an'
+        the I.W.W.'s yellin'. That part was fun. Tell us what
+        happened to you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">So Kurt had to narrate his experiences
+        from the time he stole off with the big shot-gun until his
+        friends saw him again. It made rather a long story, which
+        manifestly was of exceeding interest to the villagers.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dorn," said one of the men, "you an'
+        Jerry saved this here village from bein' burned."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We all had a share. I'm sure glad
+        they're gone. Now what damage was done?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It turned out that there had been
+        little hurt to the property of the villagers. Some
+        freight-cars full of barley, loaded and billed by the
+        railroad people, had been burned, and this loss of grain
+        would probably be paid for by the company. The loss of
+        wheat would fall upon Kurt. In the haste of that great
+        harvest and its transportation to the village no provision
+        had been made for loss. The railroad company had not
+        accepted his wheat for transportation, and was not
+        liable.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Olsen, according to our agreement I
+        owe you fifteen thousand dollars," said Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, but forget it," replied Olsen.
+        "You're the loser here."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll pay it," replied Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But, boy, you're ruined!" ejaculated
+        the farmer. "You can't pay that big price now. An' we don't
+        expect it."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Didn't you leave your burning fields
+        to come help us save ours?" queried Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure. But there wasn't much of mine
+        to burn."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"And so did many of the other men who
+        came to help. I tell you, Olsen, that means a great deal to
+        me. I'll pay my debt or&mdash;or&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But how can you?" interrupted Olsen,
+        reasonably. "Sometime, when you raise another crop like
+        this year, then you could pay."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"The farm will bring that much more
+        than I owe Anderson."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You'll give up the farm?" exclaimed
+        Olsen.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes. I'll square myself."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dorn, we won't take that money," said
+        the farmer, deliberately.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You'll have to take it. I'll send you
+        a check soon&mdash;perhaps to-morrow."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Give up your land!" repeated Olsen.
+        "Why, that's unheard of! Land in your family so many
+        years!&hellip; What will you do?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Olsen, I waited for the draft just on
+        account of my father. If it had not been for him I'd have
+        enlisted. Anyway, I'm going to war."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">That silenced the little group of
+        grimy-faced men.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jerry, get our horses and we'll ride
+        home," said Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The tall foreman strode off. Kurt
+        sensed something poignant in the feelings of the men,
+        especially Olsen. This matter of the I.W.W. dealing had
+        brought Kurt and his neighbors closer together. And he
+        thought it a good opportunity for a few words about the
+        United States and the war and Germany. So he launched forth
+        into an eloquent expression of some of his convictions. He
+        was still talking when Jerry returned with the horses. At
+        length he broke off, rather abruptly, and, saying good-by,
+        he mounted.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hold on, Kurt," called Olsen, and
+        left the group to lay a hand on the horse and to speak low.
+        "What you said struck me deep. It applies pretty hard to us
+        of the Bend. We've always been farmers, with no thought of
+        country. An' that's because we left our native country to
+        come here. I'm not German an' I've never been for Germany.
+        But many of my neighbors an' friends are Germans. This war
+        never has come close till now. I know Germans in this
+        country. They have left their fatherland an' they are lost
+        to that fatherland!&hellip; It may take some time to stir
+        them up, to make them see, but the day will come.&hellip;
+        Take my word for it, Dorn, the German-Americans of the
+        Northwest, when it comes to a pinch, will find themselves
+        an' be true to the country they have adopted."</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The sun was up, broad and bright,
+        burning over the darkened wheat-fields, when Kurt and Jerry
+        reached home. Kurt had never seen the farm look like
+        that&mdash;ugly and black and bare. But the fallow ground,
+        hundreds of acres of it, billowing away to the south, had
+        not suffered any change of color or beauty. To Kurt it
+        seemed to smile at him, to bid him wait for another
+        spring.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">And that thought was poignant, for he
+        remembered he must leave at once for "Many Waters."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He found, when he came to wash the
+        blood and dirt from his person, that his bruises were many.
+        There was a lump on his head, and his hands were skinned.
+        After changing his clothes and packing a few things in a
+        valise, along with his papers, he went down to breakfast.
+        Though preoccupied in mind, he gathered that both the old
+        housekeeper and Jerry were surprised and dismayed to see
+        him ready to leave. He had made no mention of his
+        intentions. And it struck him that this, somehow, was going
+        to be hard.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Indeed, when the moment came he found
+        that speech was difficult and his voice not natural.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Martha&mdash;Jerry&mdash;I'm going
+        away for good," he said, huskily. "I mean to make over the
+        farm to Mr. Anderson. I'll leave you in charge
+        here&mdash;and recommend that you be kept on. Here's your
+        money up to date.&hellip; I'm going away to the
+        war&mdash;and the chances are I'll never come back."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The old housekeeper, who had been like
+        a mother to him for many years, began to cry; and Jerry
+        struggled with a regret that he could not speak.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Abruptly Kurt left them and hurried
+        out of the house. How strange that difficult feelings had
+        arisen&mdash;emotions he had never considered at all! But
+        the truth was that he was leaving his home forever. All was
+        explained in that.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">First he went to the graves of his
+        father and mother, out on the south slope, where there were
+        always wind and sun. The fire had not desecrated the simple
+        burying-ground. There was no grass. But a few trees and
+        bushes kept it from appearing bare.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt sat down in the shade near his
+        mother's grave and looked away across the hills with dim
+        eyes. Something came to him&mdash;a subtle assurance that
+        his mother approved of his going to war. Kurt remembered
+        her&mdash;slow, quiet, patient, hard-working, dominated by
+        his father.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The slope was hot and still, with only
+        a rustling of leaves in the wind. The air was dry. Kurt
+        missed the sweet fragrance of wheat. What odor there was
+        seemed to be like that of burning weeds. The great,
+        undulating open of the Bend extended on three sides. His
+        parents had spent the best of their lives there and had now
+        been taken to the bosom of the soil they loved. It seemed
+        natural. Many were the last resting-places of toilers of
+        the wheat there on those hills. And surely in the long
+        frontier days, and in the ages before, men innumerable had
+        gone back to the earth from which they had sprung. The
+        dwelling-places of men were beautiful; it was only life
+        that was sad. In this poignant, revealing hour Kurt could
+        not resist human longings and regrets, though he gained
+        incalculable strength from these two graves on the windy
+        slope. It was not for any man to understand to the
+        uttermost the meaning of life.</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">When he left he made his way across
+        some of the fallow land and some of the stubble fields that
+        had yielded, alas! so futilely, such abundant harvest. His
+        boyhood days came back to him, when he used to crush down
+        the stubble with his bare feet. Every rod of the way
+        revealed some memory. He went into the barn and climbed
+        into the huge, airy loft. It smelled of straw and years of
+        dust and mice. The swallows darted in and out, twittering.
+        How friendly they were! Year after year they had returned
+        to their nests&mdash;the young birds returning to the homes
+        of the old. Home even for birds was a thing of first and
+        vital importance.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was a very old barn that had not
+        many more useful years to stand. Kurt decided that he would
+        advise that it be strengthened. There were holes in the
+        rough shingling and boards were off the sides. In the
+        corners and on the rafters was an accumulation of grain
+        dust as thick as snow. Mice ran in and out, almost as tame
+        as the swallows. He seemed to be taking leave of them. He
+        recalled that he used to chase and trap mice with all a
+        boy's savage ingenuity. But that boyish instinct, along
+        with so many things so potential then, was gone now.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Best of all he loved the horses. Most
+        of these were old and had given faithful service for many
+        years. Indeed, there was one&mdash;Old Badge&mdash;that had
+        carried Kurt when he was a boy. Once he and a neighbor boy
+        had gone to the pasture to fetch home the cows. Old Badge
+        was there, and nothing would do but that they ride him.
+        From the fence Kurt mounted to his broad back. Then the
+        neighbor boy, full of the devil, had struck Old Badge with
+        a stick. The horse set off at a gallop for home with Kurt,
+        frantically holding on, bouncing up and down on his back.
+        That had been the ride of Kurt's life. His father had
+        whipped him, too, for the adventure.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">How strangely vivid and
+        thought-compelling were these ordinary adjuncts to his life
+        there on the farm. It was only upon giving them up that he
+        discovered their real meaning. The hills of bare fallow and
+        of yellow slope, the old barn with its horses, swallows,
+        mice, and odorous loft, the cows and chickens&mdash;these
+        appeared to Kurt, in the illuminating light of farewell, in
+        their true relation to him. For they, and the labor of
+        them, had made him what he was.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Slowly he went back to the old house
+        and climbed the stairs. Only three rooms were there
+        up-stairs, and one of these, his mother's, had not been
+        opened for a long time. It seemed just the same as when he
+        used to go to her with his stubbed toes and his troubles.
+        She had died in that room. And now he was a man, going out
+        to fight for his country. How strange! Why? In his mother's
+        room he could not answer that puzzling question. It stung
+        him, and with a last look, a good-by, and a word of prayer
+        on his lips, he turned to his own little room.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He entered and sat down on the bed. It
+        was small, with the slope of the roof running down so low
+        that he had learned to stoop when close to the wall. There
+        was no ceiling. Bare yellow rafters and dark old shingles
+        showed. He could see light through more than one little
+        hole. The window was small, low, and without glass. How
+        many times he had sat there, leaning out in the hot dusk of
+        summer nights, dreaming dreams that were never to come
+        true. Alas for the hopes and illusions of boyhood! So long
+        as he could remember, this room was most closely associated
+        with his actions and his thoughts. It was a part of him. He
+        almost took it into his confidence as if it were human.
+        Never had he become what he had dared to dream he would,
+        yet, somehow, at that moment he was not ashamed. It struck
+        him then what few belongings he really had. But he had been
+        taught to get along with little.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Living in that room was over for him.
+        He was filled with unutterable sadness. Yet he would not
+        have had it any different. Bigger, and selfless things
+        called to him. He was bidding farewell to his youth and all
+        that it related to. A solemn procession of beautiful
+        memories passed through his mind, born of the nights there
+        in that room of his boyhood, with the wind at the eaves and
+        the rain pattering on the shingles. What strong and vivid
+        pictures! No grief, no pain, no war could rob him of this
+        best heritage from the past.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He got up to go. And then a blinding
+        rush of tears burned his eyes. This room seemed dearer than
+        all the rest of his home. It was hard to leave. His last
+        look was magnified, transformed. "Good-by!" he whispered,
+        with a swelling constriction in his throat. At the head of
+        the dark old stairway he paused a moment, and then with
+        bowed head he slowly descended.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">An August twilight settled softly down
+        over "Many Waters" while Lenore Anderson dreamily gazed
+        from her window out over the darkening fields so tranquil
+        now after the day's harvest toil.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Of late, in thoughtful hours such as
+        this, she had become conscious of strain, of longing. She
+        had fought out a battle with herself, had confessed her
+        love for Kurt Dorn, and, surrendering to the enchantment of
+        that truth, had felt her love grow with every thought of
+        him and every beat of a thrilling pulse. In spite of a
+        longing that amounted to pain and a nameless dread she
+        could not deny, she was happy. And she waited, with a
+        woman's presaging sense of events, for a crisis that was
+        coming.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Presently she heard her father
+        down-stairs, his heavy tread and hearty voice. These
+        strenuous harvest days left him little time for his family.
+        And Lenore, having lost herself in her dreams, had not, of
+        late, sought him out in the fields. She was waiting, and,
+        besides, his keen eyes, at once so penetrating and so kind,
+        had confused her. Few secrets had she ever kept from her
+        father.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Where's Lenore?" she heard him ask,
+        down in the dining-room.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenorry's mooning," replied Kathleen,
+        with a giggle.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Ah-huh? Well, whereabouts is she
+        moonin'?" went on Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why, in her room!" retorted the
+        child. "And you can't get a word out of her with a
+        crowbar."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson's laugh rang out with a
+        jingle of tableware. He was eating his supper. Then Lenore
+        heard her mother and Rose and Kathleen all burst out with
+        news of a letter come that day from Jim, away training to
+        be a soldier. It was Rose who read this letter aloud to her
+        father, and outside of her swift, soft voice the absolute
+        silence attested to the attention of the listeners.
+        Lenore's heart shook as she distinguished a phrase here and
+        there, for Jim's letter had been wonderful for her. He had
+        gained weight! He was getting husky enough to lick his
+        father! He was feeling great! There was not a boy in the
+        outfit who could beat him to a stuffed bag of a German
+        soldier! And he sure could make some job with that old
+        bayonet! So ran Jim's message to the loved ones at home.
+        Then a strange pride replaced the quake in Lenore's heart.
+        Not now would she have had Jim stay home. She had
+        sacrificed him. Something subtler than thought told her she
+        would never see him again. And, oh, how dear he had
+        become!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then Anderson roared his delight in
+        that letter and banged the table with his fist. The girls
+        excitedly talked in unison. But the mother was
+        significantly silent. Lenore forgot them presently and went
+        back to her dreaming. It was just about dark when her
+        father called.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, father," she replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm comin' up," he said, and his
+        heavy tread sounded in the hall. It was followed by the
+        swift patter of little feet. "Say, you kids go back. I want
+        to talk to Lenore."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Daddy," came Kathleen's shrill,
+        guilty whisper, "I was only in fun&mdash;about her
+        mooning."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The father laughed again and slowly
+        mounted the stairs. Lenore reflected uneasily that he
+        seldom came to her room. Also, when he was most concerned
+        with trouble he usually sought her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hello! All in the dark?" he said, as
+        he came in. "May I turn on the light?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore assented, though not quite
+        readily. But Anderson did not turn on the light. He bumped
+        into things on the way to where she was curled up in her
+        window-seat, and he dropped wearily into Lenore's big
+        arm-chair.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"How are you, daddy?" she
+        inquired.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dog tired, but feelin' fine," he
+        replied. "I've got a meetin' at eight an' I need a rest.
+        Reckon I'd like to smoke&mdash;an' talk to you&mdash;if you
+        don't mind."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'd sure rather listen to my dad than
+        any one," she replied, softly. She knew he had come with
+        news or trouble or need of help. He always began that way.
+        She could measure his mood by the preliminaries before his
+        disclosure. And she fortified herself.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wasn't that a great letter from the
+        boy?" began Anderson, as he lit a cigar. By the flash of
+        the match Lenore got a glimpse of his dark and unguarded
+        face. Indeed, she did well to fortify herself.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Fine!&hellip; He wrote it to me. I
+        laughed. I swelled with pride. It sent my blood racing. It
+        filled me with fight.&hellip; Then I sneaked up here to
+        cry."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Ah-huh!" exclaimed Anderson, with a
+        loud sigh. Then for a moment of silence the end of his
+        cigar alternately paled and glowed. "Lenore, did you get
+        any&mdash;any kind of a hunch from Jim's letter?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I don't exactly understand what you
+        mean," replied Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Did somethin'&mdash;strange an'
+        different come to you?" queried Anderson, haltingly, as if
+        words were difficult to express what he meant.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why, yes&mdash;I had many strange
+        feelings."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jim's letter was just like he talks.
+        But to me it said somethin' he never meant an' didn't
+        know.&hellip; Jim will never come back!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, dad&mdash;I divined just that,"
+        whispered Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Strange about that," mused Anderson,
+        with a pull on his cigar.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">And then followed a silence. Lenore
+        felt how long ago her father had made his sacrifice. There
+        did not seem to be any need for more words about Jim. But
+        there seemed a bigness in the bond of understanding between
+        her and her father. A cause united them, and they were
+        sustained by unfaltering courage. The great thing was the
+        divine spark in the boy who could not have been held back.
+        Lenore gazed out into the darkening shadows. The night was
+        very still, except for the hum of insects, and the cool air
+        felt sweet on her face. The shadows, the silence, the
+        sleeping atmosphere hovering over "Many Waters," seemed
+        charged with a quality of present sadness, of the
+        inexplicable great world moving to its fate.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, you haven't been around much
+        lately," resumed Anderson. "Sure you're missed. An' Jake
+        swears a lot more than usual."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Father, you told me to stay at home,"
+        she replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"So I did. An' I reckon it's just as
+        well. But when did you ever before mind me?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why, I always obey you," replied
+        Lenore, with her low laugh.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Ah-huh! Not so I'd notice it.&hellip;
+        Lenore, have you seen the big clouds of smoke driftin' over
+        'Many Waters' these last few days?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes. And I've smelled smoke,
+        too.&hellip; From forest fire, is it not?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"There's fire in some of the timber,
+        but the wind's wrong for us to get smoke from the
+        foot-hills."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Then where does the smoke come from?"
+        queried Lenore, quickly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Some of the Bend wheat country's been
+        burned over."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Burned! You mean the wheat?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh! What part of the Bend?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I reckon it's what you called young
+        Dorn's desert of wheat."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, what a pity!&hellip; Have you had
+        word?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Nothin' but rumors yet. But I'm
+        fearin' the worst an' I'm sorry for our young friend."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A sharp pain shot through Lenore's
+        breast, leaving behind an ache.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It will ruin him!" she whispered.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Aw no, not that bad," declared
+        Anderson, and there was a red streak in the dark where
+        evidently he waved his cigar in quick, decisive action.
+        "It'll only be tough on him an' sort of embarrassin' for
+        me&mdash;an' you. That boy's proud.&hellip; I'll bet he
+        raised hell among them I.W.W.'s, if he got to them." And
+        Anderson chuckled with the delight he always felt in the
+        Western appreciation of summary violence justly dealt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore felt the rising tide of her
+        anger. She was her father's daughter, yet always had been
+        slow to wrath. That was her mother's softness and
+        gentleness tempering the hard spirit of her father. But now
+        her blood ran hot, beating and bursting about her throat
+        and temples. And there was a leap and quiver to her
+        body.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dastards! Father, those foreign
+        I.W.W. devils should be shot!" she cried, passionately. "To
+        ruin those poor, heroic farmers! To ruin that&mdash;that
+        boy! It's a crime! And, oh, to burn his beautiful field of
+        wheat&mdash;with all his hopes! Oh, what shall I call
+        that!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, lass, I reckon it'd take
+        stronger speech than any you know," responded Anderson.
+        "An' I'm usin' that same."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore sat there trembling, with hot
+        tears running down her cheeks, with her fists clenched so
+        tight that her nails cut into her palms. Rage only proved
+        to her how impotent she was to avert catastrophe. How
+        bitter and black were some trials! She shrank with a sense
+        of acute pain at thought of the despair there must be in
+        the soul of Kurt Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore," began Anderson,
+        slowly&mdash;his tone was stronger, vibrant with
+        feeling&mdash;"you love this young Dorn!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A tumultuous shock shifted Lenore's
+        emotions. She quivered as before, but this was a long,
+        shuddering thrill shot over her by that spoken affirmation.
+        What she had whispered shyly and fearfully to herself when
+        alone and hidden&mdash;what had seemed a wonderful and
+        forbidden secret&mdash;her father had spoken out. Lenore
+        gasped. Her anger fled as it had never been. Even in the
+        dark she hid her face and tried to grasp the wild, whirling
+        thoughts and emotions now storming her. He had not asked.
+        He had affirmed. He knew. She could not deceive him even if
+        she would. And then for a moment she was weak, at the mercy
+        of contending tides.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure I seen he was in love with you,"
+        Anderson was saying. "Seen that right off, an' I reckon I'd
+        not thought much of him if he hadn't been.&hellip; But I
+        wasn't sure of you till the day Dorn saved you from Ruenke
+        an' fetched you back. Then I seen. An' I've been waitin'
+        for you to tell me."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"There's&mdash;nothing&mdash;to tell,"
+        faltered Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I reckon there is," he replied.
+        Leaning over, he threw his cigar out of the window and took
+        hold of her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore had never felt him so
+        impelling. She was not proof against the strong, warm
+        pressure of his hand. She felt in its clasp, as she had
+        when a little girl, a great and sure safety. It drew her
+        irresistibly. She crept into his arms and buried her face
+        on his shoulder, and she had a feeling that if she could
+        not relieve her heart it would burst.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, d&mdash;dad," she whispered, with
+        a soft, hushed voice that broke tremulously at her lips,
+        "I&mdash;I love him!&hellip; I do love him.&hellip; It's
+        terrible!&hellip; I knew it&mdash;that last time you took me
+        to his home&mdash;when he said he was going to war.&hellip;
+        And, oh, now you know!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson held her tight against his
+        broad breast that lifted her with its great heave. "Ah-huh!
+        Reckon that's some relief. I wasn't so darn sure," said
+        Anderson. "Has he spoken to you?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Spoken! What do you mean?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Has Dorn told you he loved you?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore lifted her face. If that
+        confession of hers had been relief to her father it had
+        been more so to her. What had seemed terrible began to feel
+        natural. Still, she was all intense, vibrating, internally
+        convulsed.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, he has," she replied, shyly.
+        "But such a confession! He told it as if to explain what he
+        thought was boldness on his part. He had fallen in love
+        with me at first sight!&hellip; And then meeting me was too
+        much for him. He wanted me to know. He was going away to
+        war. He asked nothing.&hellip; He seemed to apologize
+        for&mdash;for daring to love me. He asked nothing. And he
+        has absolutely not the slightest idea I care for him."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, I'll be dog-goned!" ejaculated
+        Anderson. "What's the matter with him?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dad, he is proud," replied Lenore,
+        dreamily. "He's had a hard struggle out there in his desert
+        of wheat. They've always been poor. He imagines there's a
+        vast distance between an heiress of 'Many Waters' and a
+        farmer boy. Then, more than all, I think, the war has fixed
+        a morbid trouble in his mind. God knows it must be real
+        enough! A house divided against itself is what he called
+        his home. His father is German. He is American. He
+        worshiped his mother, who was a native of the United
+        States. He has become estranged from his father. I don't
+        know&mdash;I'm not sure&mdash;but I felt that he was
+        obsessed by a calamity in his German blood. I divined that
+        was the great reason for his eagerness to go to war."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, Kurt Dorn's not goin' to war,"
+        replied her father. "I fixed that all right."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">An amazing and rapturous start
+        thrilled over Lenore. "Daddy!" she cried, leaping up in his
+        arms, "what have you done?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I got exemption for him, that's
+        what," replied Anderson, with great satisfaction.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Exemption!" exclaimed Lenore, in
+        bewilderment.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Don't you remember the government
+        official from Washington? You met him in Spokane. He was
+        out West to inspire the farmers to raise more wheat. There
+        are many young farmers needed a thousand times more on the
+        wheat-fields than on the battle-fields. An' Kurt Dorn is
+        one of them. That boy will make the biggest sower of wheat
+        in the Northwest. I recommended exemption for Dorn. An'
+        he's exempted an' doesn't know it."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Doesn't know! He'll <i>never</i>
+        accept exemption," declared Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lass, I'm some worried myself,"
+        rejoined Anderson. "Reckon you've explained Dorn to
+        me&mdash;that somethin' queer about him.&hellip; But he's
+        sensible. He can be told things. An' he'll see how much
+        more he's needed to raise wheat than to kill Germans."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But, father&mdash;suppose he
+        <i>wants</i> to kill Germans?" asked Lenore, earnestly. How
+        strangely she felt things about Dorn that she could not
+        explain.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Then, by George! it's up to you, my
+        girl," replied her father, grimly. "Understand me. I've no
+        sentiment about Dorn in this matter. One good wheat-raiser
+        is worth a dozen soldiers. To win the war&mdash;to feed our
+        country after the war&mdash;why, only a man like me knows
+        what it 'll take! It means millions of bushels of
+        wheat!&hellip; I've sent my own boy. He'll fight with the
+        best or the worst of them. But he'd never been a man to
+        raise wheat. All Jim ever raised is hell. An' his kind is
+        needed now. So let him go to war. But Dorn must be kept
+        home. An' that's up to Lenore Anderson."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Me!&hellip; Oh&mdash;how?" cried
+        Lenore, faintly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Woman's wiles, daughter," said
+        Anderson, with his frank laugh. "When Dorn comes let me try
+        to show him his duty. The Northwest can't spare young men
+        like him. He'll see that. If he has lost his wheat he'll
+        come down here to make me take the land in payment of the
+        debt. I'll accept it. Then he'll say he's goin' to war, an'
+        then I'll say he ain't.&hellip; We'll have it out. I'll
+        offer him such a chance here an' in the Bend that he'd have
+        to be crazy to refuse. But if he has got a twist in his
+        mind&mdash;if he thinks he's got to go out an' kill
+        Germans&mdash;then you'll have to change him."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But, dad, how on earth can I do
+        that?" implored Lenore, distracted between hope and joy and
+        fear.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You're a woman now. An' women are in
+        this war up to their eyes. You'll be doin' more to keep him
+        home than if you let him go. He's moony about you. You can
+        make him stay. An' it's your future&mdash;your
+        happiness.&hellip; Child, no Anderson ever loves twice."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I cannot throw myself into his arms,"
+        whispered Lenore, very low.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Reckon I didn't mean you to,"
+        returned Anderson, gruffly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Then&mdash;if&mdash;if he does not
+        ask me to&mdash;to marry him&mdash;how can I&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, no man on earth could resist
+        you if you just let yourself be sweet&mdash;as sweet as you
+        are sometimes. Dorn could never leave you!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm not so sure of that, daddy," she
+        murmured.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Then take my word for it," he
+        replied, and he got up from the chair, though still holding
+        her. "I'll have to go now.&hellip; But I've shown my hand to
+        you. Your happiness is more to me than anythin' else in
+        this world. You love that boy. He loves you. An' I never
+        met a finer lad! Wal, here's the point. He need be no
+        slacker to stay home. He can do more good here. Then
+        outside of bein' a wheat man for his army an' his country
+        he can be one for me. I'm growin' old, my lass!&hellip;
+        Here's the biggest ranch in Washington to look after, an' I
+        want Kurt Dorn to look after it.&hellip; Now, Lenore, do we
+        understand each other?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She put her arms around his neck.
+        "Dear old daddy, you're the wonderfulest father any girl
+        ever had! I would do my best&mdash;I would obey even if I
+        did not love Kurt Dorn.&hellip; To hear you speak so of
+        him&mdash;oh, its sweet! It&mdash;chokes me!&hellip; Now,
+        good-night.&hellip; Hurry, before I&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She kissed him and gently pushed him
+        out of the room. Then before the sound of his slow
+        footfalls had quite passed out of hearing she lay prone
+        upon her bed, her face buried in the pillow, her hands
+        clutching the coverlet, utterly surrendered to a breaking
+        storm of emotion. Terrible indeed had come that presaged
+        crisis of her life. Love of her wild brother Jim, gone to
+        atone forever for the errors of his youth; love of her
+        father, confessing at last the sad fear that haunted him;
+        love of Dorn, that stalwart clear-eyed lad who set his face
+        so bravely toward a hopeless, tragic fate&mdash;these were
+        the burden of the flood of her passion, and all they
+        involved, rushing her from girlhood into womanhood, calling
+        to her with imperious desires, with deathless loyalty.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">After Lenore's paroxysm of emotion had
+        subsided and she lay quietly in the dark, she became aware
+        of soft, hurried footfalls passing along the path below her
+        window. At first she paid no particular heed to them, but
+        at length the steady steps became so different in number,
+        and so regular in passing every few moments, that she was
+        interested to go to her window and look out. Watching there
+        awhile, she saw a number of men, whispering and talking
+        low, come from the road, pass under her window, and
+        disappear down the path into the grove. Then no more came.
+        Lenore feared at first these strange visitors might be
+        prowling I.W.W. men. She concluded, however, that they were
+        neighbors and farm-hands, come for secret conference with
+        her father.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Important events were pending, and her
+        father had not taken her into his confidence! It must be,
+        then, something that he did not wish her to know. Only a
+        week ago, when the I.W.W. menace had begun to be serious,
+        she had asked him how he intended to meet it, and
+        particularly how he would take sure measures to protect
+        himself. Anderson had laughed down her fears, and Lenore,
+        absorbed in her own tumult, had been easily satisfied. But
+        now, with her curiosity there returned a two-fold
+        dread.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She put on a cloak and went
+        down-stairs. The hour was still early. She heard the girls
+        with her mother in the sitting-room. As Lenore slipped out
+        she encountered Jake. He appeared to loom right out of the
+        darkness and he startled her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Howdy, Miss Lenore!" he said. "Where
+        might you be goin'?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jake, I'm curious about the men I
+        heard passing by my window," she replied. Then she observed
+        that Jake had a rifle under his arm, and she added, "What
+        are you doing with that gun?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, I've sort of gone back to
+        packin' a Winchester," replied Jake.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore missed his smile, ever ready
+        for her. Jake looked somber.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You're on guard!" she exclaimed.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I reckon. There's four of us boys
+        round the house. You're not goin' off thet step, Miss
+        Lenore."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, ah-huh!" replied Lenore,
+        imitating her father, and bantering Jake, more for the fun
+        of it than from any intention of disobeying him. "Who's
+        going to keep me from it?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I am. Boss's orders, Miss Lenore. I'm
+        dog-gone sorry. But you sure oughtn't to be outdoors this
+        far," replied Jake.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Look here, my cowboy dictator. I'm
+        going to see where those men went," said Lenore, and
+        forthwith she stepped down to the path.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then Jake deliberately leaned his
+        rifle against a post and, laying hold of her with no gentle
+        hands, he swung her in one motion back upon the porch. The
+        broad light streaming out of the open door showed that,
+        whatever his force meant, it had paled his face to exercise
+        it.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why, Jake&mdash;to handle me that
+        way!" cried Lenore, in pretended reproach. She meant to
+        frighten or coax the truth out of him. "You hurt me!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm beggin' your pardon if I was
+        rough," said Jake. "Fact is, I'm a little upset an' I mean
+        bizness."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Whereupon Lenore stepped back to close
+        the door, and then, in the shadow, she returned to Jake and
+        whispered: "I was only in fun. I would not think of
+        disobeying you. But you can trust me. I'll not tell, and
+        I'll worry less if I know what's what.&hellip; Jake, is
+        father in danger?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I reckon. But the best we could do
+        was to make him stand fer a guard. There's four of us
+        cowpunchers with him all day, an' at night he's surrounded
+        by guards. There ain't much chance of his gittin' hurt. So
+        you needn't worry about thet."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Who are these men I heard passing?
+        Where are they from?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Farmers, ranchers, cowboys, from all
+        over this side of the river."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"There must have been a lot of them,"
+        said Lenore, curiously.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Reckon you never heerd the quarter of
+        what's come to attend Anderson's meetin'."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What for? Tell me, Jake."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The cowboy hesitated. Lenore heard his
+        big hand slap round the rifle-stock.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We've orders not to tell thet," he
+        replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But, Jake, you can tell <i>me</i>.
+        You always tell me secrets. I'll not breathe it."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Jake came closer to her, and his tall
+        head reached to a level with hers, where she stood on the
+        porch. Lenore saw his dark, set face, his gleaming
+        eyes.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, it's jest this here," he
+        whispered, hoarsely. "Your dad has organized vigilantes,
+        like he belonged to in the early days.&hellip; An' it's the
+        vigilantes thet will attend to this I.W.W. outfit."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Those were thrilling words to Jake, as
+        was attested by his emotion, and they surely made Lenore's
+        knees knock together. She had heard many stories from her
+        father of that famous old vigilante band, secret, making
+        the law where there was no law.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, I might have expected that of
+        dad!" she murmured.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, it's sure the trick out here.
+        An' your father's the man to deal it. There'll be dog-goned
+        little wheat burned in this valley, you can gamble on
+        thet."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm glad. I hate the very
+        thought.&hellip; Jake, you know about Mr. Dorn's
+        misfortune?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No, I ain't heerd about him. But I
+        knowed the Bend was burnin' over, an' of course I reckoned
+        Dorn would lose his wheat. Fact is, he had the only wheat
+        up there worth savin' &hellip; Wal, these I.W.W.'s an' their
+        German bosses hev put it all over the early days when
+        rustlin' cattle, holdin' up stage-coaches, an' jest plain
+        cussedness was stylish."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jake, I'd rather have lived back in
+        the early days," mused Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Me too, though I ain't no youngster,"
+        he replied. "Reckon you'd better go in now, Miss
+        Lenore.&hellip; Don't you worry none or lose any sleep."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore bade the cowboy good-night and
+        went to the sitting-room. Her mother sat preoccupied, with
+        sad and thoughtful face. Rose was writing many pages to
+        Jim. Kathleen sat at the table, surreptitiously eating
+        while she was pretending to read.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My, but you look funny, Lenorry!" she
+        cried.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why don't you laugh, then?" retorted
+        Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You're white. Your eyes are big and
+        purple. You look like a starved cannibal.&hellip; If that's
+        what it's like to be in love&mdash;excuse me&mdash;I'll
+        never fall for any man!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You ought to be in bed. Mother I
+        recommend the baby of the family be sent up-stairs."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, child, it's long past your
+        bedtime," said Mrs. Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Aw, no!" wailed Kathleen.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes," ordered her mother.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But you'd never thought of
+        it&mdash;if Lenorry hadn't said so," replied Kathleen.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You should obey Lenore," reprovingly
+        said Mrs. Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What? Me! Mind her!" burst out
+        Kathleen, hotly, as she got up to go. "Well, I guess not!"
+        Kathleen backed to the door and opened it. Then making a
+        frightful face at Lenore, most expressive of ridicule and
+        revenge, she darted up-stairs.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My dear, will you write to your
+        brother?" inquired Mrs. Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes," replied Lenore. "I'll send mine
+        with Rose's."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Mrs. Anderson bade the girls
+        good-night and left the room. After that nothing was heard
+        for a while except the scratching of pens.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was late when Lenore retired, yet
+        she found sleep elusive. The evening had made subtle,
+        indefinable changes in her. She went over in mind all that
+        had been said to her and which she felt, with the result
+        that one thing remained to torment and perplex and thrill
+        her&mdash;to keep Kurt Dorn from going to war.</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Next day Lenore did not go out to the
+        harvest fields. She expected Dorn might arrive at any time,
+        and she wanted to be there when he came. Yet she dreaded
+        the meeting. She had to keep her hands active that day, so
+        in some measure to control her mind. A thousand times she
+        felt herself on the verge of thrilling and flushing. Her
+        fancy and imagination seemed wonderfully active. The day
+        was more than usually golden, crowned with an azure blue,
+        like the blue of the Pacific. She worked in her room,
+        helped her mother, took up her knitting, and sewed upon a
+        dress, and even lent a hand in the kitchen. But action
+        could not wholly dull the song in her heart. She felt
+        unutterably young, as if life had just opened, with
+        haunting, limitless, beautiful possibilities. Never had the
+        harvest-time been so sweet.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson came in early from the fields
+        that day. He looked like a farm-hand, with his sweaty
+        shirt, his dusty coat, his begrimed face. And when he
+        kissed Lenore he left a great smear on her cheek.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That's a harvest kiss, my lass," he
+        said, with his big laugh. "Best of the whole year!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It sure is, dad," she replied. "But
+        I'll wait till you wash your face before I return it. How's
+        the harvest going?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We had trouble to-day," he said.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What happened?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Nothin' much, but it was annoyin'. We
+        had some machines crippled, an' it took most of the day to
+        fix them.&hellip; We've got a couple of hundred hands at
+        work. Some of them are I.W.W.'s, that's sure. But they all
+        swear they are not an' we have no way to prove it. An' we
+        couldn't catch them at their tricks.&hellip; All the same,
+        we've got half your big wheat-field cut. A thousand acres,
+        Lenore!&hellip; Some of the wheat 'll go forty bushels to
+        the acre, but mostly under that."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Better than last harvest," Lenore
+        replied, gladly. "We are lucky.&hellip; Father, did you hear
+        any news from the Bend?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure did," he replied, and patted her
+        head. "They sent me a message up from Vale.&hellip; Young
+        Dorn wired from Kilo he'd be here to-day."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"To-day!" echoed Lenore, and her heart
+        showed a tendency to act strangely.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yep. He'll be here soon," said
+        Anderson, cheerfully. "Tell your mother. Mebbe he'll come
+        for supper. An' have a room ready for him."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, father," replied Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, if Dorn sees you as you look
+        now&mdash;sleeves rolled up, apron on, flour on your
+        nose&mdash;a regular farmer girl&mdash;an' sure huggable,
+        as Jake says&mdash;you won't have no trouble winnin'
+        him."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"How you talk!" exclaimed Lenore, with
+        burning cheeks. She ran to her room and made haste to
+        change her dress.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">But Dorn did not arrive in time for
+        supper. Eight o'clock came without his appearing, after
+        which, with keen disappointment, Lenore gave up expecting
+        him that night. She was in her father's study, helping him
+        with the harvest notes and figures, when Jake knocked and
+        entered.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dorn's here," he announced.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Good. Fetch him in," replied
+        Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Father, I&mdash;I'd rather go,"
+        whispered Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You stay right along by your dad,"
+        was his reply, "an' be a real Anderson."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">When Lenore heard Dorn's step in the
+        hall the fluttering ceased in her heart and she grew calm.
+        How glad she would be to see him! It had been the suspense
+        of waiting that had played havoc with her feelings.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then Dorn entered with Jake. The
+        cowboy set down a bag and went out. He seemed strange to
+        Lenore and very handsome in his gray flannel suit.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">As he stepped forward in greeting
+        Lenore saw how white he was, how tragic his eyes. There had
+        come a subtle change in his face. It hurt her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Miss Anderson, I'm glad to see you,"
+        he said, and a flash of red stained his white cheeks. "How
+        are you?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Very well, thank you," she replied,
+        offering her hand. "I'm glad to see you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">They shook hands, while Anderson
+        boomed out: "Hello, son! I sure am glad to welcome you to
+        'Many Waters.'"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">No doubt as to the rancher's warm and
+        hearty greeting! It warmed some of the coldness out of
+        Dorn's face.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Thank you. It's good to
+        come&mdash;yet it's&mdash;it's hard."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore saw his throat swell. His voice
+        seemed low and full of emotion.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Bad news to tell," said Anderson.
+        "Wal, forget it.&hellip; Have you had supper?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes. At Huntington. I'd have been
+        here sooner, but we punctured a tire. My driver said the
+        I.W.W. was breaking bottles on the roads."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I.W.W. Now where'd I ever hear that
+        name?" asked Anderson, quizzically. "Bustin' bottles, hey!
+        Wal, they'll be bustin' their heads presently.&hellip; Sit
+        down, Dorn. You look fine, only you're sure pale."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I lost my father," said Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What! Your old man? Dead?&hellip; Aw,
+        that's tough!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore felt an almost uncontrollable
+        impulse to go to Dorn. "Oh, I'm sorry!" she said.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That is a surprise," went on
+        Anderson, rather huskily. "My Lord! But it's only round the
+        corner for every man.&hellip; Come on, tell us all about it,
+        an' the rest of the bad news.&hellip; Get it over. Then,
+        mebbe Lenore n' me&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">But Anderson did not conclude his last
+        sentence.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn's face began to work as he began
+        to talk, and his eyes were dark and deep, burning with
+        gloom.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Bad news it is, indeed.&hellip; Mr.
+        Anderson, the I.W.W. marked us.&hellip; You'll remember your
+        suggestion about getting my neighbors to harvest our wheat
+        in a rush. I went all over, and almost all of them came. We
+        had been finding phosphorus everywhere. Then, on the hot
+        day, fires broke out all around. My neighbors left their
+        own burning fields to save ours. We fought fire. We fought
+        fire all around us, late into the night.&hellip; My father
+        had grown furious, maddened at the discovery of how he had
+        been betrayed by Glidden. You remember the&mdash;the plot,
+        in which some way my father was involved. He would not
+        believe the I.W.W. meant to burn <i>his</i> wheat. And when
+        the fires broke out he worked like a mad-man.&hellip; It
+        killed him!&hellip; I was not with him when he died. But
+        Jerry, our foreman was.&hellip; And my father's last words
+        were, 'Tell my son I was wrong.'&hellip; Thank God he sent
+        me that message! I think in that he confessed the iniquity
+        of the Germans.&hellip; Well, my neighbor, Olsen, managed
+        the harvest. He sure rushed it. I'd have given a good deal
+        for you and Miss Anderson to have seen all those big
+        combines at work on one field. It was great. We harvested
+        over thirty-eight thousand bushels and got all the wheat
+        safely to the elevators at the station.&hellip; And that
+        night the I.W.W. burned the elevators!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson's face turned purple. He
+        appeared about to explode. There was a deep rumbling within
+        his throat that Lenore knew to be profanity restrained on
+        account of her presence. As for her own feelings, they were
+        a strange mixture of sadness for Dorn and pride in her
+        father's fury, and something unutterably sweet in the
+        revelation about to be made to this unfortunate boy. But
+        she could not speak a word just then, and it appeared that
+        her father was in the same state.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Evidently the telling of his story had
+        relieved Dorn. The strain relaxed in his white face and it
+        lost a little of its stern fixity. He got up and, opening
+        his bag, he took out some papers.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Mr. Anderson, I'd like to settle all
+        this right now," he said. "I want it off my mind."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Go ahead, son, an' settle," replied
+        Anderson, thickly. He heaved a big sigh and then sat down,
+        fumbling for a match to light his cigar. When he got it
+        lighted he drew in a big breath and with it manifestly a
+        great draught of consoling smoke.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I want to make over the&mdash;the
+        land&mdash;in fact, all the property&mdash;to you&mdash;to
+        settle mortgage and interest," went on Dorn, earnestly, and
+        then paused.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"All right. I expected that," returned
+        Anderson, as he emitted a cloud of smoke.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"The only thing is&mdash;" here Dorn
+        hesitated, evidently with difficult speech&mdash;"the
+        property is worth more than the debt."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure. I know," said Anderson,
+        encouragingly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I promised our neighbors big money to
+        harvest our wheat. You remember you told me to offer it.
+        Well, they left their own wheat and barley fields to burn,
+        and they saved ours. And then they harvested it and hauled
+        it to the railroad.&hellip; I owe Andrew Olsen fifteen
+        thousand dollars for himself and the men who worked with
+        him.&hellip; If I could pay that&mdash;I'd&mdash;almost be
+        happy.&hellip; Do you think my property is worth that much
+        more than the debt?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I think it is&mdash;just about,"
+        replied Anderson. "We'll mail the money to Olsen.&hellip;
+        Lenore, write out a check to Andrew Olsen for fifteen
+        thousand."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore's hand trembled as she did as
+        her father directed. It was the most poorly written check
+        she had ever drawn. Her heart seemed too big for her breast
+        just then. How cool and calm her father was! Never had she
+        loved him quite so well as then. When she looked up from
+        her task it was to see a change in Kurt Dorn that suddenly
+        dimmed her eyes.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"There, send this to Olsen," said
+        Anderson. "We'll run into town in a day or so an' file the
+        papers."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore had to turn her gaze away from
+        Dorn. She heard him in broken, husky accents try to express
+        his gratitude.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Ah-huh! Sure&mdash;sure!" interrupted
+        Anderson, hastily. "Now listen to me. Things ain't so bad
+        as they look.&hellip; For instance, we're goin' to fool the
+        I.W.W. down here in the valley."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"How can you? There are so many,"
+        returned Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You'll see. We're just waitin' a
+        chance."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I saw hundreds of I.W.W. men between
+        her and Kilo."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Can you tell an I.W.W. from any other
+        farm-hand?" asked Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, I can," replied Dorn,
+        grimly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, I reckon we need you round here
+        powerful much," said the rancher, dryly. "Dorn, I've got a
+        big proposition to put up to you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore, thrilling at her father's
+        words, turned once more. Dorn appeared more composed.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Have you?" he inquired, in
+        surprise.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure. But there's no hurry about
+        tellin' you. Suppose we put it off."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'd rather hear it now. My stay here
+        must be short. I&mdash;I&mdash;You know&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hum! Sure I know.&hellip; Wal then,
+        it's this: Will you go in business with me? Want you to
+        work that Bend wheat-farm of yours for me&mdash;on half
+        shares.&hellip; More particular I want you to take charge of
+        'Many Waters.' You see, I'm&mdash;not so spry as I used to
+        be. It's a big job, an' I've a lot of confidence in you.
+        You'll live here, of course, an' run to an' fro with one of
+        my cars. I've some land-development schemes&mdash;an', to
+        cut it short, there's a big place waitin' for you in the
+        Northwest."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Mr. Anderson!" cried Dorn, in a kind
+        of rapturous amaze. Red burned out the white of his face.
+        "That's great! It's too great to come true. You're
+        good!&hellip; If I'm lucky enough to come back from the
+        war&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Son, you're not goin' to war!"
+        interposed Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What!" exclaimed Dorn, blankly. He
+        stared as if he had not heard aright.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson calmly repeated his
+        assertion. He was smiling; he looked kind; but underneath
+        that showed the will that had made him what he was.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But I <i>am</i>!" flashed the young
+        man, as if he had been misunderstood.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Listen. You're like all
+        boys&mdash;hot-headed an' hasty. Let me talk a little,"
+        resumed Anderson. And he began to speak of the future of
+        the Northwest. He painted that in the straight talk of a
+        farmer who knew, but what he predicted seemed like a
+        fairy-tale. Then he passed to the needs of the government
+        and the armies, and lastly the people of the nation. All
+        depended upon the farmer! Wheat was indeed the staff of
+        life and of victory! Young Dorn was one of the farmers who
+        could not be spared. Patriotism was a noble thing.
+        Fighting, however, did not alone constitute a duty and
+        loyalty to the nation. This was an economic war, a war of
+        peoples, and the nation that was the best fed would last
+        longest. Adventure and the mistaken romance of war called
+        indeed to all red-blooded young Americans. It was good that
+        they did call. But they should not call the young farmer
+        from his wheat-fields.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But I've been drafted!" Dorn spoke
+        with agitation. He seemed bewildered by Anderson's blunt
+        eloquence. His intelligence evidently accepted the elder
+        man's argument, but something instinctive revolted.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"There's exemption, my boy. Easy in
+        your case," replied Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Exemption!" echoed Dorn, and a dark
+        tide of blood rose to his temples. "I wouldn't&mdash;I
+        couldn't ask for that!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You don't need to," said the rancher.
+        "Dorn, do you recollect that Washington official who called
+        on you some time ago?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes," replied Dorn, slowly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Did he say anythin' about
+        exemption?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No. He asked me if I wanted it,
+        that's all."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, you had it right then. I took it
+        upon myself to get exemption for you. That government
+        official heartily approved of my recommendin' exemption for
+        you. An' he gave it."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Anderson! You took&mdash;it
+        upon&mdash;yourself&mdash;" gasped Dorn, slowly rising. If
+        he had been white-faced before, he was ghastly now.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure I did.&hellip; Good Lord! Dorn,
+        don't imagine I ever questioned your nerve.&hellip; It's
+        only you're not needed&mdash;or rather, you're needed more
+        at home.&hellip; I let my son Jim go to war. That's enough
+        for one family!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">But Dorn did not grasp the
+        significance of Anderson's reply.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"How dared you? What right had you?"
+        he demanded passionately.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No right at all, lad," replied
+        Anderson. "I just recommended it an' the official approved
+        it."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But I refuse!" cried Dorn, with
+        ringing fury. "I won't accept exemption."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Talk sense now, even if you are mad,"
+        returned Anderson, rising. "I've paid you a high
+        compliment, young man, an' offered you a lot. More 'n you
+        see, I guess.&hellip; Why won't you accept exemption?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm going to war!" was the grim, hard
+        reply.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But you're needed here. You'd be more
+        of a soldier here. You could do more for your country than
+        if you gave a hundred lives. Can't you see that?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, I can," assented Dorn, as if
+        forced.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You're no fool, an' you're a loyal
+        American. Your duty is to stay home an' raise wheat."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I've a duty to myself," returned
+        Dorn, darkly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Son, your fortune stares you right in
+        the face&mdash;here. Are you goin' to turn from it?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You want to get in that war? You've
+        got to fight?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Ah-huh!" Anderson threw up his hands
+        in surrender. "Got to kill some Germans, hey?&hellip; Why
+        not come out to my harvest fields an' hog-stick a few of
+        them German I.W.W.'s?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn had no reply for that.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, I'm dog-gone sorry," resumed
+        Anderson. "I see it's a tough place for you, though I can't
+        understand. You'll excuse me for mixin' in your
+        affairs.&hellip; An' now, considerin' other ways I've really
+        helped you, I hope you'll stay at my home for a few days.
+        We all owe you a good deal. My family wants to make up to
+        you. Will you stay?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Thank you&mdash;yes&mdash;for a few
+        days," replied Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Good! That'll help some. Mebbe, after
+        runnin' around 'Many Waters' with Le&mdash;with the
+        girls&mdash;you'll begin to be reasonable. I hope so."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You think me ungrateful!" exclaimed
+        Dorn, shrinking.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I don't think nothin'," replied
+        Anderson. "I turn you over to Lenore." He laughed as he
+        pronounced Dorn's utter defeat. And his look at Lenore was
+        equivalent to saying the issue now depended upon her, and
+        that he had absolutely no doubt of its outcome. "Lenore,
+        take him in to meet mother an' the girls, an' entertain
+        him. I've got work to do."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore felt the blushes in her cheeks
+        and was glad Dorn did not look at her. He seemed locked in
+        somber thought. As she touched him and bade him come he
+        gave a start; then he followed her into the hall. Lenore
+        closed her father's door, and the instant she stood alone
+        with Dorn a wonderful calmness came to her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Miss Anderson, I'd rather
+        not&mdash;not meet your mother and sisters to-night," said
+        Dorn. "I'm upset. Won't it be all right to wait till
+        to-morrow?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Surely. But I think they've gone to
+        bed," replied Lenore, as she glanced into the dark
+        sitting-room. "So they have.&hellip; Come, let us go into
+        the parlor."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore turned on the shaded lights in
+        the beautiful room. How inexplicable was the feeling of
+        being alone with him, yet utterly free of the torment that
+        had possessed her before! She seemed to have divined an
+        almost insurmountable obstacle in Dorn's will. She did not
+        have her father's assurance. It made her tremble to realize
+        her responsibility&mdash;that her father's earnest wishes
+        and her future of love or woe depended entirely upon what
+        she said and did. But she felt that indeed she had become a
+        woman. And it would take a woman's wit and charm and love
+        to change this tragic boy.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Miss&mdash;Anderson," he began,
+        brokenly, with restraint let down, "your
+        father&mdash;doesn't understand. I've <i>got</i> to
+        go.&hellip; And even if I am spared&mdash;I couldn't ever
+        come back.&hellip; To work for him&mdash;all the time in
+        love with you&mdash;I couldn't stand it.&hellip; He's so
+        good. I know I could care for him, too.&hellip; Oh, I
+        thought I was bitterly resigned&mdash;hard&mdash;inhuman.
+        But all this makes it&mdash;so&mdash;so much worse."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He sat down heavily, and, completely
+        unnerved, he covered his face with his hands. His shoulders
+        heaved and short, strangled sobs broke from him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore had to overcome a rush of
+        tenderness. It was all she could do to keep from dropping
+        to her knees beside him and slipping her arms around his
+        neck. In her agitation she could not decide whether that
+        would be womanly or not; only, she must make no mistakes. A
+        hot, sweet flush went over her when she thought that always
+        as a last resort she could reveal her secret and use her
+        power. What would he do when he discovered she loved
+        him?</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt, I understand," she said,
+        softly, and put a hand on his shoulder. And she stood thus
+        beside him, sadly troubled, vaguely divining that her
+        presence was helpful, until he recovered his composure. As
+        he raised his head and wiped tears from his eyes he made no
+        excuses for his weakness, nor did he show any shame.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Miss Anderson&mdash;" he began.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Please call me Lenore. I feel
+        so&mdash;so stiff when you are formal. My friends call me
+        Lenore," she said.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You mean&mdash;you consider me your
+        friend?" he queried.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Indeed I do," she replied,
+        smiling.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I&mdash;I'm afraid I misunderstood
+        your asking me to visit you," he said. "I thank you. I'm
+        proud and glad that you call me your friend. It will be
+        splendid to remember&mdash;when I am over there."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I wonder if we could talk of anything
+        except trouble and war," replied Lenore, plaintively. "If
+        we can't, then let's look at the bright side."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Is there a bright side?" he asked,
+        with his sad smile.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Every cloud, you know.&hellip; For
+        instance, if you go to war&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Not if. I <i>am</i> going," he
+        interrupted.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, so you say," returned Lenore,
+        softly. And she felt deep in her the inception of a
+        tremendous feminine antagonism. It stirred along her pulse.
+        "Have your own way, then. But <i>I</i> say, <i>if</i> you
+        go, think how fine it will be for me to get letters from
+        you at the front&mdash;and to write you!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You'd like to hear from me?&hellip;
+        You would answer?" he asked, breathlessly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Assuredly. And I'll knit socks for
+        you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You're&mdash;very good," he said,
+        with strong feeling.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore again saw his eyes dim. How
+        strangely sensitive he was! If he exaggerated such a little
+        kindness as she had suggested, if he responded to it with
+        such emotion, what would he do when the great and marvelous
+        truth of her love was flung in his face? The very thought
+        made Lenore weak.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You'll go to training-camp," went on
+        Lenore, "and because of your wonderful physique and your
+        intelligence you will get a commission. Then you'll go
+        to&mdash;France." Lenore faltered a little in her imagined
+        prospect. "You'll be in the thick of the great battles.
+        You'll give and take. You'll kill some of
+        those&mdash;those&mdash;Germans. You'll be wounded and
+        you'll be promoted.&hellip; Then the Allies will win. Uncle
+        Sam's grand army will have saved the world.&hellip;
+        Glorious!&hellip; You'll come back&mdash;home to us&mdash;to
+        take the place dad offered you.&hellip; There! that is the
+        bright side."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Indeed, the brightness seemed
+        reflected in Dorn's face.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I never dreamed you could be like
+        this," he said, wonderingly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Like what?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I don't know just what I mean. Only
+        you're different from my&mdash;my fancies. Not cold
+        or&mdash;or proud."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You're beginning to get acquainted
+        with me, that's all. After you've been here
+        awhile&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Please don't make it so hard for me,"
+        he interrupted, appealingly. "I can't stay."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Don't you want to?" she asked.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes. And I will stay a couple of
+        days. But no longer. It'll be hard enough to go then."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Perhaps I&mdash;we'll make it so hard
+        for you that you can't go."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then he gazed piercingly at her, as if
+        realizing a will opposed to his, a conviction not in
+        sympathy with his.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You're going to keep this
+        up&mdash;this trying to change my mind?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I surely am," she replied, both
+        wistfully and wilfully.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why? I should think you'd respect my
+        sense of duty."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Your duty is more here than at the
+        front. The government man said so. My father believes it.
+        So do I.&hellip; You have some other&mdash;other thing you
+        think duty."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I hate Germans!" he burst out, with a
+        dark and terrible flash.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Who does not?" she flashed back at
+        him, and she rose, feeling as if drawn by a powerful
+        current. She realized then that she must be prepared any
+        moment to be overwhelmed by the inevitable climax of this
+        meeting. But she prayed for a little more time. She fought
+        her emotions.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She saw him tremble. "Lenore, I'd
+        better run off in the night," he said.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Instinctively, with swift, soft
+        violence, she grasped his hands. Perhaps the moment had
+        come. She was not afraid, but the suddenness of her
+        extremity left her witless.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You would not!&hellip; That would be
+        unkind&mdash;not like you at all.&hellip; To run off without
+        giving me a chance&mdash;without good-by!&hellip; Promise me
+        you will not."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I promise," he replied, wearily, as
+        if nonplussed by her attitude. "You said you understood me.
+        But I can't understand you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She released his hands and turned
+        away. "I promise&mdash;that you shall understand&mdash;very
+        soon."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You feel sorry for me. You pity me.
+        You think I'll only be cannon-fodder for the Germans. You
+        want to be nice, kind, sweet to me&mdash;to send me away
+        with better thoughts.&hellip; Isn't that what you
+        think?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He was impatient, almost angry. His
+        glance blazed at her. All about him, his tragic face, his
+        sadness, his defeat, his struggle to hold on to his
+        manliness and to keep his faith in nobler
+        thoughts&mdash;these challenged Lenore's compassion, her
+        love, and her woman's combative spirit to save and to keep
+        her own. She quivered again on the brink of betraying
+        herself. And it was panic alone that held her back.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt&mdash;I think&mdash;presently
+        I'll give you the surprise of your life," she replied, and
+        summoned a smile.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">How obtuse he was! How blind! Perhaps
+        the stress of his emotion, the terrible sense of his fate,
+        left him no keenness, no outward penetration. He answered
+        her smile, as if she were a child whose determined kindness
+        made him both happy and sad.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I dare say you will," he replied.
+        "You Andersons are full of surprises.&hellip; But I wish you
+        would not do any more for me. I am like a dog. The kinder
+        you are to me the more I love you.&hellip; How dreadful to
+        go away to war&mdash;to violence and blood and
+        death&mdash;to all that's brutalizing&mdash;with my heart
+        and mind full of love for a noble girl like you!&mdash;If I
+        come to love you any more I'll not be a man."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">To Lenore he looked very much of a
+        man, so tall and lithe and white-faced, with his eyes of
+        fire, his simplicity, and his tragic refusal of all that
+        was for most men the best of life. Whatever his ideal, it
+        was magnificent. Lenore had her chance then, but she was
+        absolutely unable to grasp it. Her blood beat thick and
+        hot. If she could only have been sure of herself! Or was it
+        that she still cared too much for herself? The moment had
+        not come. And in her tumult there was a fleeting fury at
+        Dorn's blindness, at his reverence of her, that he dare not
+        touch her hand. Did he imagine she was stone?</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Let us say good night," she said.
+        "You are worn out. And I am&mdash;not just myself.
+        To-morrow we'll be&mdash;good friends.&hellip; Father will
+        take you to your room."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn pressed the hand she offered,
+        and, saying good-night, he followed her to the hall. Lenore
+        tapped on the door of her father's study, then opened
+        it.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Good night, dad. I'm going up," she
+        said. "Will you look after Kurt?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure. Come in, son," replied her
+        father.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore felt Dorn's strange, intent
+        gaze upon her as she passed him. Lightly she ran up-stairs
+        and turned at the top. The hall was bright and Dorn stood
+        full in the light, his face upturned. It still wore the
+        softer expression of those last few moments. Lenore waved
+        her hand, and he smiled. The moment was natural. Youth to
+        youth! Lenore felt it. She marveled that he did not. A
+        sweet devil of wilful coquetry possessed her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, did you say you wouldn't go?" she
+        softly called.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I said only good night," he
+        replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If you <i>don't</i> go, then you will
+        never be General Dorn, will you? What a pity!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll go. And then it will
+        be&mdash;'Private Dorn&mdash;missing. No relatives,'" he
+        replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">That froze Lenore. Her heart quaked.
+        She gazed down upon him with all her soul in her eyes. She
+        knew it and did not care. But he could not see.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Good night, Kurt Dorn," she called,
+        and ran to her room.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Composure did not come to her until
+        she was ready for bed, with the light out and in her old
+        seat at the window. Night and silence and starlight always
+        lent Lenore strength. She prayed to them now and to the
+        spirit she knew dwelt beyond them. And then she whispered
+        what her intelligence told her was an unalterable
+        fact&mdash;Kurt Dorn could never be changed. But her
+        sympathy and love and passion, all that was womanly
+        emotion, stormed at her intelligence and refused to listen
+        to it.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Nothing short of a great shock would
+        divert Dorn from his tragic headlong rush toward the fate
+        he believed unalterable. Lenore sensed a terrible, sinister
+        earnestness in him. She could not divine its meaning. But
+        it was such a driving passion that no man possessing it and
+        free to the violence of war could ever escape death. Even
+        if by superhuman strife, and the guidance of Providence, he
+        did escape death, he would have lost something as precious
+        as life. If Dorn went to war at all&mdash;if he ever
+        reached those blood-red trenches, in the thick of fire and
+        shriek and ferocity&mdash;there to express in horrible
+        earnestness what she vaguely felt yet could not
+        define&mdash;then so far as she was concerned she imagined
+        that she would not want him to come back.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">That was the strength of spirit that
+        breathed out of the night and the silence to her. Dorn
+        would go to war as no ordinary soldier, to obey, to fight,
+        to do his duty; but for some strange, unfathomable
+        obsession of his own. And, therefore, if he went at all he
+        was lost. War, in its inexplicable horror, killed the souls
+        of endless hordes of men. Therefore, if he went at all she,
+        too, was lost to the happiness that might have been hers.
+        She would never love another man. She could never marry.
+        She would never have a child.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">So his soul and her happiness were in
+        the balance weighed against a woman's power. It seemed to
+        Lenore that she felt hopelessly unable to carry the issue
+        to victory; and yet, on the other hand, a tumultuous and
+        wonderful sweetness of sensation called to her,
+        insidiously, of the infallible potency of love. What could
+        she do to save Dorn's life and his soul? There was only one
+        answer to that. She would do anything. She must make him
+        love her to the extent that he would have no will to carry
+        out this desperate intent. There was little time to do
+        that. The gradual growth of affection through intimacy and
+        understanding was not possible here. It must come as a
+        flash of lightning. She must bewilder him with the
+        revelation of her love, and then by all its incalculable
+        power hold him there.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was her father's wish; it would be
+        the salvation of Dorn; it meant all to her. But if to keep
+        him there would make him a slacker, Lenore swore she would
+        die before lifting her lips to his. The government would
+        rather he stayed to raise wheat than go out and fight men.
+        Lenore saw the sanity, the cardinal importance of that, as
+        her father saw it. So from all sides she was justified. And
+        sitting there in the darkness and silence, with the cool
+        wind in her face, she vowed she would be all woman, all
+        sweetness, all love, all passion, all that was feminine and
+        terrible, to keep Dorn from going to war.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore awakened early. The morning
+        seemed golden. Birds were singing at her window. What did
+        that day hold in store for her? She pressed a hand hard on
+        her heart as if to hold it still. But her heart went right
+        on, swift, exultant, throbbing with a fullness that was
+        almost pain.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Early as she awakened, it was,
+        nevertheless, late when she could direct her reluctant
+        steps down-stairs. She had welcomed every little suggestion
+        and task to delay the facing of her ordeal.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">There was merriment in the
+        sitting-room, and Dorn's laugh made her glad. The girls
+        were at him, and her father's pleasant, deep voice chimed
+        in. Evidently there was a controversy as to who should have
+        the society of the guest. They had all been to breakfast.
+        Mrs. Anderson expressed surprise at Lenore's tardiness, and
+        said she had been called twice. Lenore had heard nothing
+        except the birds and the music of her thoughts. She peeped
+        into the sitting-room.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Didn't you bring me anything?"
+        Kathleen was inquiring of Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn was flushed and smiling. Anderson
+        stood beaming upon them, and Rose appeared to be inclined
+        toward jealousy.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why&mdash;you see&mdash;I didn't even
+        know Lenore had a little sister," Dorn explained.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh!" exclaimed Kathleen, evidently
+        satisfied. "All Lenorry's beaux bring me things. But I
+        believe I'm going to like you best."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore had intended to say good
+        morning. She changed her mind, however, at Kathleen's
+        na&iuml;ve speech, and darted back lest she be seen. She
+        felt the blood hot in her cheeks. That awful, irrepressible
+        Kathleen! If she liked Dorn she would take possession of
+        him. And Kathleen was lovable, irresistible. Lenore had a
+        sudden thought that Kathleen would aid the good cause if
+        she could be enlisted. While Lenore ate her breakfast she
+        listened to the animated conversation in the sitting-room.
+        Presently her father came in.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hello, Lenore! Did you get up?" he
+        greeted her, cheerily.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I hardly ever did, it seems.&hellip;
+        Dad, the day was something to face," she said.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Ah-huh! It's like getting up to work.
+        Lenore, the biggest duty of life is to hide your
+        troubles.&hellip; Dorn looks like a human bein' this
+        mornin'. The kids have won him. I reckon he needs that sort
+        of cheer. Let them have him. Then after a while you fetch
+        him out to the wheat-field. Lenore, our harvestin' is half
+        done. Every day I've expected some trick or deviltry. But
+        it hasn't come yet."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Are any of the other ranchers having
+        trouble?" she inquired.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I hear rumors of bad work. But facts
+        told by ranchers an' men who were here only yesterday make
+        little of the rumors. All that burnin' of wheat an' timber,
+        an' the destruction of machines an' strikin' of farm-hands,
+        haven't hit Golden Valley yet. We won't need any militia
+        here, you can bet on that."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Father, it won't do to be
+        over-confident," she said, earnestly. "You know you are the
+        mark for the I.W.W. sabotage. If you are not
+        careful&mdash;any moment&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore paused with a shudder.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lass, I'm just like I was in the old
+        rustlin' days. An' I've surrounded myself with cowboys like
+        Jake an' Bill, an' old hands who pack guns an' keep still,
+        as in the good old Western days. We're just waitin' for the
+        I.W.W.'s to break loose."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Then what?" queried Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, we'll chase that outfit so fast
+        it'll be lost in dust," he replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But if you chase them away, it 'll
+        only be into another state, where they'll make trouble for
+        other farmers. You don't do any real good."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My dear, I reckon you've said
+        somethin' strong," he replied, soberly, and went out.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then Kathleen came bouncing in. Her
+        beautiful eyes were full of mischief and excitement.
+        "Lenorry, your new beau has all the others skinned to a
+        frazzle," she said.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">For once Lenore did not scold
+        Kathleen, but drew her close and whispered: "Do you want to
+        please me? Do you want me to do <i>everything</i> for
+        you?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I sure do," replied Kathleen, with
+        wonderful eyes.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Then be nice, sweet, good to
+        him.&hellip; make him love you.&hellip; Don't tease him about
+        my other beaux. Think how you can make him like 'Many
+        Waters.'"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Will you
+        promise&mdash;<i>everything</i>?" whispered Kathleen,
+        solemnly. Evidently Lenore's promises were rare and
+        reliable.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes. Cross my heart. There! And you
+        must not tell."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kathleen was a precocious child, with
+        all the potentialities of youth. She could not divine
+        Lenore's motive, but she sensed a new and fascinating mode
+        of conduct for herself. She seemed puzzled a little at
+        Lenore's earnestness.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It's a bargain," she said, soberly,
+        as if she had accepted no slight gauge.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Now, Kathleen, take him all over the
+        gardens, the orchards, the corrals and barns," directed
+        Lenore. "Be sure to show him the horses&mdash;my horses,
+        especially. Take him round the reservoir&mdash;and
+        everywhere except the wheat-fields. I want to take him
+        there myself. Besides, father does not want you girls to go
+        out to the harvest."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kathleen nodded and ran back to the
+        sitting-room. Lenore heard them all go out together. Before
+        she finished breakfast her mother came in again.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, I like Mr. Dorn," she said,
+        meditatively. "He has an old-fashioned manner that reminds
+        me of my boy friends when I was a girl. I mean he's more
+        courteous and dignified than boys are nowadays. A
+        splendid-looking boy, too. Only his face is so sad. When he
+        smiles he seems another person."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No wonder he's sad," replied Lenore,
+        and briefly told Kurt Dorn's story.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Ah!" sighed Mrs. Anderson. "We have
+        fallen upon evil days.&hellip; Poor boy!&hellip; Your father
+        seems much interested in him. And you are too, my
+        daughter?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, I am," replied Lenore,
+        softly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Two hours later she heard Kathleen's
+        gay laughter and pattering feet. Lenore took her
+        wide-brimmed hat and went out on the porch. Dorn was indeed
+        not the same somber young man he had been.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Good morning, Kurt," said Lenore,
+        extending her hand.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The instant he greeted her she saw the
+        stiffness, the aloofness had gone from him. Kathleen had
+        made him feel at home. He looked younger. There was color
+        in his face.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kathleen, I'll take charge of Mr.
+        Dorn now, if you will allow me that pleasure."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenorry, I sure hate to give him up.
+        We sure had a fine time."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Did he like 'Many Waters'?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well, if he didn't he's a grand
+        fibber," replied Kathleen. "But he did. You can't fool me.
+        I thought I'd never get him back to the house." Then, as
+        she tripped up the porch steps, she shook a finger at Dorn.
+        "Remember!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll never forget," said Dorn, and he
+        was as earnest as he was amiable. Then, as she disappeared,
+        he exclaimed to Lenore, "What an adorable little girl!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Do you like Kathleen?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Like her!" Dorn laughed in a way to
+        make light of such words. "My life has been empty. I see
+        that."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Come, we'll go out to the
+        wheat-fields," said Lenore. "What do you think of 'Many
+        Waters'? This is harvest-time. You see 'Many Waters' at its
+        very best."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I can hardly tell you," he replied.
+        "All my life I've lived on my barren hills. I seem to have
+        come to another world. 'Many Waters' is such a ranch as I
+        never dreamed of. The orchards, the fruit, the
+        gardens&mdash;and everywhere running water! It all smells
+        so fresh and sweet. And then the green and red and purple
+        against that background of blazing gold!&hellip; 'Many
+        Waters' is verdant and fruitful. The Bend is desert."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Now that you've been here, do you
+        like it better than your barren hills?" asked Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt hesitated. "I don't know," he
+        answered, slowly. "But maybe that desert I've lived in
+        accounts for much I lack."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Would you like to stay at 'Many
+        Waters'&mdash;if you weren't going to war?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I might prefer 'Many Waters' to any
+        place on earth. It's a paradise. But I would not chose to
+        stay here."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why? When you return&mdash;you
+        know&mdash;my father will need you here. And if anything
+        should happen to him I will have to run the ranch. Then
+        <i>I</i> would need you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn stopped in his tracks and gazed
+        at her as if there were slight misgivings in his mind.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, if you owned this ranch would
+        you want me&mdash;<i>me</i> for your manager?" he asked,
+        bluntly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes," she replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You would? Knowing I was in love with
+        you?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well, I had forgotten that," she
+        replied, with a little laugh. "It would be rather
+        embarrassing&mdash;and funny, wouldn't it?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, it would," he said, grimly, and
+        walked on again. He made a gesture of keen discomfiture. "I
+        knew you hadn't taken me seriously."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I believed you, but I could not take
+        you <i>very</i> seriously," she murmured.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why not?" he demanded, as if stung,
+        and his eyes flashed on her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Because your declaration was not
+        accompanied by the usual&mdash;question&mdash;that a girl
+        naturally expects under such circumstances."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Good Heaven! You say that?&hellip;
+        Lenore Anderson, you think me insincere because I did not
+        ask you to marry me," he asserted, with bitter pathos.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No. I merely said you were
+        not&mdash;<i>very</i> serious," she replied. It was
+        fascination to torment him this way, yet it hurt her, too.
+        She was playing on the verge of a precipice, not afraid of
+        a misstep, but glorying in the prospect of a leap into the
+        abyss. Something deep and strange in her bade her make him
+        show her how much he loved her. If she drove him to
+        desperation she would reward him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I am going to war," he began,
+        passionately, "to fight for you and your sisters.&hellip; I
+        am ruined.&hellip; The only noble and holy feeling left to
+        me&mdash;that I can have with me in the dark hours&mdash;is
+        my love for you. If you do not believe that, I am indeed
+        the most miserable of beggars! Most boys going to the front
+        leave many behind whom they love. I have no one but
+        you.&hellip; don't make me a coward."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I believe you. Forgive me," she
+        said.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If I had asked you to marry
+        me&mdash;<i>me</i>&mdash;why, I'd have been a selfish,
+        egotistical fool. You are far above me. And I want you to
+        know I know it.&hellip; But even if I had not&mdash;had the
+        blood I have&mdash;even if I had been prosperous instead of
+        ruined, I'd never have asked you, unless I came back whole
+        from the war."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">They had been walking out the lane
+        during this conversation and had come close to the
+        wheat-field. The day was hot, but pleasant, the dry wind
+        being laden with harvest odors. The hum of the machines was
+        like the roar in a flour-mill.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If you go to war&mdash;and come back
+        whole&mdash;?" began Lenore, tantalizingly. She meant to
+        have no mercy upon him. It was incredible how blind he was.
+        Yet how glad that made her. He resembled his desert hills,
+        barren of many little things, but rich in hidden strength,
+        heroic of mold.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Then just to add one more to the
+        conquests girls love I'll&mdash;I'll propose to you," he
+        declared, banteringly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Beware, boy! I might accept you," she
+        exclaimed.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">His play was short-lived. He could not
+        be gay, even under her influence.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Please don't jest," he said,
+        frowning. "Can't we talk of something besides love and
+        war?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"They seem to be popular just now,"
+        she replied, audaciously. "Anyway, all's fair&mdash;you
+        know."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No, it is not fair," he returned,
+        low-voiced and earnest. "So once for all let me beg of you,
+        don't jest. Oh, I know you're sweet. You're full of so many
+        wonderful, surprising words and looks. I can't understand
+        you.&hellip; But I beg of you, don't make me a fool!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well, if you pay such compliments and
+        if I&mdash;want them&mdash;what then? You are very original, very
+        gallant, Mr. Kurt Dorn, and I&mdash;I rather like you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll get angry with you," he
+        threatened.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You couldn't.&hellip; I'm the only
+        girl you're going to leave behind&mdash;and if you got
+        angry I'd never write to you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It thrilled Lenore and wrung her heart
+        to see how her talk affected him. He was in a torment. He
+        believed she spoke lightly, girlishly, to tease
+        him&mdash;that she was only a gay-hearted girl, fancy-free
+        and just a little proud of her conquest over even him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I surrender. Say what you like," he
+        said, resignedly. "I'll stand anything&mdash;just to get
+        your letters."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If you go I'll write as often as you
+        want me to," she replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">With that they emerged upon the
+        harvest-field. Machines and engines dotted the golden
+        slope, and wherever they were located stood towering
+        straw-stacks. Horses and men and wagons were strung out as
+        far as the eye could see. Long streams of chaff and dust
+        and smoke drifted upward.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, there's trouble in the very
+        air," said Dorn. "Look!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She saw a crowd of men gathering round
+        one of the great combine-harvesters. Some one was
+        yelling.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Let's stay away from trouble,"
+        replied Lenore. "We've enough of our own."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm going over there," declared Dorn.
+        "Perhaps you'd better wait for me&mdash;or go back."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well! You're the first boy who
+        ever&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Come on," he interrupted, with grim
+        humor. "I'd rather enjoy your seeing me break
+        loose&mdash;as I will if there's any I.W.W. trickery."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Before they got to the little crowd
+        Lenore both heard and saw her father. He was in a rage and
+        not aware of her presence. Jake and Bill, the cowboys,
+        hovered over him. Anderson strode to and fro, from one side
+        of the harvester to the other. Lenore did not recognize any
+        of the harvest-hands, and even the driver was new to her.
+        They were not a typical Western harvest crew, that was
+        certain. She did not like their sullen looks, and Dorn's
+        muttered imprecation, the moment he neared them, confirmed
+        her own opinion.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson's foreman stood
+        gesticulating, pale and anxious of face.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No, I don't hold you responsible,"
+        roared the rancher. "But I want action.&hellip; I want to
+        know why this machine's broke down."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It was in perfect workin' order,"
+        declared the foreman. "I don't know why it broke down."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That's the fourth machine in two
+        days. No accident, I tell you," shouted Anderson. Then he
+        espied Dorn and waved a grimy hand. "Come here, Dorn," he
+        called, and stepped out of the group of dusty men.
+        "Somethin' wrong here. This new harvester's broke down.
+        It's a McCormack an' new to us. But it has worked great an'
+        I jest believe it's been tampered with&hellip; Do you know
+        these McCormack harvesters?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes. They're reliable," replied
+        Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Ah-huh! Wal, get your coat off an'
+        see what's been done to this one."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn took off his coat and was about
+        to throw it down, when Lenore held out her hand for it.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Unhitch the horses," said Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson gave this order, which was
+        complied with. Then Dorn disappeared around or under the
+        big machine.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, I'll bet he tells us
+        somethin' in a minute," said Anderson to her. "These new
+        claptraps are beyond me. I'm no mechanic."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dad, I don't like the looks of your
+        harvest-hands," whispered Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, this is a sample of the lot I
+        hired. No society for you, my lass!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm going to stay now," she
+        replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn appeared to be raising a racket
+        somewhere out of sight under or inside the huge harvester.
+        Rattling and rasping sounds, creaks and cracks, attested to
+        his strong and impatiently seeking hands.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Presently he appeared. His white shirt
+        had been soiled by dust and grease. There was chaff in his
+        fair hair. In one grimy hand he held a large monkey-wrench.
+        What struck Lenore most was the piercing intensity of his
+        gaze as he fixed it upon her father.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Anderson, I knew right where to find
+        it," he said, in a sharp, hard voice. "This monkey-wrench
+        was thrown upon the platform, carried to the elevator into
+        the thresher.&hellip; Your machine is torn to pieces
+        inside&mdash;out of commission!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Ah-huh!" exclaimed Anderson, as if
+        the truth was a great relief.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Where'd that monkey-wrench come
+        from?" asked the foreman, aghast. "It's not ours. I don't
+        buy that kind."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson made a slight, significant
+        motion to the cowboys. They lined up beside him, and, like
+        him, they looked dangerous.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Come here, Kurt," he said, and then,
+        putting Lenore before him, he moved a few steps aside, out
+        of earshot of the shifty-footed harvest-hands. "Say, you
+        called the turn right off, didn't you?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Anderson, I've had a hard experience,
+        all in one harvest-time," replied Dorn. "I'll bet you I can
+        find out who threw this wrench into your harvester."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I don't doubt you, my lad. But
+        how?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It had to be thrown by one of these
+        men near the machine. That harvester hasn't run twenty feet
+        from where the trick was done.&hellip; Let these men face
+        me. I'll find the guilty one."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wait till we get Lenore out of the
+        way," replied Anderson</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Boss, me an' Bill can answer fer thet
+        outfit as it stands, an' no risks fer nobody," put in Jake,
+        coolly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson's reply was cut short by a
+        loud explosion. It frightened Lenore. She imagined one of
+        the steam-engines had blown up.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That thresher's on fire," shouted
+        Dorn, pointing toward a big machine that was attached by an
+        endless driving belt to an engine.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The workmen, uttering yells and
+        exclamations, ran toward the scene of the new accident,
+        leaving Anderson, his daughter, and the foreman behind.
+        Smoke was pouring out of the big harvester. The
+        harvest-hands ran wildly around, shouting and calling,
+        evidently unable to do anything. The line of wagons full of
+        wheat-sheaves broke up; men dragged at the plunging horses.
+        Then flame followed the smoke out of the thresher.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I've heard of threshers catchin'
+        fire," said Anderson, as if dumfounded, "but I never seen
+        one.&hellip; Now how on earth did that happen?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Another trick, Anderson," replied
+        Dorn. "Some I.W.W. has stuffed a handful of matches into a
+        wheat-sheaf. Or maybe a small bomb!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Ah-huh!&hellip; Come on, let's go over
+        an' see my money burn up.&hellip; Kurt, I'm gettin' some new
+        education these days."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn appeared to be unable to restrain
+        himself. He hurried on ahead of the others. And Anderson
+        whispered to Lenore, "I'll bet somethin's comin' off!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">This alarmed Lenore, yet it also
+        thrilled her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The threshing-machine burned like a
+        house of cards. Farm-hands came running from all over the
+        field. But nothing, manifestly, could be done to save the
+        thresher. Anderson, holding his daughter's arm, calmly
+        watched it burn. There was excitement all around; it had
+        not been communicated, however, to the rancher. He looked
+        thoughtful. The foreman darted among the groups of watchers
+        and his distress was very plain. Dorn had gotten out of
+        sight. Lenore still held his coat and wondered what he was
+        doing. She was thoroughly angry and marveled at her
+        father's composure. The big thresher was reduced to a
+        blazing, smoking hulk in short order.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn came striding up. His face was
+        pale and his mouth set.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Mr. Anderson, you've got to make a
+        strong stand&mdash;and quick," he said, deliberately.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I reckon. An' I'm ready, if it's the
+        right time," replied the rancher. "But what can we
+        prove?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That's proof," declared Dorn,
+        pointing at the ruined thresher. "Do you know all your
+        honest hands?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, an' I've got enough to clean up
+        this outfit in no time. We're only waitin'."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What for?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, I reckon for what's just come
+        off."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Don't let them go any farther.&hellip;
+        Look at these fellows. Can't you tell the I.W.W.'s from the
+        others?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No, I can't unless I count all the
+        new harvest-hands I.W.W.'s."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Every one you don't know here is in
+        with that gang," declared Dorn, and he waved a swift hand
+        at the groups. His eyes swept piercingly over, and
+        apparently through, the men nearest at hand.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">At this juncture Jake and Bill, with
+        two other cowboys, strode up to Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Another accident, boss," said Jake,
+        sarcastically. "Ain't it about time we corralled some of
+        this outfit?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson did not reply. He had
+        suddenly imitated Lenore, who had become solely bent upon
+        Dorn's look. That indeed was cause for interest. It was
+        directed at a member of the nearest group&mdash;a man in
+        rough garb, with slouch-hat pulled over his eyes. As Lenore
+        looked she saw this man, suddenly becoming aware of Dorn's
+        scrutiny, hastily turn and walk away.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hold on!" called Dorn, his voice a
+        ringing command. It halted every moving person on that part
+        of the field. Then Dorn actually bounded across the
+        intervening space.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Come on, boys," said Anderson, "get
+        in this. Dorn's spotted some one, an' now that's all we
+        want.&hellip; Lenore, stick close behind me. Jake, you keep
+        near her."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">They moved hastily to back up Dorn,
+        who had already reached the workman he had halted. Anderson
+        took out a whistle and blew such a shrill blast that it
+        deafened Lenore, and must have been heard all over the
+        harvest-field. Not improbably that was a signal agreed upon
+        between Anderson and his men. Lenore gathered that all had
+        been in readiness for a concerted movement and that her
+        father believed Dorn's action had brought the climax.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Haven't I seen you before?" queried
+        Dorn, sharply.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The man shook his head and kept it
+        bent a little, and then he began to edge back nearer to the
+        stragglers, who slowly closed into a group behind him. He
+        seemed nervous, shifty.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"He can't speak English," spoke up one
+        of them, gruffly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn looked aggressive and stern.
+        Suddenly his hand flashed out to snatch off the slouch-hat
+        which hid the fellow's face. Amazingly, a gray wig came
+        with it. This man was not old. He had fair thick hair.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">For a moment Dorn gazed at the
+        slouch-hat and wig. Then with a fierce action he threw them
+        down and swept a clutching hand for the man. The fellow
+        dodged and, straightening up, he reached for a gun. But
+        Dorn lunged upon him. Then followed a hard grappling sound
+        and a hoarse yell. Something bright glinted in the sun. It
+        made a sweeping circle, belched fire and smoke. The report
+        stunned Lenore. She shut her eyes and clung to her father.
+        She heard cries, a scuffling, sodden blows.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jake! Bill!" called Anderson. "Hold
+        on! No gun-play yet! Dorn's makin' hash out of that
+        fellow.&hellip; But watch the others sharp!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then Lenore looked again. Dorn had
+        twisted the man around and was in the act of stripping off
+        the further disguise of beard, disclosing the pale and
+        convulsed face of a comparatively young man.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal"><i>"Glidden!"</i> burst out Dorn. His
+        voice had a terrible ring of furious amaze. His whole body
+        seemed to gather as in a knot and then to spring. The man
+        called Glidden went down before that onslaught, and his gun
+        went flying aside.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Three of Glidden's group started for
+        it. The cowboy Bill leaped forward, a gun in each hand.
+        "Hyar!&hellip; Back!" he yelled. And then all except the two
+        struggling principals grew rigid.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore's heart was burning in her
+        throat. The movements of Dorn were too swift for her sight.
+        But Glidden she saw handled as if by a giant. Up and down
+        he seemed thrown, with bloody face, flinging arms, while he
+        uttered hoarse bawls. Dorn's form grew more distinct. It
+        plunged and swung in frenzied energy. Lenore heard men
+        running and yells from all around. Her father spread wide
+        his arm before her, so that she had to bend low to see. He
+        shouted a warning. Jake was holding a gun thrust
+        forward.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Boss, he's goin' to kill Glidden!"
+        said the cowboy, in a low tone.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson's reply was incoherent, but
+        its meaning was plain.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore's lips and tongue almost denied
+        her utterance. "Oh!&hellip; Don't let him!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The crowd behind the wrestling couple
+        swayed back and forth, and men changed places here and
+        there. Bill strode across the space, guns leveled.
+        Evidently this action was due to the threatening movements
+        of several workmen who crouched as if to leap on Dorn as he
+        whirled in his fight with Glidden.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, it's about time!" yelled
+        Anderson, as a number of lean, rangy men, rushing from
+        behind, reached Bill's side, there to present an armed and
+        threatening front.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">All eyes now centered on Dorn and
+        Glidden. Lenore, seeing clearly for the first time,
+        suffered a strange, hot paroxysm of emotion never before
+        experienced by her. It left her weak. It seemed to stultify
+        the cry that had been trying to escape her. She wanted to
+        scream that Dorn must not kill the man. Yet there was a
+        ferocity in her that froze the cry. Glidden's coat and
+        blouse were half torn off; blood covered him; he strained
+        and flung himself weakly in that iron clutch. He was beaten
+        and bent back. His tongue hung out, bloody, fluttering with
+        strangled cries. A ghastly face, appalling in its fear of
+        death!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore broke her mute spell of mingled
+        horror and passion.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"For God's sake, don't let Dorn kill
+        him!" she implored.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why not?" muttered Anderson. "That's
+        Glidden. He killed Dorn's father&mdash;burned his
+        wheat&mdash;ruined him!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dad&mdash;for <i>my</i>&mdash;sake!"
+        she cried brokenly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jake, stop him!" yelled Anderson.
+        "Pull him off!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">As Lenore saw it, with eyes again half
+        failing her, Jake could not separate Dorn from his
+        victim.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Leggo, Dorn!" he yelled. "You're
+        cheatin' the gallows!&hellip;Hey, Bill, he's a bull!&hellip;
+        Help, hyar&mdash;quick!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore did not see the resulting
+        conflict, but she could tell by something that swayed the
+        crowd when Glidden had been freed.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hold up this outfit!" yelled Anderson
+        to his men. "Come on, Jake, drag him along." Jake appeared,
+        leading the disheveled and wild-eyed Dorn. "Son, you did my
+        heart good, but there was some around here who didn't want
+        you to spill blood. An' that's well. For I am seein'
+        red.&hellip;Jake, you take Dorn an' Lenore a piece toward
+        the house, then hurry back."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then Lenore felt that she had hold of
+        Dorn's arm and she was listening to Jake without
+        understanding a word he said, while she did hear her
+        father's yell of command, "Line up there, you
+        I.W.W.'s!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Jake walked so swiftly that Lenore had
+        to run to keep up. Dorn stumbled. He spoke incoherently. He
+        tried to stop. At this Lenore clasped his arm and cried,
+        "Oh, Kurt, come home with me!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">They hurried down the slope. Lenore
+        kept looking back. The crowd appeared bunched now, with
+        little motion. That relieved her. There was no more
+        fighting.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Presently Dorn appeared to go more
+        willingly. He had relaxed. "Let go, Jake," he said.
+        "I'm&mdash;all right&mdash;now. That arm hurts."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, you'll excuse me, Dorn, for
+        handlin' you rough.&hellip; Mebbe you don't remember
+        punchin' me one when I got between you an' Glidden?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Did I?&hellip; I couldn't see, Jake,"
+        said Dorn. His voice was weak and had a spent ring of
+        passion in it. He did not look at Lenore, but kept his face
+        turned toward the cowboy.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I reckon this 's fur enough,"
+        rejoined Jake, halting and looking back. "No one comin'.
+        An' there'll be hell to pay out there. You go on to the
+        house with Miss Lenore.&hellip; Will you?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes," replied Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Rustle along, then.&hellip; An' you,
+        Miss Lenore, don't you worry none about us."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore nodded and, holding Dorn's arm
+        closely, she walked as fast as she could down the lane.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I&mdash;I kept your coat," she said,
+        "though I never thought of it&mdash;till just now."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She was trembling all over, hot and
+        cold by turns, afraid to look up at him, yet immensely
+        proud of him, with a strange, sickening dread. He walked
+        rather dejectedly now, or else bent somewhat from weakness.
+        She stole a quick glance at his face. It was white as a
+        sheet. Suddenly she felt something wet and warm trickle
+        from his arm down into her hand. Blood! She shuddered, but
+        did not lose her hold. After a faintish instant there came
+        a change in her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Are you&mdash;hurt?" she asked.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I guess&mdash;not. I don't know," he
+        said.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But the&mdash;the blood," she
+        faltered.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He held up his hands. His knuckles
+        were bloody and it was impossible to tell whether from
+        injury to them or not. But his left forearm was badly
+        cut.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"The gun cut me.&hellip; And he bit me,
+        too," said Dorn. "I'm sorry you were there.&hellip; What a
+        beastly spectacle for you!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Never mind me," she murmured. "I'm
+        all right <i>now!</i>&hellip; But, oh!&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She broke off eloquently.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Was it you who had the cowboys pull
+        me off him? Jake said, as he broke me loose, 'For Miss
+        Lenore's sake!'"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It was dad who sent them. But I
+        begged him to."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That was Glidden, the I.W.W. agitator
+        and German agent.&hellip; He&mdash;just the same as murdered
+        my father.&hellip; He burned my wheat&mdash;lost my
+        all!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, I&mdash;I know, Kurt," whispered
+        Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I meant to kill him!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That was easy to tell.&hellip; Oh,
+        thank God, you did not!&hellip; Come, don't let us stop."
+        She could not face the piercing, gloomy eyes that went
+        through her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why should you care?.&hellip; Some one
+        will have to kill Glidden."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, do not talk so," she implored.
+        "Surely, now you're glad you did not?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I don't understand myself. But I'm
+        certainly sorry you were there.&hellip; There's a beast in
+        men&mdash;in me!&hellip; I had a gun in my pocket. But do
+        you think I'd have used it?&hellip; I wanted to feel his
+        flesh tear, his bones break, his blood spurt&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes!&hellip; That was the Hun in me!"
+        he declared, in sudden bitter passion.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, my friend, do not talk so!" she
+        cried. "You make me&mdash;Oh, there is <i>no</i> Hun in
+        you!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, that's what ails me!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"There is <i>not</i>!" she flashed
+        back, roused to passion. "You had been made desperate. You
+        acted as any wronged man! You fought. He tried to kill you.
+        I saw the gun. No one could blame you.&hellip; I had my own
+        reason for begging dad to keep you from killing him&mdash;a
+        selfish woman's reason!&hellip; But I tell you I was so
+        furious&mdash;so wrought up&mdash;that if it had been any
+        man but <i>you</i>&mdash;he should have killed him!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, you're beyond my
+        understanding," replied Dorn, with emotion. "But I thank
+        you&mdash;for excusing me&mdash;for standing up for
+        me."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It was nothing.&hellip;Oh, how you
+        bleed!.&hellip; Doesn't that hurt?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I've no pain&mdash;no feeling at
+        all&mdash;except a sort of dying down in me of what must
+        have been hell."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">They reached the house and went in. No
+        one was there, which fact relieved Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm glad mother and the girls won't
+        see you," she said, hurriedly. "Go up to your room. I'll
+        bring bandages."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He complied without any comment.
+        Lenore searched for what she needed to treat a wound and
+        ran up-stairs. Dorn was sitting on a chair in his room,
+        holding his arm, from which blood dripped to the floor. He
+        smiled at her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You would be a pretty Red Cross
+        nurse," he said.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore placed a bowl of water on the
+        floor and, kneeling beside Dorn, took his arm and began to
+        bathe it. He winced. The blood covered her fingers.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My blood on your hands!" he
+        exclaimed, morbidly. "German blood!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt, you're out of your head,"
+        retorted Lenore, hotly. "If you dare to say that again
+        I'll&mdash;" She broke off.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What will you do?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore faltered. What would she do? A
+        revelation must come, sooner or later, and the strain had
+        begun to wear upon her. She was stirred to her depths, and
+        instincts there were leaping. No sweet, gentle, kindly
+        sympathy would avail with this tragic youth. He must be
+        carried by storm. Something of the violence he had shown
+        with Glidden seemed necessary to make him forget himself.
+        All his whole soul must be set in one direction. He could
+        not see that she loved him, when she had looked it, acted
+        it, almost spoken it. His blindness was not to be
+        endured.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt Dorn, don't dare to&mdash;to say
+        that again!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She ceased bathing his arm, and looked
+        up at him suddenly quite pale.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I apologize. I am only bitter," he
+        said. "Don't mind what I say.&hellip; It's so good of
+        you&mdash;to do this."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then in silence Lenore dressed his
+        wound, and if her heart did beat unwontedly, her fingers
+        were steady and deft. He thanked her, with moody eyes
+        seeing far beyond her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"When I lie&mdash;over
+        there&mdash;with&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If you go!" she interrupted. He was
+        indeed hopeless. "I advise you to rest a little."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'd like to know what becomes of
+        Glidden," he said.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"So should I. That worries me."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Weren't there a lot of cowboys with
+        guns?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"So many that there's no need for you
+        to go out&mdash;and start another fight."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I did start it, didn't I?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You surely did," She left him then,
+        turning in the doorway to ask him please to be quiet and
+        let the day go by without seeking those excited men again.
+        He smiled, but he did not promise.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">For Lenore the time dragged between
+        dread and suspense. From her window she saw a motley crowd
+        pass down the lane to the main road. No harvesters were
+        working. At the noon meal only her mother and the girls
+        were present. Word had come that the I.W.W. men were being
+        driven from "Many Waters." Mrs. Anderson worried, and
+        Lenore's sisters for once were quiet. All afternoon the
+        house was lifeless. No one came or left. Lenore listened to
+        every little sound. It relieved her that Dorn had remained
+        in his room. Her hope was that the threatened trouble had
+        been averted, but something told her that the worst was yet
+        to come.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was nearly supper-time when she
+        heard the men returning. They came in a body, noisy and
+        loitering, as if reluctant to break away from one another.
+        She heard the horses tramp into the barns and the loud
+        voices of drivers.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">When she went down-stairs she
+        encountered her father. He looked impressive, triumphant!
+        His effort at evasion did not deceive Lenore. But she
+        realized at once that in this instance she could not get
+        any news from him. He said everything was all right and
+        that I.W.W. men were to be deported from Washington. But he
+        did not want any supper, and he had a low-voiced,
+        significant interview with Dorn. Lenore longed to know what
+        was pending. Dorn's voice, when he said at his door,
+        "Anderson, I'll go!" was ringing, hard, and deadly. It
+        frightened Lenore. Go where? What were they going to do?
+        Lenore thought of the vigilantes her father had
+        organized.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Supper-time was an ordeal. Dorn ate a
+        little; then excusing himself, he went back to his room.
+        Lenore got through the meal somehow, and, going outside,
+        she encountered Jake. The moment she questioned him she
+        knew something extraordinary had taken place or was about
+        to take place. She coaxed and entreated. For once Jake was
+        hard to manage. But the more excuses he made, the more he
+        evaded her, the greater became Lenore's need to know. And
+        at last she wore the cowboy out. He could not resist her
+        tears, which began to flow in spite of her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"See hyar, Miss Lenore, I reckon you
+        care a heap fer young Dorn&mdash;beggin' your pardon?"
+        queried Jake.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Care for him!&hellip; Jake, I love
+        him."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Then take a hunch from me an' keep
+        him home&mdash;with you&mdash;to-night."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Does father want Kurt Dorn to
+        go&mdash;wherever he's going?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, I should smile! Your dad likes
+        the way Dorn handles I.W.W.'s," replied Jake,
+        significantly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Vigilantes!" whispered Lenore.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore waited for Kurt, and stood half
+        concealed behind the curtains. It had dawned upon her that
+        she had an ordeal at hand. Her heart palpitated. She heard
+        his quick step on the stairs. She called before she showed
+        herself.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hello!&hellip; Oh, but you startled
+        me!" he exclaimed. He had been surprised, too, at the
+        abrupt meeting. Certainly he had not been thinking of her.
+        His pale, determined face attested to stern and excitable
+        thought.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He halted before her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Where are you going?" asked
+        Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"To see your father."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What about?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It's rather important," he replied,
+        with hesitation.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Will it take long?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He showed embarrassment.
+        "I&mdash;He&mdash;We'll be occupied 'most all evening."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Indeed!&hellip; Very well. If you'd
+        rather be&mdash;<i>occupied</i>&mdash;than spend the
+        evening with me!" Lenore turned away, affecting a
+        disdainful and hurt manner.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, it's not that," he burst out.
+        "I&mdash;I'd rather spend an evening with you than anybody
+        else&mdash;or do anything."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That's very easy to say, Mr. Dorn,"
+        she returned, lightly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But it's true," he protested.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Come out of the hall. Father will
+        hear us," she said, and led him into the room. It was not
+        so light in there, but what light there was fell upon his
+        face and left hers in shadow.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I've made an&mdash;an appointment for
+        to-night," he declared, with difficulty.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Can't you break it?" she asked.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No. That would lay me open
+        to&mdash;to cowardice&mdash;perhaps your father's
+        displeasure."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt Dorn, it's brave to give up some
+        things!&hellip; And if you go you'll incur <i>my</i>
+        displeasure."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Go!" he ejaculated, staring at
+        her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, I know!&hellip; And
+        I'm&mdash;well, not flattered to see you'd rather go hang
+        I.W.W.'s than stay here with me." Lenore did not feel the
+        assurance and composure with which she spoke. She was
+        struggling with her own feelings. She believed that just as
+        soon as she and Kurt understood each other&mdash;faced each
+        other without any dissimulation&mdash;then she would feel
+        free and strong. If only she could put the situation on a
+        sincere footing! She must work for that. Her difficulty was
+        with a sense of falsity. There was no time to plan. She
+        must change his mind.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Her words had made him start.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Then you know?" he asked.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Of course."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm sorry for that," he replied,
+        soberly, as he brushed a hand up through his wet hair.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But you will stay home?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No," he returned, shortly, and he
+        looked hard.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt, I don't want <i>you</i> mixed
+        up with any lynching-bees," she said, earnestly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm a citizen of Washington. I'll
+        join the vigilantes. I'm American. I've been ruined by
+        these I.W.W.'s. No man in the West has lost so much!
+        Father&mdash;home&mdash;land&mdash;my great harvest of
+        wheat!&hellip; Why shouldn't I go?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"There's no reason
+        except&mdash;<i>me</i>," she replied, rather
+        unsteadily.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He drew himself up, with a deep
+        breath, as if fortifying himself. "That's a mighty good
+        reason.&hellip; But you will be kinder if you withdraw your
+        objections."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Can't you conceive of any reason why
+        I&mdash;I beg you not to go?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I can't," he replied, staring at her.
+        It seemed that every moment he spent in her presence
+        increased her effect upon him. Lenore felt this, and that
+        buoyed up her failing courage.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt, you've made a very
+        distressing&mdash;a terrible and horrible blunder," she
+        said, with a desperation that must have seemed something
+        else to him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My heavens! What have I done?" he
+        gasped, his face growing paler. How ready he was to see
+        more catastrophe! It warmed her heart and strengthened her
+        nerve.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The moment had come. Even if she did
+        lose her power of speech she still could show him what his
+        blunder was. Nothing in all her life had ever been a
+        hundredth part as hard as this. Yet, as the words formed,
+        her whole heart seemed to be behind them, forcing them out.
+        If only he did not misunderstand!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then she looked directly at him and
+        tried to speak. Her first attempt was inarticulate, her
+        second was a whisper, "Didn't you ever&mdash;think
+        I&mdash;I might care for you?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was as if a shock went over him,
+        leaving him trembling. But he did not look as amazed as
+        incredulous. "No, I certainly never did," he said.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well&mdash;that's your
+        blunder&mdash;for I&mdash;I do. You&mdash;you
+        never&mdash;never&mdash;asked me."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You do what&mdash;care for me?&hellip;
+        What on earth do you mean by that?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore was fighting many emotions now,
+        the one most poignant being a wild desire to escape, which
+        battled with an equally maddening one to hide her face on
+        his breast.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Yet she could see how white he had
+        grown&mdash;how different. His hands worked convulsively
+        and his eyes pierced her very soul.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What should a girl mean&mdash;telling
+        she cared?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I don't know. Girls are beyond me,"
+        he replied, stubbornly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Indeed that's true. I've felt so far
+        beyond you&mdash;I had to come to this."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore," he burst out, hoarsely, "you
+        talk in riddles! You've been so strange, yet so fine, so
+        sweet! And now you say you care for me!&hellip; Care?&hellip;
+        What does that mean? A word can drive me mad. But I never
+        dared to hope. I love you&mdash;love you&mdash;love
+        you&mdash;my God! you're all I've left to love.
+        I&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Do you think you've a monopoly on all
+        the love in the world?" interrupted Lenore, coming to her
+        real self. His impassioned declaration was all she needed.
+        Her ordeal was over.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It seemed as if he could not believe
+        his ears or eyes.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Monopoly! World!" he echoed. "Of
+        course I don't. But&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt, I love you just as much
+        as&mdash;as you love me.&hellip; So there!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore had time for one look at his
+        face before he enveloped her. What a relief to hide her
+        own! It was pressed to his breast very closely. Her eyes
+        shut, and she felt hot tears under the lids. All before her
+        darkened sight seemed confusion, whirling chaos. It seemed
+        that she could not breathe and, strangely, did not need to.
+        How unutterably happy she felt! That was an age-long
+        moment&mdash;wonderful for her own relief and
+        gladness&mdash;full of changing emotions. Presently Kurt
+        appeared to be coming to some semblance of rationality. He
+        released her from that crushing embrace, but still kept an
+        arm around her while he held her off and looked at her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, will you kiss me?" he
+        whispered.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She could have cried out in sheer
+        delight at the wonder of that whisper in her ear. It had
+        been she who had changed the world for Kurt Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes&mdash;presently," she replied,
+        with a tremulous little laugh. "Wait till&mdash;I get my
+        breath&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I was beside myself&mdash;am so yet,"
+        he replied, low voiced as if in awe. "I've been lifted to
+        heaven.&hellip; It cannot be true. I believe, yet I'll not
+        be sure till you kiss me.&hellip; You&mdash;Lenore Anderson,
+        this girl of my dreams! Do you love me&mdash;is it
+        true?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, Kurt, indeed I do&mdash;very
+        dearly," she replied, and turned to look up into his face.
+        It was transfigured. Lenore's heart swelled as a deep and
+        profound emotion waved over her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Please kiss me&mdash;then."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She lifted her face, flushing scarlet.
+        Their lips met. Then with her head upon his shoulder and
+        her hands closely held she answered the thousand and one
+        questions of a bewildered and exalted lover who could not
+        realize the truth. Lenore laughed at him and eloquently
+        furnished proof of her own obsession, and told him how and
+        why and when it all came about.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Not for hours did Kurt come back to
+        actualities. "I forgot about the vigilantes," he exclaimed,
+        suddenly. "It's too late now.&hellip; How the time has
+        flown!&hellip; Oh, Lenore, thought of other things breaks
+        in, alas!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He kissed her hand and got up. Another
+        change was coming over him. Lenore had long expected the
+        moment when realization would claim his attention. She was
+        prepared.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, you forgot your appointment with
+        dad and the vigilantes. You've missed some excitement and
+        violence."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">His face had grown white
+        again&mdash;grave now and troubled. "May I speak to your
+        father?" he asked.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes," she replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If I come back from the
+        war&mdash;well&mdash;not crippled&mdash;will you promise to
+        marry me?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt, I promise now."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">That seemed to shake him. "But,
+        Lenore, it is not fair to you. I don't believe a soldier
+        should bind a girl by marriage or engagement before he goes
+        to war. She should be free.&hellip; I want you to be
+        free."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That's for you to say," she replied,
+        softly. "But for my part, I don't want to be free&mdash;if
+        you go away to war."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If!&hellip; I'm going," he said, with
+        a start. "You don't want to be free? Lenore, would you be
+        engaged to me?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My dear boy, of course I
+        would.&hellip; It seems I <i>am,</i> doesn't it?" she
+        replied, with one of her deep, low laughs.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He gazed at her, fascinated, worked
+        upon by overwhelming emotions. "Would you marry
+        me&mdash;before I go?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes," she flashed.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He bent and bowed then under the
+        storm. Stumbling to her, almost on his knees, he brokenly
+        expressed his gratitude, his wonder, his passion, and the
+        terrible temptation that he must resist, which she must
+        help him to resist.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt, I love you. I will see things
+        through your eyes, if I must. I want to be a comfort to
+        you, not a source of sorrow."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But, Lenore, what comfort can I
+        find?&hellip; To leave you now is going to be
+        horrible!&hellip; To part from you now&mdash;I don't see how
+        I can."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then Lenore dared to broach the
+        subject so delicate, so momentous.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You need not part from me. My father
+        has asked me to try to keep you home. He secured exemption
+        for you. You are more needed here than at the front. You
+        can feed many soldiers. You would be doing your
+        duty&mdash;with honor!&hellip; You would be a soldier. The
+        government is going to draft young men for farm duty. Why
+        not you? There are many good reasons why you would be
+        better than most young men. Because you know wheat. And
+        wheat is to become the most important thing in the world.
+        No one misjudges your loyalty.&hellip; And surely you see
+        that the best service to your country is what you can do
+        best."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He sat down beside her, with serious
+        frown and somber eyes. "Lenore, are you asking me not to go
+        to war?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, I am," she replied. "I have
+        thought it all over. I've given up my brother. I'd not ask
+        you to stay home if you were needed at the front as much as
+        here. That question I have had out with my
+        conscience.&hellip; Kurt, don't think me a silly,
+        sentimental girl. Events of late have made me a woman."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He buried his face in his hands.
+        "That's the most amazing of all&mdash;you&mdash;Lenore
+        Anderson, my American girl&mdash;asking me not to go to
+        war."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But, dear, it is not so amazing. It's
+        reasonable. Your peculiar point of view makes it look
+        different. I am no weak, timid, love-sick girl afraid to
+        let you go!&hellip; I've given you good, honorable,
+        patriotic reasons for your exemption from draft. Can you
+        see that?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes. I grant all your claims. I know
+        wheat well enough to tell you that if vastly more
+        wheat-raising is not done the world will starve. That would
+        hold good for the United States in forty years without
+        war."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Then if you see my point why are you
+        opposed to it?" she asked.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Because I am Kurt Dorn," he replied,
+        bitterly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">His tone, his gloom made her shiver.
+        It would take all her intelligence and wit and reason to
+        understand him, and vastly more than that to change him.
+        She thought earnestly. This was to be an ordeal profoundly
+        more difficult than the confession of her love. It was
+        indeed a crisis dwarfing the other she had met. She sensed
+        in him a remarkably strange attitude toward this war,
+        compared with that of her brother or other boys she knew
+        who had gone.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Because you are Kurt Dorn," she said,
+        thoughtfully. "It's in the name, then.&hellip; But I think
+        it a pretty name&mdash;a good name. Have I not consented to
+        accept it as mine&mdash;for life?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He could not answer that. Blindly he
+        reached out with a shaking hand, to find hers, to hold it
+        close. Lenore felt the tumult in him. She was shocked. A
+        great tenderness, sweet and motherly, flooded over her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dearest, in this dark hour&mdash;that
+        was so bright a little while ago&mdash;you must not keep
+        anything from me," she replied. "I will be true to you. I
+        will crush my selfish hopes. I will be your mother.&hellip;
+        tell me why you must go to war because you are Kurt
+        Dorn."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My father was German. He hated this
+        country&mdash;yours and mine. He plotted with the I.W.W. He
+        hated your father and wanted to destroy him.&hellip; Before
+        he died he realized his crime. For so I take the few words
+        he spoke to Jerry. But all the same he was a traitor to my
+        country. I bear his name. I have German in me.&hellip; And
+        by God I'm going to pay!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">His deep, passionate tones struck into
+        Lenore's heart. She fought with a rising terror. She was
+        beginning to understand him. How helpless she
+        felt&mdash;how she prayed for inspiration&mdash;for
+        wisdom!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Pay!&hellip; How?" she asked.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"In the only way possible. I'll see
+        that a Dorn goes to war&mdash;who will show his American
+        blood&mdash;who will fight and kill&mdash;and be
+        killed!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">His passion, then, was more than
+        patriotism. It had its springs in the very core of his
+        being. He had, it seemed, a debt that he must pay. But
+        there was more than this in his grim determination. And
+        Lenore divined that it lay hidden in his bitter reference
+        to his German blood. He hated that&mdash;doubted himself
+        because of it. She realized now that to keep him from going
+        to war would be to make him doubt his manhood and
+        eventually to despise himself. No longer could she think of
+        persuading him to stay home. She must forget herself. She
+        knew then that she had the power to keep him and she could
+        use it, but she must not do so. This tragic thing was a
+        matter of his soul. But if he went to war with this bitter
+        obsession, with this wrong motive, this passionate desire
+        to spill blood in him that he hated, he would lose his
+        soul. He must be changed. All her love, all her woman's
+        flashing, subtle thought concentrated on this fact. How
+        strange the choice that had been given her! Not only must
+        she relinquish her hope of keeping him home, but she must
+        perhaps go to desperate ends to send him away with a
+        changed spirit. The moment of decision was agony for
+        her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt, this is a terrible hour for
+        both of us," she said, "but, thank Heaven, you have
+        confessed to me. Now I will confess to you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Confess?&hellip; You?&hellip; What
+        nonsense!" he exclaimed. But in his surprise he lifted his
+        head from his hands to look at her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"When we came in here my mind was made
+        up to make you stay home. Father begged me to do it, and I
+        had my own selfish motive. It was love. Oh, I do love you,
+        Kurt, more than you can dream of!&hellip; I justified my
+        resolve. I told you that. But I wanted you. I wanted your
+        love&mdash;your presence. I longed for a home with you as
+        husband&mdash;master&mdash;father to my babies. I dreamed
+        of all. It filled me with terror to think of you going to
+        war. You might be
+        crippled&mdash;mangled&mdash;murdered.&hellip; Oh, my dear,
+        I could not bear the thought!&hellip; So I meant to overcome
+        you. I had it all planned. I meant to love you&mdash;to beg
+        you&mdash;to kiss you&mdash;to make you stay&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, what are you saying?" he
+        cried, in shocked amaze.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She flung her arms round his neck.
+        "Oh, I could&mdash;I could have kept you!" she answered,
+        low voiced and triumphant. "It fills me with joy.&hellip;
+        Tell me I could have kept you&mdash;tell me."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes. I've no power to resist you. But
+        I might have hated&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hush!&hellip; It's all might
+        have.&hellip; I've risen above myself."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, you distress me. A little
+        while ago you bewildered me with your sweetness and
+        love.&hellip; Now&mdash;you look like an angel or a
+        goddess.&hellip; Oh, to have your face like
+        this&mdash;always with me! Yet it distresses me&mdash;so
+        terrible in purpose. What are you about to tell me? I see
+        something&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Listen," she broke in. "I meant to
+        make you weak. I implore you now to be strong. You must go
+        to war! But with all my heart and soul I beg you to go with
+        a changed spirit.&hellip; You were about to do a terrible
+        thing. You hated the German in you and meant to kill it by
+        violence. You despised the German blood and you meant to
+        spill it. Like a wild man you would have rushed to fight,
+        to stab and beat, to murder&mdash;and you would have left
+        your breast open for a bayonet-thrust.&hellip; Oh, I know
+        it!&hellip; Kurt, you are horribly wrong. That is no way to
+        go to war.&hellip; War is a terrible business, but men don't
+        wage it for motives such as yours. We Americans all have
+        different strains of
+        blood&mdash;English&mdash;French&mdash;German. One is as
+        good as another. You are obsessed&mdash;you are out of your
+        head on this German question. You must kill that
+        idea&mdash;kill it with one bayonet-thrust of sense.&hellip;
+        You must go to war as my soldier&mdash;with my ideal. Your
+        country has called you to help uphold its honor, its
+        pledged word. You must fight to conquer an enemy who
+        threatens to destroy freedom.&hellip; You must be brave,
+        faithful, merciful, clean&mdash;an American soldier!&hellip;
+        You are only one of a million. You have no personal need
+        for war. You are as good, as fine, as noble as any
+        man&mdash;my choice, sir, of all the men in the
+        world!&hellip; I am sending you. I am giving you up.&hellip;
+        Oh, my darling&mdash;you will never know how hard it
+        is!&hellip; But go! Your life has been sad. You have lost so
+        much. I feel in my woman's heart what will be&mdash;if only
+        you'll change&mdash;if you see God in this as I see.
+        Promise me. Love that which you hated. Prove for yourself
+        what I believe. Trust me&mdash;promise me&hellip;
+        Then&mdash;oh, I know God will send you back to me!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He fell upon his knees before her to
+        bury his face in her lap. His whole frame shook. His hands
+        plucked at her dress. A low sob escaped him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore," he whispered, brokenly, "I
+        can't see God in this&mdash;for me!&hellip; I can't
+        promise!"</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Thirty masked men sat around a long
+        harvest mess-table. Two lanterns furnished light enough to
+        show a bare barnlike structure, the rough-garbed plotters,
+        the grim set of hard lips below the half-masks, and big
+        hands spread out, ready to draw from the hat that was
+        passing.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The talk was low and serious. No names
+        were spoken. A heavy man, at the head of the table, said:
+        "We thirty, picked men, represent the country. Let each
+        member here write on his slip of paper his choice of
+        punishment for the I.W.W.'s&mdash;death or
+        deportation.&hellip;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The members of the band bent their
+        masked faces and wrote in a dead silence. A noiseless wind
+        blew through the place. The lanterns flickered; huge
+        shadows moved on the walls. When the papers had been passed
+        back to the leader he read them.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Deportation," he announced. "So much
+        for the I.W.W. men.&hellip; Now for the leader.&hellip; But
+        before we vote on what to do with Glidden let me read an
+        extract from one of his speeches. This is authentic. It has
+        been furnished by the detective lately active in our
+        interest. Also it has been published. I read it because I
+        want to bring home to you all an issue that goes beyond our
+        own personal fortunes here."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Leaning toward the flickering flare of
+        the lantern, the leader read from a slip of paper: "If the
+        militia are sent out here to hinder the I.W.W. we will make
+        it so damned hot for the government that no troops will be
+        able to go to France.&hellip; I don't give a damn what this
+        country is fighting for.&hellip; I am fighting for the
+        rights of labor.&hellip; American soldiers are Uncle Sam's
+        scabs in disguise."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The deep, impressive voice ended. The
+        leader's huge fist descended upon the table with a crash.
+        He gazed up and down the rows of sinister masked figures.
+        "Have you anything to say?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No," replied one.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Pass the slips," said another.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">And then a man, evidently on in years,
+        for his hair was gray and he looked bent, got up.
+        "Neighbors," he began "I lived here in the early days. For
+        the last few years I've been apologizing for my home town.
+        I don't want to apologize for it any longer."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He sat down. And a current seemed to
+        wave from him around that dark square of figures. The
+        leader cleared his throat as if he had much to say, but he
+        did not speak. Instead he passed the hat. Each man drew
+        forth a slip of paper and wrote upon it. The action was not
+        slow. Presently the hat returned round the table to the
+        leader. He spilled its contents, and with steady hand
+        picked up the first slip of paper.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Death!" he read, sonorously, and laid
+        it down to pick up another. Again he spoke that grim word.
+        The third brought forth the same, and likewise the next,
+        and all, until the verdict had been called out thirty
+        times.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"At daylight we'll meet," boomed out
+        that heavy voice. "Instruct Glidden's guards to make a show
+        of resistance.&hellip; We'll hang Glidden to the railroad
+        bridge. Then each of you get your gangs together. Round up
+        all the I.W.W.'s. Drive them to the railroad yard. There
+        we'll put them aboard a railroad train of empty cars. And
+        that train will pass under the bridge where Glidden will be
+        hanging.&hellip; We'll escort them out of the country."</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">That August dawn was gray and cool,
+        with gold and pink beginning to break over the dark eastern
+        ranges. The town had not yet awakened. It slept unaware of
+        the stealthy forms passing down the gray road and of the
+        distant hum of motor-cars and trot of hoofs.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Glidden's place of confinement was a
+        square warehouse, near the edge of town. Before the
+        improvised jail guards paced up and down, strangely
+        alert.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Daylight had just cleared away the
+        gray when a crowd of masked men appeared as if by magic and
+        bore down upon the guards. There was an apparent desperate
+        resistance, but, significantly, no cries or shots. The
+        guards were overpowered and bound.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The door of the jail yielded to heavy
+        blows of an ax. In the corner of a dim, bare room groveled
+        Glidden, bound so that he had little use of his body. But
+        he was terribly awake. When six men entered he asked,
+        hoarsely: "What're you&mdash;after?&hellip; What&mdash;you
+        mean?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">They jerked him erect. They cut the
+        bonds from his legs. They dragged him out into the light of
+        breaking day.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">When he saw the masked and armed force
+        he cried: "My God!&hellip; What'll you&mdash;do with
+        me?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Ghastly, working, sweating, his face
+        betrayed his terror.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You're to be hanged by the neck,"
+        spoke a heavy, solemn voice.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The man would have collapsed but for
+        the strong hands that upheld him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What&mdash;for?" he gasped.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"For I.W.W. crimes&mdash;for
+        treason&mdash;for speeches no American can stand in days
+        like these." Then this deep-voiced man read to Glidden
+        words of his own.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Do you recognize that?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Glidden saw how he had spoken his own
+        doom. "Yes, I said that," he had nerve left to say.
+        "But&mdash;I insist on
+        arrest&mdash;trial&mdash;justice!&hellip; I'm no
+        criminal.&hellip; I've big interests behind me.&hellip;
+        You'll suffer&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A loop of a lasso, slung over his head
+        and jerked tight, choked off his intelligible utterance.
+        But as the silent, ruthless men dragged him away he gave
+        vent to terrible, half-strangled cries.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The sun rose red over the fertile
+        valley&mdash;over the harvest fields and the pastures and
+        the orchards, and over the many towns that appeared lost in
+        the green and gold of luxuriance.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">In the harvest districts west of the
+        river all the towns were visited by swift-flying motor-cars
+        that halted long enough for a warning to be shouted to the
+        citizens, "Keep off the streets!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Simultaneously armed forces of men, on
+        foot and on horseback, too numerous to count, appeared in
+        the roads and the harvest fields.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">They accosted every man they met. If
+        he were recognized or gave proof of an honest identity he
+        was allowed to go; otherwise he was marched along under
+        arrest. These armed forces were thorough in their search,
+        and in the country districts they had an especial interest
+        in likely camping-places, and around old barns and
+        straw-stacks. In the towns they searched every corner that
+        was big enough to hide a man.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">So it happened that many motley groups
+        of men were driven toward the railroad line, where they
+        were held until a freight-train of empty cattle-cars came
+        along. This train halted long enough to have the I.W.W.
+        contingent driven aboard, with its special armed guard
+        following, and then it proceeded on to the next station. As
+        stations were many, so were the halts, and news of the
+        train with its strange freight flashed ahead. Crowds lined
+        the railroad tracks. Many boys and men in these crowds
+        carried rifles and pistols which they leveled at the I.W.W.
+        prisoners as the train passed. Jeers and taunts and threats
+        accompanied this presentation of guns.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Before the last station of that wheat
+        district was reached full three hundred members of the
+        I.W.W., or otherwise suspicious characters, were packed
+        into the open cars. At the last stop the number was greatly
+        augmented, and the armed forces were cut down to the few
+        guards who were to see the I.W.W. deported from the
+        country. Here provisions and drinking-water were put into
+        the cars. And amid a hurrahing roar of thousands the train
+        with its strange load slowly pulled out.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It did not at once gather headway. The
+        engine whistled a prolonged blast&mdash;a signal or warning
+        not lost on many of its passengers.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">From the front cars rose shrill cries
+        that alarmed the prisoners in the rear. The reason soon
+        became manifest. Arms pointed and eyes stared at the figure
+        of a man hanging from a rope fastened to the center of a
+        high bridge span under which the engine was about to
+        pass.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The figure swayed in the wind. It
+        turned half-way round, disclosing a ghastly, distorted
+        face, and a huge printed placard on the breast, then it
+        turned back again. Slowly the engine drew one car-load
+        after another past the suspended body of the dead man.
+        There were no more cries. All were silent in that
+        slow-moving train. All faces were pale, all eyes
+        transfixed.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The placard on the hanged man's breast
+        bore in glaring red a strange message: <i>Last warning</i>.
+        3-7-77.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The figures were the ones used in the
+        frontier days by vigilantes.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A dusty motor-car climbed the long
+        road leading up to the Neuman ranch. It was not far from
+        Wade, a small hamlet of the wheat-growing section, and the
+        slopes of the hills, bare and yellow with waving grain,
+        bore some semblance to the Bend country. Four men&mdash;a
+        driver and three cowboys&mdash;were in the automobile.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A big stone gate marked the entrance
+        to Neuman's ranch. Cars and vehicles lined the roadside.
+        Men were passing in and out. Neuman's home was
+        unpretentious, but his barns and granaries and stock-houses
+        were built on a large scale.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Bill, are you goin' in with me after
+        this pard of the Kaiser's?" inquired Jake, leisurely
+        stretching himself as the car halted. He opened the door
+        and stiffly got out. "Gimme a hoss any day fer gittin'
+        places!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jake, my regard fer your rep as
+        Anderson's foreman makes me want to hug the background,"
+        replied Bill. "I've done a hell of a lot these last
+        forty-eight hours."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, I reckon you have, Bill, an' no
+        mistake.&hellip; But I was figgerin' on you wantin' to see
+        the fun."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Fun!&hellip; Jake, it 'll be fun
+        enough fer me to sit hyar an' smoke in the shade, an' watch
+        fer you to come a-runnin' from thet big German
+        devil.&hellip; Pard, they say he's a bad man!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure. I know thet. All them Germans
+        is bad."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If the boss hadn't been so dog-gone
+        strict about gun-play I'd love to go with you," responded
+        Bill. "But he didn't give me no orders. You're the whole
+        outfit this round-up."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Bill, you'd have to take orders from
+        me," said Jake, coolly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure. Thet's why I come with
+        Andy."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The other cowboy, called Andy,
+        manifested uneasiness, and he said: "Aw, now, Jake, you
+        ain't a-goin' to ask me to go in there?&hellip; An' me
+        hatin' Germans the way I do!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Nope. I guess I'll order Bill to go
+        in an' fetch Neuman out," replied Jake, complacently, as he
+        made as if to re-enter the car.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Bill collapsed in his seat. "Jake," he
+        expostulated, weakly, "this job was given you because of
+        your rep fer deploomacy.&hellip; Sure I haven't none of
+        thet.&hellip; An' you, Jake, why you're the smoothest an'
+        slickest talker thet ever come to the Northwest."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Evidently Jake had a vulnerable point.
+        He straightened up with a little swagger. "Wal, you watch
+        me," he said. "I'll fetch the big Dutchman eatin' out of my
+        hand.&hellip; An' say, when we git him in the car an' start
+        back let's scare the daylights out of him."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Thet'd be powerful fine. But
+        how?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You fellers take a hunch from me,"
+        replied Jake. And he strode off up the lane toward the
+        ranch-house.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Jake had been commissioned to acquaint
+        Neuman with the fact that recent developments demanded his
+        immediate presence at "Many Waters." The cowboy really had
+        a liking for the job, though he pretended not to.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Neuman had not yet begun harvesting.
+        There were signs to Jake's experienced eye that the
+        harvest-hands were expected this very day. Jake fancied he
+        knew why the rancher had put off his harvesting. And also
+        he knew that the extra force of harvest-hands would not
+        appear. He was regarded with curiosity by the women members
+        of the Neuman household, and rather enjoyed it. There were
+        several comely girls in evidence. Jake did not look a
+        typical Northwest foreman and laborer. Booted and spurred,
+        with his gun swinging visibly, and his big sombrero and
+        gaudy scarf, he looked exactly what he was, a cowman of the
+        open ranges.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">His inquiries elicited the fact that
+        Neuman was out in the fields, waiting for the
+        harvest-hands.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, if he's expectin' thet outfit of
+        I.W.W.'s he'll never harvest," said Jake, "for some of them
+        is hanged an' the rest run out of the country."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Jake did not wait to see the effect of
+        his news. He strode back toward the fields, and with the
+        eye of a farmer he appraised the barns and corrals, and the
+        fields beyond. Neuman raised much wheat, and enough alfalfa
+        to feed his stock. His place was large and valuable, but
+        not comparable to "Many Waters."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Out in the wheat-fields were engines
+        with steam already up, with combines and threshers and
+        wagons waiting for the word to start. Jake enjoyed the keen
+        curiosity roused by his approach. Neuman strode out from a
+        group of waiting men. He was huge of build, ruddy-faced and
+        bearded, with deep-set eyes.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Are you Neuman?" inquired Jake.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That's me," gruffly came the
+        reply.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm Anderson's foreman. I've been
+        sent over to tell you thet you're wanted pretty bad at
+        'Many Waters.'"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The man stared incredulously.
+        "What?&hellip; Who wants me?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Anderson. An' I reckon there's
+        more&mdash;though I ain't informed."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Neuman rumbled a curse. Amaze
+        dominated him. "Anderson!&hellip; Well, I don't want to see
+        him," he replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I reckon you don't," was the cowboy's
+        cool reply.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The rancher looked him up and down.
+        However familiar his type was to Anderson, it was strange
+        to Neuman. The cowboy breathed a potential force. The least
+        significant thing about his appearance was that swinging
+        gun. He seemed cool and easy, with hard, keen eyes.
+        Neuman's face took a shade off color.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But I'm going to harvest to-day," he
+        said. "I'm late. I've a hundred hands coming."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Nope. You haven't none comin',"
+        asserted Jake.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What!" ejaculated Neuman.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Reckon it's near ten o'clock," said
+        the cowboy. "We run over here powerful fast."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, it's near ten," bellowed Neuman,
+        on the verge of a rage.&hellip; "I haven't harvest-hands
+        coming!&hellip; What's this talk?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, about nine-thirty I seen all
+        your damned I.W.W.'s, except what was shot an' hanged,
+        loaded in a cattlecar an' started out of the country."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A blow could not have hit harder than
+        the cowboy's biting speech. Astonishment and fear shook
+        Neuman before he recovered control of himself.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If it's true, what's that to me?" he
+        bluffed, in hoarse accents.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Neuman, I didn't come to answer
+        questions," said the cowboy, curtly. "My boss jest sent me
+        fer you, an' if you bucked on comin', then I was to say it
+        was your only chance to avoid publicity an' bein' run out
+        of the country."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Neuman was livid of face now and
+        shaking all over his huge frame.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Anderson threatens me!" he shouted.
+        "Anderson suspicions me!&hellip; <i>Gott in
+        Himmel</i>!&hellip; Me he always cheated! An' now he
+        insults&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Say, it ain't healthy to talk like
+        thet about my boss," interrupted Jake, forcibly. "An' we're
+        wastin' time. If you don't go with me we'll be comin'
+        back&mdash;the whole outfit of us!&hellip; Anderson means
+        you're to face his man!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What man?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dorn. Young Dorn, son of old Chris
+        Dorn of the Bend.&hellip; Dorn has some things to tell you
+        thet you won't want made public.&hellip; Anderson's givin'
+        you a square deal. If it wasn't fer thet I'd sling my gun
+        on you!&hellip; Do you git my hunch?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The name of Dorn made a slack figure
+        of the aggressive Neuman.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"All right&mdash;I go," he said,
+        gruffly, and without a word to his men he started off.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Jake followed him. Neuman made a short
+        cut to the gate, thus avoiding a meeting with any of his
+        family. At the road, however, some men observed him and
+        called in surprise, but he waved them back.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Bill, you an' Andy collect yourselves
+        an' give Mr. Neuman a seat," said Jake, as he opened the
+        door to allow the farmer to enter.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The two cowboys gave Neuman the whole
+        of the back seat, and they occupied the smaller side seats.
+        Jake took his place beside the driver.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Burn her up!" was his order.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The speed of the car made conversation
+        impossible until the limits of a town necessitated slowing
+        down. Then the cowboys talked. For all the attention they
+        paid to Neuman, he might as well not have been present.
+        Before long the driver turned into a road that followed a
+        railroad track for several miles and then crossed it to
+        enter a good-sized town. The streets were crowded with
+        people and the car had to be driven slowly. At this
+        juncture Jake suggested.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Let's go down by the bridge."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure," agreed his allies.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then the driver turned down a still
+        more peopled street that sloped a little and evidently
+        overlooked the railroad tracks. Presently they came in
+        sight of a railroad bridge, around which there appeared to
+        be an excited yet awestruck throng. All faces were turned
+        up toward the swaying form of a man hanging by a rope tied
+        to the high span of the bridge.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, Glidden's hangin' there yet,"
+        remarked Jake, cheerfully.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">With a violent start Neuman looked out
+        to see the ghastly placarded figure, and then he sank
+        slowly back in his seat. The cowboys apparently took no
+        notice of him. They seemed to have forgotten his
+        presence.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Funny they'd cut all the other
+        I.W.W.'s down an' leave Glidden hangin' there," observed
+        Bill.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Them vigilantes sure did it up
+        brown," added Andy. "I was dyin' to join the band. But they
+        didn't ask me."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Nor me," replied Jake, regretfully.
+        "An' I can't understand why, onless it was they was afeared
+        I couldn't keep a secret."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Who is them vigilantes, anyhow?"
+        asked Bill, curiously.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, I reckon nobody knows. But I
+        seen a thousand armed men this mornin'. They sure looked
+        bad. You ought to have seen them poke the I.W.W.'s with
+        cocked guns."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Was any one shot?" queried Andy.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Not in the daytime. Nobody killed by
+        this Citizens' Protective League, as they call themselves.
+        They just rounded up all the suspicious men an' herded them
+        on to thet cattle-train an' carried them off. It was at
+        night when the vigilantes worked&mdash;masked an' secret
+        an' sure bloody. Jest like the old vigilante days! &hellip;
+        An' you can gamble they ain't through yet."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Uncle Sam won't need to send any
+        soldiers here."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, I should smile not. Thet'd be a
+        disgrace to the Northwest. It was a bad time fer the I.W.W.
+        to try any tricks on us."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Jake shook his lean head and his jaw
+        bulged. He might have been haranguing, cowboy-like, for the
+        benefit of the man they feigned not to notice, but it was
+        plain, nevertheless, that he was angry.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What gits me wuss 'n them I.W.W.'s is
+        the skunks thet give Uncle Sam the double-cross," said
+        Andy, with dark face. "I'll stand fer any man an' respect
+        him if he's aboveboard an' makes his fight in the open. But
+        them coyotes thet live off the land an' pretend to be
+        American when they ain't&mdash;they make me pisen mad."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I heerd the vigilantes has marked men
+        like thet," observed Bill.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll give you a hunch, fellers,"
+        replied Jake, grimly. "By Gawd! the West won't stand fer
+        traitors!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">All the way to "Many Waters," where it
+        was possible to talk and be heard, the cowboys continued in
+        like strain. And not until the driver halted the car before
+        Anderson's door did they manifest any awareness of
+        Neuman.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Git out an' come in," said Jake to
+        the pallid, sweating rancher.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He led Neuman into the hall and
+        knocked upon Anderson's study door. It was opened by
+        Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, hyar we are," announced Jake,
+        and his very nonchalance attested to pride.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson was standing beside his desk.
+        He started, and his hand flashed back significantly as he
+        sighted his rival and enemy.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No gun-play, boss, was your orders,"
+        said Jake. "An' Neuman ain't packin' no gun."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was plain that Anderson made a
+        great effort at restraint. But he failed. And perhaps the
+        realization that he could not kill this man liberated his
+        passion. Then the two big ranchers faced each
+        other&mdash;Neuman livid and shaking, Anderson black as a
+        thunder-cloud.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Neuman, you hatched up a plot with
+        Glidden to kill me," said Anderson, bitterly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Neuman, in hoarse, brief answer,
+        denied it.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure! Deny it. What do we care?
+        &hellip; We've got you, Neuman," burst out Anderson, his
+        heavy voice ringing with passion. "But it's not your
+        low-down plot thet's r'iled me. There's been a good many
+        men who've tried to do away with me. I've outplayed you in
+        many a deal. So your personal hate for me doesn't count.
+        I'm sore&mdash;an' you an' me can't live in the same place,
+        because you're a damned traitor. You've lived here for
+        twenty years. You've grown rich off the country. An' you'd
+        sell us to your rotten Germany. What I think of you for
+        that I'm goin' to tell you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson paused to take a deep breath.
+        Then he began to curse Neuman. All the rough years of his
+        frontier life, as well as the quieter ones of his ranching
+        days, found expression in the swift, thunderous roll of his
+        terrible scorn. Every vile name that had ever been used by
+        cowboy, outlaw, gambler, leaped to Anderson's stinging
+        tongue. All the keen, hard epithets common to the modern
+        day he flung into Neuman's face. And he ended with a
+        profanity that was as individual in character as its
+        delivery was intense.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm callin' you for my own relief,"
+        he concluded, "an' not that I expect to get under your
+        hide."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then he paused. He wiped the beaded
+        drops from his forehead, and he coughed and shook himself.
+        His big fists unclosed. Passion gave place to dignity.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Neuman, it's a pity you an' men like
+        you can't see the truth. That's the mystery to me&mdash;why
+        any one who had spent half a lifetime an' prospered here in
+        our happy an' beautiful country could ever hate it. I never
+        will understand that. But I do understand that America will
+        never harbor such men for long. You have your reasons, I
+        reckon. An' no doubt you think you're justified. That's the
+        tragedy. You run off from hard-ruled Germany. You will not
+        live there of your own choice. You succeed here an' live in
+        peace an' plenty.&hellip; An', by God! you take up with a
+        lot of foreign riffraff an' double-cross the people you owe
+        so much!&hellip; What's wrong with your mind?&hellip; Think
+        it over.&hellip; An' that's the last word I have for
+        you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson, turning to his desk, took up
+        a cigar and lighted it. He was calm again. There was really
+        sadness where his face had shown only fury. Then he
+        addressed Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt, it's up to you now," he said.
+        "As my superintendent an' some-day partner, what you'll say
+        goes with me.&hellip; I don't know what bein' square would
+        mean in relation to this man."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson sat down heavily in his desk
+        chair and his face became obscured in cigar smoke.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Neuman, do you recognize me?" asked
+        Dorn, with his flashing eyes on the rancher.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No," replied Neuman.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm Chris Dorn's son. My father died
+        a few days ago. He overtaxed his heart fighting fire in the
+        wheat &hellip; Fire set by I.W.W. men. Glidden's men!
+        &hellip; They burned our wheat. Ruined us!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Neuman showed shock at the news, at
+        the sudden death of an old friend, but he did not express
+        himself in words.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Do you deny implication in Glidden's
+        plot to kill Anderson?" demanded Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes," replied Neuman.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well, you're a liar!" retorted Dorn.
+        "I saw you with Glidden and my father. I followed you at
+        Wheatly&mdash;out along the railroad tracks. I slipped up
+        and heard the plot. It was I who snatched the money from my
+        father."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Neuman's nerve was gone, but with his
+        stupid and stubborn process of thought he still denied,
+        stuttering incoherently.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Glidden has been hanged," went on
+        Dorn. "A vigilante band has been organized here in the
+        valley. Men of your known sympathy will not be safe,
+        irrespective of your plot against Anderson. But as to that,
+        publicity alone will be enough to ruin you.&hellip;
+        Americans of the West will not tolerate traitors.&hellip;
+        Now the question you've got to decide is this. Will you
+        take the risks or will you sell out and leave the
+        country?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll sell out," replied Neuman.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What price do you put on your ranch
+        as it stands?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"One hundred thousand dollars."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn turned to Anderson and asked, "Is
+        it worth that much?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No. Seventy-five thousand would be a
+        big price," replied the rancher.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Neuman, we will give you seventy-five
+        thousand for your holdings. Do you accept?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I have no choice," replied Neuman,
+        sullenly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Choice!" exclaimed Dorn. "Yes, you
+        have. And you're not being cheated. I've stated facts. You
+        are done in this valley. You're ruined <i>now!</i> And
+        Glidden's fate stares you in the face.&hellip; Will you sell
+        and leave the country?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes," came the deep reply, wrenched
+        from a stubborn breast.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Go draw up your deeds, then notify
+        us," said Dorn, with finality.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Jake opened the door. Stolidly and
+        slowly Neuman went out, precisely as he had entered, like a
+        huge man in conflict with unintelligible thoughts.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Send him home in the car," called
+        Anderson.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">For two fleeting days Lenore Anderson
+        was happy when she forgot, miserable when she remembered.
+        Then the third morning dawned.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">At the breakfast-table her father had
+        said, cheerily, to Dorn: "Better take off your coat an'
+        come out to the fields. We've got some job to harvest that
+        wheat with only half-force.&hellip; But, by George! my
+        trouble's over."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn looked suddenly blank, as if
+        Anderson's cheery words had recalled him to the realities
+        of life. He made an incoherent excuse and left the
+        table.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Ah-huh!" Anderson's characteristic
+        exclamation might have meant little or much. "Lenore, what
+        ails the boy?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Nothing that I know of. He has been
+        as&mdash;as happy as I am," she replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Then it's all settled?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Father, I&mdash;I&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kathleen's high, shrill, gleeful voice
+        cut in: "Sure it's settled! Look at Lenorry blush!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore indeed felt the blood stinging
+        face and neck. Nevertheless, she laughed.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Come into my room," said
+        Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She followed him there, and as he
+        closed the door she answered his questioning look by
+        running into his arms and hiding her face.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, I'll be dog-goned!" the rancher
+        ejaculated, with emotion. He held her and patted her
+        shoulder with his big hand. "Tell me, Lenore."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"There's little to tell," she replied,
+        softly. "I love him&mdash;and he loves me so&mdash;so well
+        that I've been madly happy&mdash;in spite
+        of&mdash;of&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Is that all?" asked Anderson,
+        dubiously.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Is not that enough?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But Dorn's lovin' you so well doesn't
+        say he'll not go to war."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">And it was then that forgotten
+        bitterness returned to poison Lenore's cup of joy.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Ah!"&hellip; she whispered.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Good Lord! Lenore, you don't mean you
+        an' Dorn have been alone all the time these few
+        days&mdash;an' you haven't settled that war question?"
+        queried Anderson, in amaze.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes.&hellip; How strange!&hellip; But
+        since&mdash;well, since something
+        happened&mdash;we&mdash;we forgot," she replied,
+        dreamily.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wal, go back to it," said Anderson,
+        forcibly. "I want Dorn to help me.&hellip; Why, he's a
+        wonder!&hellip; He's saved the situation for us here in the
+        valley. Every rancher I know is praisin' him high. An' he
+        sure treated Neuman square. An' here I am with three big
+        wheat-ranches on my hands!&hellip; Lenore, you've got to
+        keep him home."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dad!&hellip; I&mdash;I could not!"
+        replied Lenore. She was strangely realizing an indefinable
+        change in herself. "I can't try to keep him from going to
+        war. I never thought of that since&mdash;since we confessed
+        our love.&hellip; But it's made some difference.&hellip;
+        It'll kill me, I think, to let him go&mdash;but I'd die
+        before I'd ask him to stay home."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Ah-huh!" sighed Anderson, and,
+        releasing her, he began to pace the room. "I don't begin to
+        understand you, girl. But I respect your feelin's. It's a
+        hell of a muddle!&hellip; I'd forgotten the war myself while
+        chasin' off them I.W.W.'s.&hellip; But this war has
+        <i>got</i> to be reckoned with!&hellip; Send Dorn to
+        me!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore found Dorn playing with
+        Kathleen. These two had become as brother and sister.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt, dad wants to see you," said
+        Lenore seriously.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn looked startled, and the light of
+        fun on his face changed to a sober concern.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You told him?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, Kurt, I told him what little I
+        had to tell."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He gave her a strange glance and then
+        slowly went toward her father's study. Lenore made a futile
+        attempt to be patient. She heard her father's deep voice,
+        full and earnest, and she heard Dorn's quick, passionate
+        response. She wondered what this interview meant. Anderson
+        was not one to give up easily. He had set his heart upon
+        holding this capable young man in the great interests of
+        the wheat business. Lenore could not understand why she was
+        not praying that he be successful. But she was not. It was
+        inexplicable and puzzling&mdash;this change in
+        her&mdash;this end of her selfishness. Yet she shrank in
+        terror from an impinging sacrifice. She thrust the thought
+        from her with passionate physical gesture and with stern
+        effort of will.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn was closeted with her father for
+        over an hour. When he came out he was white, but apparently
+        composed. Lenore had never seen his eyes so piercing as
+        when they rested upon her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Whew!" he exclaimed, and wiped his
+        face. "Your father has my poor old dad&mdash;what does
+        Kathleen say?&mdash;skinned to a frazzle!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What did he say?" asked Lenore,
+        anxiously.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"A lot&mdash;and just as if I didn't
+        know it all better than he knows," replied Dorn, sadly.
+        "The importance of wheat; his three ranches and nobody to
+        run them; his growing years; my future and a great
+        opportunity as one of the big wheat men of the Northwest;
+        the present need of the government; his only son gone to
+        war, which was enough for his family.&hellip; And then he
+        spoke of you&mdash;heiress to 'Many Waters'&mdash;what a
+        splendid, noble girl you were&mdash;like your mother! What
+        a shame to ruin your happiness&mdash;your future!&hellip; He
+        said you'd make the sweetest of wives&mdash;the truest of
+        mothers!&hellip; Oh, my God!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore turned away her face, shocked
+        to her heart by his tragic passion. Dorn was silent for
+        what seemed a long time.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"And&mdash;then he cussed
+        me&mdash;hard&mdash;as no doubt I deserved," added
+        Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But&mdash;what did you say?" she
+        whispered.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I said a lot, too," replied Dorn,
+        remorsefully.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Did&mdash;did you&mdash;?" began
+        Lenore, and broke off, unable to finish.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I arrived&mdash;to where I am
+        now&mdash;pretty dizzy," he responded, with a smile that
+        was both radiant and sorrowful. He took her hands and held
+        them close. "Lenore!&hellip; if I come home from the
+        war&mdash;still with my arms and
+        legs&mdash;whole&mdash;will you marry me?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Only come home <i>alive</i>, and no
+        matter what you lose, yes!&mdash;yes!" she whispered,
+        brokenly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But it's a conditional proposal,
+        Lenore," he insisted. "You must never marry half a
+        man."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I will marry <i>you</i>!" she cried,
+        passionately.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It seemed to her that she loved him
+        all the more, every moment, even though he made it so hard
+        for her. Then through blurred, dim eyes she saw him take
+        something from his pocket and felt him put a ring on her
+        finger.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It fits! Isn't that lucky," he said,
+        softly. "My mother's ring, Lenore.&hellip;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He kissed her hand.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kathleen was standing near them,
+        open-eyed and open-mouthed, in an ecstasy of
+        realization.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kathleen, your sister has promised to
+        marry me&mdash;when I come from the war," said Dorn to the
+        child.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She squealed with delight, and,
+        manifestly surrendering to a long-considered temptation,
+        she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him
+        close.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It's perfectly grand!" she cried.
+        "But what a chump you are for going at all&mdash;when you
+        could marry Lenorry!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">That was Kathleen's point of view, and
+        it must have coincided somewhat with Mr. Anderson's.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kathleen, you wouldn't have me be a
+        slacker?" asked Dorn, gently.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No. But we let Jim go," was her
+        argument.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn kissed her, then turned to
+        Lenore. "Let's go out to the fields."</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was not a long walk to the alfalfa,
+        but by the time she got there Lenore's impending woe was as
+        if it had never been. Dorn seemed strangely gay and
+        unusually demonstrative; apparently he forgot the war-cloud
+        in the joy of the hour. That they were walking in the open
+        seemed not to matter to him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt, some one will see you," Lenore
+        remonstrated.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You're more beautiful than ever
+        to-day," he said, by way of answer, and tried to block her
+        way.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore dodged and ran. She was fleet,
+        and eluded him down the lane, across the cut field, to a
+        huge square stack of baled alfalfa. But he caught her just
+        as she got behind its welcome covert. Lenore was far less
+        afraid of him than of laughing eyes. Breathless, she backed
+        up against the stack.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You're&mdash;a&mdash;cannibal!" she
+        panted. But she did not make much resistance.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You're&mdash;a goddess!" he
+        replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Me!&hellip; Of what?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why, of 'Many Waters'!&hellip; Goddess
+        of wheat!&hellip; The sweet, waving wheat, rich and
+        golden&mdash;the very spirit of life!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If anybody sees you&mdash;mauling
+        me&mdash;this way&mdash;I'll not seem a goddess to
+        him.&hellip; My hair is down&mdash;my waist&mdash;Oh,
+        Kurt!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Yet it did not very much matter how
+        she looked or what happened. Beyond all was the assurance
+        of her dearness to him. Suddenly she darted away from him
+        again. Her heart swelled, her spirit soared, her feet were
+        buoyant and swift. She ran into the uncut alfalfa. It was
+        thick and high, tangling round her feet. Here her progress
+        was retarded. Dorn caught up with her. His strong hands on
+        her shoulders felt masterful, and the sweet terror they
+        inspired made her struggle to get away.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You shall&mdash;not&mdash;hold me!"
+        she cried.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But I will. You must be
+        taught&mdash;not to run," he said, and wrapped her tightly
+        in his arms.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Now surrender your kisses
+        meekly!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I&mdash;surrender!&hellip; But, Kurt,
+        someone will see&hellip; Dear, we'll go
+        back&mdash;or&mdash;somewhere&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Who can see us here but the birds?"
+        he said, and the strong hands held her fast. "You will kiss
+        me&mdash;enough&mdash;right now&mdash;even if the whole
+        world&mdash;looked on!" he said, ringingly. "Lenore, my
+        soul!&hellip; Lenore, I love you!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He would not be denied. And if she had
+        any desire to deny him it was lost in the moment. She
+        clasped his neck and gave him kiss for kiss.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">But her surrender made him think of
+        her. She felt his effort to let her go.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore's heart felt too big for her
+        breast. It hurt. She clung to his hand and they walked on
+        across the field and across a brook, up the slope to one of
+        Lenore's favorite seats. And there she wanted to rest. She
+        smoothed her hair and brushed her dress, aware of how he
+        watched her, with his heart in his eyes.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Had there ever in all the years of the
+        life of the earth been so perfect a day? How dazzling the
+        sun! What heavenly blue the sky! And all beneath so gold,
+        so green! A lark caroled over Lenore's head and a quail
+        whistled in the brush below. The brook babbled and gurgled
+        and murmured along, happy under the open sky. And a soft
+        breeze brought the low roar of the harvest fields and the
+        scent of wheat and dust and straw.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Life seemed so stingingly full, so
+        poignant, so immeasurably worth living, so blessed with
+        beauty and richness and fruitfulness.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, your eyes are
+        windows&mdash;and I can see into your soul. I can
+        read&mdash;and first I'm uplifted and then I'm sad."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was he who talked and she who
+        listened. This glorious day would be her strength when
+        the&mdash;Ah! but she would not complete a single bitter
+        thought.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She led him away, up the slope, across
+        the barley-field, now cut and harvested, to the great,
+        swelling golden spaces of wheat. Far below, the engines and
+        harvesters were humming. Here the wheat waved and rustled
+        in the wind. It was as high as Lenore's head.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It's fine wheat," observed Dorn. "But
+        the wheat of my desert hills was richer, more golden, and
+        higher than this."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No regrets to-day!" murmured Lenore,
+        leaning to him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">There was magic in those
+        words&mdash;the same enchantment that made the hours fly.
+        She led him, at will, here and there along the
+        rustling-bordered lanes. From afar they watched the busy
+        harvest scene, with eyes that lingered long on a great,
+        glittering combine with its thirty-two horses plodding
+        along.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I can drive them. Thirty-two horses!"
+        she asserted, proudly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes. Will you come? I will show
+        you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It is a temptation," he said, with a
+        sigh. "But there are eyes there. They would break the
+        spell."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Who's talking about eyes now?" she
+        cried.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">They spent the remainder of that day
+        on the windy wheat-slope, high up, alone, with the beauty
+        and richness of "Many Waters" beneath them. And when the
+        sun sent its last ruddy and gold rays over the western
+        hills, and the weary harvesters plodded homeward, Lenore
+        still lingered, loath to break the spell. For on the way
+        home, she divined, he would tell her he was soon to
+        leave.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Sunset and evening star! Their beauty
+        and serenity pervaded Lenore's soul. Surely there was a
+        life somewhere else, beyond in that infinite space. And the
+        defeat of earthly dreams was endurable.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">They walked back down the wheat lanes
+        hand in hand, as dusk shadowed the valley; and when they
+        reached the house he told her gently that he must go.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But&mdash;you will stay to-night?"
+        she whispered.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No. It's all arranged," he replied,
+        thickly. "They're to drive me over&mdash;my train's due at
+        eight.&hellip; I've kept it&mdash;till the last few
+        minutes."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">They went in together.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We're too late for dinner," said
+        Lenore, but she was not thinking of that, and she paused
+        with head bent. "I&mdash;I want to say good-by to
+        you&mdash;here." She pointed to the dim, curtained entrance
+        of the living-room.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'd like that, too," he replied.
+        "I'll go up and get my bag. Wait."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore slowly stepped to that shadowed
+        spot beyond the curtains where she had told her love to
+        Dorn; and there she stood, praying and fighting for
+        strength to let him go, for power to conceal her pain. The
+        one great thing she could do was to show him that she would
+        not stand in the way of his duty to himself. She realized
+        then that if he had told her sooner, if he were going to
+        remain one more hour at "Many Waters," she would break down
+        and beseech him not to leave her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She saw him come down-stairs with his
+        small hand-bag, which he set down. His face was white. His
+        eyes burned. But her woman's love made her divine that this
+        was not a shock to his soul, as it was to hers, but
+        stimulation&mdash;a man's strange spiritual accounting to
+        his fellow-men.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He went first into the dining-room,
+        and Lenore heard her mother's and sisters' voices in reply
+        to his. Presently he came out to enter her father's study.
+        Lenore listened, but heard no sound there. Outside, a
+        motor-car creaked and hummed by the window, to stop by the
+        side porch. Then the door of her father's study opened and
+        closed, and Dorn came to where she was standing.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore did precisely as she had done a
+        few nights before, when she had changed the world for him.
+        But, following her kiss, there was a terrible instant when,
+        with her arms around his neck, she went blind at the
+        realization of loss. She held to him with a savage
+        intensity of possession. It was like giving up life. She
+        knew then, as never before, that she had the power to keep
+        him at her side. But a thought saved her from exerting
+        it&mdash;the thought that she could not make him less than
+        other men&mdash;and so she conquered.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, I want you to think
+        always&mdash;how you loved me," he said.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Loved you? Oh, my boy! It seems your
+        lot has been hard. You've toiled&mdash;you've lost
+        all&mdash;and now&hellip;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Listen," he interrupted, and she had
+        never heard his voice like that. "The thousands of boys who
+        go to fight regard it a duty. For our country!&hellip; I had
+        that, but more.&hellip; My father was German&hellip; and he
+        was a traitor. The horror for me is that I hate what is
+        German in <i>me</i>.&hellip; I will have to kill that. But
+        you've helped me.&hellip; I know I'm American. I'll do my
+        duty, whatever it is. I would have gone to war only a beast
+        with my soul killed before I ever got there.&hellip; With no
+        hope&mdash;no possibility of return!&hellip; But you love
+        me!&hellip; Can't you see&mdash;how great the
+        difference?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore understood and felt it in his
+        happiness. "Yes, Kurt, I know.&hellip; Thank God, I've
+        helped you.&hellip; I want you to go. I'll pray always. I
+        believe you will come back to me.&hellip; Life could not be
+        so utterly cruel&hellip;" She broke off.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Life can't rob me now&mdash;nor
+        death," he cried, in exaltation. "I have your love. Your
+        face will always be with me&mdash;as now&mdash;lovely and
+        brave!&hellip; Not a tear!&hellip; And only that sweet smile
+        like an angel's!&hellip; Oh, Lenore, what a girl you
+        are!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Say good-by&mdash;and go," she
+        faltered. Another moment would see her weaken.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, I must hurry." His voice was a
+        whisper&mdash;almost gone. He drew a deep breath.
+        "Lenore&mdash;my promised wife&mdash;my star for all the
+        black nights&mdash;God bless you&mdash;keep you!&hellip;
+        Good-by!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She spent all her strength in her
+        embrace, all her soul in the passion of her farewell kiss.
+        Then she stood alone, tottering, sinking. The swift steps,
+        now heavy and uneven, passed out of the hall&mdash;the door
+        closed&mdash;the motor-car creaked and rolled
+        away&mdash;the droning hum ceased.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">For a moment of despairing shock,
+        before the storm broke, Lenore blindly wavered there,
+        unable to move from the spot that had seen the beginning
+        and the end of her brief hour of love. Then she summoned
+        strength to drag herself to her room, to lock her door.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Alone! In the merciful darkness and
+        silence and loneliness!&hellip; She need not lie nor play
+        false nor fool herself here. She had let him go!
+        Inconceivable and monstrous truth! For what?&hellip; It was
+        not now with her, that deceiving spirit which had made her
+        brave. But she was a woman. She fell upon her knees beside
+        her bed, shuddering.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">That moment was the beginning of her
+        sacrifice, the sacrifice she shared in common now with
+        thousands of other women. Before she had pitied; now she
+        suffered. And all that was sweet, loving, noble, and
+        motherly&mdash;all that was womanly&mdash;rose to meet the
+        stretch of gray future, with its endless suspense and
+        torturing fear, its face of courage for the light of day,
+        its despair for the lonely night, and its vague faith in
+        the lessons of life, its possible and sustaining and
+        eternal hope of God.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Camp&mdash;, <i>October</i>&mdash;.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Dear Sister Lenore,&mdash;It's been
+        long since I wrote you. I'm sorry, dear. But I haven't just
+        been in shape to write. Have been transferred to a
+        training-camp not far from New York. I don't like it. The
+        air is raw, penetrating, different from our high mountain
+        air in the West. So many gray, gloomy days! And
+        wet&mdash;why you never saw a rain in Washington! Fine
+        bunch of boys, though. We get up in the morning at 4:30.
+        Sweep the streets of the camp! I'm glad to get up and
+        sweep, for I'm near frozen long before daylight. Yesterday
+        I peeled potatoes till my hands were cramped. Nine million
+        spuds, I guess! I'm wearing citizen's clothes&mdash;too
+        thin, by gosh!&mdash;and sleeping in a tent, on a canvas
+        cot, with one blanket. Wouldn't care a&mdash;(scoose me,
+        sis)&mdash;I wouldn't mind if I had a real gun, and some
+        real fighting to look forward to. Some life, I don't think!
+        But I meant to tell you why I'm here.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">You remember how I always took to
+        cowboys. Well, I got chummy with a big cow puncher from
+        Montana. His name was Andersen. Isn't that queer? His name
+        same as mine except for the last e where I have o. He's a
+        Swede or Norwegian. True-blue American? Well, I should
+        smile. Like all cowboys! He's six feet four, broad as a
+        door, with a flat head of an Indian, and a huge, bulging
+        chin. Not real handsome, but say! he's one of the finest
+        fellows that ever lived. We call him Montana.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">There were a lot of rough-necks in our
+        outfit, and right away I got in bad. You know I never was
+        much on holding my temper. Anyway, I got licked powerful
+        fine, as dad would say, and I'd been all beaten up but for
+        Montana. That made us two fast friends, and sure some
+        enemies, you bet.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">We had the tough luck to run into six
+        of the rough-necks, just outside of the little town, where
+        they'd been drinking. I never heard the name of one of that
+        outfit. We weren't acquainted at all. Strange how they
+        changed my soldier career, right at the start! This day,
+        when we met them, they got fresh, and of course I had to
+        start something. I soaked that rough-neck, sis, and don't
+        you forget it. Well, it was a fight, sure. I got laid
+        out&mdash;not knocked out, for I could see&mdash;but I
+        wasn't any help to pard Montana. It looked as if he didn't
+        need any. The rough-necks jumped him. Then, one after
+        another, he piled them up in the road. Just a
+        swing&mdash;and down went each one&mdash;cold. But the
+        fellow I hit came to and, grabbing up a pick-handle, with
+        all his might he soaked Montana over the head. What an
+        awful crack! Montana went down, and there was blood
+        everywhere.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">They took Montana to the hospital,
+        sewed up his head. It wasn't long before he seemed all
+        right again, but he told me sometimes he felt queer. Then
+        they put us on a troop-train, with boys from California and
+        all over, and we came East. I haven't seen any of those
+        other Western boys, though, since we got here.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">One day, without any warning, Montana
+        keeled over, down and out. Paralysis! They took him to a
+        hospital in New York. No hope, the doctors said, and he was
+        getting worse all the time. But some New York surgeon
+        advised operation, anyway. So they opened that healed-over
+        place in his head, where the pick-handle hit&mdash;and what
+        do you think they found? A splinter off that pick-handle,
+        stuck two inches under his skull, in his brain! They took
+        it out. Every day they expected Montana to die. But he
+        didn't. But he <i>will</i> die. I went over to see him.
+        He's unconscious part of the time&mdash;crazy the rest. No
+        part of his right side moves! It broke me all up. Why
+        couldn't that soak he got have been on the Kaiser's
+        head?</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">I tell you, Lenore, a fellow has his
+        eye teeth cut in this getting ready to go to war. It makes
+        me sick. I enlisted to fight, not to be chased into a
+        climate that doesn't agree with me&mdash;not to sweep roads
+        and juggle a wooden gun. There are a lot of things, but
+        say! I've got to cut out that kind of talk.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">I feel almost as far away from you all
+        as if I were in China. But I'm nearer France! I hope you're
+        well and standing pat, Lenore. Remember, you're dad's white
+        hope. I was the black sheep, you know. Tell him I don't
+        regard my transfer as a disgrace. The officers didn't and
+        he needn't. Give my love to mother and the girls. Tell them
+        not to worry. Maybe the war will be over before&mdash;I'll
+        write you often now, so cheer up.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Your loving brother,</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Jim.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal"
+           style='margin-top:24.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:.4in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'>
+        Camp&mdash;, <i>October</i>&mdash;.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">My Dearest Lenore,&mdash;If my writing
+        is not very legible it is because my hand shakes when I
+        begin this sweet and sacred privilege of writing to my
+        promised wife. My other letter was short, and this is the
+        second in the weeks since I left you. What an endless time!
+        You must understand and forgive me for not writing oftener
+        and for not giving you definite address.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">I did not want to be in the Western
+        regiment, for reasons hard to understand. I enlisted in New
+        York and am trying hard to get into the Rainbow Division,
+        with some hope of success. There is nothing to me in being
+        a member of a crack regiment, but it seems that this one
+        will see action first of all American units. I don't want
+        to be an officer, either.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">How will it be possible for me to write
+        you as I want to&mdash;letters that will be free of the
+        plague of myself&mdash;letters that you can treasure if I
+        never come back? Sleeping and waking, I never forget the
+        wonderful truth of your love for me. It did not seem real
+        when I was with you, but, now that we are separated, I know
+        that it is real. Mostly my mind contains only two
+        things&mdash;this constant memory of you, and that other
+        terrible thing of which I will not speak. All else that I
+        think or do seems to be mechanical.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">The work, the training, is not
+        difficult for me, though so many boys find it desperately
+        hard. You know I followed a plow, and that is real toil.
+        Right now I see the brown fallow hills and the great
+        squares of gold. But visions or thoughts of home are rare.
+        That is well, for they hurt like a stab. I cannot think now
+        of a single thing connected with my training here that I
+        want to tell you. Yet some things I must tell. For
+        instance, we have different instructors, and naturally some
+        are more forcible than others. We have one at whom the boys
+        laugh. He tickles them. They like him. But he is an ordeal
+        for me. The reason is that in our first bayonet practice,
+        when we rushed and thrust a stuffed bag, he made us yell,
+        <i>"God damn you, German&mdash;die!"</i> I don't imagine
+        this to be general practice in army exercises, but the fact
+        is he started us that way. I can't forget. When I begin to
+        charge with a bayonet those words leap silently, but
+        terribly, to my lips. Think of this as reality,
+        Lenore&mdash;a sad and incomprehensible truth in 1917. All
+        in me that is spiritual, reasonable, all that was once
+        hopeful, revolts at this actuality and its meaning. But
+        there is another side, that dark one, which revels in
+        anticipation. It is the cave-man in me, hiding by night,
+        waiting with a bludgeon to slay. I am beginning to be
+        struck by the gradual change in my comrades. I fancied that
+        I alone had suffered a retrogression. I have a deep
+        consciousness of baseness that is going to keep me aloof
+        from them. I seem to be alone with my own soul. Yet I seem
+        to be abnormally keen to impressions. I feel what is going
+        on in the soldiers' minds, and it shocks me, set me
+        wondering, forces me to doubt myself. I keep saying it must
+        be my peculiar way of looking at things.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Lenore, I remember your appeal to me.
+        Shall I ever forget your sweet face&mdash;your sad eyes
+        when you bade me hope in God?&mdash;I am trying, but I do
+        not see God yet. Perhaps that is because of my
+        morbidness&mdash;my limitations. Perhaps I will face him
+        over there, when I go down into the Valley of the Shadow.
+        One thing, however, I do begin to see is that there is a
+        divinity in men. Slowly something divine is revealing
+        itself to me. To give up work, property, friends, sister,
+        mother, home, sweetheart, to sacrifice all and go out to
+        fight for country, for honor&mdash;that indeed is divine.
+        It is beautiful. It inspires a man and lifts his head. But,
+        alas! if he is a thinking man, when he comes in contact
+        with the actual physical preparation for war, he finds that
+        the divinity was the hour of his sacrifice and that, to
+        become a good soldier, he must change, forget, grow hard,
+        strong, merciless, brutal, humorous, and callous, all of
+        which is to say base. I see boys who are tender-hearted,
+        who love life, who were born sufferers, who cannot inflict
+        pain! How many silent cries of protest, of wonder, of
+        agony, must go up in the night over this camp! The sum of
+        them would be monstrous. The sound of them, if voiced,
+        would be a clarion blast to the world. It is sacrifice that
+        is divine, and not the making of an efficient soldier.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">I shall write you endlessly. The action
+        of writing relieves me. I feel less burdened now. Sometimes
+        I cannot bear the burden of all this unintelligible
+        consciousness. My mind is not large enough. Sometimes I
+        feel that I am going to be every soldier and every
+        enemy&mdash;each one in his strife or his drifting or his
+        agony or his death. But despite that feeling I seem alone
+        in a horde. I make no friends. I have no way to pass my
+        leisure but writing. I can hardly read at all. When off
+        duty the boys amuse themselves in a hundred
+        ways&mdash;going to town, the theaters, and movies; chasing
+        the girls (especially that to judge by their talk); play;
+        boxing; games; and I am sorry to add, many of them gamble
+        and drink. But I cannot do any of these things. I cannot
+        forget what I am here for. I cannot forget that I am
+        training to kill men. Never do I forget that soon I will
+        face death. What a terrible, strange, vague thrill that
+        sends shivering over me! Amusement and forgetfulness are
+        past for Kurt Dorn. I am concerned with my soul. I am
+        fighting that black passion which makes of me a sleepless
+        watcher and thinker.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">If this war only lets me live long
+        enough to understand its meaning! Perhaps that meaning will
+        be the meaning of life, in which case I am longing for the
+        unattainable. But underneath it all must be a colossal
+        movement of evolution, of spiritual growth&mdash;or of
+        retrogression. Who knows? When I ask myself what I am going
+        to fight for, I answer&mdash;for my country, as a
+        patriot&mdash;for my hate, as an individual. My time is
+        almost up. I go on duty. The rain is roaring on the thin
+        roof. How it rains in this East! Whole days and nights it
+        pours. I cannot help but think of my desert hills, always
+        so barren and yellow, with the dust-clouds whirling. One
+        day of this rain, useless and wasted here, would have saved
+        the Bend crop of wheat. Nature is almost as inscrutable as
+        God.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Lenore, good-by for this time. Think of
+        me, but not as lonely or unhappy or uncomfortable out
+        there in the cold, raw, black, wet night. I will be
+        neither. Some one&mdash;a spirit&mdash;will keep beside me
+        as I step the beat. I have put unhappiness behind me. And
+        no rain or mud or chill will ever feaze me.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Yours with love,</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Kurt Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal"
+           style='margin-top:24.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:.4in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'>
+        Camp&mdash;, <i>October</i>&mdash;.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Dear Sister Lenore,&mdash;After that
+        little letter of yours I could do nothing more than look up
+        another pin like the one I sent Kathleen. I inclose it.
+        Hope you will wear it.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">I'm very curious to see what your
+        package contains. It hasn't arrived yet. All the mail comes
+        late. That makes the boys sore.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">The weather hasn't been so wet lately
+        as when I last wrote, but it's colder. Believe me these
+        tents are not steam-heated! But we grin and try to look
+        happy. It's not the most cheerful thing to hear the old
+        call in the morning and tumble out in the cold gray dawn.
+        Say! I've got two blankets now. <i>Two!</i> Just time for
+        mess, then we hike down the road. I'm in for artillery now,
+        I guess. The air service really fascinated me, but you
+        can't have what you want in this business.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ"><i>Saturday</i>.&mdash;This letter will
+        be in sections. No use sending you a little dab of news now
+        and then. I'll write when I can, and mail when the letter
+        assumes real proportions. Your package arrived and I was
+        delighted. I think I slept better last night on your little
+        pillow than any night since we were called out. My pillow
+        before was your sleeveless jersey.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">It's after three A.M. and I'm on
+        guard&mdash;that is, battery guard, and I have to be up
+        from midnight to reveille, not on a post, but in my tent,
+        so that if any of my men (I'm a corporal now), whom I
+        relieve every two hours, get into trouble they can call me.
+        Non-coms. go on guard once in six days, so about every
+        sixth night I get along with no sleep.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">We have been ordered to do away with
+        all personal property except shaving outfit and absolutely
+        necessary articles. We can't keep a foot-locker, trunk,
+        valise, or even an ordinary soap-box in our tents.
+        Everything must be put in one barrack bag, a canvas sack
+        just like a laundry-bag.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Thank the girls for the silk
+        handkerchief and candy they sent. I sure have the sweetest
+        sisters of any boy I know. I never appreciated them when I
+        had them. I'm learning bitter truths these days. And tell
+        mother I'll write her soon. Thank her for the pajamas and
+        the napkins. Tell her I'm sorry a soldier has no use for
+        either.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">This morning I did my washing of the
+        past two weeks, and I was so busy that I didn't hear the
+        bugle blow, and thereby got on the "black book." Which
+        means that I won't get any time off soon.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Before I forget, Lenore, let me tell
+        you that I've taken ten thousand dollars' life insurance
+        from the government, in your favor as beneficiary. This
+        costs me only about six and a half dollars per month, and
+        in case of my death&mdash;Well, I'm a soldier, now. Please
+        tell Rose I've taken a fifty-dollar Liberty Bond of the new
+        issue for her. This I'm paying at the rate of five dollars
+        per month and it will be delivered to her at the end of ten
+        months. Both of these, of course, I'm paying out of my
+        government pay as a soldier. The money dad sent me I spent
+        like water, lent to the boys, threw away. Tell him not to
+        send me any more. Tell him the time has come for Jim
+        Anderson to make good. I've a rich dad and he's the best
+        dad any harum-scarum boy ever had. I'm going to prove more
+        than one thing this trip.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">We hear so many rumors, and none of
+        them ever come true. One of them is funny&mdash;that we
+        have so many rich men with political influence in our
+        regiment that we will never get to France! Isn't that the
+        limit? But it's funny because, if we have rich men, I'd
+        like to see them. Still, there are thirty thousand soldiers
+        here, and in my neck of the woods such rumors are laughed
+        and cussed at. We hear also that we're going to be ordered
+        South. I wish that would come true. It's so cold and drab
+        and muddy and monotonous.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">My friend Montana fooled everybody. He
+        didn't die. He seems to be hanging on. Lately he recovered
+        consciousness. Told me he had no feeling on his left side,
+        except sometimes his hand itched, you know, like prickly
+        needles. But Montana will never be any good again. That
+        fine big cowboy! He's been one grand soldier. It sickens me
+        sometimes to think of the difference between what thrilled
+        me about this war game and what we get. Maybe,
+        though&mdash;There goes my call. I must close. Love to
+        all.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Jim.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal"
+           style='margin-top:24.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:.4in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'>
+        New York City, <i>October</i>&mdash;.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Dearest Lenore,&mdash;It seems about
+        time that I had a letter from you. I'm sure letters are on
+        the way, but they do not come quickly. The boys complain of
+        the mail service. Isn't it strange that there is not a soul
+        to write me except you? Jeff, my farm-hand, will write me
+        whenever I write him, which I haven't done yet.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">I'm on duty here in New York at an
+        armory bazaar. It's certainly the irony of fate. Why did
+        the officer pick on me, I'd like to know? But I've never
+        complained of an order so far, and I'm standing it. Several
+        of us&mdash;and they chose the husky boys&mdash;have been
+        sent over here, for absolutely no purpose that I can see
+        except to exhibit ourselves in uniform. It's a woman's
+        bazaar, to raise money for war-relief work and so on. The
+        hall is almost as large as that field back of your house,
+        and every night it is packed with people, mostly young. My
+        comrades are having fun out of it, but I feel like a fish
+        out of water.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Just the same, Lenore, I'm learning
+        more every day. If I was not so disgusted I'd think this
+        was a wonderful opportunity. As it is, I regard it only as
+        an experience over which I have no control and that
+        interests me in spite of myself. New York is an awful
+        place&mdash;endless, narrow, torn-up streets crowded with
+        hurrying throngs, taxicabs, cars, and full of noise and
+        dust. I am always choked for air. And these streets reek.
+        Where do the people come from and where are they going?
+        They look wild, as if they had to go somewhere, but did not
+        know where that was. I've no time or inclination to see New
+        York, though under happier circumstances I think I'd like
+        to.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">People in the East seem strange to me.
+        Still, as I never mingled with many people in the West, I
+        cannot say truly whether Eastern people are different from
+        Western people. But I think so. Anyway, while I was in
+        Spokane, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles I did not
+        think people were greatly concerned about the war. Denver
+        people appeared not to realize there was a war. But here in
+        New York everything is war. You can't escape it. You see
+        that war will soon obsess rich and poor, alien and neutral
+        and belligerent, pacifist and militarist. Since I wrote you
+        last I've tried to read the newspapers sent to us. It's
+        hard to tell you which makes me the sicker&mdash;the
+        prattle of the pacifist or the mathematics of the military
+        experts. Both miss the spirit of men. Neither has any soul.
+        I think the German minds must all be mathematical.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">But I want to write about the women and
+        girls I see, here in New York, in the camps and towns, on
+        the trains, everywhere. Lenore, the war has thrown them off
+        their balance. I have seen and studied at close hand women
+        of all classes. Believe me, as the boys say, I have thought
+        more than twice whether or not I would tell you the stark
+        truth. But somehow I am impelled to. I have an overwhelming
+        conviction that all American girls and mothers should know
+        what the truth is. They will never be told, Lenore, and
+        most would never believe if they were told. And that is one
+        thing wrong with people.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">I believe every soldier, from the time
+        he enlists until the war is ended, should be kept away from
+        women. This is a sweeping statement and you must take into
+        account the mind of him who makes it. But I am not leaping
+        at conclusions. The soldier boys have terrible peril facing
+        them long before they get to the trenches. Not all, or
+        nearly all, the soldiers are going to be vitally affected
+        by the rottenness of great cities or by the mushroom
+        hotbeds of vice springing up near the camps. These evils
+        exist and are being opposed by military and government, by
+        police and Y.M.C.A., and good influence of good people. But
+        they will never wholly stamp it out.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Nor do I want to say much about the
+        society women who are "rushing" the officers. There may be
+        one here and there with her heart in the right place, but
+        with most of them it must be, first, this something about
+        war that has unbalanced women; and secondly, a fad, a
+        novelty, a new sentimental stunt, a fashion set by some
+        leader. Likewise I want to say but little about the horde
+        of common, street-chasing, rattled-brained women and girls
+        who lie in wait for soldiers at every corner, so to speak.
+        All these, to be sure, may be unconsciously actuated by
+        motives that do not appear on the surface; and if this be
+        true, their actions are less bold, less raw than they
+        look.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">What I want to dwell upon is my
+        impression of something strange, unbalanced,
+        incomprehensible, about the frank conduct of so many
+        well-educated, refined, and good women I see; and about the
+        eagerness, restlessness, the singular response of nice
+        girls to situations that are not natural.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">To-night a handsome, stylishly gowned
+        woman of about thirty came up to me with a radiant smile
+        and a strange brightness in her eyes. There were five
+        hundred couples dancing on the floor, and the music and
+        sound of sliding feet made it difficult to hear her. She
+        said: "You handsome soldier boy! Come dance with me?" I
+        replied politely that I did not dance. Then she took hold
+        of me and said, "I'll teach you." I saw a wedding-ring on
+        the hand she laid on my arm. Then I looked straight at her,
+        "Madam, very soon I'll be learning the dance of death over
+        in France, and my mind's concerned with that." She grew red
+        with anger. She seemed amazed. And she snapped, "Well, you
+        <i>are</i> a queer soldier!" Later I watched her flirting
+        and dancing with an officer.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Overtures and advances innumerable have
+        been made to me, ranging from the assured possession-taking
+        onslaught like this woman's to the slight, subtle
+        something, felt more than seen, of a more complex nature.
+        And, Lenore, I blush to tell you this, but I've been mobbed
+        by girls. They have a thousand ways of letting a soldier
+        <i>know!</i> I could not begin to tell them. But I do not
+        actually realize what it is that is conveyed, that I know;
+        and I am positive the very large majority of soldiers
+        <i>misunderstand</i>. At night I listen to the talks of my
+        comrades, and, well&mdash;if the girls only heard! Many
+        times I go out of hearing, and when I cannot do that I
+        refuse to hear.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Lenore, I am talking about nice girls
+        now. I am merciless. There are many girls like
+        you&mdash;they seem like you, though none so pretty. I
+        mean, you know, there are certain manners and distinctions
+        that at once mark a really nice girl. For a month I've been
+        thrown here and there, so that it seems I've seen as many
+        girls as soldiers. I have been sent to different
+        entertainments given for soldiers. At one place a woman got
+        up and invited the girls to ask the boys to dance. At
+        another a crowd of girls were lined up wearing different
+        ribbons, and the boys marched along until each one found
+        the girl wearing a ribbon to match the one he wore. That
+        was his partner. It was interesting to see the eager,
+        mischievous, brooding eyes of these girls as they watched
+        and waited. Just as interesting was it to see this boy's
+        face when he found his partner was ugly, and that boy swell
+        with pride when he found he had picked a "winner." It was
+        all adventure for both boys and girls. But I saw more than
+        that in it. Whenever I could not avoid meeting a girl I
+        tried to be agreeable and to talk about war, and soldiers,
+        and what was going on. I did not dance, of course, and I
+        imagine more than one girl found me a "queer soldier."</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">It always has touched me, though, to
+        see and feel the sweetness, graciousness, sympathy,
+        kindness, and that other indefinable something, in the
+        girls I have met. How they made me think of you, Lenore! No
+        doubt about their hearts, their loyalty, their Americanism.
+        Every soldier who goes to France can fight for some girl!
+        They make you feel that. I believe I have gone deeper than
+        most soldiers in considering what I will call war-relation
+        of the sexes. If it is normal, then underneath it all is a
+        tremendous inscrutable design of nature or God. If that be
+        true, actually true, then war must be inevitable and right!
+        How horrible! My thoughts confound me sometimes. Anyway,
+        the point I want to make is this: I heard an officer tell
+        an irate father, whose two daughters had been insulted by
+        soldiers: "My dear sir, it is regrettable. These men will
+        be punished. But they are not greatly to blame, because so
+        many girls throw themselves at their heads. Your daughters
+        did not, of course, but they should not have come here."
+        That illustrates the fixed idea of the military, all
+        through the ranks&mdash;<i>Women throw themselves at
+        soldiers!</i> It is true that they do. But the idea is
+        false, nevertheless, because the mass of girls are
+        misunderstood.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Misunderstood!&mdash;I can tell you
+        why. Surely the mass of American girls are nice, fine,
+        sweet, wholesome. They are young. The news of war liberates
+        something in them that we can find no name for. But it must
+        be noble. A soldier! The very name, from childhood, is one
+        to make a girl thrill. What then the actual thing, the
+        uniform, invested somehow with chivalry and courage, the
+        clean-cut athletic young man, somber and fascinating with
+        his intent eyes, his serious brow, or his devil-may-care
+        gallantry, the compelling presence of him that breathes of
+        his sacrifice, of his near departure to privation, to
+        squalid, comfortless trenches, to the fire and hell of war,
+        to blood and agony and death&mdash;in a word to fight,
+        fight, fight for women!&hellip; So through this beautiful
+        emotion women lose their balance and many are
+        misunderstood. Those who would not and could not be bold
+        are susceptible to advances that in an ordinary time would
+        not affect them. War invests a soldier with a glamour. Love
+        at first sight, flirtations, rash intimacies, quick
+        engagements, immediate marriages. The soldier who is soon
+        going away to fight and perhaps to die strikes hard at the
+        very heart of a girl. Either she is not her real self then,
+        or else she is suddenly transported to a womanhood that is
+        instinctive, elemental, universal for the future. She feels
+        what she does not know. She surrenders because there is an
+        imperative call to the depths of her nature. She sacrifices
+        because she is the inspiritor of the soldier, the reward
+        for his loss, the savior of the race. If women are the
+        spoils of barbarous conquerors, they are also the sinews,
+        the strength, the soul of defenders.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">And so, however you look at it, war
+        means for women sacrifice, disillusion, heartbreak, agony,
+        doom. I feel that so powerfully that I am overcome; I am
+        sick at the gaiety and playing; I am full of fear, wonder,
+        admiration, and hopeless pity for them.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">No man can tell what is going on in the
+        souls of soldiers while noble women are offering love and
+        tenderness, throwing themselves upon the altar of war,
+        hoping blindly to send their great spirits marching to the
+        front. Perhaps the man who lives through the war will feel
+        the change in his soul if he cannot tell it. Day by day I
+        think I see a change in my comrades. As they grow
+        physically stronger they seem to grow spiritually lesser.
+        But maybe that is only my idea. I see evidences of fear,
+        anger, sullenness, moodiness, shame. I see a growing
+        indifference to fatigue, toil, pain. As these boys harden
+        physically they harden mentally. Always, 'way off there is
+        the war, and that seems closely related to the near duty
+        here&mdash;what it takes to make a man. These fellows will
+        measure men differently after this experience with
+        sacrifice, obedience, labor, and pain. In that they will
+        become great. But I do not think these things stimulate a
+        man's mind. Changes are going on in me, some of which I am
+        unable to define. For instance, physically I am much bigger
+        and stronger than I was. I weigh one hundred and eighty
+        pounds! As for my mind, something is always tugging at it.
+        I feel that it grows tired. It wants to forget. In spite of
+        my will, all of these keen desires of mine to know
+        everything lag and fail often, and I catch myself drifting.
+        I see and feel and hear without thinking. I am only an
+        animal then. At these times sight of blood, or a fight, or
+        a plunging horse, or a broken leg&mdash;and these sights
+        are common&mdash;affects me little until I am quickened and
+        think about the meaning of it all. At such moments I have a
+        revulsion of feeling. With memory comes a revolt, and so
+        on, until I am the distressed, inquisitive, and morbid
+        person I am now. I shudder at what war will make me. Actual
+        contact with earth, exploding guns, fighting comrades,
+        striking foes, will make brutes of us all. It is wrong to
+        shed another man's blood. If life was meant for that why do
+        we have progress? I cannot reconcile a God with all this
+        horror. I have misgivings about my mind. If I feel so
+        acutely here in safety and comfort, what shall I feel over
+        there in peril and agony? I fear I shall laugh at death.
+        Oh, Lenore, consider that! To laugh in the ghastly face of
+        death! If I yield utterly to a fiendish joy of bloody
+        combat, then my mind will fail, and that in itself would be
+        evidence of God.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">I do not read over my letters to you, I
+        just write. Forgive me if they are not happier. Every hour
+        I think of you. At night I see your face in the shadow of
+        the tent wall. And I love you unutterably.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Faithfully,</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Kurt Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal"
+           style='margin-top:24.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:.4in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'>
+        Camp &mdash;&mdash;, <i>November</i> &mdash;,</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Dear Sister,&mdash;It's bad news I've
+        got for you this time. Something bids me tell you, though
+        up to now I've kept unpleasant facts to myself.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">The weather has knocked me out. My cold
+        came back, got worse and worse. Three days ago I had a
+        chill that lasted for fifteen minutes. I shook like a leaf.
+        It left me, and then I got a terrible pain in my side. But
+        I didn't give in, which I feel now was a mistake. I stayed
+        up till I dropped.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">I'm here in the hospital. It's a long
+        shed with three stoves, and a lot of beds with other sick
+        boys. My bed is far away from a stove. The pain is bad yet,
+        but duller, and I've fever. I'm pretty sick, honey. Tell
+        mother and dad, but not the girls. Give my love to all. And
+        don't worry. It'll all come right in the end. This beastly
+        climate's to blame.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ"><i>Later</i>,&mdash;It's night now. I
+        was interrupted. I'll write a few more lines. Hope you can
+        read them. It's late and the wind is moaning outside. It's
+        so cold and dismal. The fellow in the bed next to me is out
+        of his head. Poor devil! He broke his knee, and they put
+        off the operation&mdash;too busy! So few doctors and so
+        many patients! And now he'll lose his leg. He's talking
+        about home. Oh, Lenore! <i>Home!</i> I never knew what home
+        was&mdash;till now.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">I'm worse to-night. But I'm always bad
+        at night. Only, to-night I feel strange. There's a weight
+        on my chest, besides the pain. That moan of wind makes me
+        feel so lonely. There's no one here&mdash;and I'm so cold.
+        I've thought a lot about you girls and mother and dad. Tell
+        dad I made good.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Jim</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Jim's last letter was not taken
+        seriously by the other members of the Anderson family. The
+        father shook his head dubiously. "That ain't like Jim," but
+        made no other comment. Mrs. Anderson sighed. The young
+        sisters were not given to worry. Lenore, however, was
+        haunted by an unwritten meaning in her brother's
+        letter.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Weeks before, she had written to Dorn
+        and told him to hunt up Jim. No reply had yet come from
+        Dorn. Every day augmented her uneasiness, until it was
+        dreadful to look for letters that did not come. All this
+        fortified her, however, to expect calamity. Like a bolt out
+        of the clear sky it came in the shape of a telegram from
+        Camp &mdash;&mdash; saying that Jim was dying.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The shock prostrated the mother. Jim
+        had been her favorite. Mr. Anderson left at once for the
+        East. Lenore had the care of her mother and the management
+        of "Many Waters" on her hands, which duties kept her
+        mercifully occupied. Mrs. Anderson, however, after a day,
+        rallied surprisingly. Lenore sensed in her mother the
+        strength of the spirit that sacrificed to a noble and
+        universal cause. It seemed to be Mrs. Anderson's conviction
+        that Jim had been shot, or injured by accident in
+        gun-training, or at least by a horse. Lenore did not share
+        her mother's idea and was reluctant to dispel it. On the
+        evening of the fifth day after Mr. Anderson's departure a
+        message came, saying that he had arrived too late to see
+        Jim alive. Mrs. Anderson bore the news bravely, though she
+        weakened perceptibly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The family waited then for further
+        news. None came. Day after day passed. Then one evening,
+        while Lenore strolled in the gloaming, Kathleen came
+        running to burst out with the announcement of their
+        father's arrival. He had telephoned from Vale for a car to
+        meet him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Not long after that, Lenore, who had
+        gone to her room, heard the return of the car and
+        recognized her father's voice. She ran down in time to see
+        him being embraced by the girls, and her mother leaning
+        with bowed head on his shoulder.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, I fetched Jim&mdash;back," he
+        said, steadily, but very low. "It's all arranged.&hellip;
+        An' we'll bury him to-morrow."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh&mdash;dad!" cried Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hello, my girl!" he replied, and
+        kissed her. "I'm sorry to tell you I couldn't locate Kurt
+        Dorn.&hellip; That New York&mdash;an' that trainin'
+        camp!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He held up his hands in utter futility
+        of expression. Lenore's quick eyes noted his face had grown
+        thin and haggard, and she made sure with a pang that his
+        hair was whiter.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm sure glad to be home," he said,
+        with a heavy expulsion of breath. "I want to clean up an'
+        have a bite to eat."</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore was so disappointed at failing
+        to hear from Dorn that she did not think how singular it
+        was her father did not tell more about Jim. Later he seemed
+        more like himself, and told them simply that Jim had
+        contracted pneumonia and died without any message for his
+        folk at home. This prostrated Mrs. Anderson again.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Later Lenore sought her father in his
+        room. He could not conceal from her that he had something
+        heartrending on his mind. Then there was more than tragedy
+        in his expression. Lenore felt a leap of fear at what
+        seemed her father's hidden anger. She appealed to
+        him&mdash;importuned him. Plainer it came to her that he
+        wanted to relieve himself of a burden. Then doubling her
+        persuasions, she finally got him to talk.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, it's not been so long ago
+        that right here in this room Jim begged me to let him
+        enlist. He wasn't of age. But would I let him go&mdash;to
+        fight for the honor of our country&mdash;for the future
+        safety of our home?&hellip; We all felt the boy's eagerness,
+        his fire, his patriotism. Wayward as he's been, we suddenly
+        were proud of him. We let him go. We gave him up. He was a
+        part of our flesh an' blood&mdash;sent by us
+        Andersons&mdash;to do our share."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson paused in his halting speech,
+        and swallowed hard. His white face twitched strangely and
+        his brow was clammy. Lenore saw that his piercing gaze
+        looked far beyond her for the instant that he broke
+        down.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Jim was a born fighter," the father
+        resumed. "He wasn't vicious. He just had a leanin' to help
+        anybody. As a lad he fought for his little
+        pards&mdash;always on the right side&mdash;an' he always
+        fought fair.&hellip; This opportunity to train for a soldier
+        made a man of him. He'd have made his mark in the war.
+        Strong an' game an' fierce, he'd &hellip; he'd &hellip; Well,
+        he's dead&mdash;he's <i>dead!</i>&hellip; Four months after
+        enlistment he's dead.&hellip; An' he never had a rifle in
+        his hands! He never had his hands on a machine-gun or a
+        piece of artillery!&hellip; He never had a uniform! He never
+        had an overcoat! He never &hellip;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then Mr. Anderson's voice shook so
+        that he had to stop to gain control. Lenore was horrified.
+        She felt a burning stir within her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lemme get this&mdash;out," choked
+        Anderson, his face now livid, his veins bulging. "I'm drove
+        to tell it. I was near all day locatin' Jim's company.
+        Found the tent where he'd lived. It was cold, damp, muddy.
+        Jim's messmates spoke high of him. Called him a
+        prince!&hellip; They all owed him money. He'd done many a
+        good turn for them. He had only a thin blanket, an' he
+        caught cold. All the boys had colds. One night he gave that
+        blanket to a boy sicker than he was. Next day he got
+        worse.&hellip; There was miles an' miles of them tents. I
+        like to never found the hospital where they'd sent Jim. An'
+        then it was six o'clock in the mornin'&mdash;a raw, bleak
+        day that'd freeze one of us to the marrow. I had trouble
+        gettin' in. But a soldier went with me an'&mdash;an'
+        &hellip;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson's voice went to a whisper,
+        and he looked pityingly at Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That hospital was a barn. No doctors!
+        Too early.&hellip; The nurses weren't in sight. I met one
+        later, an', poor girl! she looked ready to drop
+        herself!&hellip; We found Jim in one of the little rooms. No
+        heat! It was winter there.&hellip; Only a bed!&hellip; Jim
+        lay on the floor, dead! He'd fallen or pitched off the bed.
+        He had on only his underclothes that he had on&mdash;when
+        he&mdash;left home.&hellip; He was stiff&mdash;an' must
+        have&mdash;been dead&mdash;a good while."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore held out her trembling hands.
+        "Dead&mdash;Jim dead&mdash;like that!" she faltered.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes. He got pneumonia," replied
+        Anderson, hoarsely. "The camp was full of it."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But&mdash;my God! Were not
+        the&mdash;the poor boys taken care of?" implored Lenore,
+        faintly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It's a terrible time. All was done
+        that <i>could</i> be done!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Then&mdash;it was all&mdash;for
+        nothing?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"All! All! Our boy an' many like
+        him&mdash;the best blood of our country&mdash;Western
+        blood&mdash;dead because &hellip; because &hellip;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson's voice failed him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, Jim! Oh, my brother!&hellip; Dead
+        like a poor neglected dog! Jim&mdash;who enlisted to
+        fight&mdash;for&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore broke down then and hurried
+        away to her room.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">With great difficulty Mrs. Anderson
+        was revived, and it became manifest that the prop upon
+        which she had leaned had been slipped from under her. The
+        spirit which had made her strong to endure the death of her
+        boy failed when the sordid bald truth of a miserable and
+        horrible waste of life gave the lie to the splendid
+        fighting chance Jim had dreamed of.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">When Anderson realized that she was
+        fading daily he exhausted himself in long expositions of
+        the illness and injury and death common to armies in the
+        making. More deaths came from these causes than from war.
+        It was the elision of the weaker element&mdash;the survival
+        of the fittest; and some, indeed very many, mothers must
+        lose their sons that way. The government was sound at the
+        core, he claimed; and his own rage was at the few
+        incompetents and profiteers. These must be weeded
+        out&mdash;a process that was going on. The gigantic task of
+        a government to draft and prepare a great army and navy was
+        something beyond the grasp of ordinary minds. Anderson
+        talked about what he had seen and heard, proving the
+        wonderful stride already made. But all that he said now
+        made no impression upon Mrs. Anderson. She had made her
+        supreme sacrifice for a certain end, and that was as much
+        the boy's fiery ambition to fight as it was her duty,
+        common with other mothers, to furnish a man at the front.
+        What a hopeless, awful sacrifice! She sank under it.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Those were trying days for Lenore,
+        just succeeding her father's return; and she had little
+        time to think of herself. When the mail came, day after
+        day, without a letter from Dorn, she felt the pang in her
+        breast grow heavier. Intimations crowded upon her of
+        impending troubles that would make the present ones seem
+        light.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was not long until the mother was
+        laid to rest beside the son.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">When that day ended, Lenore and her
+        father faced each other in her room, where he had always
+        been wont to come for sympathy. They gazed at each other,
+        with hard, dry eyes. Stark-naked truth&mdash;grim
+        reality&mdash;the nature of this catastrophe&mdash;the
+        consciousness of war&mdash;dawned for each in the look of
+        the other. Brutal shock and then this second exceeding
+        bitter woe awakened their minds to the futility of
+        individual life.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore&mdash;it's over!" he said,
+        huskily, as he sank into a chair. "Like a nightmare!&hellip;
+        What have I got to live for?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You have us girls," replied Lenore.
+        "And if you did not have us there would be many others for
+        you to live for.&hellip; Dad, can't you
+        see&mdash;<i>now</i>?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I reckon. But I'm growin' old an'
+        mebbe I've quit."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No, dad, you'll never quit. Suppose
+        all we Americans quit. That'd mean a German victory. Never!
+        Never! Never!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"By God! you're right!" he ejaculated,
+        with the trembling strain of his face suddenly fixing.
+        Blood and life shot into his eyes. He got up heavily and
+        began to stride to and fro before her. "You see clearer
+        than me. You always did, Lenore."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm beginning to see, but I can't
+        tell you," replied Lenore, closing her eyes. Indeed, there
+        seemed a colossal vision before her, veiled and strange.
+        "Whatever happens, we <i>cannot</i> break. It's because of
+        the war. We have our tasks&mdash;greater now than ever we
+        believe could be thrust upon us. Yours to show men what you
+        are made of! To raise wheat as never before in your life!
+        Mine to show my sisters and my friends&mdash;all the
+        women&mdash;what their duty is. We must sacrifice, work,
+        prepare, and fight for the future."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I reckon," he nodded solemnly. "Loss
+        of mother an' Jim changes this damned war. Whatever's in my
+        power to do must go on. So some one can take it up when
+        I&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That's the great conception, dad,"
+        added Lenore, earnestly. "We are tragically awakened. We've
+        been surprised&mdash;terribly struck in the dark. Something
+        monstrous and horrible!&hellip; I can feel the menace in it
+        for all&mdash;over every family in this broad land."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, you said once that
+        Jim&mdash;Now, how'd you know it was all over for him?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"A woman's heart, dad. When I said
+        good-by to Jim I knew it was good-by forever."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Did you feel that way about Kurt
+        Dorn?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No. He will come back to me. I dream
+        it. It's in my spirit&mdash;my instinct of life, my
+        flesh-and-blood life of the future&mdash;it's in my belief
+        in God. Kurt Dorn's ordeal will be worse than death for
+        him. But I believe as I pray&mdash;that he will come home
+        alive."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Then, after all, you do hope," said
+        her father. "Lenore, when I was down East, I seen what
+        women were doin'. The bad women are good an' the good women
+        are great. I think women have more to do with war then men,
+        even if they do stay home. It must be because women are
+        mothers.&hellip; Lenore, you've bucked me up. I'll go at
+        things now. The need for wheat next year will be beyond
+        calculation. I'll buy ten thousand acres of that wheatland
+        round old Chris Dorn's farm. An' my shot at the Germans
+        will be wheat. I'll raise a million bushels!"</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Next morning in the mail was a long,
+        thick envelope addressed to Lenore in handwriting that
+        shook her heart and made her fly to the seclusion of her
+        room.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">New York City, <i>November</i>
+        &mdash;.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">DEAREST,&mdash;when you receive this I
+        will be in France.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then Lenore sustained a strange shock.
+        The beloved handwriting faded, the thick sheets of paper
+        fell; and all about her seemed dark and whirling, as the
+        sudden joy and excitement stirred by the letter changed to
+        sickening pain.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"<i>France</i><i>!</i> He's in
+        France?" she whispered. "Oh, Kurt!" A storm of love and
+        terror burst over her. It had the onset and the advantage
+        of a bewildering surprise. It laid low, for the moment, her
+        fortifications of sacrifice, strength, and resolve. She had
+        been forced into womanhood, and her fear, her agony, were
+        all the keener for the intelligence and spirit that had
+        repudiated selfish love. Kurt Dorn was in France in the
+        land of the trenches! Strife possessed her and had a moment
+        of raw, bitter triumph. She bit her lips and clenched her
+        fists, to restrain the impulse to rush madly around the
+        room, to scream out her fear and hate. With forcing her
+        thought, with hard return to old well-learned arguments,
+        there came back the nobler emotions. But when she took up
+        the letter again, with trembling hands, her heart fluttered
+        high and sick, and she saw the words through blurred
+        eyes.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">&hellip;I'll give the letter to an
+        ensign, who has promised to mail it the moment he gets back
+        to New York.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Lenore, your letter telling me about
+        Jim was held up in the mail. But thank goodness, I got it
+        in time. I'd already been transferred, and expected orders
+        any day to go on board the transport, where I am writing
+        now. I'd have written you, or at least telegraphed you,
+        yesterday, after seeing Jim, if I had not expected to see
+        him again to-day. But this morning we were marched on board
+        and I cannot even get this letter off to you.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Lenore, your brother is a very sick
+        boy. I lost some hours finding him. They did not want to
+        let me see him. But I implored&mdash;said that I was
+        engaged to his sister&mdash;and finally I got in. The nurse
+        was very sympathetic. But I didn't care for the doctors in
+        charge. They seemed hard, hurried, brusque. But they have
+        their troubles. The hospital was a long barracks, and it
+        was full of cripples.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">The nurse took me into a small, bare
+        room, too damp and cold for a sick man, and I said so. She
+        just looked at me.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Jim looks like you more than any other
+        of the Andersons. I recognized that at the same moment I
+        saw how very sick he was. They had told me outside that he
+        had a bad case of pneumonia. He was awake, perfectly
+        conscious, and he stared at me with eyes that set my heart
+        going.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"Hello, Jim!" I said, and offered my
+        hand, as I sat down on the bed. He was too weak to shake
+        hands.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"Who're you?" he asked. He couldn't
+        speak very well. When I told him my name and that I was his
+        sister's fianc&eacute; his face changed so he did not look
+        like the same person. It was beautiful. Oh, it showed how
+        homesick he was! Then I talked a blue streak about you,
+        about the girls, about "Many Waters"&mdash;how I lost my
+        wheat, and everything. He was intensely interested, and
+        when I got through he whispered that he guessed Lenore had
+        picked a "winner." What do you think of that? He was
+        curious about me, and asked me questions till the nurse
+        made him stop. I was never so glad about anything as I was
+        about the happiness it evidently gave him to meet me and
+        hear from home. I promised to come next day if we did not
+        sail. Then he showed what I must call despair. He must have
+        been passionately eager to get to France. The nurse dragged
+        me out. Jim called weakly after me: "Good-by, Kurt. Stick
+        some Germans for me!" I'll never forget his tone nor his
+        look.&hellip; Lenore, he doesn't expect to get over to
+        France.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">I questioned the nurse, and she shook
+        her head doubtfully. She looked sad. She said Jim had been
+        the lion of his regiment. I questioned a doctor, and he was
+        annoyed. He put me off with a sharp statement that Jim was
+        not in danger. But I think he is. I hope and pray he
+        recovers.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ"><i>Thursday</i>.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">We sailed yesterday. It was a wonderful
+        experience, leaving Hoboken. Our transport and the dock
+        looked as if they had a huge swarm of yellow bees hanging
+        over everything. The bees were soldiers. The most profound
+        emotion I ever had&mdash;except the one when you told me
+        you loved me&mdash;came over me as the big boat swung free
+        of the dock&mdash;of the good old U.S., of home. I wanted
+        to jump off and swim through the eddying green water to the
+        piles and hide in them till the boat had gone. As we backed
+        out, pulled up tugs, and got started down the river, my
+        thrills increased, until we passed the Statue of
+        Liberty&mdash;and then I couldn't tell how I felt. One
+        thing, I could not see very well.&hellip; I gazed beyond the
+        colossal statue that France gave to the U.S.&mdash;'way
+        across the water and the ships and the docks toward the
+        West that I was leaving. Feeling like mine then only comes
+        once to a man in his life. First I seemed to see all the
+        vast space, the farms, valleys, woods, deserts, rivers, and
+        mountains between me and my golden wheat-hills. Then I saw
+        my home, and it was as if I had a magnificent photograph
+        before my very eyes. A sudden rush of tears blinded me.
+        Such a storm of sweetness, regret, memory! Then at last
+        you&mdash;<i>you</i> as you stood before me last, the very
+        loveliest girl in all the world. My heart almost burst, and
+        in the wild, sick pain of the moment I had a strange,
+        comforting flash of thought that a man who could leave you
+        must be impelled by something great in store for him. I
+        feel that. I told you once. To laugh at death! That is what
+        I shall do. But perhaps that is not the great experience
+        which will come to me.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">I saw the sun set in the sea, 'way back
+        toward the western horizon, where the thin, dark line that
+        was land disappeared in the red glow. The wind blows hard.
+        The water is rough, dark gray, and cold. I like the taste
+        of the spray. Our boat rolls heavily and many boys are
+        already sick. I do not imagine the motion will affect me.
+        It is stuffy below-deck. I'll spend what time I can above,
+        where I can see and feel. It was dark just now when I came
+        below. And as I looked out into the windy darkness and
+        strife I was struck by the strangeness of the sea and how
+        it seemed to be like my soul. For a long time I have been
+        looking into my soul, and I find such ceaseless strife,
+        such dark, unlit depths, such chaos. These thoughts and
+        emotions, always with me, keep me from getting close to my
+        comrades. No, not me, but it keeps them away from me. I
+        think they regard me strangely. They all talk of
+        submarines. They are afraid. Some will lose sleep at night.
+        But I never think of a submarine when I gaze out over the
+        tumbling black waters. What I think of, what I am going
+        after, what I need seems far, far away. Always! I am no
+        closer now than when I was at your home. So it has not to
+        do with distance. And Lenore, maybe it has not to do with
+        trenches or Germans.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ"><i>Wednesday</i>.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">It grows harder to get a chance to
+        write and harder for me to express myself. When I could
+        write I have to work or am on duty; when I have a little
+        leisure I am somehow clamped. This old chugging boat beats
+        the waves hour after hour, all day and all night. I can
+        feel the vibration when I'm asleep. Many things happen that
+        would interest you, just the duty and play of the soldiers,
+        for that matter, and the stories I hear going from lip to
+        lip, and the accidents. Oh! so much happens. But all these
+        rush out of my mind the moment I sit down to write. There
+        is something at work in me as vast and heaving as the
+        ocean.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">At first I had a fear, a dislike of the
+        ocean. But that is gone. It is indescribable to stand on
+        the open deck at night as we are driving on and on and
+        on&mdash;to look up at the grand, silent stars, that know,
+        that understand, yet are somehow merciless&mdash;to look
+        out across the starlit, moving sea. Its ceaseless movement
+        at first distressed me; now I feel that it is perpetually
+        moving to try to become still. To seek a level! To find
+        itself! To quiet down to peace! But that will never be. And
+        I think if the ocean is not like the human heart, then what
+        is it like?</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">This voyage will be good for me. The
+        hard, incessant objective life, the physical life of a
+        soldier, somehow comes to a halt on board ship. And every
+        hour now is immeasurable for me. Whatever the mystery of
+        life, of death, of what drives me, of why I cannot help
+        fight the demon in me, of this thing called war&mdash;the
+        certainty is that these dark, strange nights on the sea
+        have given me a hope and faith that the truth is not
+        utterly unattainable.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ"><i>Sunday.</i></p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">We're in the danger zone now, with
+        destroyers around us and a cruiser ahead. I am all eyes and
+        ears. I lose sleep at night from thinking so hard. The ship
+        doctor stopped me the other day&mdash;studied my face. Then
+        he said: "You're too intense. You think too hard.&hellip;
+        Are you afraid?" And I laughed in his face. "Absolutely
+        no!" I told him. "Then forget&mdash;and mix with the boys.
+        Play&mdash;cut up&mdash;fight&mdash;do anything but
+        <i>think!</i>" That doctor is a good chap, but he doesn't
+        figure Kurt Dorn if he imagines the Germans can kill me by
+        making me think.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">We're nearing France now, and the very
+        air is charged. An aeroplane came out to meet
+        us&mdash;welcome us, I guess, and it flew low. The soldiers
+        went wild. I never had such a thrill. That air game would
+        just suit me, if I were fitted for it. But I'm no mechanic.
+        Besides, I'm too big and heavy. My place will be in the
+        front line with a bayonet. Strange how a bayonet fascinates
+        me!</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">They say we can't write home anything
+        about the war. I'll write you something, whenever I can.
+        Don't be unhappy if you do not hear often&mdash;or if my
+        letters cease to come. My heart and my mind are full of
+        you. Whatever comes to me&mdash;the training over
+        here&mdash;the going to the trenches&mdash;the
+        fighting&mdash;I shall be safe if only I can remember
+        you.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">With love,</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">Kurt.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore carried that letter in her
+        bosom when she went out to walk in the fields, to go over
+        the old ground she and Kurt had trod hand in hand. From the
+        stone seat above the brook she watched the sunset. All was
+        still except the murmur of the running water, and somehow
+        she could not long bear that. As the light began to shade
+        on the slopes, she faced them, feeling, as always, a
+        strength come to her from their familiar lines. Twilight
+        found her high above the ranch, and absolutely alone. She
+        would have this lonely hour, and then, all her mind and
+        energy must go to what she knew was imperative duty. She
+        would work to the limit of her endurance.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was an autumn twilight, with a cool
+        wind, gray sky, and sad, barren slopes. The fertile valley
+        seemed half obscured in melancholy haze, and over toward
+        the dim hills beyond night had already fallen. No stars, no
+        moon, no afterglow of sunset illumined the grayness that in
+        this hour seemed prophetic of Lenore's future.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"'Safe!' he said. 'I shall be safe if
+        only I can remember you,'" she whispered to herself,
+        wonderingly. "What did he mean?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Pondering the thought, she divined it
+        had to do with Dorn's singular spiritual mood. He had gone
+        to lend his body as so much physical brawn, so much weight,
+        to a concerted movement of men, but his mind was apart from
+        a harmony with that. Lenore felt that whatever had been the
+        sacrifice made by Kurt Dorn, it had been passed with his
+        decision to go to war. What she prayed for then was
+        something of his spirit.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Slowly, in the gathering darkness, she
+        descended the long slope. The approaching night seemed sad,
+        with autumn song of insects. All about her breathed faith,
+        from the black hills above, the gray slopes below, from the
+        shadowy void, from the murmuring of insect life in the
+        grass. The rugged fallow ground under her feet seemed to
+        her to be a symbol of faith&mdash;faith that winter would
+        come and pass&mdash;the spring sun and rain would burst the
+        seeds of wheat&mdash;and another summer would see the
+        golden fields of waving grain. If she did not live to see
+        them, they would be there just the same; and so life and
+        nature had faith in its promise. That strange whisper was
+        to Lenore the whisper of God.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Through the pale obscurity of a French
+        night, cool, raw, moist, with a hint of spring in its
+        freshness, a line of soldiers plodded along the lonely,
+        melancholy lanes. Wan starlight showed in the rifts between
+        the clouds. Neither dark nor light, the midnight hour had
+        its unreality in this line of marching men; and its reality
+        in the dim, vague hedges, its spectral posts, its barren
+        fields.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Rain had ceased to fall, but a fine,
+        cold, penetrating mist filled the air. The ground was muddy
+        in places, slippery in others; and here and there it held
+        pools of water ankle-deep. The stride of the marching men
+        appeared short and dragging, without swing or rhythm. It
+        was weary, yet full of the latent power of youth, of unused
+        vitality. Stern, clean-cut, youthful faces were set
+        northward, unchanging in the shadowy, pale gleams of the
+        night. These faces lifted intensely whenever a strange,
+        muffled, deep-toned roar rolled out of the murky north. The
+        night looked stormy, but that rumble was not thunder. Fifty
+        miles northward, beyond that black and mysterious horizon,
+        great guns were booming war.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Sometimes, as the breeze failed, the
+        night was silent except for the slow, sloppy tramp of the
+        marching soldiers. Then the low voices were hushed. When
+        the wind freshened again it brought at intervals those
+        deep, significant detonations which, as the hours passed,
+        seemed to grow heavier and more thunderous.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">At length a faint gray light appeared
+        along the eastern sky, and gradually grew stronger. The
+        dawn of another day was close at hand. It broke as if
+        reluctantly, cold and gray and sunless.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The detachment of United States troops
+        halted for camp outside of the French village of
+        A&mdash;&mdash;.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt Dorn was at mess with his
+        squad.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The months in France had flown away on
+        wings of training and absorbing and waiting. Dorn had
+        changed incalculably. But all he realized of it was that he
+        weighed one hundred and ninety pounds and that he seemed to
+        have lived a hundred swift lives. All that he saw and felt
+        became part of him. His comrades had been won to him as
+        friends by virtue of his ever-ready helping hand, by his
+        devotion to training, by his close-lipped acceptance of all
+        the toils and knocks and pains common to the making of a
+        soldier. The squad lived together as one large family of
+        brothers. Dorn's comrades had at first tormented him with
+        his German name; they had made fun of his abstraction and
+        his letter-writing; they had misunderstood his aloofness.
+        But the ridicule died away, and now, in the presaged nature
+        of events, his comrades, all governed by the physical life
+        of the soldier, took him for a man.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Perhaps it might have been chance, or
+        it might have been true of all the American squads, but the
+        fact was that Dorn's squad was a strangely assorted set of
+        young men. Perhaps that might have been Dorn's conviction
+        from coming to live long with them. They were a part of the
+        New York Division of the &mdash;th, all supposed to be New
+        York men. As a matter of fact, this was not true. Dorn was
+        a native of Washington. Sanborn was a thick-set, sturdy
+        fellow with the clear brown tan and clear brown eyes of the
+        Californian. Brewer was from South Carolina, a lean, lanky
+        Southerner, with deep-set dark eyes. Dixon hailed from
+        Massachusetts, from a fighting family, and from Harvard,
+        where he had been a noted athlete. He was a big, lithe,
+        handsome boy, red-faced and curly-haired. Purcell was a
+        New-Yorker, of rich family, highly connected, and his easy,
+        clean, fine ways, with the elegance of his person, his
+        blond distinction, made him stand out from his khaki-clad
+        comrades, though he was clad identically with them. Rogers
+        claimed the Bronx to be his home and he was proud of it. He
+        was little, almost undersized, but a knot of muscle, a
+        keen-faced youth with Irish blood in him. These particular
+        soldiers of the squad were closest to Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Corporal Bob Owens came swinging in to
+        throw his sombrero down.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What's the orders, Bob?" some one
+        inquired.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We're going to rest here," he
+        replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The news was taken impatiently by
+        several and agreeably by the majority. They were all
+        travel-stained and worn. Dorn did not comment on the news,
+        but the fact was that he hated the French villages. They
+        were so old, so dirty, so obsolete, so different from what
+        he had been accustomed to. But he loved the pastoral French
+        countryside, so calm and picturesque. He reflected that
+        soon he would see the devastation wrought by the Huns.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Any news from the front?" asked
+        Dixon.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I should smile," replied the
+        corporal, grimly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well, open up, you clam!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Owens thereupon told swiftly and
+        forcibly what he had heard. More advance of the
+        Germans&mdash;it was familiar news. But somehow it was
+        taken differently here within sound of the guns. Dorn
+        studied his comrades, wondering if their sensations were
+        similar to his. He expressed nothing of what he felt, but
+        all the others had something to say. Hard, cool, fiery,
+        violent speech that differed as those who uttered it
+        differed, yet its predominant note rang fight.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Just heard a funny story," said
+        Owens, presently.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Spring it," somebody replied.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"This comes from Berlin, so they say.
+        According to rumor, the Kaiser and the Crown Prince seldom
+        talk to each other. They happened to meet the other day.
+        And the Crown Prince said: 'Say, pop, what got us into this
+        war?'</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"The Emperor replied, 'My son, I was
+        deluded.'</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"'Oh, sire, impossible!' exclaimed the
+        Prince. 'How could it be?'</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"'Well, some years ago I was visited
+        by a grinning son-of-a-gun from New York&mdash;no other
+        than the great T.R. I took him around. He was most
+        interested in my troops. After he had inspected them, and
+        particularly the Imperial Guard, he slapped me on the back
+        and shouted, "Bill, you could lick the world!" &hellip; And,
+        my son, I fell for it!'"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">This story fetched a roar from every
+        soldier present except Dorn. An absence of mirth in him had
+        been noted before.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dorn, can't you laugh!" protested
+        Dixon.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure I can&mdash;when I hear
+        something funny," replied Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">His comrades gazed hopelessly at
+        him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My Lawd! boy, thet was shore funny,"
+        drawled Brewer with his lazy Southern manner.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt, you're not human," said Owens,
+        sadly. "That's why they call you Demon Dorn."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">All the boys in the squad had
+        nicknames. In Dorn's case several had been applied by
+        irrepressible comrades before one stuck. The first one
+        received a poor reception from Kurt. The second happened to
+        be a great blunder for the soldier who invented it. He was
+        not in Dorn's squad, but he knew Dorn pretty well, and in a
+        moment of deviltry he had coined for Dorn the name "Kaiser
+        Dorn." Dorn's reaction to this appellation was discomfiting
+        and painful for the soldier. As he lay flat on the ground,
+        where Dorn had knocked him, he had struggled with a natural
+        rage, quickly to overcome it. He showed the right kind of
+        spirit. He got up. "Dorn, I apologize. I was only in fun.
+        But some fun is about as funny as death." On the way out he
+        suggested a more felicitous name&mdash;Demon Dorn. Somehow
+        the boys took to that. It fitted many of Dorn's violent
+        actions in training, especially the way he made a bayonet
+        charge. Dorn objected strenuously. But the name stuck. No
+        comrade or soldier ever again made a hint of Dorn's German
+        name or blood.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Fellows, if a funny story can't make
+        Dorn laugh, he's absolutely a dead one," said Owens.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Spring a new one, quick," spoke up
+        some one. "Gee! it's great to laugh.&hellip; Why, I've not
+        heard from home for a month!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dorn, will you beat it so I can
+        spring this one?" queried Owens.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure," replied Dorn, amiably, as he
+        started away. "I suppose you think me one of these
+        I-dare-you-to-make-me-laugh sort of chaps."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Forget her, Dorn&mdash;come out of
+        it!" chirped up Rogers.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">To Dorn's regret, he believed that he
+        failed his comrades in one way, and he was always trying to
+        make up for it. Part of the training of a soldier was the
+        ever-present need and duty of cheerfulness. Every member of
+        the squad had his secret, his own personal memory, his
+        inner consciousness that he strove to keep hidden. Long ago
+        Dorn had divined that this or that comrade was looking
+        toward the bright side, or pretending there was one. They
+        all played their parts. Like men they faced this
+        incomprehensible duty, this tremendous separation, this
+        dark and looming future, as if it was only hard work that
+        must be done in good spirit. But Dorn, despite all his
+        will, was mostly silent, aloof, brooding, locked up in his
+        eternal strife of mind and soul. He could not help it.
+        Notwithstanding all he saw and divined of the sacrifice and
+        pain of his comrades, he knew that his ordeal was
+        infinitely harder. It was natural that they hoped for the
+        best. He had no hope.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Boys," said Owens, "there's a squad
+        of Blue Devils camped over here in an old barn. Just back
+        from the front. Some one said there wasn't a man in it who
+        hadn't had a dozen wounds, and some twice that many. We
+        must see that bunch. Bravest soldiers of the whole war!
+        They've been through the three years&mdash;at
+        Verdun&mdash;on the Marne&mdash;and now this awful Flanders
+        drive. It's up to us to see them."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">News like this thrilled Dorn. During
+        all the months he had been in France the deeds and valor of
+        these German-named Blue Devils had come to him, here and
+        there and everywhere. Dorn remembered all he heard, and
+        believed it, too, though some of the charges and some of
+        the burdens attributed to these famed soldiers seemed
+        unbelievable. His opportunity had now come. With the moving
+        up to the front he would meet reality; and all within him,
+        the keen, strange eagerness, the curiosity that perplexed,
+        the unintelligible longing, the heat and burn of passion,
+        quickened and intensified.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Not until late in the afternoon,
+        however, did off duty present an opportunity for him to go
+        into the village. It looked the same as the other villages
+        he had visited, and the inhabitants, old men, old women and
+        children, all had the somber eyes, the strained, hungry
+        faces, the oppressed look he had become accustomed to see.
+        But sad as were these inhabitants of a village near the
+        front, there was never in any one of them any absence of
+        welcome to the Americans. Indeed, in most people he met
+        there was a quick flashing of intense joy and gratitude.
+        The Americans had come across the sea to fight beside the
+        French. That was the import, tremendous and beautiful.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn met Dixon and Rogers on the main
+        street of the little village. They had been to see the Blue
+        Devils.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Better stay away from them," advised
+        Dixon, dubiously.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No!&hellip; Why?" ejaculated Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dixon shook his head. "Greatest bunch
+        I ever looked at. But I think they resented our presence.
+        Pat and I were talking about them. It's strange, Dorn, but
+        I believe these Blue Devils that have saved France and
+        England, and perhaps America, too, don't like our being
+        here."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Impossible!" replied Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Go and see for yourself," put in
+        Rogers. "I believe we all ought to look them over."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Thoughtfully Dorn strode on in the
+        direction indicated, and presently he arrived at the end of
+        the village, where in an old orchard he found a low,
+        rambling, dilapidated barn, before which clusters of
+        soldiers in blue lounged around smoking fires. As he drew
+        closer he saw that most of them seemed fixed in gloomy
+        abstraction. A few were employed at some task of hand, and
+        several bent over the pots on fires. Dorn's sweeping gaze
+        took in the whole scene, and his first quick, strange
+        impression was that these soldiers resembled ghouls who had
+        lived in dark holes of mud.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt meant to make the most of his
+        opportunity. To him, in his peculiar need, this meeting
+        would be of greater significance than all else that had
+        happened to him in France. The nearest soldier sat on a
+        flattened pile of straw around which the ground was muddy.
+        At first glance Kurt took him to be an African, so dark
+        were face and eyes. No one heeded Kurt's approach. The
+        moment was poignant to Kurt. He spoke French fairly well,
+        so that it was emotion rather than lack of fluency which
+        made his utterance somewhat unintelligible. The soldier
+        raised his head. His face seemed a black flash&mdash;his
+        eyes piercingly black, staring, deep, full of terrible
+        shadow. They did not appear to see in Kurt the man, but
+        only the trim, clean United States army uniform. Kurt
+        repeated his address, this time more clearly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The Frenchman replied gruffly, and
+        bent again over the faded worn coat he was scraping with a
+        knife. Then Kurt noticed two things&mdash;the man's great,
+        hollow, spare frame and the torn shirt, stained many
+        colors, one of which was dark red. His hands resembled both
+        those of a mason, with the horny callous inside, and those
+        of a salt-water fisherman, with bludgy fingers and barked
+        knuckles that never healed.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn had to choose his words slowly,
+        because of unfamiliarity with French, but he was
+        deliberate, too, because he wanted to say the right thing.
+        His eagerness made the Frenchman glance up again. But while
+        Dorn talked of the long waits, the long marches, the
+        arrival at this place, the satisfaction at nearing the
+        front, his listener gave no sign that he heard. But he did
+        hear, and so did several of his comrades.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We're coming strong," he went on, his
+        voice thrilling. "A million of us this year! We're
+        untrained. We'll have to split up among English and French
+        troops and learn how from you. But we've come&mdash;and
+        we'll fight!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then the Frenchman put on his coat.
+        That showed him to be an officer. He wore medals. The dark
+        glance he then flashed over Dorn was different from his
+        first. It gave Dorn both a twinge of shame and a thrill of
+        pride. It took in Dorn's characteristic Teutonic blond
+        features, and likewise an officer's swift appreciation of
+        an extraordinarily splendid physique.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You've German blood," he said.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes. But I'm American," replied Dorn,
+        simply, and he met that soul-searching black gaze with all
+        his intense and fearless spirit. Dorn felt that never in
+        his life had he been subjected to such a test of his
+        manhood, of his truth.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My name's Huon," said the officer,
+        and he extended one of the huge deformed hands.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Mine's Dorn," replied Kurt, meeting
+        that hand with his own.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Whereupon the Frenchman spoke rapidly
+        to the comrade nearest him, so rapidly that all Kurt could
+        make of what he said was that here was an American soldier
+        with a new idea. They drew closer, and it became manifest
+        that the interesting idea was Kurt's news about the
+        American army. It was news here, and carefully pondered by
+        these Frenchmen, as slowly one by one they questioned him.
+        They doubted, but Dorn convinced them. They seemed to like
+        his talk and his looks. Dorn's quick faculties grasped the
+        simplicity of these soldiers. After three terrible years of
+        unprecedented warfare, during which they had performed the
+        impossible, they did not want a fresh army to come along
+        and steal their glory by administering a final blow to a
+        tottering enemy. Gazing into those strange, seared faces,
+        beginning to see behind the iron mask, Dorn learned the one
+        thing a soldier lives, fights, and dies
+        for&mdash;glory.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt Dorn was soon made welcome. He
+        was made to exhaust his knowledge of French. He was studied
+        by eyes that had gleamed in the face of death. His hand was
+        wrung by hands that had dealt death. How terribly he felt
+        that! And presently, when his excitement and emotion had
+        subsided to the extent that he could really see what he
+        looked at, then came the reward of reality, with all its
+        incalculable meaning expressed to him in the gleaming
+        bayonets, in the worn accoutrements, in the greatcoats like
+        clapboards of mud, in the hands that were claws, in the
+        feet that hobbled, in the strange, wonderful significance
+        of bodily presence, standing there as proof of valor, of
+        man's limitless endurance. In the faces, ah! there Dorn
+        read the history that made him shudder and lifted him
+        beyond himself. For there in those still, dark faces, of
+        boys grown old in three years, shone the terror of war and
+        the spirit that had resisted it.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn, in his intensity, in the
+        over-emotion of his self-centered passion, so terribly
+        driven to prove to himself something vague yet
+        all-powerful, illusive yet imperious, divined what these
+        Blue Devil soldiers had been through. His mind was more
+        than telepathic. Almost it seemed that souls were bared to
+        him. These soldiers, quiet, intent, made up a grim group of
+        men. They seemed slow, thoughtful, plodding, wrapped and
+        steeped in calm. But Dorn penetrated all this, and
+        established the relation between it and the nameless and
+        dreadful significance of their weapons and medals and
+        uniforms and stripes, and the magnificent vitality that was
+        now all but spent.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn might have resembled a curious,
+        adventure-loving boy, to judge from his handling of rifles
+        and the way he slipped a strong hand along the gleaming
+        bayonet-blades. But he was more than the curious youth: he
+        had begun to grasp a strange, intangible something for
+        which he had no name. Something that must be attainable for
+        him! Something that, for an hour or a moment, would make
+        him a fighter not to be slighted by these supermen!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Whatever his youth or his impelling
+        spirit of manhood, the fact was that he inspired many of
+        these veterans of the bloody years to Homeric narratives of
+        the siege of Verdun, of the retreat toward Paris, of the
+        victory of the Marne, and lastly of the Kaiser's battle,
+        this last and most awful offensive of the resourceful and
+        frightful foe.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Brunelle told how he was the last
+        survivor of a squad at Verdun who had been ordered to hold
+        a breach made in a front stone wall along the out posts.
+        How they had faced a bombardment of heavy guns&mdash;a
+        whistling, shrieking, thundering roar, pierced by the
+        higher explosion of a bursting shell&mdash;smoke and
+        sulphur and gas&mdash;the crumbling of walls and downward
+        fling of shrapnel. How the lives of soldiers were as lives
+        of gnats hurled by wind and burned by flame. Death had a
+        manifold and horrible diversity. A soldier's head, with
+        ghastly face and conscious eyes, momentarily poised in the
+        air while the body rode away invisibly with an exploding
+        shell! He told of men blown up, shot through and riddled
+        and brained and disemboweled, while their comrades, grim
+        and unalterable, standing in a stream of blood, lived
+        through the rain of shells, the smashing of walls, lived to
+        fight like madmen the detachment following the bombardment,
+        and to kill them every one.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Mathie told of the great
+        retreat&mdash;how men who had fought for days, who were
+        unbeaten and unafraid, had obeyed an order they hated and
+        could not understand, and had marched day and night, day
+        and night, eating as they toiled on, sleeping while they
+        marched, on and on, bloody-footed, desperate, and terrible,
+        filled with burning thirst and the agony of ceaseless
+        motion, on with dragging legs and laboring breasts and
+        red-hazed eyes, on and onward, unquenchable, with the
+        spirit of France.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Sergeant Delorme spoke of the sudden
+        fierce about-face at the Marne, of the irresistible
+        onslaught of men whose homes had been invaded, whose
+        children had been murdered, whose women had been enslaved,
+        of a ruthless fighting, swift and deadly, and lastly of a
+        bayonet charge by his own division, running down upon
+        superior numbers, engaging them in hand-to-hand conflict,
+        malignant and fatal, routing them over a field of blood and
+        death.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Monsieur Dorn, do you know the French
+        use of a bayonet?" asked Delorme.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No," replied Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"<i>Allons!</i> I will show you," he
+        said, taking up two rifles and handing one to Dorn. "Come.
+        It is so&mdash;and so&mdash;a trick. The boches can't face
+        cold steel.&hellip; Ah, monsieur, you have the supple wrists
+        of a juggler! You have the arms of a giant! You have the
+        eyes of a duelist! You will be one grand spitter of German
+        pigs!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn felt the blanching of his face,
+        the tingling of his nerves, the tightening of his muscles.
+        A cold and terrible meaning laid hold of him even in the
+        instant when he trembled before this flaming-eyed French
+        veteran who complimented him while he instructed. How
+        easily, Dorn thought, could this soldier slip the bright
+        bayonet over his guard and pierce him from breast to back!
+        How horrible the proximity of that sinister blade, with its
+        glint, its turn, its edge, so potently expressive of its
+        history! Even as Dorn crossed bayonets with this inspired
+        Frenchman he heard a soldier comrade say that Delorme had
+        let daylight through fourteen boches in that memorable
+        victory of the Marne.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You are very big and strong and
+        quick, monsieur," said the officer Huon, simply. "In
+        bayonet-work you will be a killer of boches."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">In their talk and practice and help,
+        in their intent to encourage the young American soldier,
+        these Blue Devils one and all dealt in frank and inevitable
+        terms of death. That was their meaning in life. It was
+        immeasurably horrible for Dorn, because it seemed a
+        realization of his imagined visions. He felt like a child
+        among old savages of a war tribe. Yet he was fascinated by
+        this close-up suggestion of man to man in battle, of German
+        to American, of materialist to idealist, and beyond all
+        control was the bursting surge of his blood. The exercises
+        he had gone through, the trick he had acquired, somehow had
+        strange power to liberate his emotion.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The officer Huon spoke English, and
+        upon his words Dorn hung spellbound.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You Americans have the fine dash, the
+        nerve. You will perform wonders. But you don't realize what
+        this war is. You will perish of sheer curiosity to see or
+        eagerness to fight. But these are the least of the horrors
+        of this war.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Actual fighting is to me a relief, a
+        forgetfulness, an excitement, and is so with many of my
+        comrades. We have survived wounds, starvation, shell-shock,
+        poison gas and fire, the diseases of war, the awful toil of
+        the trenches. And each and every one of us who has served
+        long bears in his mind the particular horror that haunts
+        him. I have known veterans to go mad at the screaming of
+        shells. I have seen good soldiers stand upon a trench,
+        inviting the fire that would end suspense. For a man who
+        hopes to escape alive this war is indeed the ninth circle
+        of hell.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My own particular horrors are mud,
+        water, and cold. I have lived in dark, cold mud-holes so
+        long that my mind concerning them is not right. I know it
+        the moment I come out to rest. Rest! Do you know that we
+        cannot rest? The comfort of this dirty old barn, of these
+        fires, of this bare ground is so great that we cannot rest,
+        we cannot sleep, we cannot do anything. When I think of the
+        past winter I do not remember injury and agony for myself,
+        or the maimed and mangled bodies of my comrades. I remember
+        only the horrible cold, the endless ages of waiting, the
+        hopeless misery of the dugouts, foul, black rat-holes that
+        we had to crawl into through sticky mud and filthy water.
+        Mud, water, and cold, with the stench of the dead clogging
+        your nostrils! That to me is war!&hellip; <i>Les
+        Mis&eacute;rables!</i> You Americans will never know that,
+        thank God. For it could not be endured by men who did not
+        belong to this soil. After all, the filthy water is half
+        blood and the mud is part of the dead of our people."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Huon talked on and on, with the
+        eloquence of a Frenchman who relieves himself of a burden.
+        He told of trenches dug in a swamp, lived in and fought in,
+        and then used for the graves of the dead, trenches that had
+        to be lived in again months afterward. The rotting dead
+        were everywhere. When they were covered the rain would come
+        to wash away the earth, exposing them again. That was the
+        strange refrain of this soldier's moody lament&mdash;the
+        rain that fell, the mud that forever held him rooted fast
+        in the tracks of his despair. He told of night and storm,
+        of a weary squad of men, lying flat, trying to dig in under
+        cover of rain and darkness, of the hell of cannonade over
+        and around them. He told of hours that blasted men's souls,
+        of death that was a blessing, of escape that was torture
+        beyond the endurance of humans. Crowning that night of
+        horrors piled on horrors, when he had seen a dozen men
+        buried alive in mud lifted by a monster shell, when he had
+        seen a refuge deep underground opened and devastated by a
+        like projectile, came a cloud-burst that flooded the
+        trenches and the fields, drowning soldiers whose injuries
+        and mud-laden garments impeded their movements, and
+        rendering escape for the others an infernal labor and a
+        hideous wretchedness, unutterable and insupportable.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Round the camp-fires the Blue Devils
+        stood or lay, trying to rest. But the habit of the trenches
+        was upon them. Dorn gazed at each and every soldier, so
+        like in strange resemblance, so different in physical
+        characteristics; and the sad, profound, and terrifying
+        knowledge came to him of what they must have in their
+        minds. He realized that all he needed was to suffer and
+        fight and live through some little part of the war they had
+        endured and then some truth would burst upon him. It was
+        there in the restless steps, in the prone forms, in the
+        sunken, glaring eyes. What soldiers, what men, what giants!
+        Three and a half years of unnamable and indescribable fury
+        of action and strife of thought! Not dead, nor stolid like
+        oxen, were these soldiers of France. They had a simplicity
+        that seemed appalling. We have given all; we have stood in
+        the way, borne the brunt, saved you&mdash;this was flung at
+        Dorn, not out of their thought, but from their presence.
+        The fact that they were there was enough. He needed only to
+        find these bravest of brave warriors real, alive, throbbing
+        men.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn lingered there, loath to leave.
+        The great lesson of his life held vague connection in some
+        way with this squad of French privates. But he could not
+        pierce the veil. This meeting came as a climax to four
+        months of momentous meetings with the best and the riffraff
+        of many nations. Dorn had studied, talked, listened, and
+        learned. He who had as yet given nothing, fought no enemy,
+        saved no comrade or refugee or child in all this whirlpool
+        of battling millions, felt a profound sense of his
+        littleness, his ignorance. He who had imagined himself
+        unfortunate had been blind, sick, self-centered. Here were
+        soldiers to whom comfort and rest were the sweetest
+        blessings upon the earth, and they could not grasp them. No
+        more could they grasp them than could the gaping civilians
+        and the distinguished travelers grasp what these grand
+        hulks of veteran soldiers had done. Once a group of
+        civilians halted near the soldiers. An officer was their
+        escort. He tried to hurry them on, but failed. Delorme
+        edged away into the gloomy, damp barn rather than meet such
+        visitors. Some of his comrades followed suit. Ferier, the
+        incomparable of the Blue Devils, the wearer of all the
+        French medals and the bearer of twenty-five wounds received
+        in battle&mdash;he sneaked away, afraid and humble and
+        sullen, to hide himself from the curious. That action of
+        Ferier's was a revelation to Dorn. He felt a sting of
+        shame. There were two classes of people in relation to this
+        war&mdash;those who went to fight and those who stayed
+        behind. What had Delorme or Mathie or Ferier to do with the
+        world of selfish, comfortable, well-fed men? Dorn heard a
+        million voices of France crying out the bitter
+        truth&mdash;that if these war-bowed veterans ever returned
+        alive to their homes it would be with hopes and hearts and
+        faiths burned out, with hands forever lost to their old
+        use, with bodies that the war had robbed.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn bade his new-made friends adieu,
+        and in the darkening twilight he hurried toward his own
+        camp.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If I could go back home now,
+        honorably and well, I would never do it," he muttered. "I
+        couldn't bear to live knowing what I know now&mdash;unless
+        I had laughed at this death, and risked it&mdash;and dealt
+        it!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He was full of gladness, of
+        exultation, in contemplation of the wonderful gift the
+        hours had brought him. More than any men of history or
+        present, he honored these soldiers the Germans feared. Like
+        an Indian, Dorn respected brawn, courage, fortitude,
+        silence, aloofness.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"There was a divinity in those
+        soldiers," he soliloquized. "I felt it in their complete
+        ignorance of their greatness. Yet they had pride, jealousy.
+        Oh, the mystery of it all!&hellip; When my day comes I'll
+        last one short and terrible hour. I would never make a
+        soldier like one of them. No American could. They are
+        Frenchmen whose homes have been despoiled."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">In the tent of his comrades that night
+        Dorn reverted from old habit, and with a passionate
+        eloquence he told all he had seen and heard, and much that
+        he had felt. His influence on these young men, long
+        established, but subtle and unconscious, became in that
+        hour a tangible fact. He stirred them. He felt them
+        thoughtful and sad, and yet more unflinching, stronger and
+        keener for the inevitable day.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The monstrous possibility that had
+        consumed Kurt Dorn for many months at last became an
+        event&mdash;he had arrived on the battle-front in
+        France.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">All afternoon the company of United
+        States troops had marched from far back of the line,
+        resting, as darkness came on, at a camp of reserves, and
+        then going on. Artillery fire had been desultory during
+        this march; the big guns that had rolled their thunder
+        miles and miles were now silent. But an immense activity
+        and a horde of soldiers back of the lines brought strange
+        leaden oppression to Kurt Dorn's heart.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The last slow travel of his squad over
+        dark, barren space and through deep, narrow, winding lanes
+        in the ground had been a nightmare ending to the long
+        journey. France had not yet become clear to him; he was a
+        stranger in a strange land; in spite of his tremendous
+        interest and excitement, all seemed abstract matters of his
+        feeling, the plague of himself made actuality the substance
+        of dreams. That last day, the cumulation of months of
+        training and travel, had been one in which he had observed,
+        heard, talked and felt in a nervous and fevered excitement.
+        But now he imagined he could not remember any of it. His
+        poignant experience with the Blue Devils had been a reality
+        he could never forget, but now this blackness of
+        subterranean cavern, this damp, sickening odor of earth,
+        this presence of men, the strange, muffled sounds&mdash;all
+        these were unreal. How had he come here? His mind labored
+        with a burden strangely like that on his chest. A
+        different, utterly unfamiliar emotion seemed rising over
+        him. Maybe that was because he was very tired and very
+        sleepy. Sometime that night he must go on duty. He ought to
+        sleep. It was impossible. He could not close his eyes. An
+        effort to attend to what he was actually doing disclosed
+        the fact that he was listening with all his strength. For
+        what? He could not answer then. He heard the distant,
+        muffled sounds, and low voices nearer, and thuds and
+        footfalls. His comrades were near him; he heard their
+        breathing; he felt their presence. They were strained and
+        intense; like him, they were locked up in their own prison
+        of emotions.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Always heretofore, on nights that he
+        lay sleepless, Dorn had thought of the two things dearest
+        on earth to him&mdash;Lenore Anderson and the golden
+        wheat-hills of his home. This night he called up Lenore's
+        image. It hung there in the blackness, a dim, pale phantom
+        of her sweet face, her beautiful eyes, her sad lips, and
+        then it vanished. Not at all could he call up a vision of
+        his beloved wheat-fields. So the suspicion that something
+        was wrong with his mind became a certainty. It angered him,
+        quickened his sensitiveness, even while he despaired. He
+        ground his teeth and clenched his fists and swore to
+        realize his presence there, and to rise to the occasion as
+        had been his vaunted ambition.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Suddenly he felt something slimy and
+        hairy against his wrist&mdash;then a stinging bite. A rat!
+        A trench rat that lived on flesh! He flung his arm
+        violently and beat upon the soft earth. The incident of
+        surprise and disgust helped Dorn at least in one way. His
+        mind had been set upon a strange and supreme condition of
+        his being there, of an emotion about to overcome him. The
+        bite of a rat, drawing blood, made a literal fact of his
+        being a soldier, in a dugout at the front waiting in the
+        blackness for his call to go on guard. This incident proved
+        to Dorn his limitations, and that he was too terribly
+        concerned with his feelings ever to last long as a soldier.
+        But he could not help himself. His pulse, his heart, his
+        brain, all seemed to beat, beat, beat with a nameless
+        passion.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Was he losing his nerve&mdash;was he
+        afraid? His denial did not reassure him. He understood that
+        patriotism and passion were emotions, and that the
+        realities of a soldier's life were not.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn forced himself to think of
+        realities, hoping thus to get a grasp upon his vanishing
+        courage. And memory helped him. Not so many days, weeks,
+        months back he had been a different man. At Bordeaux, when
+        his squad first set foot upon French soil! That was a
+        splendid reality. How he had thrilled at the welcome of the
+        French sailors!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then he thought of the strenuous round
+        of army duties, of training tasks, of traveling in cold
+        box-cars, of endless marches, of camps and villages, of
+        drills and billets. Never to be forgotten was that morning,
+        now seemingly long ago, when an officer had ordered the
+        battalion to pack. "We are going to the front!" he
+        announced. Magic words! What excitement, what whooping,
+        what bragging and joy among the boys, what hurry and bustle
+        and remarkable efficiency! That had been a reality of
+        actual experience, but the meaning of it, the terrible
+        significance, had been beyond the mind of any American.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm here&mdash;at the
+        front&mdash;now," whispered Dorn to himself. "A few rods
+        away are Germans!" &hellip; Inconceivable&mdash;no reality
+        at all! He went on with his swift account of things, with
+        his mind ever sharpening, with that strange, mounting
+        emotion flooding to the full, ready to burst its barriers.
+        When he and his comrades had watched their transport trains
+        move away&mdash;when they had stood waiting for their own
+        trains&mdash;had the idea of actual conflict yet dawned
+        upon them? Dorn had to answer No. He remembered that he had
+        made few friends among the inhabitants of towns and
+        villages where he had stayed. What leisure time he got had
+        been given to a seeking out of sailors, soldiers, and men
+        of all races, with whom he found himself in remarkable
+        contact. The ends of the world brought together by one war!
+        How could his memory ever hold all that had come to him?
+        But it did. Passion liberated it. He saw now that his eye
+        was a lens, his mind a sponge, his heart a gulf.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Out of the hundreds of thousands of
+        American troops in France, what honor it was to be in the
+        chosen battalion to go to the front! Dorn lived only with
+        his squad, but he felt the envy of the whole army. What
+        luck! To be chosen from so many&mdash;to go out and see the
+        game through quickly! He began to consider that differently
+        now. The luck might be with the soldiers left behind.
+        Always, underneath Dorn's perplexity and pondering, under
+        his intelligence and spirit at their best, had been a
+        something deeply personal, something of the internal of
+        him, a selfish instinct. It was the nature of
+        man&mdash;self-preservation.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Like a tempest swept over Dorn the
+        most significant ordeal and lesson of his experience in
+        France&mdash;that wonderful reality when he met the Blue
+        Devils and they took him in. However long he lived, his
+        life must necessarily be transformed from contact with
+        those great men.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The night march over the unending
+        roads, through the gloom and the spectral starlight, with
+        the dull rumblings of cannon shocking his heart&mdash;that
+        Dorn lived over, finding strangely a minutest detail of
+        observation and a singular veracity of feeling fixed in his
+        memory.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Afternoon of that very day, at the
+        reserve camp somewhere back there, had brought an officer's
+        address to the soldiers, a strong and emphatic appeal as
+        well as order&mdash;to obey, to do one's duty, to take no
+        chances, to be eternally vigilant, to believe that every
+        man had advantage on his side, even in war, if he were not
+        a fool or a daredevil. Dorn had absorbed the speech,
+        remembered every word, but it all seemed futile now. Then
+        had come the impressive inspection of equipment, a careful
+        examination of gas-masks, rifles, knapsacks. After that the
+        order to march!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn imagined that he had remembered
+        little, but he had remembered all. Perhaps the sense of
+        strange unreality was only the twist in his mind. Yet he
+        did not know where he was&mdash;what part of
+        France&mdash;how far north or south on the front
+        line&mdash;in what sector. Could not that account for the
+        sense of feeling lost?</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Nevertheless, he was there at the end
+        of all this incomprehensible journey. He became possessed
+        by an irresistible desire to hurry. Once more Dorn
+        attempted to control the far-flinging of his
+        thoughts&mdash;to come down to earth. The earth was there
+        under his hand, soft, sticky, moldy, smelling vilely. He
+        dug his fingers into it, until the feel of something like a
+        bone made him jerk them out. Perhaps he had felt a stone. A
+        tiny, creeping, chilly shudder went up his back. Then he
+        remembered, he felt, he saw his little attic room, in the
+        old home back among the wheat-hills of the Northwest. Six
+        thousand miles away! He would never see that room again.
+        What unaccountable vagary of memory had ever recalled it to
+        him? It faded out of his mind.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Some of his comrades whispered; now
+        and then one rolled over; none snored, for none of them
+        slept. Dorn felt more aloof from them than ever. How
+        isolated each one was, locked in his own trouble! Every one
+        of them, like himself, had a lonely soul. Perhaps they were
+        facing it. He could not conceive of a careless,
+        thoughtless, emotionless attitude toward this first night
+        in the front-line trench.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn gradually grew more acutely
+        sensitive to the many faint, rustling, whispering sounds in
+        and near the dugout.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A soldier came stooping into the
+        opaque square of the dugout door. His rifle, striking the
+        framework, gave out a metallic clink. This fellow expelled
+        a sudden heavy breath as if throwing off an oppression.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Is that you, Sanborn?" This whisper
+        Dorn recognized as Dixon's. It was full of suppressed
+        excitement.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Guess it's my turn next.
+        How&mdash;how does it go?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Sanborn's laugh had an odd little
+        quaver. "Why, so far as I know, I guess it's all right.
+        Damn queer, though. I wish we'd got here in daytime.&hellip;
+        But maybe that wouldn't help."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Humph!&hellip; Pretty quiet out
+        there?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"So Bob says, but what's he
+        know&mdash;more than us? I heard guns up the line, and
+        rifle-fire not so far off."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Can you see any&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Not a damn thing&mdash;yet
+        everything," interrupted Sanborn, enigmatically.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dixon!" called Owens, low and
+        quickly, from the darkness.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dixon did not reply. His sudden hard
+        breathing, the brushing of his garments against the door,
+        then swift, soft steps dying away attested to the fact of
+        his going.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn tried to compose himself to rest,
+        if not to sleep. He heard Sanborn sit down, and then
+        apparently stay very still for some time. All of a sudden
+        he whispered to himself. Dorn distinguished the word
+        "hell."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What's ailin' you, pard?" drawled
+        Brewer.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Sanborn growled under his breath, and
+        when some one else in the dugout quizzed him curiously he
+        burst out: "I'll bet you galoots the state of California
+        against a dill pickle that when your turn comes you'll be
+        sick in your gizzards!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We'll take our medicine," came in the
+        soft, quiet voice of Purcell.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">No more was said. The men all
+        pretended to fall asleep, each ashamed to let his comrade
+        think he was concerned.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A short, dull, heavy rumble seemed to
+        burst the outer stillness. For a moment the dugout was
+        silent as a tomb. No one breathed. Then came a jar of the
+        earth, a creaking of shaken timbers. Some one gasped
+        involuntarily. Another whispered:</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"By God! the real thing!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn wondered how far away that
+        jarring shell had alighted. Not so far! It was the first he
+        had ever heard explode near him. Roaring of cannon,
+        exploding of shell&mdash;this had been a source of
+        every-day talk among his comrades. But the jar, the tremble
+        of the earth, had a dreadful significance. Another rumble,
+        another jar, not so heavy or so near this time, and then a
+        few sharply connected reports, clamped Dorn as in a cold
+        vise. Machine-gun shots! Many thousand machine-gun shots
+        had he heard, but none with the life and the spite and the
+        spang of these. Did he imagine the difference? Cold as he
+        felt, he began to sweat, and continually, as he wiped the
+        palms of his hands, they grew wet again. A queer sensation
+        of light-headedness and weakness seemed to possess him. The
+        roots of his will-power seemed numb. Nevertheless, all the
+        more revolving and all-embracing seemed his mind.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The officer in his speech a few hours
+        back had said the sector to which the battalion had been
+        assigned was alive. By this he meant that active
+        bombardment, machine-gun fire, hand-grenade throwing, and
+        gas-shelling, or attack in force might come any time, and
+        certainly must come as soon as the Germans suspected the
+        presence of an American force opposite them.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">That was the stunning reality to
+        Dorn&mdash;the actual existence of the Huns a few rods
+        distant. But realization of them had not brought him to the
+        verge of panic. He would not flinch at confronting the
+        whole German army. Nor did he imagine he put a great price
+        upon his life. Nor did he have any abnormal dread of pain.
+        Nor had the well-remembered teachings of the Bible troubled
+        his spirit. Was he going to be a coward because of some
+        incalculable thing in him or force operating against him?
+        Already he sat there, shivering and sweating, with the load
+        on his breast growing laborsome, with all his sensorial
+        being absolutely at keenest edge.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Rapid footfalls halted his
+        heart-beats. They came from above, outside the dugout, from
+        the trench.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dorn, come out!" called the
+        corporal.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn's response was instant. But he
+        was as blind as if he had no eyes, and he had to feel his
+        way to climb out. The indistinct, blurred form of the
+        corporal seemed half merged in the pale gloom of the
+        trench. A cool wind whipped at Dorn's hot face. Surcharged
+        with emotion, the nature of which he feared, Dorn followed
+        the corporal, stumbling and sliding over the wet boards,
+        knocking bits of earth from the walls, feeling a sick icy
+        gripe in his bowels. Some strange light flared
+        up&mdash;died away. Another rumble, distinct, heavy, and
+        vibrating! To his left somewhere the earth received a
+        shock. Dorn felt a wave of air that was not wind.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The corporal led the way past
+        motionless men peering out over the top of the wall, and on
+        to a widening, where an abutment of filled bags loomed up
+        darkly. Here the corporal cautiously climbed up breaks in
+        the wall and stooped behind the fortification. Dorn
+        followed. His legs did not feel natural. Something was lost
+        out of them. Then he saw the little figure of Rogers beside
+        him. Dorn's turn meant Rogers's relief. How pale against
+        the night appeared the face of Rogers! As he peered under
+        his helmet at Dorn a low whining passed in the air
+        overhead. Rogers started slightly. A thump sounded out
+        there, interrupting the corporal, who had begun to speak.
+        He repeated his order to Dorn, bending a little to peer
+        into his face. Dorn tried to open his lips to say he did
+        not understand, but his lips were mute. Then the corporal
+        led Rogers away.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">That moment alone, out in the open,
+        with the strange, windy pall of night&mdash;all-enveloping,
+        with the flares, like sheet-lightning, along the horizon,
+        with a rumble here and a roar there, with whistling fiends
+        riding the blackness above, with a series of popping,
+        impelling reports seemingly close in front&mdash;that drove
+        home to Kurt Dorn a cruel and present and unescapable
+        reality.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">At that instant, like bitter fate,
+        shot up a rocket, or a star-flare of calcium light,
+        bursting to expose all underneath in pitiless radiance.
+        With a gasp that was a sob, Dorn shrank flat against the
+        wall, staring into the fading circle, feeling a creep of
+        paralysis. He must be seen. He expected the sharp, biting
+        series of a machine-gun or the bursting of a bomb. But
+        nothing happened, except that the flare died away. It had
+        come from behind his own lines. Control of his muscles had
+        almost returned when a heavy boom came from the German
+        side. Miles away, perhaps, but close! That boom meant a
+        great shell speeding on its hideous mission. It would pass
+        over him. He listened. The wind came from that side. It was
+        cold; it smelled of burned powder; it carried sounds he was
+        beginning to appreciate&mdash;shots, rumbles, spats, and
+        thuds, whistles of varying degree, all isolated sounds.
+        Then he caught a strange, low moaning. It rose. It was
+        coming fast. It became an o-o-o-O-O-O! Nearer and nearer!
+        It took on a singing whistle. It was
+        passing&mdash;no&mdash;falling!&hellip; A mighty blow was
+        delivered to the earth&mdash;a jar&mdash;a splitting shock
+        to windy darkness; a wave of heavy air was flung
+        afar&mdash;and then came the soft, heavy thumping of
+        falling earth.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">That shell had exploded close to the
+        place where Dorn stood. It terrified him. It reduced him to
+        a palpitating, stricken wretch, utterly unable to cope with
+        the terror. It was not what he had expected. What were
+        words, anyhow? By words alone he had understood this shell
+        thing. Death was only a word, too. But to be blown to
+        atoms! It came every moment to some poor devil; it might
+        come to him. But that was not fighting. Somewhere off in
+        the blackness a huge iron monster belched this hell out
+        upon defenseless men. Revolting and inconceivable
+        truth!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was Dorn's ordeal that his
+        mentality robbed this hour of novelty and of adventure,
+        that while his natural, physical fear incited panic and
+        nausea and a horrible, convulsive internal retching, his
+        highly organized, exquisitely sensitive mind, more like a
+        woman's in its capacity for emotion, must suffer through
+        imagining the infinite agonies that he might really escape.
+        Every shell then must blow him to bits; every agony of
+        every soldier must be his.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">But he knew what his duty was, and as
+        soon as he could move he began to edge along the short
+        beat. Once at the end he drew a deep and shuddering breath,
+        and, fighting all his involuntary instincts, he peered over
+        the top. An invisible thing whipped close over his head. It
+        did not whistle; it cut. Out in front of him was only
+        thick, pale gloom, with spectral forms, leading away to the
+        horizon, where flares, like sheet-lightning of a summer
+        night's storm, ran along showing smoke and bold, ragged
+        outlines. Then he went to the other end to peer over there.
+        His eyes were keen, and through long years of habit at
+        home, going about at night without light, he could see
+        distinctly where ordinary sight would meet only a blank
+        wall. The flat ground immediately before him was bare of
+        living or moving objects. That was his duty as sentinel
+        here&mdash;to make sure of no surprise patrol from the
+        enemy lines. It helped Dorn to realize that he could
+        accomplish this duty even though he was in a torment.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">That space before him was empty, but
+        it was charged with current. Wind, shadow, gloom, smoke,
+        electricity, death, spirit&mdash;whatever that current was,
+        Dorn felt it. He was more afraid of that than the
+        occasional bullets which zipped across. Sometimes shots
+        from his own squad rang out up and down the line. Off
+        somewhat to the north a machine-gun on the Allies' side
+        spoke now and then spitefully. Way back a big gun boomed.
+        Dorn listened to the whine of shells from his own side with
+        a far different sense than that with which he heard shells
+        whine from the enemy. How natural and yet how unreasonable!
+        Shells from the other side came over to destroy him; shells
+        from his side went back to save him. But both were shot to
+        kill! Was he, the unknown and shrinking novice of a
+        soldier, any better than an unknown and shrinking soldier
+        far across there in the darkness? What was equality? But
+        these were Germans! That thing so often said&mdash;so
+        beaten into his brain&mdash;did not convince out here in
+        the face of death.</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Four o'clock! With the gray light came
+        a gradually increasing number of shells. Most of them
+        struck far back. A few, to right and left, dropped near the
+        front line. The dawn broke&mdash;such a dawn as he never
+        dreamed of&mdash;smoky and raw, with thunder spreading to a
+        circle all around the horizon.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He was relieved. On his way in he
+        passed Purcell at the nearest post. The elegant New-Yorker
+        bore himself with outward calm. But in the gray dawn he
+        looked haggard and drawn. Older! That flashed through
+        Dorn's mind. A single night had contained years, more than
+        years. Others of the squad had subtly changed. Dixon gave
+        him a penetrating look, as if he wore a mask, under which
+        was a face of betrayal, of contrast to that soldier
+        bearing, of youth that was gone forever.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The squad of men to which Dorn
+        belonged had to be on the lookout continually for an attack
+        that was inevitable. The Germans were feeling out the line,
+        probably to verify spy news of the United States troops
+        taking over a sector. They had not, however, made sure of
+        this fact.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The gas-shells came over regularly,
+        making life for the men a kind of suffocation most of the
+        time. And the great shells that blew enormous holes in
+        front and in back of their position never allowed a
+        relaxation from strain. Drawn and haggard grew the faces
+        that had been so clean-cut and brown and fresh.</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">One evening at mess, when the sector
+        appeared quiet enough to permit of rest, Rogers was talking
+        to some comrades before the door of the dugout.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It sure got my goat, that little
+        promenade of ours last night over into No Man's Land," he
+        said. "We had orders to slip out and halt a German patrol
+        that was supposed to be stealing over to our line. We
+        crawled on our bellies, looking and listening every minute.
+        If that isn't the limit! My heart was in my mouth. I
+        couldn't breathe. And for the first moments, if I'd run
+        into a Hun, I'd had no more strength than a rabbit. But all
+        seemed clear. It was not a bright night&mdash;sort of
+        opaque and gloomy&mdash;shadows everywhere. There wasn't
+        any patrol coming. But Corporal Owens thought he heard men
+        farther on working with wire. We crawled some more. And we
+        must have got pretty close to the enemy lines&mdash;in
+        fact, we had&mdash;when up shot one of those damned calcium
+        flares. We all burrowed into the ground. I was paralyzed.
+        It got as light as noon&mdash;strange greenish-white flare.
+        It magnified. Flat as I lay, I saw the German embankments
+        not fifty yards away. I made sure we were goners. Slowly
+        the light burned out. Then that machine-gun you all heard
+        began to rattle. Something queer about the way every shot
+        of a machine-gun bites the air. We heard the bullets, low
+        down, right over us. Say, boys, I'd almost rather be hit
+        and have it done with!&hellip; We began to crawl back. I
+        wanted to run. We all wanted to. But Owens is a nervy guy
+        and he kept whispering. Another machine-gun cut loose, and
+        bullets rained over us. Like hail they hit somewhere ahead,
+        scattering the gravel. We'd almost reached our line when
+        Smith jumped up and ran. He said afterward that he just
+        couldn't help himself. The suspense was awful. I know. I've
+        been a clerk in a bank! Get that? And there I was under a
+        hail of Hun lead, without being able to understand why, or
+        feel that any time had passed since giving up my job to go
+        to war. Queer how I saw my old desk!&hellip; Well, that's
+        how Smith got his. I heard the bullets spat him, sort of
+        thick and soft.&hellip; Ugh!&hellip; Owens and I dragged him
+        along, and finally into the trench. He had a bullet through
+        his shoulder and leg. Guess he'll live, all right.&hellip;
+        Boys, take this from me. Nobody can <i>tell</i> you what a
+        machine-gun is like. A rifle, now, is not so much. You get
+        shot at, and you know the man must reload and aim. That
+        takes time. But a machine-gun! Whew! It's a comb&mdash;a
+        fine-toothed comb&mdash;and you're the louse it's after!
+        You hear that steady rattle, and then you hear bullets
+        everywhere. Think of a man against a machine-gun! It's not
+        a square deal."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dixon was one of the listeners. He
+        laughed.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Rogers, I'd like to have been with
+        you. Next time I'll volunteer. You had action&mdash;a run
+        for your money. That's what I enlisted for. Standing
+        still&mdash;doing nothing but wait&mdash;that drives me
+        half mad. My years of football have made action necessary.
+        Otherwise I go stale in mind and body.&hellip; Last night,
+        before you went on that scouting trip, I had been on duty
+        two hours. Near midnight. The shelling had died down. All
+        became quiet. No flares&mdash;no flashes anywhere. There
+        was a luminous kind of glow in the sky&mdash;moonlight
+        through thin clouds. I had to listen and watch. But I
+        couldn't keep back my thoughts. There I was, a soldier,
+        facing No Man's Land, across whose dark space were the Huns
+        we have come to regard as devils in brutality, yet less
+        than men.&hellip; And I thought of home. No man knows what
+        home really is until he stands that lonely midnight guard.
+        A shipwrecked sailor appreciates the comforts he once had;
+        a desert wanderer, lost and starving, remembers the food he
+        once wasted; a volunteer soldier, facing death in the
+        darkness, thinks of his home! It is a hell of a
+        feeling!&hellip; And, thinking of home, I remembered my
+        girl. I've been gone four months&mdash;have been at the
+        front seven days (or is it seven years?) and last night in
+        the darkness she came to me. Oh yes! she was there! She
+        seemed reproachful, as she was when she coaxed me not to
+        enlist. My girl was not one of the kind who sends her lover
+        to war and swears she will die an old maid unless he
+        returns. Mine begged me to stay home, or at least wait for
+        the draft. But I wasn't built that way. I enlisted. And
+        last night I felt the bitterness of a soldier's fate. All
+        this beautiful stuff is bunk!&hellip; My girl is a peach.
+        She had many admirers, two in particular that made me run
+        my best down the stretch. One is club-footed. He couldn't
+        fight. The other is all yellow. Him she liked best. He had
+        her fooled, the damned slacker.&hellip; I wish I could
+        believe I'd get safe back home, with a few Huns to my
+        credit&mdash;the Croix de Guerre&mdash;and an officer's
+        uniform. That would be great. How I could show up those
+        fellows!&hellip; But I'll get killed&mdash;as sure as God
+        made little apples I'll get killed&mdash;and she will marry
+        one of the men who would not fight!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was about the middle of a clear
+        morning, still cold, but the sun was shining. Guns were
+        speaking intermittently. Those soldiers who were off duty
+        had their gas-masks in their hands. All were gazing
+        intently upward.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn sat a little apart from them. He,
+        too, looked skyward, and he was so absorbed that he did not
+        hear the occasional rumble of a distant gun. He was
+        watching the airmen at work&mdash;the most wonderful and
+        famous feature of the war. It absolutely enthralled Dorn.
+        As a boy he had loved to watch the soaring of the golden
+        eagles, and once he had seen a great wide-winged condor,
+        swooping along a mountain-crest. How he had envied them the
+        freedom of the heights&mdash;the loneliness of the
+        unscalable crags&mdash;the companionship of the clouds!
+        Here he gazed and marveled at the man-eagles of the
+        air.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">German planes had ventured over the
+        lines, flying high, and English planes had swept up to
+        intercept them. One was rising then not far away, climbing
+        fast, like a fish-hawk with prey in its claws. Its color,
+        its framework, its propeller, and its aviator showed
+        distinctly against the sky. The buzzing, high-pitched drone
+        of its motor floated down.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The other aeroplanes, far above, had
+        lost their semblance to mechanical man-driven machines.
+        They were now the eagles of the air. They were rising,
+        circling, diving in maneuvers that Dorn knew meant pursuit.
+        But he could not understand these movements. To him the
+        air-battle looked as it must have looked to an Indian.
+        Birds of prey in combat! Dorn recalled verses he had
+        learned as a boy, written by a poet who sang of future wars
+        in the air. What he prophesied had come true. Was there not
+        a sage now who could pierce the veil of the future and sing
+        of such a thing as sacred human life? Dorn had his doubts.
+        Poets and dreamers appeared not to be the men who could
+        halt materialism. Strangely then, as Dorn gazed bitterly up
+        at these fierce fliers who fought in the heavens, he
+        remembered the story of the three wise men and of
+        Bethlehem. Was it only a story? Where on this sunny spring
+        morning was Christ, and the love of man for man?</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">At that moment one of the forward
+        aeroplanes, which was drifting back over the enemy lines,
+        lost its singular grace of slow, sweeping movement. It
+        poised in the air. It changed shape. It pitched as if from
+        wave to wave of wind. A faint puff of smoke showed. Tiny
+        specks, visible to Dorn's powerful eyes, seemed to detach
+        themselves and fall, to be followed by the plane itself in
+        sheer downward descent.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn leaped to his feet. What a
+        thrilling and terrible sight! His comrades stood
+        bareheaded, red faces uplifted, open-mouthed and wild with
+        excitement, not daring to disobey orders and yell at the
+        top of their lungs. Dorn felt, strong above the softened
+        wonder and thought of a moment back, a tingling, pulsating
+        wave of gushing blood go over him. Like his comrades, he
+        began to wave his arms and stamp and bite his tongue.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Swiftly the doomed plane swept down
+        out of sight. Gone! At that instant something which had
+        seemed like a bird must have become a broken mass. The
+        other planes drifted eastward.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn gasped, and broke the spell on
+        him. He was hot and wet with sweat, quivering with a
+        frenzy. How many thousand soldiers of the Allies had seen
+        that downward flight of the boche? Dorn pitied the
+        destroyed airman, hated himself, and had all the fury of
+        savage joy that had been in his comrades.</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn, relieved from guard and
+        firing-post, rushed back to the dugout. He needed the dark
+        of that dungeon. He crawled in and, searching out the
+        remotest, blackest corner, hidden from all human eyes, and
+        especially his own, he lay there clammy and wet all over,
+        with an icy, sickening rend, like a wound, in the pit of
+        his stomach. He shut his eyes, but that did not shut out
+        what he saw. "<i>So help me God!</i>" he whispered to
+        himself.&hellip; Six endless months had gone to the
+        preparation of a deed that had taken one second! That
+        transformed him! His life on earth, his spirit in the
+        beyond, could never be now what they might have been. And
+        he sobbed through grinding teeth as he felt the
+        disintegrating, agonizing, irremediable forces at work on
+        body, mind, and soul.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He had blown out the brains of his
+        first German.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Fires of hell, in two long lines,
+        bordering a barren, ghastly, hazy strip of land, burst
+        forth from the earth. From holes where men hid poured
+        thunder of guns and stream of smoke and screeching of iron.
+        That worthless strip of land, barring deadly foes, shook as
+        with repeated earthquakes. Huge spouts of black and yellow
+        earth lifted, fountain-like, to the dull, heavy bursts of
+        shells. Pound and jar, whistle and whine, long, broken
+        rumble, and the rattling concatenation of quick shots like
+        metallic cries, exploding hail-storm of iron in the air, a
+        desert over which thousands of puffs of smoke shot up and
+        swelled and drifted, the sliding crash far away, the
+        sibilant hiss swift overhead. Boom! Weeeee&mdash;eeeeooooo!
+        from the east. Boom! Weeeee&mdash;eeeeooooo! from the
+        west.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">At sunset there was no let-up. The
+        night was all the more hideous. Along the horizon flashed
+        up the hot sheets of lightning that were not of a summer
+        storm. Angry, lurid, red, these upflung blazes and flames
+        illumined the murky sky, showing in the fitful and
+        flickering intervals wagons driving toward the front, and
+        patrols of soldiers running toward some point, and great
+        upheavals of earth spread high.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">This heavy cannonading died away in
+        the middle of the night until an hour before dawn, when it
+        began again with redoubled fury and lasted until
+        daybreak.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dawn came reluctantly, Dorn thought.
+        He was glad. It meant a charge. Another night of that
+        hellish shrieking and bursting of shells would kill his
+        mind, if not his body. He stood on guard at a
+        fighting-post. Corporal Owens lay at his feet, wounded
+        slightly. He would not retire. As the cannons ceased he
+        went to sleep. Rogers stood close on one side, Dixon on the
+        other. The squad had lived through that awful night.
+        Soldiers were bringing food and drink to them. All appeared
+        grimly gay.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn was not gay. But he knew this was
+        the day he would laugh in the teeth of death. A slumbrous,
+        slow heat burned deep in him, like a covered fire, fierce
+        and hot at heart, awaiting the wind. Watching there, he did
+        not voluntarily move a muscle, yet all his body twitched
+        like that of the trained athlete, strained to leap into the
+        great race of his life.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">An officer came hurrying through. The
+        talking hushed. Men on guard, backs to the trench, never
+        moved their eyes from the forbidden land in front. The
+        officer spoke. Look for a charge! Reserves were close
+        behind. He gave his orders and passed on.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then an Allied gun opened up with a
+        boom. The shell moaned on over. Dorn saw where it burst,
+        sending smoke and earth aloft. That must have been a signal
+        for a bombardment of the enemy all along this sector, for
+        big and little guns began to thunder and crack.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The spectacle before Dorn's hard, keen
+        eyes was one that he thought wonderful. Far across No Man's
+        Land, which sloped somewhat at that point in the plain, he
+        saw movement of troops and guns. His eyes were telescopic.
+        Over there the ground appeared grassy in places, with green
+        ridges rising, and patches of brush and straggling trees
+        standing out clearly. Faint, gray-colored squads of
+        soldiers passed in sight with helmets flashing in the sun;
+        guns were being hauled forward; mounted horsemen dashed
+        here and there, vanishing and reappearing; and all through
+        that wide area of color and action shot up live black
+        spouts of earth crowned in white smoke that hung in the air
+        after the earth fell back. They were beautiful, these
+        shell-bursts. Round balls of white smoke magically appeared
+        in the air, to spread and drift; long, yellow columns or
+        streaks rose here, and there leaped up a fan-shaped, dirty
+        cloud, savage and sinister; sometimes several shells burst
+        close together, dashing the upflung sheets of earth
+        together and blending their smoke; at intervals a huge,
+        creamy-yellow explosion, like a geyser, rose aloft to
+        spread and mushroom, then to detach itself from the heavier
+        body it had upheaved, and float away, white and graceful,
+        on the wind.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Sinister beauty! Dorn soon lost sight
+        of that. There came a gnawing at his vitals. The far scene
+        of action could not hold his gaze. That dark, uneven,
+        hummocky break in the earth, which was a goodly number of
+        rods distant, yet now seemed close, drew a startling
+        attention. Dorn felt his eyes widen and pop. Spots and
+        dots, shiny, illusive, bobbed along that break, behind the
+        mounds, beyond the farther banks. A yell as from one lusty
+        throat ran along the line of which Dorn's squad held the
+        center. Dorn's sight had a piercing intensity. All was hard
+        under his grip&mdash;his rifle, the boards and bags against
+        which he leaned. Corporal Owens rose beside him,
+        bareheaded, to call low and fiercely to his men.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The gray dots and shiny spots leaped
+        up magically and appallingly into men. German soldiers!
+        Boches! Huns on a charge! They were many, but wide apart.
+        They charged, running low.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Machine-gun rattle, rifle-fire, and
+        strangled shouts blended along the line. From the charging
+        Huns seemed to come a sound that was neither battle-cry nor
+        yell nor chant, yet all of them together. The gray
+        advancing line thinned at points opposite the machine-guns,
+        but it was coming fast.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn cursed his hard, fumbling hands,
+        which seemed so eager and fierce that they stiffened. They
+        burned, too, from their grip on the hot rifle. Shot after
+        shot he fired, missing. He could not hit a field full of
+        Huns. He dropped shells, fumbled with them at the breech,
+        loaded wildly, aimed at random, pulled convulsively. His
+        brain was on fire. He had no anger, no fear, only a great
+        and futile eagerness. Yell and crack filled his ears. The
+        gray, stolid, unalterable Huns must be driven back. Dorn
+        loaded, crushed his rifle steady, pointed low at a great
+        gray bulk, and fired. That Hun pitched down out of the gray
+        advancing line. The sight almost overcame Dorn. Dizzy, with
+        blurred eyes, he leaned over his gun. His abdomen and
+        breast heaved, and he strangled over his gorge. Almost he
+        fainted. But violence beside him somehow, great heaps of
+        dust and gravel flung over him, hoarse, wild yells in his
+        ears, roused him. The boches were on the line! He leaped
+        up. Through the dust he saw charging gray forms, thick and
+        heavy. They plunged, as if actuated by one will. Bulky
+        blond men, ashen of face, with eyes of blue fire and brutal
+        mouths set grim&mdash;Huns!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Up out of the shallow trench sprang
+        comrades on each side of Dorn. No rats to be cornered in a
+        hole! Dorn seemed drawn by powerful hauling chains. He did
+        not need to climb! Four big Germans appeared simultaneously
+        upon the embankment of bags. They were shooting. One swung
+        aloft an arm and closed fist. He yelled like a demon. He
+        was a bomb-thrower. On the instant a bullet hit Dorn,
+        tearing at the side of his head, stinging excruciatingly,
+        knocking him down, flooding his face with blood. The shock,
+        like a weight, held him down, but he was not dazed. A body,
+        khaki-clad, rolled down beside him, convulsively flopped
+        against him. He bounded erect, his ears filled with a
+        hoarse and clicking din, his heart strangely lifting in his
+        breast.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Only one German now stood upon the
+        embankment of bags and he was the threatening bomb-thrower.
+        The others were down&mdash;gray forms wrestling with brown.
+        Dixon was lunging at the bomb-thrower, and, reaching him
+        with the bayonet, ran him through the belly. He toppled
+        over with an awful cry and fell hard on the other side of
+        the wall of loaded bags. The bomb exploded. In the streaky
+        burst Dixon seemed to charge in bulk&mdash;to be flung
+        aside like a leaf by a gale.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Little Rogers had engaged an enemy who
+        towered over him. They feinted, swung, and cracked their
+        guns together, then locked bayonets. Another German
+        striding from behind stabbed Rogers in the back. He writhed
+        off the bloody bayonet, falling toward Dorn, showing a
+        white face that changed as he fell, with quiver of torture
+        and dying eyes.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">That dormant inhibited self of Dorn
+        suddenly was no more. Fast as a flash he was upon the
+        murdering Hun. Bayonet and rifle-barrel lunged through him,
+        and so terrible was the thrust that the German was thrown
+        back as if at a blow from a battering-ram. Dorn whirled the
+        bloody bayonet, and it crashed to the ground the rifle of
+        the other German. Dorn saw not the visage of the
+        foe&mdash;only the thick-set body, and this he ripped open
+        in one mighty slash. The German's life spilled out
+        horribly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn leaped over the bloody mass.
+        Owens lay next, wide-eyed, alive, but stricken. Purcell
+        fought with clubbed rifle, backing away from several foes.
+        Brewer was being beaten down. Gray forms closing in! Dorn
+        saw leveled small guns,, flashes of red, the impact of lead
+        striking him. But he heard no shots. The roar in his ears
+        was the filling of a gulf. Out of that gulf pierced his
+        laugh. Gray
+        forms&mdash;guns&mdash;bullets&mdash;bayonets&mdash;death&mdash;he
+        laughed at them. His moment had come. Here he would pay.
+        His immense and terrible joy bridged the ages between the
+        past and this moment when he leaped light and swift, like a
+        huge cat, upon them. They fired and they hit, but Dorn
+        sprang on, tigerishly, with his loud and nameless laugh.
+        Bayonets thrust at him were straws. These enemies gave way,
+        appalled. With sweep and lunge he killed one and split a
+        second's skull before the first had fallen. A third he
+        lifted and upset and gored, like a bull, in one single
+        stroke. The fourth and last of that group, screaming his
+        terror and fury, ran in close to get beyond that sweeping
+        blade. He fired as he ran. Dorn tripped him heavily, and he
+        had scarcely struck the ground when that steel transfixed
+        his bulging throat.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Brewer was down, but Purcell had been
+        reinforced. Soldiers in brown came on the run, shooting,
+        yelling, brandishing. They closed in on the Germans, and
+        Dorn ran into that m&ecirc;l&eacute;e to make one thrust at
+        each gray form he encountered.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Shriller yells along the
+        line&mdash;American yells&mdash;the enemy there had given
+        ground! Dorn heard. He saw the gray line waver. He saw
+        reserves running to aid his squad. The Germans would be
+        beaten back. There was whirling blackness in his head
+        through which he seemed to see. The laugh broke hoarse and
+        harsh from his throat. Dust and blood choked him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Another gray form blocked his leaping
+        way. Dorn saw only low down, the gray arms reaching with
+        bright, unstained blade. His own bloody bayonet clashed
+        against it, locked, and felt the helplessness of the arms
+        that wielded it. An instant of pause&mdash;a heaving,
+        breathless instinct of impending exhaustion&mdash;a moment
+        when the petrific mace of primitive man stayed at the
+        return of the human&mdash;then with bloody foam on his lips
+        Dorn spent his madness.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A supple twist&mdash;the French
+        trick&mdash;and Dorn's powerful lunge, with all his
+        ponderous weight, drove his bayonet through the enemy's
+        lungs.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"<i>Ka&mdash;ma&mdash;rod!</i>" came
+        the strange, strangling cry.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A weight sagged down on Dorn's rifle.
+        He did not pull out the bayonet, but as it lowered with the
+        burden of the body his eyes, fixed at one height, suddenly
+        had brought into their range the face of his foe.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A boy&mdash;dying on his bayonet! Then
+        came a resurrection of Kurt Dorn's soul. He looked at what
+        must be his last deed as a soldier. His mind halted. He saw
+        only the ghastly face, the eyes in which he expected to see
+        hate, but saw only love of life, suddenly reborn, suddenly
+        surprised at death.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"God save you, German! I'd give my
+        life for yours!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Too late! Dorn watched the youth's
+        last clutching of empty fingers, the last look of
+        consciousness at his conqueror, the last quiver. The youth
+        died and slid back off the rigid bayonet. War of men!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A heavy thud sounded to the left of
+        Dorn. A bursting flash hid the face of his German victim. A
+        terrific wind, sharp and hard as nails, lifted Dorn into
+        roaring blackness.&hellip;</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Many Waters" shone white and green
+        under the bright May sunshine. Seen from the height of
+        slope, the winding brooks looked like silver bands across a
+        vast belt of rainy green and purple that bordered the broad
+        river in the bottom-lands. A summer haze filled the air,
+        and hints of gold on the waving wheat slopes presaged an
+        early and bountiful harvest.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was warm up there on the slope
+        where Lenore Anderson watched and brooded. The breeze
+        brought fragrant smell of fresh-cut alfalfa and the
+        rustling song of the wheat. The stately house gleamed white
+        down on the terraced green knoll; horses and cattle grazed
+        in the pasture; workmen moved like snails in the brown
+        gardens; a motor-car crept along the road far below, with
+        its trail of rising dust.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Two miles of soft green wheat-slope
+        lay between Lenore and her home. She had needed the
+        loneliness and silence and memory of a place she had not
+        visited for many months. Winter had passed. Summer had come
+        with its birds and flowers. The wheat-fields were again
+        waving, beautiful, luxuriant. But life was not as it had
+        been for Lenore Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kurt Dorn, private, mortally
+        wounded!&mdash;So had read the brief and terrible line in a
+        Spokane newspaper, publishing an Associated Press despatch
+        of Pershing's casualty-list. No more! That had been the
+        only news of Kurt Dorn for a long time. A month had dragged
+        by, of doubt, of hope, of slow despairing.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Up to the time of that fatal
+        announcement Lenore had scarcely noted the fleeting of the
+        days. With all her spirit and energy she had thrown herself
+        into the organizing of the women of the valley to work for
+        the interests of the war. She had made herself a leader who
+        spared no effort, no sacrifice, no expense in what she
+        considered her duty. Conservation of food, intensive farm
+        production, knitting for soldiers, Liberty Loans and Red
+        Cross&mdash;these she had studied and mastered, to the end
+        that the women of the great valley had accomplished work
+        which won national honor. It had been excitement, joy, and
+        a strange fulfilment for her. But after the shock caused by
+        the fatal news about Dorn she had lost interest, though she
+        had worked on harder than ever.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Just a night ago her father had gazed
+        at her and then told her to come to his office. She did so.
+        And there he said: "You're workin' too hard. You've got to
+        quit."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh no, dad. I'm only tired to-night,"
+        she had replied. "Let me go on. I've planned so&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No!" he said, banging his desk.
+        "You'll run yourself down."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But, father, these are war-times.
+        Could I do less&mdash;could I think of&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You've done wonders. You've been the
+        life of this work. Some one else can carry it on now. You'd
+        kill yourself. An' this war has cost the Andersons
+        enough."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Should we count the cost?" she
+        asked.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson had sworn. "No, we shouldn't.
+        But I'm not goin' to lose my girl. Do you get that
+        hunch?&hellip; I've bought bonds by the bushel. I've given
+        thousands to your relief societies. I gave up my son
+        Jim&mdash;an' that cost us mother.&hellip; I'm raisin' a
+        million bushels of wheat this year that the government can
+        have. An' I'm starvin' to death because I don't get what I
+        used to eat.&hellip; Then this last
+        blow&mdash;Dorn!&mdash;that fine young wheat-man, the
+        best&mdash;Aw! Lenore&hellip;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But, dad, is&mdash;isn't there
+        any&mdash;any hope?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson was silent.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dad," she had pleaded, "if he were
+        really dead&mdash;buried&mdash;oh! wouldn't I feel it?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You've overworked yourself. Now
+        you've got to rest," her father had replied, huskily.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But, dad &hellip;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I said no.&hellip; I've a heap of
+        pride in what you've done. An' I sure think you're the best
+        Anderson of the lot. That's all. Now kiss me an' go to
+        bed."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">That explained how Lenore came to be
+        alone, high up' on the vast wheat-slope, watching and
+        feeling, with no more work to do. The slow climb there had
+        proved to her how much she needed rest. But work even under
+        strain or pain would have been preferable to endless hours
+        to think, to remember, to fight despair.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Mortally wounded! She whispered the
+        tragic phrase. When? Where? How had her lover been mortally
+        wounded? That meant death. But no other word had come and
+        no spiritual realization of death abided in her soul. It
+        seemed impossible for Lenore to accept things as her father
+        and friends did. Nevertheless, equally impossible was it
+        not to be influenced by their practical minds. Because of
+        her nervousness, of her overstrain, she had lost a good
+        deal of her mental poise; and she divined that the only
+        help for that was certainty of Dorn's fate. She could bear
+        the shock if only she could know positively. And leaning
+        her face in her hands, with the warm wind blowing her hair
+        and bringing the rustle of the wheat, she prayed for
+        divination.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">No answer! Absolutely no mystic
+        consciousness of death&mdash;of an end to her love here on
+        earth! Instead of that breathed a strong physical presence
+        of life all about her, in the swelling, waving slopes of
+        wheat, in the beautiful butterflies, in the singing birds
+        low down and the soaring eagles high above&mdash;life
+        beating and surging in her heart, her veins, unquenchable
+        and indomitable. It gave the lie to her morbidness. But it
+        seemed only a physical state. How could she find any
+        tangible hold on realities?</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She lifted her face to the lonely sky,
+        and her hands pressed to her breast where the deep ache
+        throbbed heavily.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It's not that I can't give him up,"
+        she whispered, as if impelled to speak. "I <i>can</i>. I
+        <i>have</i> given him up. It's this torture of suspense.
+        Oh, not to <i>know!</i>&hellip; But if that newspaper had
+        claimed him one of the killed, I'd not believe."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">So Lenore trusted more to the mystic
+        whisper of her woman's soul than to all the unproven
+        outward things. Still trust as she might, the voice of the
+        world dinned in her ears, and between the two she was on
+        the rack. Loss of Jim&mdash;loss of her mother&mdash;what
+        unfilled gulfs in her heart! She was one who loved only
+        few, but these deeply. To-day when they were gone was
+        different from yesterday when they were
+        here&mdash;different because memory recalled actual words,
+        deeds, kisses of loved ones whose life was ended. Utterly
+        futile was it for Lenore to try to think of Dorn in that
+        way. She saw his stalwart form down through the summer
+        haze, coming with his springy stride through the wheat.
+        Yet&mdash;the words&mdash;mortally wounded! They had burned
+        into her thought so that when she closed her eyes she saw
+        them, darkly red, against the blindness of sight. Pain was
+        a sluggish stream with source high in her breast, and it
+        moved with her unquickened blood. If Dorn were really dead,
+        what would become of her? Selfish question for a girl whose
+        lover had died for his country! She would work, she would
+        be worthy of him, she would never pine, she would live to
+        remember. But, ah! the difference to her! Never for her who
+        had so loved the open, the silken rustle of the wheat and
+        the waving shadows, the green-and-gold slopes, the birds of
+        the air and the beasts of the field, the voice of child and
+        the sweetness of life&mdash;never again would these be the
+        same to her, if Dorn were gone forever.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">That ache in her heart had
+        communicated itself to all her being. It filled her mind
+        and her body. Tears stung her eyes, and again they were dry
+        when tears would have soothed. Just as any other girl she
+        wept, and then she burned with fever. A longing she had
+        only faintly known, a physical thing which she had
+        resisted, had become real, insistent, beating. Through love
+        and loss she was to be denied a heritage common to all
+        women. A weariness dragged at her. Noble spirit was not a
+        natural thing. It must be intelligence seeing the higher.
+        But to be human was to love life, to hate death, to faint
+        under loss, to throb and pant with heavy sighs, to lie
+        sleepless in the long dark night, to shrink with
+        unutterable sadness at the wan light of dawn, to follow
+        duty with a laggard sense, to feel the slow ebb of vitality
+        and not to care, to suffer with a breaking heart.</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Sunset hour reminded Lenore that she
+        must not linger there on the slope. So, following the
+        grass-grown lane between the sections of wheat, she wended
+        a reluctant way homeward. Twilight was falling when she
+        reached the yard. The cooling air was full of a fragrance
+        of flowers freshly watered. Kathleen appeared on the path,
+        evidently waiting for her. The girl was growing tall.
+        Lenore remembered with a pang that her full mind had left
+        little time for her to be a mother to this sister. Kathleen
+        came running, excited and wide-eyed.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, I thought you'd never come,"
+        she said. "I know something. Only dad told me not to tell
+        you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Then don't," replied Lenore, with a
+        little start.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But I'd never keep it," burst out
+        Kathleen, breathlessly. "Dad's going to New York."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore's heart contracted. She did not
+        know how she felt. Somehow it was momentous news.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"New York! What for?" she asked.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"He says it's about wheat. But he
+        can't fool me. He told me not to mention it to you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The girl was keen. She wanted to
+        prepare Lenore, yet did not mean to confide her own
+        suppositions. Lenore checked a rush of curiosity. They went
+        into the house. Lenore hurried to change her outing clothes
+        and boots and then went down to supper. Rose sat at table,
+        but her father had not yet come in. Lenore called him. He
+        answered, and presently came tramping into the dining-room,
+        blustering and cheerful. Not for many months had Lenore
+        given her father such close scrutiny as she did then. He
+        was not natural, and he baffled her. A fleeting, vague hope
+        that she had denied lodgment in her mind seemed to have
+        indeed been wild and unfounded. But the very fact that her
+        father was for once unfathomable made this situation
+        remarkable. All through the meal Lenore trembled, and she
+        had to force herself to eat.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, I'd like to see you," said
+        her father, at last, as he laid down his napkin and rose.
+        Almost he convinced her then that nothing was amiss or
+        different, and he would have done so if he had not been too
+        clever, too natural. She rose to follow, catching
+        Kathleen's whisper:</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Don't let him put it over on you,
+        now!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson lighted a big cigar, as
+        always after supper, but to Lenore's delicate sensitiveness
+        he seemed to be too long about it.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, I'm takin' a run to New
+        York&mdash;leave to-night at eight&mdash;an' I want you to
+        sort of manage while I'm gone. Here's some jobs I want the
+        men to do&mdash;all noted down here&mdash;an' you'll answer
+        letters, 'phone calls, an' all that. Not much work, you
+        know, but you'll have to hang around. Somethin' important
+        might turn up."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, dad. I'll be glad to," she
+        replied. "Why&mdash;why this sudden trip?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson turned away a little and ran
+        his hand over the papers on his desk. Did she only imagine
+        that his hand shook a little?</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wheat deals, I reckon&mdash;mostly,"
+        he said. "An' mebbe I'll run over to Washington."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He turned then, puffing at his cigar,
+        and calmly met her direct gaze. If there were really more
+        than he claimed in his going, he certainly did not intend
+        to tell her. Lenore tried to still her mounting emotion.
+        These days she seemed all imagination. Then she turned away
+        her face.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Will you try to find out if Kurt Dorn
+        died of his wound&mdash;and all about him?" she asked,
+        steadily, but very low.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, I sure will!" he exclaimed,
+        with explosive emphasis. No doubt the sincerity of that
+        reply was an immense relief to Anderson. "Once in New York,
+        I can pull wires, if need be. I absolutely promise you I'll
+        find out&mdash;what&mdash;all you want to know."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore bade him good-by and went to
+        her room, where calmness deserted her for a while. Upon
+        recovering, she found that the time set for her father's
+        departure had passed. Strangely, then the oppression that
+        had weighed upon her so heavily eased and lifted. The
+        moment seemed one beyond her understanding. She attributed
+        her relief, however, to the fact that her father would soon
+        end her suspense in regard to Kurt Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">In the succeeding days Lenore regained
+        her old strength and buoyancy, and something of a control
+        over the despondency which at times had made life
+        misery.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A golden day of sunlight and azure
+        blue of sky ushered in the month of June. "Many Waters" was
+        a world of verdant green. Lenore had all she could do to
+        keep from flying to the slopes. But as every day now
+        brought nearer the possibility of word from her father, she
+        stayed at home. The next morning about nine o'clock, while
+        she was at her father's desk, the telephone-bell rang. It
+        did that many times every morning, but this ring seemed to
+        electrify Lenore. She answered the call hurriedly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hello, Lenore, my girl! How are you?"
+        came rolling on the wire.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dad! Dad! Is it&mdash;you?" cried
+        Lenore, wildly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sure is. Just got here. Are you an'
+        the girls O.K.?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We're well&mdash;fine. Oh, dad
+        &hellip;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You needn't send the car. I'll hire
+        one."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes&mdash;yes&mdash;but,
+        dad&mdash;Oh, tell me &hellip;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wait! I'll be there in five
+        minutes."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She heard him slam up the receiver,
+        and she leaned there, palpitating, with the queer, vacant
+        sounds of the telephone filling her ear.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Five minutes!" Lenore whispered. In
+        five more minutes she would know. They seemed an eternity.
+        Suddenly a flood of emotion and thought threatened to
+        overwhelm her. Leaving the office, she hurried forth to
+        find her sisters, and not until she had looked everywhere
+        did she remember that they were visiting a girl friend.
+        After this her motions seemed ceaseless; she could not
+        stand or sit still, and she was continually going to the
+        porch to look down the shady lane. At last a car appeared,
+        coming fast. Then she ran indoors quite aimlessly and out
+        again. But when she recognized her father all her outward
+        fears and tremblings vanished. The broad, brown flash of
+        his face was reality. He got out of the car lightly for so
+        heavy a man, and, taking his valise, he dismissed the
+        chauffeur. His smile was one of gladness, and his greeting
+        a hearty roar.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore met him at the porch steps,
+        seeing in him, feeling as she embraced him, that he
+        radiated a strange triumph and finality.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Say, girl, you look somethin' like
+        your old self," he said, holding her by the shoulders.
+        "Fine! But you're a woman now.&hellip; Where are the
+        kids?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"They're away," replied Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"How you stare!" laughed Anderson, as
+        with arm round her he led her in. "Anythin' queer about
+        your dad's handsome mug?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">His jocular tone did not hide his deep
+        earnestness. Never had Lenore felt him so forceful. His
+        ruggedness seemed to steady her nerves that again began to
+        fly. Anderson took her into his office, closed the door,
+        threw down his valise.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Great to be home!" he exploded, with
+        heavy breath.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore felt her face blanch; and that
+        intense quiver within her suddenly stilled.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Tell me&mdash;quick!" she
+        whispered.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He faced her with flashing eyes, and
+        all about him changed. "You're an Anderson! You can stand
+        shock?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Any&mdash;any shock but
+        suspense."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I lied about the wheat
+        deal&mdash;about my trip to New York. I got news of Dorn. I
+        was afraid to tell you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dorn is alive," went on Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore's hands went out in mute
+        eloquence.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"He was all shot up. He can't live,"
+        hurried Anderson, hoarsely. "But he's alive&mdash;he'll
+        live to see you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh! I knew, I <i>knew!</i>" whispered
+        Lenore clasping her hands. "Oh, thank God!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, steady now. You're gettin'
+        shaky. Brace there, my girl!&hellip; Dorn's alive. I've
+        brought him home. He's here."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"<i>Here!</i>" screamed Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes. They'll have him here in half an
+        hour."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore fell into her father's arms,
+        blind and deaf to all outward things. The light of day
+        failed. But her consciousness did not fade. Before it
+        seemed a glorious radiance that was the truth lost for the
+        moment, blindly groping, in whirling darkness. When she did
+        feel herself again it was as a weak, dizzy, palpitating
+        child, unable to stand. Her father, in alarm, and probable
+        anger with himself, was coaxing and swearing in one breath.
+        Then suddenly the joy that had shocked Lenore almost into
+        collapse forced out the weakness with amazing strength. She
+        blazed. She radiated. She burst into utterance too swift to
+        understand.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hold on there, girl!" interrupted
+        Anderson. "You've got the bit in your teeth.&hellip; Listen,
+        will you? Let me talk. Well&mdash;well, there now.&hellip;
+        Sure, it's all right, Lenore. You made me break it
+        sudden-like.&hellip; Listen. There's all summer to talk.
+        Just now you want to get a few details. Get 'em
+        straight.&hellip; Dorn is on the way here. They put his
+        stretcher&mdash;we've been packin' him on one&mdash;into a
+        motor-truck. There's a nurse come with me&mdash;a man
+        nurse. We'd better put Dorn in mother's room. That's the
+        biggest an' airiest. You hurry an' open up the windows an'
+        fix the bed.&hellip; An' don't go out of your head with joy.
+        It's sure more 'n we ever hoped for to see him alive, to
+        get him home. But he's done for, poor boy! He can't
+        live.&hellip; An' he's in such shape that I don't want you
+        to see him when they fetch him in. Savvy, girl! You'll stay
+        in your room till we call you. An' now rustle."</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore paced and crouched and lay in
+        her room, waiting, listening with an intensity that hurt.
+        When a slow procession of men, low-voiced and soft-footed,
+        carried Kurt Dorn into the house and up-stairs Lenore
+        trembled with a storm of emotion. All her former agitation,
+        love, agony, and suspense, compared to what she felt then,
+        was as nothing. Not the joy of his being alive, not the
+        terror of his expected death, had so charged her heart as
+        did this awful curiosity to see him, to realize him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">At last a step&mdash;a knock&mdash;her
+        father's voice: "Lenore&mdash;come!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Her ordeal of waiting was over. All
+        else she could withstand. That moment ended her weakness.
+        Her blood leaped with the irresistable, revivifying current
+        of her spirit. Unlocking the door, Lenore stepped out. Her
+        father stood there with traces of extreme worry fading from
+        his tired face. At sight of her they totally vanished.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Good! You've got nerve. You can see
+        him now alone. He's unconscious. But he's not been greatly
+        weakened by the trip. His vitality is wonderful. He comes
+        to once in a while. Sometimes he's rational. Mostly,
+        though, he's out of his head. An' his left arm is
+        gone."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson said all this rapidly and low
+        while they walked down the hall toward the end room which
+        had not been used since Mrs. Anderson's death. The door was
+        ajar. Lenore smelled strong, pungent odors of
+        antiseptics.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson knocked softly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Come out, you men, an' let my girl
+        see him," he called.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Doctor Lowell, the village
+        practitioner Lenore had known for years, tiptoed out,
+        important and excited.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, it's to bad," he said,
+        kindly, and he shook his head.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Another man glided out with the
+        movements of a woman. He was not young. His aspect was
+        pale, serious.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, this is Mr. Jarvis, the
+        nurse.&hellip; Now&mdash;go in, an' don't forget what I
+        said."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She closed the door and leaned back
+        against it, conscious of the supreme moment of her life.
+        Dorn's face, strange yet easily recognizable, appeared
+        against the white background of the bed. That moment was
+        supreme because it showed him there alive, justifying the
+        spiritual faith which had persisted in her soul. If she had
+        ever, in moments of distraction, doubted God, she could
+        never doubt again.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The large room had been bright, with
+        white curtains softly blowing inward from the open windows.
+        As she crept forward, not sure on her feet, all seemed to
+        blur, so that when she leaned over the still face to kiss
+        it she could not see clearly. Her lips quivered with that
+        kiss and with her sob of thankfulness.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My soldier!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She prayed then, with her head beside
+        his on the pillow, and through that prayer and the strange
+        stillness of her lover she received a subtle shock. Sweet
+        it was to touch him as she bent with eyes hidden. Terrible
+        it would be to look&mdash;to see how the war had wrecked
+        him. She tried to linger there, all tremulous, all
+        gratitude, all woman and mother. But an incalculable force
+        lifted her up from her knees.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Ah!" she gasped, as she saw him with
+        cleared sight. A knife-blade was at her heart. Kurt Dorn
+        lay before her gaze&mdash;a man, and not the boy she had
+        sacrificed to war&mdash;a man by a larger frame, and by
+        older features, and by a change difficult to grasp.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">These features seemed a mask,
+        transparent, unable to hide a beautiful, sad, stern, and
+        ruthless face beneath, which in turn slowly gave to her
+        startled gaze sloping lines of pain and shades of gloom,
+        and the pale, set muscles of forced manhood, and the faint
+        hectic flush of fever and disorder and derangement. A
+        livid, angry scar, smooth, yet scarcely healed, ran from
+        his left temple back as far as she could see. That
+        established his identity as a wounded soldier brought home
+        from the war. Otherwise to Lenore his face might have been
+        that of an immortal suddenly doomed with the curse of
+        humanity, dying in agony. She had expected to see Dorn
+        bronzed, haggard, gaunt, starved, bearded and
+        rough-skinned, bruised and battered, blinded and mutilated,
+        with gray in his fair hair. But she found none of these.
+        Her throbbing heart sickened and froze at the nameless
+        history recorded in his face. Was it beyond her to
+        understand what had been his bitter experience? Would she
+        never suffer his ordeal? Never! That was certain. An
+        insupportable sadness pervaded her soul. It was not his
+        life she thought of, but the youth, the nobility, the
+        splendor of him that war had destroyed. No intuition, no
+        divination, no power so penetrating as a woman's love! By
+        that piercing light she saw the transformed man. He knew.
+        He had found out all of physical life. His hate had gone
+        with his blood. Deeds&mdash;deeds of terror had left their
+        imprint upon his brow, in the shadows under his eyes, that
+        resembled blank walls potent with invisible meaning. Lenore
+        shuddered through all her soul as she read the merciless
+        record of the murder he had dealt, of the strong and
+        passionate duty that had driven him, of the eternal
+        remorse. But she did not see or feel that he had found God;
+        and, stricken as he seemed, she could not believe he was
+        near to death.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">This last confounding thought held her
+        transfixed and thrilling, gazing down at Dorn, until her
+        father entered to break the spell and lead her away.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XXX</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was night. Lenore should have been
+        asleep, but she sat up in the dark by the window.
+        Underneath on the porch, her father, with his men as
+        audience, talked like a torrent. And Lenore, hearing what
+        otherwise would never have gotten to her ears, found
+        listening irresistible. Slow, dragging footsteps and the
+        clinking of spurs attested to the approach of cowboys.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Howdy, boys! Sit down an' be
+        partic'lar quiet. Here's some smokes. I'm wound up an'
+        gotta go off or bust," Anderson said, "Well, as I was
+        sayin', we folks don't know there's a war, from all outward
+        sign here in the Northwest. But in that New York town I
+        just come from&mdash;God Almighty! what goin's-on! Boys, I
+        never knew before how grand it was to be American. New
+        York's got the people, the money, an' it's the outgoin' an'
+        incomin' place of all pertainin' to this war. The Liberty
+        Loan drive was on. The streets were crowded. Bands an'
+        parades, grand-opera stars singin' on the corners, famous
+        actors sellin' bonds, flags an' ribbons an' banners
+        everywhere, an' every third man you bumped into wearin'
+        some kind of uniform! An' the women were runnin' wild, like
+        a stampede of two-year-olds.&hellip; I rode down Fifth
+        Avenue on one of them high-topped buses with seats on. Talk
+        about your old stage-coach&mdash;why, these 'buses had 'em
+        beat a mile! I've rode some in my day, but this was the
+        ride of my life. I couldn't hear myself think. Music at
+        full blast, roar of traffic, voices like whisperin' without
+        end, flash of red an' white an' blue, shine of a thousand
+        automobiles down that wonderful street that's like a canon!
+        An' up overhead a huge cigar-shaped balloon, an' then an
+        airplane sailin' swift an' buzzin' like a bee. Them was the
+        first air-ships I ever seen. No wonder&mdash;Jim wanted
+        to&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson's voice broke a little at
+        this juncture and he paused. All was still except the
+        murmur of the running water and the song of the insects.
+        Presently Anderson cleared his throat and resumed:</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"I saw five hundred Australian soldiers
+        just arrived in New York by way of Panama. Lean, wiry boys
+        like Arizona cowboys. Looked good to me! You ought to have
+        heard the cheerin'. Roar an' roar, everywhere they marched
+        along. I saw United States sailors, marines, soldiers,
+        airmen, English officers, an' Scotch soldiers. Them last
+        sure got my eye. Funny plaid skirts they wore&mdash;an'
+        they had bare legs. Three I saw walked lame. An' all had
+        medals. Some one said the Germans called these Scotch
+        'Ladies from hell.' &hellip; When I heard that I had to ask
+        questions, an' I learned these queer-lookin'
+        half-women-dressed fellows were simply hell with cold
+        steel. An' after I heard that I looked again an' wondered
+        why I hadn't seen it. I ought to know men!&hellip; Then I
+        saw the outfit of Blue Devil Frenchmen that was sent over
+        to help stimulate the Liberty Loan. An' when I seen them I
+        took off my hat. I've knowed a heap of tough men an' bad
+        men an' handy men an' fightin' men in my day, but I
+        reckoned I never seen the like of the Blue Devils. I can't
+        tell you why, boys. Blue Devils is another German name for
+        a regiment of French soldiers. They had it on the
+        Scotch-men. Any Western man, just to look at them, would
+        think of Wild Bill an' Billy the Kid an' Geronimo an'
+        Custer, an' see that mebbe the whole four mixed in one
+        might have made a Blue Devil.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"My young friend Dorn, that's dyin'
+        up-stairs, now&mdash;he had a name given him. 'Pears that
+        this war-time is like the old days when we used to hit on
+        right pert names for everybody.&hellip; Demon Dorn they
+        called him, an' he got that handle before he ever reached
+        France. The boys of his outfit gave it to him because of
+        the way he run wild with a bayonet. I don't want my girl
+        Lenore ever to know that.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"A soldier named Owens told me a lot.
+        He was the corporal of Dorn's outfit, a sort of foreman, I
+        reckon. Anyway, he saw Dorn every day of the months they
+        were in the service, an' the shell that done Dorn made a
+        cripple of Owens. This fellow Owens said Dorn had not got
+        so close to his bunk-mates until they reached France. Then
+        he begun to have influence over them. Owens didn't know how
+        he did it&mdash;in fact, never knew it at all until the
+        outfit got to the front, somewhere in northern France, in
+        the first line. They were days in the first line, close up
+        to the Germans, watchin' an' sneakin' all the time,
+        shootin' an' dodgin', but they never had but one real
+        fight.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"That was when one mornin' the Germans
+        came pilin' over on a charge, far outnumberin' our boys.
+        Then it happened. Lord! I wish I could remember how Owens
+        told that scrap! Boys, you never heard about a real scrap.
+        It takes war like this to make men fighters.&hellip; Listen,
+        now, an' I'll tell you some of the things that come off
+        durin' this German charge. I'll tell them just as they come
+        to mind. There was a boy named Griggs who ran the German
+        barrage&mdash;an' that's a gantlet&mdash;seven times to
+        fetch ammunition to his pards. Another boy, on the same
+        errand, was twice blown off the road by explodin' shells,
+        an' then went back. Owens told of two of his company who
+        rushed a bunch of Germans, killed eight of them, an'
+        captured their machine-gun. Before that German charge a big
+        shell came over an' kicked up a hill of mud. Next day the
+        Americans found their sentinel buried in mud, dead at his
+        post, with his bayonet presented.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"Owens was shot just as he jumped up
+        with his pards to meet the chargin' Germans. He fell an'
+        dragged himself against a wall of bags, where he lay
+        watchin' the fight. An' it so happened that he faced Dorn's
+        squad, which was attacked by three times their number. He
+        saw Dorn shot&mdash;go down, an' thought he was
+        done&mdash;but no! Dorn came up with one side of his face
+        all blood. Dixon, a college football man, rushed a German
+        who was about to throw a bomb. Dixon got him, an' got the
+        bomb, too, when it went off. Little Rogers, an Irish boy,
+        mixed it with three Germans, an' killed one before he was
+        bayoneted in the back. Then Dorn, like the demon they'd
+        named him, went on the stampede. He had a different way
+        with a bayonet, so Owens claimed. An' Dorn was heavy,
+        powerful, an' fast. He lifted an' slung those two Germans,
+        one after another, quick as that!&mdash;like you'd toss a
+        couple of wheat sheafs with your pitchfork, an' he sent
+        them rollin', with blood squirtin' all over. An' then four
+        more Germans were shootin' at him. Right into their teeth
+        Dorn run&mdash;laughin' wild an' terrible, Owens said, an'
+        the Germans couldn't stop that flashin' bayonet. Dorn
+        ripped them all open, an' before they'd stopped floppin' he
+        was on the bunch that'd killed Brewer an' were makin' it
+        hard for his other pards.&hellip; Whew!&mdash;Owens told it
+        all as if it'd took lots of time, but that fight was like
+        lightnin' an' I can't remember how it was. Only Demon Dorn
+        laid out nine Germans before they retreated. <i>Nine!</i>
+        Owens seen him do it, like a mad bull loose. Then the shell
+        came over that put Dorn out, an' Owens, too.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"Well, Dorn had a mangled arm, an' many
+        wounds. They amputated his arm in France, patched him up,
+        an' sent him back to New York with a lot of other wounded
+        soldiers. They expected him to die long ago. But he hangs
+        on. He's full of lead now. What a hell of a lot of killin'
+        some men take!&hellip; My boy Jim would have been like
+        that!</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"So there, boys, you have a little bit
+        of American fightin' come home to you, straight an' true. I
+        say that's what the Germans have roused. Well, it was a bad
+        day for them when they figgered everythin' on paper, had it
+        all cut an' dried, but failed to see the spirit of
+        men!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore tore herself away from the
+        window so that she could not hear any more, and in the
+        darkness of her room she began to pace to and fro,
+        beginning to undress for bed, shaking in some kind of a
+        frenzy, scarcely knowing what she was about, until sundry
+        knocks from furniture and the falling over a chair awakened
+        her to the fact that she was in a tumult.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What&mdash;<i>am</i> I&mdash;doing!"
+        she panted, in bewilderment, reaching out in the dark to
+        turn on the light.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Like awakening from a nightmare, she
+        saw the bright light flash up. It changed her feeling. Who
+        was this person whose image stood reflected in the mirror?
+        Lenore's recognition of herself almost stunned her. What
+        had happened? She saw that her hair fell wildly over her
+        bare shoulders; her face shone white, with red spots in her
+        cheeks; her eyes seemed balls of fire; her lips had a
+        passionate, savage curl; her breast, bare and heaving,
+        showed a throbbing, tumultuous heart. And as she realized
+        how she looked, it struck her that she felt an inexplicable
+        passion. She felt intense as steel, hot as fire, quivering
+        with the pulsation of rapid blood, a victim to
+        irrepressible thrills that rushed over her from the very
+        soles of her feet to the roots of her hair. Something
+        glorious, terrible, and furious possessed her. When she
+        understood what it was she turned out the light and fell
+        upon the bed, where, as the storm slowly subsided, she
+        thought and wondered and sorrowed, and whispered to
+        herself.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The tale of Dorn's tragedy had stirred
+        to the depths the primitive, hidden, and unplumbed in the
+        unknown nature of her. Just now she had looked at herself,
+        at her two selves&mdash;the white-skinned and fair-haired
+        girl that civilization had produced&mdash;and the blazing,
+        panting, savage woman of the bygone ages. She could not
+        escape from either. The story of Demon Dorn's terrible
+        fight had retrograded her, for the moment, to the female of
+        the species, more savage and dangerous than the male. No
+        use to lie! She had gloried in his prowess. He was her man,
+        gone out with club, to beat down the brutes that would
+        steal her from him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Alas! What are we? What am I?" she
+        whispered. "Do I know myself? What could I not have done a
+        moment ago?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She had that primitive thing in her,
+        and, though she shuddered to realize it, she had no regret.
+        Life was life. That Dorn had laid low so many enemies was
+        grand to her, and righteous, since these enemies were as
+        cavemen come for prey. Even now the terrible thrills chased
+        over her. Demon Dorn! What a man! She had known just what
+        he would do&mdash;and how his spiritual life would go
+        under. The woman of her gloried in his fight and the soul
+        of her sickened at its significance. No hope for any man or
+        any woman except in God!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">These men, these boys, like her father
+        and Jake, like Dorn and his comrades&mdash;how simple,
+        natural, inevitable, elemental they were! They loved a
+        fight. They might hate it, too, but they loved it most.
+        Life of men was all strife, and the greatness in them came
+        out in war. War searched out the best and the worst in men.
+        What were wounds, blood, mangled flesh, agony, and death to
+        men&mdash;to those who went out for liberation of something
+        unproven in themselves? Life was only a breath. The secret
+        must lie in the beyond, for men could not act that way for
+        nothing. Some hidden purpose through the ages!</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson had summoned a great
+        physician, a specialist of world renown. Lenore, of course,
+        had not been present when the learned doctor examined Kurt
+        Dorn, but she was in her father's study when the report was
+        made. To Lenore this little man seemed all intellect, all
+        science, all electric current.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">He stated that Dorn had upward of
+        twenty-five wounds, some of them serious, most trivial, and
+        all of them combined not necessarily fatal. Many soldiers
+        with worse wounds had totally recovered. Dorn's vitality
+        and strength had been so remarkable that great loss of
+        blood and almost complete lack of nourishment had not
+        brought about the present grave condition.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"He will die, and that is best for
+        him," said the specialist. "His case is not extraordinary.
+        I saw many like it in France during the first year of war
+        when I was there. But I will say that he must have been
+        both physically and mentally above the average before he
+        went to fight. My examination extended through periods of
+        his unconsciousness and aberration. Once, for a little
+        time, he came to, apparently sane. The nurse said he had
+        noticed several periods of this rationality during the last
+        forty-eight hours. But these, and the prolonged vitality,
+        do not offer any hope.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"An emotion of exceeding intensity and
+        duration has produced lesions in the kinetic organs. Some
+        passion has immeasurably activated his brain, destroying
+        brain cells which might not be replaced. If he happened to
+        live he might be permanently impaired. He might be
+        neurasthenic, melancholic, insane at times, or even grow
+        permanently so.&hellip; It is very sad. He appears to have
+        been a fine young man. But he will die, and that really is
+        best for him."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Thus the man of science summed up the
+        biological case of Kurt Dorn. When he had gone Anderson
+        wore the distressed look of one who must abandon his last
+        hope. He did not understand, though he was forced to
+        believe. He swore characteristically at the luck, and then
+        at the great specialist.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I've known Indian medicine-men who
+        could give that doctor cards an' spades," he exploded, with
+        gruff finality.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore understood her father perfectly
+        and imagined she understood the celebrated scientist. The
+        former was just human and the latter was simply knowledge.
+        Neither had that which caused her to go out alone into the
+        dark night and look up beyond the slow-rising slope to the
+        stars. These men, particularly the scientist, lacked
+        something. He possessed all the wonderful knowledge of body
+        and brain, of the metabolism and chemistry of the organs,
+        but he knew nothing of the source of life. Lenore accorded
+        science its place in progress, but she hated its
+        elimination of the soul. Stronger than ever, strength to
+        endure and to trust pervaded her spirit. The dark night
+        encompassing her, the vast, lonely heave of wheat-slope,
+        the dim sky with its steady stars&mdash;these were voices
+        as well as tangible things of the universe, and she was in
+        mysterious harmony with them. "Lift thine eyes to the hills
+        from whence cometh thy help!"</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The day following the specialist's
+        visit Dorn surprised the family doctor, the nurse,
+        Anderson, and all except Lenore by awakening to a spell of
+        consciousness which seemed to lift, for the time at least,
+        the shadow of death.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Kathleen was the first to burst in
+        upon Lenore with the wonderful news. Lenore could only gasp
+        her intense eagerness and sit trembling, hands over her
+        heart, while the child babbled.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I listened, and I peeped in," was
+        Kathleen's reiterated statement. "Kurt was awake. He spoke,
+        too, but very soft. Say, he knows he's at 'Many Waters.' I
+        heard him say, 'Lenore'.&hellip; Oh, I'm so happy,
+        Lenore&mdash;that before he dies he'll know you&mdash;talk
+        to you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Hush, child!" whispered Lenore.
+        "Kurt's not going to die."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But they all say so. That funny
+        little doctor yesterday&mdash;he made me tired&mdash;but he
+        said so. I heard him as dad put him into the car."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, Kathie, I heard him, too, but I
+        do not believe," replied Lenore, dreamily.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt doesn't look so&mdash;so sick,"
+        went on Kathleen. "Only&mdash;only I don't know
+        what&mdash;different, I guess. I'm crazy to go in&mdash;to
+        see him. Lenore, will they ever let me?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Their father's abrupt entrance
+        interrupted the conversation. He was pale, forceful, as
+        when issues were at stake but were undecided.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kathie, go out," he said.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore rose to face him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My girl&mdash;Dorn's come
+        to&mdash;an' he's asked for you. I was for lettin' him see
+        you. But Lowell an' Jarvis say no&mdash;not yet.&hellip; Now
+        he might die any minute. Seems to me he ought to see you.
+        It's right. An' if you say so&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes," replied Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"By Heaven! He shall see you, then,"
+        said Anderson, breathing hard. "I'm justified
+        even&mdash;even if it&hellip;" He did not finish his
+        significant speech, but left her abruptly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Presently Lenore was summoned. When
+        she left her room she was in the throes of uncontrolled
+        agitation, and all down the long hallway she fought
+        herself. At the half-open door she paused to lean against
+        the wall. There she had the will to still her nerves, to
+        acquire serenity; and she prayed for wisdom to make her
+        presence and her words of infinite good to Dorn in this
+        crisis.</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She was not aware of when she
+        moved&mdash;how she ever got to Dorn's bedside. But
+        seemingly detached from her real self, serene, with
+        emotions locked, she was there looking down upon him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore!" he said, with far-off voice
+        that just reached her. Gladness shone from his shadowy
+        eyes.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Welcome home&mdash;my soldier boy!"
+        she replied. Then she bent to kiss his cheek and to lay
+        hers beside it.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I never&mdash;hoped&mdash;to see
+        you&mdash;again," he went on.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, but I knew!" murmured Lenore,
+        lifting her head. His right hand, brown, bare, and rough,
+        lay outside the coverlet upon his breast. It was weakly
+        reaching for her. Lenore took it in both hers, while she
+        gazed steadily down into his eyes. She seemed to see then
+        how he was comparing the image he had limned upon his
+        memory with her face.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Changed&mdash;you're older&mdash;more
+        beautiful&mdash;yet the same," he said. "It
+        seems&mdash;long ago."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, long ago. Indeed I am older.
+        But&mdash;all's well that ends well. You are back."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, haven't you&mdash;been
+        told&mdash;I can't live?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, but it's untrue," she replied,
+        and felt that she might have been life itself speaking.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dear, something's gone&mdash;from me.
+        Something vital gone&mdash;with the shell that&mdash;took
+        my arm."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal"><i>"No!"</i> she smiled down upon him.
+        All the conviction of her soul and faith she projected into
+        that single word and serene smile&mdash;all that was love
+        and woman in her opposing death. A subtle, indefinable
+        change came over Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore&mdash;I paid&mdash;for my
+        father," he whispered. "I killed Huns!&hellip; I spilled
+        the&mdash;blood in me&mdash;I hated!&hellip; But all was
+        wrong&mdash;wrong!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, but you could not help that,"
+        she said, piercingly. "Blame can never rest upon you. You
+        were only an&mdash;American soldier.&hellip; Oh, I know! You
+        were magnificent.&hellip; But your duty that way is done. A
+        higher duty awaits you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">His eyes questioned sadly and
+        wonderingly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You must be the great sower of
+        wheat."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Sower of wheat?" he whispered, and a
+        light quickened in that questioning gaze.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"There will be starving millions after
+        this war. Wheat is the staff of life. You <i>must</i> get
+        well.&hellip; Listen!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She hesitated, and sank to her knees
+        beside the bed. "Kurt, the day you're able to sit up I'll
+        marry you. Then I'll take you home&mdash;to your
+        wheat-hills."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">For a second Lenore saw him
+        transformed with her spirit, her faith, her love, and it
+        was that for which she had prayed. She had carried him
+        beyond the hopelessness, beyond incredulity. Some guidance
+        had divinely prompted her. And when his mute rapture
+        suddenly vanished, when he lost consciousness and a pale
+        gloom and shade fell upon his face, she had no fear.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">In her own room she unleashed the
+        strange bonds on her feelings and suffered their recurrent
+        surge and strife, until relief and calmness returned to
+        her. Then came a flashing uplift of soul, a great and
+        beautiful exaltation. Lenore felt that she had been gifted
+        with incalculable power. She had pierced Dorn's fatalistic
+        consciousness with the truth and glory of possible life, as
+        opposed to the dark and evil morbidity of war. She saw for
+        herself the wonderful and terrible stairs of sand which
+        women had been climbing all the ages, and must climb on to
+        the heights of solid rock, of equality, of salvation for
+        the human race. She saw woman, the primitive, the female of
+        the species, but she saw her also as the mother of the
+        species, made to save as well as perpetuate, learning from
+        the agony of child-birth and child-care the meaning of Him
+        who said, "Thou shalt not kill!" Tremendous would be the
+        final resistance of woman to the brutality of man. Women
+        were to be the saviors of humanity. It seemed so simple and
+        natural that it could not be otherwise. Lenore realized,
+        with a singular conception of the splendor of its truth,
+        that when most women had found themselves, their mission in
+        life, as she had found hers, then would come an end to
+        violence, to greed, to hate, to war, to the black and
+        hideous imperfection of mankind.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">With all her intellect and passion
+        Lenore opposed the theory of the scientist and biologists.
+        If they proved that strife and fight were necessary to the
+        development of man, that without violence and bloodshed and
+        endless contention the race would deteriorate, then she
+        would say that it would be better to deteriorate and to
+        die. Women all would declare against that, and in fact
+        would never believe. She would never believe with her
+        heart, but if her intellect was forced to recognize certain
+        theories, then she must find a way to reconcile life to the
+        inscrutable designs of nature. The theory that continual
+        strife was the very life of plants, birds, beasts, and men
+        seemed verified by every reaction of the present; but if
+        these things were fixed materialistic rules of the
+        existence of animated forms upon the earth, what then was
+        God, what was the driving force in Kurt Dorn that made
+        war-duty some kind of murder which overthrew his mind, what
+        was the love in her heart of all living things, and the
+        nameless sublime faith in her soul?</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If we poor creatures <i>must</i>
+        fight," said Lenore, and she meant this for a prayer, "let
+        the women fight eternally against violence, and let the men
+        forever fight their destructive instincts!"</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">From that hour the condition of Kurt
+        Dorn changed for the better. Doctor Lowell admitted that
+        Lenore had been the one medicine which might defeat the
+        death that all except she had believed inevitable.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore was permitted to see him a few
+        minutes every day, for which fleeting interval she must
+        endure the endless hours. But she discovered that only when
+        he was rational and free from pain would they let her go
+        in. What Dorn's condition was all the rest of the time she
+        could not guess. But she began to get inklings that it was
+        very bad.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dad, I'm going to insist on staying
+        with Kurt as&mdash;as long as I want," asserted Lenore,
+        when she had made up her mind.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">This worried Anderson, and he appeared
+        at a loss for words.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I told Kurt I'd marry him the very
+        day he could sit up," continued Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"By George! that accounts," exclaimed
+        her father. "He's been tryin' to sit up, an' we've had hell
+        with him."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dad, he will get well. And all the
+        sooner if I can be with him more. He loves me. I feel I'm
+        the only thing that counteracts&mdash;the&mdash;the madness
+        in his mind&mdash;the death in his soul."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson made one of his violent
+        gestures. "I believe you. That hits me with a bang. It
+        takes a woman!&hellip; Lenore, what's your idea?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I want to&mdash;to marry him,"
+        murmured Lenore. "To nurse him&mdash;to take him home to
+        his wheat-fields."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You shall have your way," replied
+        Anderson, beginning to pace the floor. "It can't do any
+        harm. It might save him. An' anyway, you'll be his
+        wife&mdash;if only for &hellip; By George! we'll do it. You
+        never gave me a wrong hunch in your life &hellip; but, girl,
+        it'll be hard for you to see him when&mdash;when he has the
+        spells."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Spells!" echoed Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes. You've been told that he raves.
+        But you didn't know how. Why, it gets even my nerve! It
+        fascinated me, but once was enough. I couldn't stand to see
+        his face when his Huns come back to him."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"His Huns!" ejaculated Lenore,
+        shuddering. "What do you mean?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Those Huns he killed come back to
+        him. He fights them. You see him go through strange
+        motions, an' it's as if his left arm wasn't gone. He used
+        his right arm&mdash;an' the motions he makes are the ones
+        he made when he killed the Huns with his bayonet. It's
+        terrible to watch him&mdash;the look on his face!.&hellip; I
+        heard at the hospital in New York that in France they
+        photographed him when he had one of the spells.&hellip; I'd
+        hate to have you see him then. But maybe after Doctor
+        Lowell explains it, you'll understand."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Poor boy! How terrible for him to
+        live it all over! But when he gets well&mdash;when he has
+        his wheat-hills and me to fill his mind&mdash;those spells
+        will fade."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Maybe&mdash;maybe. I hope so. Lord
+        knows it's all beyond me. But you're goin' to have your
+        way."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Doctor Lowell explained to Lenore that
+        Dorn, like all mentally deranged soldiers, dreamed when he
+        was asleep, and raved when he was out of his mind, of only
+        one thing&mdash;the foe. In his nightmares Dorn had to be
+        held forcibly. The doctor said that the remarkable and
+        hopeful indication about Dorn's condition was a gradual
+        daily gain in strength and a decline in the duration and
+        violence of his bad spells.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">This assurance made Lenore happy. She
+        began to relieve the worn-out nurse during the day, and she
+        prepared herself for the first ordeal of actual experience
+        of Dorn's peculiar madness. But Dorn watched her many hours
+        and would not or could not sleep while she was there; and
+        the tenth day of his stay at "Many Waters" passed without
+        her seeing what she dreaded. Meanwhile he grew perceptibly
+        better.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The afternoon came when Anderson
+        brought a minister. Then a few moments sufficed to make
+        Lenore Dorn's wife.</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XXXI</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The remarkable happened. Scarcely had
+        the minister left when Kurt Dorn's smiling wonder and
+        happiness sustained a break, as sharp and cold and terrible
+        as if nature had transformed him from man to beast.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">His face became like that of a
+        gorilla. Struggling up, he swept his right arm over and
+        outward with singular twisting energy. A bayonet-thrust!
+        And for him his left arm was still intact! A savage,
+        unintelligible battle-cry, yet unmistakably German, escaped
+        his lips.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore stood one instant petrified.
+        Her father, grinding his teeth, attempted to lead her away.
+        But as Dorn was about to pitch off the bed, Lenore, with
+        piercing cry, ran to catch him and force him back. There
+        she held him, subdued his struggles, and kept calling with
+        that intensity of power and spirit which must have
+        penetrated even his delirium. Whatever influence she
+        exerted, it quieted him, changed his savage face, until he
+        relaxed and lay back passive and pale. It was possible to
+        tell exactly when his reason returned, for it showed in the
+        gaze he fixed upon Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I had&mdash;one&mdash;of my fits!" he
+        said, huskily.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh&mdash;I don't know what it was,"
+        replied Lenore, with quavering voice. Her strength began to
+        leave her now. Her arms that had held him so firmly began
+        to slip away.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Son, you had a bad spell," interposed
+        Anderson, with his heavy breathing. "First one she's
+        seen."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, I laid out my Huns again,"
+        said Dorn, with a tragic smile. "Lately I could tell
+        when&mdash;they were coming back."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Did you know just now?" queried
+        Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I think so. I wasn't really out of my
+        head. I've known when I did that. It's a strange
+        feeling&mdash;thought&mdash;memory &hellip; and action
+        drives it away. Then I seem always to <i>want</i>
+        to&mdash;kill my Huns all over again."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore gazed at him with mournful and
+        passionate tenderness. "Do you remember that we were just
+        married?" she asked.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My wife!" he whispered.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Husband!&hellip; I knew you were
+        coming home to me.&hellip; I knew you would not die.&hellip;
+        I know you will get well."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I begin to feel that, too.
+        Then&mdash;maybe the black spells will go away."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"They must or&mdash;or you'll lose
+        me," faltered Lenore. "If you go on killing your Huns over
+        and over&mdash;it'll be I who will die."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She carried with her to her room a
+        haunting sense of Dorn's reception of her last speech. Some
+        tremendous impression it made on him, but whether of fear
+        of domination or resolve, or all combined, she could not
+        tell. She had weakened in mention of the return of his
+        phantoms. But neither Dorn nor her father ever guessed
+        that, once in her room, she collapsed from sheer feminine
+        horror at the prospect of seeing Dorn change from a man to
+        a gorilla, and to repeat the savage orgy of remurdering his
+        Huns. That was too much for Lenore. She who had been
+        invincible in faith, who could stand any tests of endurance
+        and pain, was not proof against a spectacle of Dorn's
+        strange counterfeit presentment of the actual and terrible
+        killing he had performed with a bayonet.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">For days after that she was under a
+        strain which she realized would break her if it was not
+        relieved. It appeared to be solely her fear of Dorn's
+        derangement. She was with him almost all the daylight
+        hours, attending him, watching him sleep, talking a little
+        to him now and then, seeing with joy his gradual
+        improvement, feeling each day the slow lifting of the
+        shadow over him, and yet every minute of every hour she
+        waited in dread for the return of Dorn's madness. It did
+        not come. If it recurred at night she never was told. Then
+        after a week a more pronounced change for the better in
+        Dorn's condition marked a lessening of the strain upon
+        Lenore. A little later it was deemed safe to dismiss the
+        nurse. Lenore dreaded the first night vigil. She lay upon a
+        couch in Dorn's room and never closed her eyes. But he
+        slept, and his slumber appeared sound at times, and then
+        restless, given over to dreams. He talked incoherently, and
+        moaned; and once appeared to be drifting into a nightmare,
+        when Lenore awakened him. Next day he sat up and said he
+        was hungry. Thereafter Lenore began to lose her dread.</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well, son, let's talk wheat," said
+        Anderson, cheerily, one beautiful June morning, as he
+        entered Dorn's room.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Wheat!" sighed Dorn, with a pathetic
+        glance at his empty sleeve. "How can I even do a man's work
+        again in the fields?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore smiled bravely at him. "You
+        will sow more wheat than ever, and harvest more, too."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I should smile," corroborated
+        Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But how? I've only one arm," said
+        Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Kurt, you hug me better with that one
+        arm than you ever did with two arms." replied Lenore, in
+        sublime assurance.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Son, you lose that argument," roared
+        Anderson. "Me an' Lenore stand pat. You'll sow more an'
+        better wheat than ever&mdash;than any other man in the
+        Northwest. Get my hunch?&hellip; Well, I'll tell you
+        later.&hellip; Now see here, let me declare myself about
+        you. I seen it worries you more an' more, now you're
+        gettin' well. You miss that good arm, an' you feel the pain
+        of bullets that still lodge somewhere's in you, an' you
+        think you'll be a cripple always. Look things in the face
+        square. Sure, compared to what you once was, you'll be a
+        cripple. But Kurt Dorn weighin' one hundred an' ninety let
+        loose on a bunch of Huns was some man! My Gawd!&hellip;
+        Forget that, an' forget that you'll never chop a cord of
+        wood again in a day. Look at facts like me an' Lenore. We
+        gave you up. An' here you're with us, comin' along fine,
+        an' you'll be able to do hard work some day, if you're
+        crazy about it. Just think how good that is for Lenore, an'
+        me, too.&hellip; Now listen to this." Anderson unfolded a
+        newspaper and began to read:</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"Continued improvement, with favorable
+        weather conditions, in the winter-wheat states and
+        encouraging messages from the Northwest warrant an increase
+        of crop estimates made two weeks ago and based mainly upon
+        the government's report. In all probability the yield from
+        winter fields will slightly exceed 600,000,000 bushels.
+        Increase of acreage in the spring states in unexpectedly
+        large. For example, Minnesota's Food Administrator says the
+        addition in his state is 40 per cent, instead of the early
+        estimate of 20 per cent. Throughout the spring area the
+        plants have a good start and are in excellent condition. It
+        may be that the yield will rise to 300,000,000 bushels,
+        making a total of about 900,000,000. From such a crop
+        280,000,000 could be exported in normal times, and by
+        conservation the surplus can easily be enlarged to
+        350,000,000 or even 400,000,000. In Canada also estimates
+        of acreage increase have been too low. It was said that the
+        addition in Alberta was 20 per cent., but recent reports
+        make it 40 per cent. Canada may harvest a crop of
+        300,000,000 bushels, or nearly 70,000,000 more than last
+        year's. Our allies in Europe can safely rely upon the
+        shipment of 500,000,000 bushels from the United States and
+        Canada.</p>
+
+        <p class="NormalBQ">"After the coming harvest there will be
+        an ample supply of wheat for the foes of Germany at ports
+        which can easily be reached. In addition, the large surplus
+        stocks in Australia and Argentina will be available when
+        ships can be spared for such service. And the ships are
+        coming from the builders. For more than a year to come
+        there will be wheat enough for our war partners, the
+        Belgians, and the northern European neutral countries with
+        which we have trade agreements."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore eagerly watched her husband's
+        face in pleasurable anticipation, yet with some anxiety.
+        Wheat had been a subject little touched upon and the war
+        had never been mentioned.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Great!" he exclaimed, with a glow in
+        his cheeks. "I've been wanting to ask.&hellip; Wheat for the
+        Allies and neutrals&mdash;for more than a year!&hellip;
+        Anderson, the United States will feed and save the
+        world!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I reckon. Son, we're sendin'
+        thousands of soldiers a day now&mdash;ships are buildin'
+        fast&mdash;aeroplanes comin' like a swarm of
+        bees&mdash;money for the government to burn&mdash;an' every
+        American gettin' mad.&hellip; Dorn, the Germans don't know
+        they're ruined!&hellip; What do you say?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn looked very strange. "Lenore,
+        help me stand up," he asked, with strong tremor in his
+        voice.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, Kurt, you're not able yet,"
+        appealed Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Help me. I want <i>you</i> to do
+        it."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore complied, wondering and
+        frightened, yet fascinated, too. She helped him off the bed
+        and steadied him on his feet. Then she felt him release
+        himself so he stood free.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What do I say? Anderson I say this. I
+        killed Germans who had grown up with a training and a
+        passion for war. I've been a farmer. I did not want to
+        fight. Duty and hate forced me. The Germans I met fell
+        before me. I was shell-shot, shocked, gassed, and
+        bayoneted. I took twenty-five wounds, and then it was a
+        shell that downed me. I saw my comrades kill and kill
+        before they fell. That is American. Our enemies are driven,
+        blinded, stolid, brutal, obsessed, and desperate. They are
+        German. They lack&mdash;not strength nor efficiency nor
+        courage&mdash;but soul."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">White and spent, Dorn then leaned upon
+        Lenore and got back upon his bed. His passion had thrilled
+        her. Anderson responded with an excitement he plainly
+        endeavored to conceal.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I get your hunch," he said. "If I
+        needed any assurance, you've given it to me. To hell with
+        the Germans! Let's don't talk about them any more.&hellip;
+        An' to come back to our job. Wheat! Son, I've plans that
+        'll raise your hair. We'll harvest a bumper crop at 'Many
+        Waters' in July. An' we'll sow two thousand acres of winter
+        wheat. So much for 'Many Waters.'&mdash;I got mad this
+        summer. I blowed myself. I bought about all the farms
+        around yours up in the Bend country. Big harvest of spring
+        wheat comin'. You'll superintend that harvest, an' I'll
+        look after ours here.&hellip; An' you'll sow ten thousand
+        acres of fallow on your own rich hills&mdash;this fall. Do
+        you get that? Ten thousand acres?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Anderson!" gasped Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, Anderson," mimicked the rancher.
+        "My blood's up. But I'd never have felt so good about it if
+        you hadn't come back. The land's not all paid for, but it's
+        ours. We'll meet our notes. I've been up there twice this
+        spring. You'd never know a few hills had burned over last
+        harvest. Olsen, an' your other neighbors, or most of them,
+        will work the land on half-shares. You'll be boss. An' sure
+        you'll be well for fall sowin'. That'll make you the
+        biggest sower of wheat in the Northwest."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My sower of wheat!" murmured Lenore,
+        seeing his rapt face through tears.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dreams are coming true," he said,
+        softly. "Lenore, just after I saw you the second
+        time&mdash;and fell so in love with you&mdash;I had vain
+        dreams of you. But even my wildest never pictured you as
+        the wife of a wheat farmer. I never dreamed you loved
+        wheat."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But, ah, I do!" replied Lenore. "Why,
+        when I was born dad bought 'Many Waters' and sowed the
+        slopes in wheat. I remember how he used to take me up to
+        the fields all green or golden. I've grown up with wheat.
+        I'd never want to live anywhere away from it. Oh, you must
+        listen to me some day while I tell you what <i>I</i>
+        know&mdash;about the history and romance of wheat."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Begin," said Dorn, with a light of
+        pride and love and wonder in his gaze.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Leave that for some other time,"
+        interposed Anderson. "Son, would it surprise you if I'd
+        tell you that I've switched a little in my ideas about the
+        I.W.W.?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No," replied Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Well, things happen. What made me
+        think hard was the way that government man got results from
+        the I.W.W. in the lumber country. You see, the government
+        had to have an immense amount of timber for ships, an'
+        spruce for aeroplanes. Had to have it quick. An' all the
+        lumbermen an' loggers were I.W.W.&mdash;or most of them.
+        Anyhow, all the strikin' lumbermen last summer belonged to
+        the I.W.W. These fellows believed that under the
+        capitalistic order of labor the workers an' their employers
+        had nothin' in common, an' the government was hand an'
+        glove with capital. Now this government official went up
+        there an' convinced the I.W.W. that the best interest of
+        the two were identical. An' he got the work out of them,
+        an' the government got the lumber. He dealt with them
+        fairly. Those who were on the level he paid high an'
+        considered their wants. Those who were crooked he punished
+        accordin' to their offense. An' the innocent didn't have to
+        suffer with the guilty.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That deal showed me how many of the
+        I.W.W. could be handled. An' we've got to reckon with the
+        I.W.W. Most all the farm-hands in the country belong to it.
+        This summer I'll give the square harvesters what they want,
+        an' that's a big come-down for me. But I won't stand any
+        monkey-bizness from sore-headed disorganizers. If men want
+        to work they shall have work at big pay. You will follow
+        out this plan up in the Bend country. We'll meet this labor
+        union half-way. After the war there may come trouble
+        between labor an capital. It begins to seem plain to me
+        that men who work hard ought to share somethin' of the
+        profits. If that doesn't settle the trouble, then we'll
+        know we're up against an outfit with socialist an'
+        anarchist leaders. Time enough then to resort to measures I
+        regret we practised last summer."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Anderson, you're fine&mdash;you're as
+        big as the hills!" burst out Dorn. "But you know there was
+        bad blood here last summer. Did you ever get proof that
+        German money backed the I.W.W. to strike and embarrass our
+        government?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No. But I believe so, or else the
+        I.W.W. leaders took advantage of a critical time. I'm bound
+        to say that now thousands of I.W.W. laborers are loyal to
+        the United States, and that made me switch."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll deal with them the same way,"
+        responded Dorn, with fervor.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then Lenore interrupted their
+        discussion, and, pleading that Dorn was quite worn out from
+        excitement and exertion, she got her father to leave the
+        room.</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The following several days Lenore
+        devoted to the happy and busy task of packing what she
+        wanted to take to Dorn's home. She had set the date, but
+        had reserved the pleasure of telling him. Anderson had
+        agreed to her plan and decided to accompany them.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I'll take the girls," he said. "It'll
+        be a fine ride for them. We'll stay in the village
+        overnight an' come back home next day.&hellip; Lenore, it
+        strikes me sudden-like, your leavin'.&hellip; What will
+        become of me?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">All at once he showed the ravages of
+        pain and loss that the last year had added to his life of
+        struggle. Lenore embraced him and felt her heart full.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Dad, I'm not leaving you," she
+        protested. "He'll get well up there&mdash;find his balance
+        sooner among those desert wheat-hills. We will divide our
+        time between the two places. Remember, you can run up there
+        any day. Your interests are there now. Dad, don't think of
+        it as separation. Kurt has come into our family&mdash;and
+        we're just going to be away some of the time."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Thus she won back a smile to the worn
+        face.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"We've all got a weak spot," he said,
+        musingly. "Mine is here&mdash;an' it's a fear of growin'
+        old an' bein' left alone. That's selfish. But I've lived,
+        an' I reckon I've no more to ask for."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore could not help being sad in the
+        midst of her increasing happiness. Joy to some brought to
+        others only gloom! Life was sunshine and storm&mdash;youth
+        and age.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">This morning she found Kathleen
+        entertaining Dorn. This was the second time the child had
+        been permitted to see him, and the immense novelty had not
+        yet worn off. Kathleen was a hero-worshiper. If she had
+        been devoted to Dorn before his absence, she now manifested
+        symptoms of complete idolatry. Lenore had forbidden her to
+        question Dorn about anything in regard to the war. Kathleen
+        never broke her promises, but it was plain that Dorn had
+        read the mute, anguished wonder and flame in her eyes when
+        they rested upon his empty sleeve, and evidently had told
+        her things. Kathleen was white, wide-eyed, and beautiful
+        then, with all a child's imagination stirred.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I've been telling Kathie how I lost
+        my arm," explained Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I hate Germans! I hate war!" cried
+        Kathleen, passionately.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My dear, hate them always," said
+        Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">When Kathleen had gone Lenore asked
+        Dorn if he thought it was right to tell the child always to
+        hate Germans.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Right!" exclaimed Dorn, with a queer
+        laugh. Every day now he showed signs of stronger
+        personality. "Lenore, what I went through has confused my
+        sense of right and wrong. Some day perhaps it will all come
+        clear. But, Lenore, all my life, if I live to be ninety, I
+        shall hate Germans."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Oh, Kurt, it's too soon for you
+        to&mdash;to be less narrow, less passionate," replied
+        Lenore, with hesitation. "I understand. The day will come
+        when you'll not condemn a people because of a form of
+        government&mdash;of military class."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It will never come," asserted Dorn,
+        positively. "Lenore, people in our country do not
+        understand. They are too far away from realities. But I was
+        six months in France. I've seen the ruined villages,
+        thousands of refugees&mdash;and I've met the Huns at the
+        front. I <i>know</i> I've seen the realities. In regard to
+        this war I can only feel. You've got to go over there and
+        see for yourself before you realize. You <i>can</i>
+        understand this&mdash;that but for you and your power over
+        me I'd be a worn-out, emotionally <i>burnt</i> out man. But
+        through you I seem to be reborn. Still, I shall hate
+        Germans all my life, and in the after-life, what ever that
+        may be. I could give you a thousand reasons. One ought to
+        suffice. You've read, of course, about the regiment of
+        Frenchmen called Blue Devils. I met some of them&mdash;got
+        friendly with them. They are great&mdash;beyond words to
+        tell! One of them told me that when his regiment drove the
+        Huns out of his own village he had found his mother
+        disemboweled, his wife violated and murdered, his sister
+        left a maimed thing to become the mother of a Hun, his
+        daughter carried off, and his little son crippled for life!
+        &hellip; These are cold facts. As long as I live I will
+        never forget the face of that Frenchman when he told me.
+        Had he cause to hate the Huns? Have I?&hellip; I saw all
+        that in the faces of those Huns who would have killed me if
+        they could."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore covered her face with her
+        hands. "Oh&mdash;horrible! &hellip; Is there
+        nothing&mdash;no hope&mdash;only&hellip;?" She faltered and
+        broke down.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, because there's hate does not
+        prove there's nothing left.&hellip; Listen. The last fight I
+        had was with a boy. I didn't know it when we met. I was
+        rushing, head down, bayonet low. I saw only his body, his
+        blade that clashed with mine. To me his weapon felt like a
+        toy in the hands of a child. I swept it aside&mdash;and
+        lunged. He screamed '<i>Kamarad</i>!' before the blade
+        reached him. Too late! I ran him through. Then I looked. A
+        boy of nineteen! He never ought to have been forced to meet
+        me. It was murder. I saw him die on my bayonet. I saw him
+        slide off it and stretch out.&hellip; I did not hate
+        <i>him</i> then. I'd have given my life for his. I hated
+        what he represented.&hellip; That moment was the end of me
+        as a soldier. If I had not been in range of the exploding
+        shell that downed me I would have dropped my rifle and have
+        stood strengthless before the next Hun.&hellip; So you see,
+        though I killed them, and though I hate now, there's
+        something&mdash;something strange and inexplicable."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That something is the divine in you.
+        It is God!&hellip; Oh, believe it, my husband!" cried
+        Lenore.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn somberly shook his head. "God! I
+        did not find God out there. I cannot see God's hand in this
+        infernal war."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But <i>I</i> can. What called you so
+        resistlessly? What made you go?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You know. The debt I thought I ought
+        to pay. And duty to my country."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Then when the debt was paid, the duty
+        fulfilled&mdash;when you stood stricken at sight of that
+        poor boy dying on your bayonet&mdash;what happened in your
+        soul?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I don't know. But I saw the wrong of
+        war. The wrong to him&mdash;the wrong to me! I thought of
+        no one else. Certainly not of God!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If you had stayed your
+        bayonet&mdash;if you had spared that boy, as you would have
+        done had you seen or heard him in time&mdash;what would
+        that have been?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Pity, maybe, or scorn to slay a
+        weaker foe."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No, no, no&mdash;I can't accept
+        that," replied Lenore, passionately. "Can you see beyond
+        the physical?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I see only that men will fight and
+        that war will come again. Out there I learned the nature of
+        men."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If there's divinity in you there's
+        divinity in every man. That will oppose war&mdash;end it
+        eventually. Men are not taught right. Education and
+        religion will bring peace on earth, good-will to man."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"No, they will not. They never have
+        done so. We have educated men and religious men. Yet war
+        comes despite them. The truth is that life is a fight.
+        Civilization is only skin-deep. Underneath man is still a
+        savage. He is a savage still because he wants the same he
+        had to have when he lived in primitive state. War isn't
+        necessary to show how every man fights for food, clothing,
+        shelter. To-day it's called competition in business. Look
+        at your father. He has fought and beaten men like Neuman.
+        Look at the wheat farmers in my country. Look at the I.W.W.
+        They all fight. Look at the children. They fight even at
+        their games. Their play is a make-believe battle or
+        escaping or funeral or capture. It must be then that some
+        kind of strife was implanted in the first humans and that
+        it is necessary to life."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Survival of the fittest!" exclaimed
+        Lenore, in earnest bitterness. "Kurt, we have changed. You
+        are facing realities and I am facing the infinite. You
+        represent the physical, and I the spiritual. We must grow
+        into harmony with each other. We can't ever hope to learn
+        the unattainable truth of life. There is something beyond
+        us&mdash;something infinite which I believe is God. My soul
+        finds it in you.&hellip; The first effects of the war upon
+        you have been trouble, sacrifice, pain, and horror. You
+        have come out of it impaired physically and with mind still
+        clouded. These will pass, and therefore I beg of you don't
+        grow fixed in absolute acceptance of the facts of evolution
+        and materialism. They cannot be denied, I grant. I see that
+        they are realities. But also I see beyond them. There is
+        some great purpose running through the ages. In our day the
+        Germans have risen, and in the eyes of most of the world
+        their brutal force tends to halt civilization and kill
+        idealism. But that's only apparent&mdash;only temporary. We
+        shall come out of this dark time better, finer, wiser. The
+        history of the world is a proof of a slow growth and
+        perfection. It will never be attained. But is not the
+        growth a beautiful and divine thing? Does it now oppose a
+        hopeless prospect?&hellip; Life is inscrutable. When I
+        think&mdash;only think without faith&mdash;all seems so
+        futile. The poet says we are here as on a darkling plain,
+        swept by confused alarms of struggle and flight, where
+        ignorant armies clash by night.&hellip; Trust me, my
+        husband! There is something in woman&mdash;the instinct of
+        creation&mdash;the mother&mdash;that feels what cannot be
+        expressed. It is the hope of the world."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"The mother!" burst out Dorn. "I think
+        of that&mdash;in you.&hellip; Suppose I have a son, and war
+        comes in his day. Suppose he is killed, as I killed that
+        poor boy!&hellip; How, then, could I reconcile that with
+        this, this something you feel so beautifully? This strange
+        sense of God! This faith in a great purpose of the
+        ages!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore trembled in the exquisite pain
+        of the faith which she prayed was beginning to illumine
+        Dorn's dark and tragic soul.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If we are blessed with a
+        son&mdash;and if he must go to war&mdash;to kill and be
+        killed&mdash;you will reconcile that with God because our
+        son shall have been taught what you should have been
+        taught&mdash;what must be taught to all the sons of the
+        future."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"What will&mdash;that be?" queried
+        Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"The meaning of life&mdash;the truth
+        of immortality," replied Lenore. "We live on&mdash;we
+        improve. That is enough for faith."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"How will that prevent war?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It will prevent it&mdash;in the years
+        to come. Mothers will take good care that children from
+        babyhood shall learn the <i>consequences</i> of
+        fight&mdash;of war. Boys will learn that if the meaning of
+        war to them is the wonder of charge and thunder of cannon
+        and medals of distinction, to their mothers the meaning is
+        loss and agony. They will learn the terrible difference
+        between your fury and eagerness to lunge with bayonet and
+        your horror of achievement when the disemboweled victims
+        lie before you. The glory of a statue to the great general
+        means countless and nameless graves of forgotten soldiers.
+        The joy of the conquering army contrasts terribly with the
+        pain and poverty and unquenchable hate of the
+        conquered."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I see what you mean," rejoined Dorn.
+        "Such teaching of children would change the men of the
+        future. It would mean peace for the generations to come.
+        But as for my boy&mdash;it would make him a poor soldier.
+        He would not be a fighter. He would fall easy victim to the
+        son of the father who had not taught this beautiful meaning
+        of life and terror of war. I'd want my son to be a
+        man."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That teaching&mdash;would make
+        him&mdash;all the more a man," said Lenore, beginning to
+        feel faint.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But not in the sense of muscle,
+        strength, courage, endurance. I'd rather there never was
+        peace than have my son inferior to another man's."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"My hope for the future is that
+        <i>all</i> men will come to teach their sons the wrong of
+        violence."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore, never will that day come,"
+        replied Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She saw in him the inevitableness of
+        the masculine attitude; the difference between man and
+        woman; the preponderance of blood and energy over the
+        higher motives. She felt a weak little woman arrayed
+        against the whole of mankind. But she could not despair.
+        Unquenchable as the sun was this fire within her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"But it <i>might</i> come?" she
+        insisted, gently, but with inflexible spirit.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes, it might&mdash;if men
+        change!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You have changed."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Yes. I don't know myself."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"If we do have a boy, will you let me
+        teach him what I think is right?" Lenore went on,
+        softly.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore! As if I would not!" he
+        exclaimed. "I try to see your way, but just because I can't
+        I'll never oppose you. Teach <i>me</i> if you can!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">She kissed him and knelt beside his
+        bed, grieved to see shadow return to his face, yet
+        thrilling that the way seemed open for her to inspire. But
+        she must never again choose to talk of war, of materialism,
+        of anything calculated to make him look into darkness of
+        his soul, to ponder over the impairment of his mind. She
+        remembered the great specialist speaking of lesions of the
+        organic system, of a loss of brain cells. Her inspiration
+        must be love, charm, care&mdash;a healing and building
+        process. She would give herself in all the unutterableness
+        and immeasurableness of her woman's heart. She would order
+        her life so that it would be a fulfilment of his education,
+        of a heritage from his fathers, a passion born in him, a
+        noble work through which surely he could be saved&mdash;the
+        cultivation of wheat.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Do you love me?" she whispered.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Do I!&hellip; Nothing could ever
+        change my love for you."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I am your wife, you know."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The shadow left his face.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Are you? Really? Lenore
+        Anderson&hellip;"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore Dorn. It is a beautiful name
+        now."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"It does sound sweet. But you&mdash;my
+        wife? Never will I believe!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"You will have to&mdash;very
+        soon."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Why?" A light, warm and glad and
+        marveling, shone in his eyes. Indeed, Lenore felt then a
+        break in the strange aloofness of him&mdash;in his
+        impersonal, gentle acceptance of her relation to him.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"To-morrow I'm going to take you home
+        to your wheat-hills."</p>
+
+        <h2>CHAPTER XXXII</h2>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore told her conception of the
+        history and the romance of wheat to Dorn at this critical
+        time when it was necessary to give a trenchant call to hope
+        and future.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">In the beginning man's struggle was
+        for life and the mainstay of life was food. Perhaps the
+        original discoverer of wheat was a meat-eating savage who,
+        in roaming the forests and fields, forced by starvation to
+        eat bark and plant and berry, came upon a stalk of grain
+        that chewed with strange satisfaction. Perhaps through that
+        accident he became a sower of wheat.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Who actually were the first sowers of
+        wheat would never be known. They were older than any
+        history, and must have been among the earliest of the human
+        race.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">The development of grain produced
+        wheat, and wheat was ground into flour, and flour was baked
+        into bread, and bread had for untold centuries been the
+        sustenance and the staff of life.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Centuries ago an old Chaldean priest
+        tried to ascertain if wheat had ever grown wild. That
+        question never was settled. It was universally believed,
+        however, that wheat had to have the cultivation of man.
+        Nevertheless, the origin of the plant must have been
+        analogous to that of other plants. Wheat-growers must
+        necessarily have been people who stayed long in one place.
+        Wandering tribes could not till and sow the fields. The
+        origin of wheat furnished a legendary theme for many races,
+        and mythology contained tales of wheat-gods favoring chosen
+        peoples. Ancient China raised wheat twenty-seven centuries
+        before Christ; grains of wheat had been found in
+        prehistoric ruins; the dwellers along the Nile were not
+        blind to the fertility of the valley. In the days of the
+        Pharaohs the old river annually inundated its low banks,
+        enriching the soil of vast areas, where soon a
+        green-and-gold ocean of wheat waved and shone under the hot
+        Egyptian sun. The Arabs, on their weird beasts of burden,
+        rode from the desert wastes down to the land of waters and
+        of plenty. Rebekah, when she came to fill her earthen
+        pitcher at the palm-shaded well, looked out with dusky,
+        dreamy eyes across the golden grain toward the mysterious
+        east. Moses, when he stood in the night, watching his flock
+        on the starlit Arabian waste, felt borne to him on the
+        desert wind a scent of wheat. The Bible said, "He maketh
+        peace in thy borders and filleth thee with the finest of
+        the wheat."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Black-bread days of the Middle Ages,
+        when crude grinding made impure flour, were the days of the
+        oppressed peasant and the rich landowner, dark days of toil
+        and poverty and war, of blight and drought and famine; when
+        common man in his wretchedness and hunger cried out, "Bread
+        or blood!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">But with the spreading of wheat came
+        the dawn of a higher civilization; and the story of wheat
+        down to modern times showed the development of man.
+        Wheat-fields of many lands, surrounding homes of prosperous
+        farmers; fruitful toil of happy peoples; the miller and his
+        humming mill!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">When wheat crossed the ocean to
+        America it came to strange and wonderful fulfilment of its
+        destiny. America, fresh, vast, and free, with its sturdy
+        pioneers ever spreading the golden grain westward; with the
+        advancing years when railroad lines kept pace with the
+        indomitable wheat-sowers; with unprecedented harvests
+        yielding records to each succeeding year; with boundless
+        fields tilled and planted and harvested by machines that
+        were mechanical wonders; with enormous flour-mills, humming
+        and whirring, each grinding daily ten thousand barrels of
+        flour, pouring like a white stream from the steel rolls,
+        pure, clean, and sweet, the whitest and finest in the
+        world!</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">America, the new county, became in
+        1918 the salvation of starving Belgium, the mainstay of
+        England, the hope of France! Wheat for the world!
+        Wheat&mdash;that was to say food, strength, fighting life
+        for the armies opposed to the black, hideous, medieval
+        horde of Huns! America to succor and to save, to sacrifice
+        and to sow, rising out of its peaceful slumber to a mighty
+        wrath, magnificent and unquenchable, throwing its vast
+        resources of soil, its endless streams of wheat, into the
+        gulf of war! It was an exalted destiny for a people. Its
+        truth was a blazing affront in the face of age-old
+        autocracy. Fields and toil and grains of wheat, first and
+        last, the salvation of mankind, the freedom and the food of
+        the world!</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Far up the slow-rising bulge of valley
+        slope above the gleaming river two cars climbed leisurely
+        and rolled on over the height into what seemed a bare and
+        lonely land of green.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was a day in June, filled with a
+        rich, thick, amber light, with a fragrant warm wind blowing
+        out of the west.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">At a certain point on this road, where
+        Anderson always felt compelled to halt, he stopped the car
+        this day and awaited the other that contained Lenore and
+        Dorn.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore's joy in the ride was reflected
+        in her face. Dorn rested comfortably beside her, upon an
+        improvised couch. As he lay half propped up by pillows he
+        could see out across the treeless land that he knew. His
+        eyes held a look of the returned soldier who had never
+        expected to see his native land again. Lenore, sensitive to
+        every phase of his feeling, watched him with her heart
+        mounting high.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Anderson got out of his car, followed
+        by Kathleen, who looked glad and mischievous and pretty as
+        a wild rose.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"I just never can get by this place,"
+        explained the rancher, as he came and stood so that he
+        could put a hand on Dorn's knee. "Look, son&mdash;an'
+        Lenore, don't you miss this."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Never fear, dad," replied Lenore, "it
+        was I who first told you to look here."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Terrible big and bare, but grand!"
+        exclaimed Kathleen.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Lenore looked first at Dorn's face as
+        he gazed away across the length and breadth of land. Could
+        that land mean as much to him as it did before he went to
+        war? Infinitely more, she saw, and rejoiced. Her faith was
+        coming home to her in verities. Then she thrilled at the
+        wide prospect before her.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">It was a scene that she knew could not
+        be duplicated in the world. Low, slow-sloping, billowy
+        green hills, bare and smooth with square brown patches,
+        stretched away to what seemed infinite distance. Valleys
+        and hills, with less fallow ground than ever before,
+        significant and striking: lost the meager details of clumps
+        of trees and dots of houses in a green immensity. A million
+        shadows out of the west came waving over the wheat. They
+        were ripples of an ocean of grain. No dust-clouds, no
+        bleached roads, no yellow hills to-day! June, and the
+        desert found its analogy only in the sweep and reach! A
+        thousand hills billowing away toward that blue haze of
+        mountain range where rolled the Oregon. Acreage and mileage
+        seemed insignificant. All was green&mdash;green, the fresh
+        and hopeful color, strangely serene and sweet and endless
+        under the azure sky. Beautiful and lonely hills they were,
+        eloquent of toil, expressive with the brown squares in the
+        green, the lowly homes of men, the long lines of roads
+        running everywhither, overwhelmingly pregnant with
+        meaning&mdash;wheat&mdash;wheat&mdash;wheat&mdash;nothing
+        but wheat, a staggering visual manifestation of vital need,
+        of noble promise.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"That&mdash;that!" rolled out
+        Anderson, waving his big hand, as if words were useless.
+        "Only a corner of the great old U.S.!&hellip; What would the
+        Germans say if they could look out over this?&hellip; What
+        do <i>you</i> say, Lenore?"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Beautiful!" she replied, softly.
+        "Like the rainbow in the sky&mdash;God's promise of
+        life!"</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"An', Kathie, what do <i>you</i> say?"
+        went on Anderson.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Some wheat-fields!" replied Kathleen,
+        with an air of woman's wisdom. "Fetch on your young
+        wheat-sowers, dad, and I'll pick out a husband."</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"An' <i>you</i>, son?" finished
+        Anderson, as if wistfully, yet heartily playing his last
+        card. He was remembering Jim&mdash;the wild but beloved
+        son&mdash;the dead soldier. He was fearful for the crowning
+        hope of his years.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"As ye sow&mdash;so shall ye reap!"
+        was Dorn's reply, strong and thrilling. And Lenore felt her
+        father's strange, heart-satisfying content.</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Twilight crept down around the old
+        home on the hill.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Dorn was alone, leaning at the window.
+        He had just strength to lean there, with uplifted head.
+        Lenore had left him alone, divining his wish. As she left
+        him there came a sudden familiar happening in his brain,
+        like a snap-back, and the contending tide of gray
+        forms&mdash;the Huns&mdash;rushed upon him. He leaned there
+        at the window, but just the same he awaited the shock on
+        the ramparts of the trench. A ferocious and terrible storm
+        of brain, that used to have its reaction in outward
+        violence, now worked inside him, like a hot wind that drove
+        his blood. During the spell he fought out his great
+        fight&mdash;again for the thousandth time he rekilled his
+        foes. That storm passed through him without an outward
+        quiver.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">His Huns&mdash;charged
+        again&mdash;bayoneted again&mdash;and he felt acute pain in
+        the left arm that was gone. He felt the closing of the hand
+        which was not there. His Huns lay in the shadow, stark and
+        shapeless, with white faces upward&mdash;a line of dead
+        foes, remorseless and abhorrent to him, forever damned by
+        his ruthless spirit. He saw the boy slide off his bayonet,
+        beyond recall, murdered by some evil of which Dorn had been
+        the motion. Then the prone, gray forms vanished in the
+        black gulf of Dorn's brain.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">"Lenore will never know&mdash;how my
+        Huns come back to me," he whispered.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Night with its trains of stars! Softly
+        the darkness unfolded down over the dim hills, lonely,
+        tranquil, sweet. A night-bird caroled. The song of insects,
+        very faint and low, came to him like a still, sad music of
+        humanity, from over the hills, far away, in the
+        strife-ridden world. The world of men was there and life
+        was incessant, monstrous, and inconceivable. This old home
+        of his&mdash;the old house seemed full of well-remembered
+        sounds of mouse and cricket and leaf against the roof and
+        soft night wind at the eaves&mdash;sounds that brought his
+        boyhood back, his bare feet on the stairs, his father's
+        aloofness, his mother's love.</p>
+        <hr />
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">Then clearly floated to him a slow
+        sweeping rustle of the wheat. Breast-high it stood down
+        there, outside his window, a moving body, higher than the
+        gloom. That rustle was a voice of childhood, youth, and
+        manhood, whispering to him, thrilling as never before. It
+        was a growing rustle, different from that when the wheat
+        had matured. It seemed to change and grow in volume, in
+        meaning. The night wind bore it, but life&mdash;bursting
+        life was behind it, and behind that seemed to come a
+        driving and a mighty spirit. Beyond the growth of the
+        wheat, beyond its life and perennial gift, was something
+        measureless and obscure, infinite and universal. Suddenly
+        Dorn saw that something as the breath and the blood and the
+        spirit of wheat&mdash;and of man. Dust and to dust returned
+        they might be, but this physical form was only the fleeting
+        inscrutable moment on earth, springing up, giving birth to
+        seed, dying out for that ever-increasing purpose which ran
+        through the ages.</p>
+
+        <p class="MsoNormal">A soft footfall sounded on the stairs.
+        Lenore came. She leaned over him and the starlight fell
+        upon her face, sweet, luminous, beautiful. In the sense of
+        her compelling presence, in the tender touch of her hands,
+        in the whisper of woman's love, Dorn felt uplifted high
+        above the dark pale of the present with its war and pain
+        and clouded mind to wheat&mdash;to the fertile fields of a
+        golden age to come.</p>
+    </div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Desert of Wheat, by Zane Grey
+
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diff --git a/old/10201.txt b/old/10201.txt
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+++ b/old/10201.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Desert of Wheat, by Zane Grey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Desert of Wheat
+
+Author: Zane Grey
+
+Release Date: November 21, 2003 [EBook #10201]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DESERT OF WHEAT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, David Kline and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+ZANE GREY
+
+
+
+THE DESERT
+
+of
+
+WHEAT
+
+1919
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Late in June the vast northwestern desert of wheat began to take on a
+tinge of gold, lending an austere beauty to that endless, rolling,
+smooth world of treeless hills, where miles of fallow ground and miles
+of waving grain sloped up to the far-separated homes of the heroic men
+who had conquered over sage and sand.
+
+These simple homes of farmers seemed lost on an immensity of soft gray
+and golden billows of land, insignificant dots here and there on distant
+hills, so far apart that nature only seemed accountable for those broad
+squares of alternate gold and brown, extending on and on to the waving
+horizon-line. A lonely, hard, heroic country, where flowers and fruit
+were not, nor birds and brooks, nor green pastures. Whirling strings of
+dust looped up over fallow ground, the short, dry wheat lay back from
+the wind, the haze in the distance was drab and smoky, heavy with
+substance.
+
+A thousand hills lay bare to the sky, and half of every hill was wheat
+and half was fallow ground; and all of them, with the shallow valleys
+between, seemed big and strange and isolated. The beauty of them was
+austere, as if the hand of man had been held back from making green his
+home site, as if the immensity of the task had left no time for youth
+and freshness. Years, long years, were there in the round-hilled,
+many-furrowed gray old earth. And the wheat looked a century old. Here
+and there a straight, dusty road stretched from hill to hill, becoming a
+thin white line, to disappear in the distance. The sun shone hot, the
+wind blew hard; and over the boundless undulating expanse hovered a
+shadow that was neither hood of dust nor hue of gold. It was not
+physical, but lonely, waiting, prophetic, and weird. No wild desert of
+wastelands, once the home of other races of man, and now gone to decay
+and death, could have shown so barren an acreage. Half of this wandering
+patchwork of squares was earth, brown and gray, curried and disked, and
+rolled and combed and harrowed, with not a tiny leaf of green in all the
+miles. The other half had only a faint golden promise of mellow harvest;
+and at long distance it seemed to shimmer and retreat under the hot sun.
+A singularly beautiful effect of harmony lay in the long, slowly rising
+slopes, in the rounded hills, in the endless curving lines on all sides.
+The scene was heroic because of the labor of horny hands; it was sublime
+because not a hundred harvests, nor three generations of toiling men,
+could ever rob nature of its limitless space and scorching sun and
+sweeping dust, of its resistless age-long creep back toward the desert
+that it had been.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here was grown the most bounteous, the richest and finest wheat in all
+the world. Strange and unfathomable that so much of the bread of man,
+the staff of life, the hope of civilization in this tragic year 1917,
+should come from a vast, treeless, waterless, dreary desert!
+
+This wonderful place was an immense valley of considerable altitude
+called the Columbia Basin, surrounded by the Cascade Mountains on the
+west, the Coeur d'Alene and Bitter Root Mountains on the east, the
+Okanozan range to the north, and the Blue Mountains to the south. The
+valley floor was basalt, from the lava flow of volcanoes in ages past.
+The rainfall was slight except in the foot-hills of the mountains. The
+Columbia River, making a prodigious and meandering curve, bordered on
+three sides what was known as the Bend country. South of this vast area,
+across the range, began the fertile, many-watered region that extended
+on down into verdant Oregon. Among the desert hills of this Bend
+country, near the center of the Basin, where the best wheat was raised,
+lay widely separated little towns, the names of which gave evidence of
+the mixed population. It was, of course, an exceedingly prosperous
+country, a fact manifest in the substantial little towns, if not in the
+crude and unpretentious homes of the farmers. The acreage of farms ran
+from a section, six hundred and forty acres, up into the thousands.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Upon a morning in early July, exactly three months after the United
+States had declared war upon Germany, a sturdy young farmer strode with
+darkly troubled face from the presence of his father. At the end of a
+stormy scene he had promised his father that he would abandon his desire
+to enlist in the army.
+
+Kurt Dorn walked away from the gray old clapboard house, out to the
+fence, where he leaned on the gate. He could see for miles in every
+direction, and to the southward, away on a long yellow slope, rose a
+stream of dust from a motor-car.
+
+"Must be Anderson--coming to dun father," muttered young Dorn.
+
+This was the day, he remembered, when the wealthy rancher of Ruxton was
+to look over old Chris Dorn's wheat-fields. Dorn owed thirty-thousand
+dollars and interest for years, mostly to Anderson. Kurt hated the debt
+and resented the visit, but he could not help acknowledging that the
+rancher had been lenient and kind. Long since Kurt had sorrowfully
+realized that his father was illiterate, hard, grasping, and growing
+worse with the burden of years.
+
+"If we had rain now--or soon--that section of Bluestem would square
+father," soliloquized young Dorn, as with keen eyes he surveyed a vast
+field of wheat, short, smooth, yellowing in the sun. But the cloudless
+sky, the haze of heat rather betokened a continued drought.
+
+There were reasons, indeed, for Dorn to wear a dark and troubled face as
+he watched the motor-car speed along ahead of its stream of dust, pass
+out of sight under the hill, and soon reappear, to turn off the main
+road and come toward the house. It was a big, closed car, covered with
+dust. The driver stopped it at the gate and got out.
+
+"Is this Chris Dorn's farm?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," replied Kurt.
+
+Whereupon the door of the car opened and out stepped a short, broad man
+in a long linen coat.
+
+"Come out, Lenore, an' shake off the dust," he said, and he assisted a
+young woman to step out. She also wore a long linen coat, and a veil
+besides. The man removed his coat and threw it into the car. Then he
+took off his sombrero to beat the dust off of that.
+
+"Phew! The Golden Valley never seen dust like this in a million
+years!... I'm chokin' for water. An' listen to the car. She's boilin'!"
+
+Then, as he stepped toward Kurt, the rancher showed himself to be a
+well-preserved man of perhaps fifty-five, of powerful form beginning to
+sag in the broad shoulders, his face bronzed by long exposure to wind
+and sun. He had keen gray eyes, and their look was that of a man used to
+dealing with his kind and well disposed toward them.
+
+"Hello! Are you young Dorn?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Kurt, stepping out.
+
+"I'm Anderson, from Ruxton, come to see your dad. This is my girl
+Lenore."
+
+Kurt acknowledged the slight bow from the veiled young woman, and then,
+hesitating, he added, "Won't you come in?"
+
+"No, not yet. I'm chokin' for air an' water. Bring us a drink," replied
+Anderson.
+
+Kurt hurried away to get a bucket and tin cup. As he drew water from the
+well he was thinking rather vaguely that it was somehow
+embarrassing--the fact of Mr. Anderson being accompanied by his
+daughter. Kurt was afraid of his father. But then, what did it matter?
+When he returned to the yard he found the rancher sitting in the shade
+of one of the few apple-trees, and the young lady was standing near, in
+the act of removing bonnet and veil. She had thrown the linen coat over
+the seat of an old wagon-bed that lay near.
+
+"Good water is scarce here, but I'm glad we have some," said Kurt; then
+as he set down the bucket and offered a brimming cupful to the girl he
+saw her face, and his eyes met hers. He dropped the cup and stared. Then
+hurriedly, with flushing face, he bent over to recover and refill it.
+
+"Ex-excuse me. I'm--clumsy," he managed to say, and as he handed the cup
+to her he averted his gaze. For more than a year the memory of this very
+girl had haunted him. He had seen her twice--the first time at the close
+of his one year of college at the University of California, and the
+second time on the street in Spokane. In a glance he had recognized the
+strong, lithe figure, the sunny hair, the rare golden tint of her
+complexion, the blue eyes, warm and direct. And he had sustained a shock
+which momentarily confused him.
+
+"Good water, hey?" dissented Anderson, after drinking a second cup. "Boy
+that's wet, but it ain't water to drink. Come down in the foot-hills an'
+I'll show you. My ranch 's called 'Many Waters,' an' you can't keep your
+feet dry."
+
+"I wish we had some of it here," replied Kurt, wistfully, and he waved a
+hand at the broad, swelling slopes. The warm breath that blew in from
+the wheatlands felt dry and smelled dry.
+
+"You're in for a dry spell?" inquired Anderson, with interest that was
+keen, and kindly as well.
+
+"Father says so. And I fear it, too--for he never makes a mistake in
+weather or crops."
+
+"A hot, dry spell!... This summer?... Hum!... Boy, do you know that
+wheat is the most important thing in the world to-day?"
+
+"You mean on account of the war," replied Kurt. "Yes, I know. But father
+doesn't see that. All he sees is--if we have rain we'll have bumper
+crops. That big field there would be a record--at war prices.... And he
+wouldn't be ruined!"
+
+"Ruined?... Oh, he means I'd close on him.... Hum!... Say, what do you
+see in a big wheat yield--if it rains?"
+
+"Mr. Anderson, I'd like to see our debt paid, but I'm thinking most of
+wheat for starving peoples. I--I've studied this wheat question. It's
+the biggest question in this war."
+
+Kurt had forgotten the girl and was unaware of her eyes bent steadily
+upon him. Anderson had roused to the interest of wheat, and to a deeper
+study of the young man.
+
+"Say, Dorn, how old are you?" he asked.
+
+"Twenty-four. And Kurt's my first name," was the reply.
+
+"Will this farm fall to you?"
+
+"Yes, if my father does not lose it."
+
+"Hum!... Old Dorn won't lose it, never fear. He raises the best wheat in
+this section."
+
+"But father never owned the land. We have had three bad years. If the
+wheat fails this summer--we lose the land, that's all."
+
+"Are you an--American?" queried Anderson, slowly, as if treading on
+dangerous ground.
+
+"I am," snapped Kurt. "My mother was American. She's dead. Father is
+German. He's old. He's rabid since the President declared war. He'll
+never change."
+
+"That's hell. What 're you goin' to do if your country calls you?"
+
+"Go!" replied Kurt, with flashing eyes. "I wanted to enlist. Father and
+I quarreled over that until I had to give in. He's hard--he's
+impossible.... I'll wait for the draft and hope I'm called."
+
+"Boy, it's that spirit Germany's roused, an' the best I can say is, God
+help her!... Have you a brother?"
+
+"No. I'm all father has."
+
+"Well, it makes a tough place for him, an' you, too. Humor him. He's
+old. An' when you're called--go an' fight. You'll come back."
+
+"If I only knew that--it wouldn't be so hard."
+
+"Hard? It sure is hard. But it'll be the makin' of a great country.
+It'll weed out the riffraff.... See here, Kurt, I'm goin' to give you a
+hunch. Have you had any dealin's with the I.W.W.?"
+
+"Yes, last harvest we had trouble, but nothing serious. When I was in
+Spokane last month I heard a good deal. Strangers have approached us
+here, too--mostly aliens. I have no use for them, but they always get
+father's ear. And now!... To tell the truth, I'm worried."
+
+"Boy, you need to be," replied Anderson, earnestly. "We're all worried.
+I'm goin' to let you read over the laws of that I.W.W. organization.
+You're to keep mum now, mind you. I belong to the Chamber of Commerce in
+Spokane. Somebody got hold of these by-laws of this so-called labor
+union. We've had copies made, an' every honest farmer in the Northwest
+is goin' to read them. But carryin' one around is dangerous, I reckon,
+these days. Here."
+
+Anderson hesitated a moment, peered cautiously around, and then,
+slipping folded sheets of paper from his inside coat pocket, he
+evidently made ready to hand them to Kurt.
+
+"Lenore, where's the driver?" he asked.
+
+"He's under the car," replied the girl
+
+Kurt thrilled at the soft sound of her voice. It was something to have
+been haunted by a girl's face for a year and then suddenly hear her
+voice.
+
+"He's new to me--that driver--an' I ain't trustin' any new men these
+days," went on Anderson. "Here now, Dorn. Read that. An' if you don't
+get red-headed--"
+
+Without finishing his last muttered remark, he opened the sheets of
+manuscript and spread them out to the young man.
+
+Curiously, and with a little rush of excitement, Kurt began to read. The
+very first rule of the I.W.W. aimed to abolish capital. Kurt read on
+with slowly growing amaze, consternation, and anger. When he had
+finished, his look, without speech, was a question Anderson hastened to
+answer.
+
+"It's straight goods," he declared. "Them's the sure-enough rules of
+that gang. We made certain before we acted. Now how do they strike you?"
+
+"Why, that's no labor union!" replied Kurt, hotly. "They're outlaws,
+thieves, blackmailers, pirates. I--I don't know what!"
+
+"Dorn, we're up against a bad outfit an' the Northwest will see hell
+this summer. There's trouble in Montana and Idaho. Strangers are
+driftin' into Washington from all over. We must organize to meet
+them--to prevent them gettin' a hold out here. It's a labor union,
+mostly aliens, with dishonest an' unscrupulous leaders, some of them
+Americans. They aim to take advantage of the war situation. In the
+newspapers they rave about shorter hours, more pay, acknowledgment of
+the union. But any fool would see, if he read them laws I showed you,
+that this I.W.W. is not straight."
+
+"Mr. Anderson, what steps have you taken down in your country?" queried
+Kurt.
+
+"So far all I've done was to hire my hands for a year, give them high
+wages, an' caution them when strangers come round to feed them an' be
+civil an' send them on."
+
+"But we can't do that up here in the Bend," said Dorn, seriously. "We
+need, say, a hundred thousand men in harvest-time, and not ten thousand
+all the rest of the year."
+
+"Sure you can't. But you'll have to organize somethin'. Up here in this
+desert you could have a heap of trouble if that outfit got here strong
+enough. You'd better tell every farmer you can trust about this I.W.W."
+
+"I've only one American neighbor, and he lives six miles from here,"
+replied Dorn. "Olsen over there is a Swede, and not a naturalized
+citizen, but I believe he's for the U.S. And there's--"
+
+"Dad," interrupted the girl, "I believe our driver is listening to your
+very uninteresting conversation."
+
+She spoke demurely, with laughter in her low voice. It made Dorn dare to
+look at her, and he met a blue blaze that was instantly averted.
+
+Anderson growled, evidently some very hard names, under his breath; his
+look just then was full of characteristic Western spirit. Then he got
+up.
+
+"Lenore, I reckon your talk 'll be more interesting than mine," he said,
+dryly. "I'll go see Dorn an' get this business over."
+
+"I'd rather go with you," hurriedly replied Kurt; and then, as though
+realizing a seeming discourtesy in his words, his face flamed, and he
+stammered: "I--I don't mean that. But father is in bad mood. We just
+quarreled.--I told you--about the war. And--Mr. Anderson,--I'm--I'm a
+little afraid he'll--"
+
+"Well, son, I'm not afraid," interrupted the rancher. "I'll beard the
+old lion in his den. You talk to Lenore."
+
+"Please don't speak of the war," said Kurt, appealingly.
+
+"Not a word unless he starts roarin' at Uncle Sam," declared Anderson,
+with a twinkle in his eyes, and turned toward the house.
+
+"He'll roar, all right," said Kurt, almost with a groan. He knew what an
+ordeal awaited the rancher, and he hated the fact that it could not be
+avoided. Then Kurt was confused, astounded, infuriated with himself over
+a situation he had not brought about and could scarcely realize. He
+became conscious of pride and shame, and something as black and hopeless
+as despair.
+
+"Haven't I seen you--before?" asked the girl.
+
+The query surprised and thrilled Kurt out of his self-centered thought.
+
+"I don't know. Have you? Where?" he answered, facing her. It was a
+relief to find that she still averted her face.
+
+"At Berkeley, in California, the first time, and the second at Spokane,
+in front of the Davenport," she replied.
+
+"First--and--second?... You--you remembered both times!" he burst out,
+incredulously.
+
+"Yes. I don't see how I could have helped remembering." Her laugh was
+low, musical, a little hurried, yet cool.
+
+Dorn was not familiar with girls. He had worked hard all his life, there
+among those desert hills, and during the few years his father had
+allowed him for education. He knew wheat, but nothing of the eternal
+feminine. So it was impossible for him to grasp that this girl was not
+wholly at her ease. Her words and the cool little laugh suddenly brought
+home to Kurt the immeasurable distance between him and a daughter of one
+of the richest ranchers in Washington.
+
+"You mean I--I was impertinent," he began, struggling between shame and
+pride. "I--I stared at you.... Oh, I must have been rude.... But, Miss
+Anderson, I--I didn't mean to be. I didn't think you saw me--at all. I
+don't know what made me do that. It never happened before. I beg your
+pardon."
+
+A subtle indefinable change, perceptible to Dorn, even in his confused
+state, came over the girl.
+
+"I did not say you were impertinent," she returned. "I remembered seeing
+you--notice me, that is all."
+
+Self-possessed, aloof, and kind, Miss Anderson now became an
+impenetrable mystery to Dorn. But that only accentuated the distance she
+had intimated lay between them. Her kindness stung him to recover his
+composure. He wished she had not been kind. What a singular chance that
+had brought her here to his home--the daughter of a man who came to
+demand a long-unpaid debt! What a dispelling of the vague thing that had
+been only a dream! Dorn gazed away across the yellowing hills to the dim
+blue of the mountains where rolled the Oregon. Despite the color, it was
+gray--like his future.
+
+"I heard you tell father you had studied wheat," said the girl,
+presently, evidently trying to make conversation.
+
+"Yes, all my life," replied Kurt. "My study has mostly been under my
+father. Look at my hands." He held out big, strong hands, scarred and
+knotted, with horny palms uppermost, and he laughed. "I can be proud of
+them, Miss Anderson.... But I had a splendid year in California at the
+university and I graduated from the Washington State Agricultural
+College."
+
+"You love wheat--the raising of it, I mean?" she inquired.
+
+"It must be that I do, though I never had such a thought. Wheat is so
+wonderful. No one can guess who does not know it!... The clean, plump
+grain, the sowing on fallow ground, the long wait, the first tender
+green, and the change day by day to the deep waving fields of gold--then
+the harvest, hot, noisy, smoky, full of dust and chaff, and the great
+combine-harvesters with thirty-four horses. Oh! I guess I do love it
+all.... I worked in a Spokane flour-mill, too, just to learn how flour
+is made. There is nothing in the world so white, so clean, so pure as
+flour made from the wheat of these hills!"
+
+"Next you'll be telling me that you can bake bread," she rejoined, and
+her laugh was low and sweet. Her eyes shone with soft blue gleams.
+
+"Indeed I can! I bake all the bread we use," he said, stoutly. "And I
+flatter myself I can beat any girl you know."
+
+"You can beat mine, I'm sure. Before I went to college I did pretty
+well. But I learned too much there. Now my mother and sisters, and
+brother Jim, all the family except dad, make fun of my bread."
+
+"You have a brother? How old is he?"
+
+"One brother--Jim, we call him. He--he is just past twenty-one." She
+faltered the last few words.
+
+Kurt felt on common ground with her then. The sudden break in her voice,
+the change in her face, the shadowing of the blue eyes--these were
+eloquent.
+
+"Oh, it's horrible--this need of war!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Yes," he replied, simply. "But maybe your brother will not be called."
+
+"Called! Why, he refused to wait for the draft! He went and enlisted.
+Dad patted him on the back.... If anything happens to him it'll kill my
+mother. Jim is her idol. It'd break my heart.... Oh, I hate the very
+name of Germans!"
+
+"My father is German," said Kurt. "He's been fifty years in
+America--eighteen years here on this farm. He always hated England. Now
+he's bitter against America.... I can see a side you can't see. But I
+don't blame you--for what you said."
+
+"Forgive me. I can't conceive of meaning that against any one who's
+lived here so long.... Oh, it must be hard for you."
+
+"I'll let my father think I'm forced to join the army. But I'm going to
+fight against his people. We are a house divided against itself."
+
+"Oh, what a pity!" The girl sighed and her eyes were dark with brooding
+sorrow.
+
+A step sounded behind them. Mr. Anderson appeared, sombrero off, mopping
+a very red face. His eyes gleamed, with angry glints; his mouth and chin
+were working. He flopped down with a great, explosive breath.
+
+"Kurt, your old man is a--a--son of a gun!" he exclaimed, vociferously;
+manifestly, liberation of speech was a relief.
+
+The young man nodded seriously and knowingly. "I hope, sir--he--he--"
+
+"He did--you just bet your life! He called me a lot in German, but I
+know cuss words when I hear them. I tried to reason with him--told him I
+wanted my money--was here to help him get that money off the farm, some
+way or other. An' he swore I was a capitalist--an enemy to labor an' the
+Northwest--that I an' my kind had caused the war."
+
+Kurt gazed gravely into the disturbed face of the rancher. Miss Anderson
+had wide-open eyes of wonder.
+
+"Sure I could have stood all that," went on Anderson, fuming. "But he
+ordered me out of the house. I got mad an' wouldn't go. Then--by George!
+he pulled my nose an' called me a bloody Englishman!"
+
+Kurt groaned in the disgrace of the moment. But, amazingly, Miss
+Anderson burst into a silvery peal of laughter.
+
+"Oh, dad!... that's--just too--good for--anything! You met your--match
+at last.... You know you always--boasted of your drop of English
+blood.... And you're sensitive--about your big nose!"
+
+"He must be over seventy," growled Anderson, as if seeking for some
+excuse to palliate his restraint. "I'm mad--but it was funny." The
+working of his face finally set in the huge wrinkles of a laugh.
+
+Young Dorn struggled to repress his own mirth, but unguardedly he
+happened to meet the dancing blue eyes of the girl, merry, provocative,
+full of youth and fun, and that was too much for him. He laughed with
+them.
+
+"The joke's on me," said Anderson. "An' I can take one.... Now, young
+man, I think I gathered from your amiable dad that if the crop of wheat
+was full I'd get my money. Otherwise I could take over the land. For my
+part, I'd never do that, but the others interested might do it, even for
+the little money involved. I tried to buy them out so I'd have the whole
+mortgage. They would not sell."
+
+"Mr. Anderson, you're a square man, and I'll do--" declared Kurt.
+
+"Come out an' show me the wheat," interrupted Anderson. "Lenore, do you
+want to go with us?"
+
+"I do," replied the daughter, and she took up her hat to put it on.
+
+Kurt led them through the yard, out past the old barn, to the edge of
+the open slope where the wheat stretched away, down and up, as far as
+the eye could see.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+"We've got over sixteen hundred acres in fallow ground, a half-section
+in rye, another half in wheat--Turkey Red--and this section you see, six
+hundred and forty acres, in Bluestem," said Kurt.
+
+Anderson's keen eyes swept from near at hand to far away, down the
+gentle, billowy slope and up the far hillside. The wheat was two feet
+high, beginning to be thick and heavy at the heads, as if struggling to
+burst. A fragrant, dry, wheaty smell, mingled with dust, came on the
+soft summer breeze, and a faint silken rustle. The greenish, almost blue
+color near at hand gradually in the distance grew lighter, and then
+yellow, and finally took on a tinge of gold. There was a living spirit
+in that vast wheat-field.
+
+"Dorn, it's the finest wheat I've seen!" exclaimed Anderson, with the
+admiration of the farmer who aspired high. "In fact, it's the only fine
+field of wheat I've seen since we left the foot-hills. How is that?"
+
+"Late spring and dry weather," replied Dorn. "Most of the farmers'
+reports are poor. If we get rain over the Bend country we'll have only
+an average yield this year. If we don't get rain--then flat failure."
+
+Miss Anderson evinced an interest in the subject and she wanted to know
+why this particular field, identical with all the others for miles
+around, should have a promise of a magnificent crop when the others had
+no promise at all.
+
+"This section lay fallow a long time," replied Dorn. "Snow lasted here
+on this north slope quite a while. My father used a method of soil
+cultivation intended to conserve moisture. The seed wheat was especially
+selected. And if we have rain during the next ten days this section of
+Bluestem will yield fifty bushels to the acre."
+
+"Fifty bushels!" ejaculated Anderson.
+
+"Bluestem? Why do you call it that when it's green and yellow?" queried
+the girl.
+
+"It's a name. There are many varieties of wheat. Bluestem is best here
+in this desert country because it resists drought, it produces large
+yield, it does not break, and the flour-mills rate it very high.
+Bluestem is not good in wet soils."
+
+Anderson tramped along the edge of the field, peering down, here and
+there pulling a shaft of wheat and examining it. The girl gazed with
+dreamy eyes across the undulating sea. And Dorn watched her.
+
+"We have a ranch--thousands of acres--but not like this," she said.
+
+"What's the difference?" asked Dorn.
+
+She appeared pensive and in doubt.
+
+"I hardly know. What would you call this--this scene?"
+
+"Why, I call it the desert of wheat! But no one else does," he replied.
+
+"I named father's ranch 'Many Waters.' I think those names tell the
+difference."
+
+"Isn't my desert beautiful?"
+
+"No. It has a sameness--a monotony that would drive me mad. It looks as
+if the whole world had gone to wheat. It makes me think--oppresses me.
+All this means that we live by wheat alone. These bare hills! They're
+too open to wind and sun and snow. They look like the toil of ages."
+
+"Miss Anderson, there is such a thing as love for the earth--the bare
+brown earth. You know we came from dust, and to dust we return! These
+fields are human to my father. And they have come to speak to me--a
+language I don't understand yet. But I mean--what you see--the growing
+wheat here, the field of clods over there, the wind and dust and glare
+and heat, the eternal sameness of the open space--these are the things
+around which my life has centered, and when I go away from them I am not
+content."
+
+Anderson came back to the young couple, carrying some heads of wheat in
+his hand.
+
+"Smut!" he exclaimed, showing both diseased and healthy specimens of
+wheat. "Had to hunt hard to find that. Smut is the bane of all
+wheat-growers. I never saw so little of it as there is here. In fact, we
+know scarcely nothin' about smut an' its cure, if there is any. You
+farmers who raise only grain have got the work down to a science. This
+Bluestem is not bearded wheat, like Turkey Red. Has that beard anythin'
+to do with smut?"
+
+"I think not. The parasite, or fungus, lives inside the wheat."
+
+"Never heard that before. No wonder smut is the worst trouble for
+wheat-raisers in the Northwest. I've fields literally full of smut. An'
+we never are rid of it. One farmer has one idea, an' some one else
+another. What could be of greater importance to a farmer? We're at war.
+The men who claim to know say that wheat will win the war. An' we lose
+millions of bushels from this smut. That's to say it's a terrible fact
+to face. I'd like to get your ideas."
+
+Dorn, happening to glance again at Miss Anderson, an act that seemed to
+be growing habitual, read curiosity and interest, and something more, in
+her direct blue eyes. The circumstance embarrassed him, though it tugged
+at the flood-gates of his knowledge. He could talk about wheat, and he
+did like to. Yet here was a girl who might be supposed to be bored.
+Still, she did not appear to be. That warm glance was not politeness.
+
+"Yes, I'd like to hear every word you can say about wheat," she said,
+with an encouraging little nod.
+
+"Sure she would," added Anderson, with an affectionate hand on her
+shoulder. "She's a farmer's daughter. She'll be a farmer's wife."
+
+He laughed at this last sally. The girl blushed. Dorn smiled and shook
+his head doubtfully.
+
+"I imagine that good fortune will never befall a farmer," he said.
+
+"Well, if it should," she replied, archly, "just consider how I might
+surprise him with my knowledge of wheat.... Indeed, Mr. Dorn, I am
+interested. I've never been in the Bend before--in your desert of wheat.
+I never before felt the greatness of loving the soil--or caring for
+it--of growing things from seed. Yet the Bible teaches that, and I read
+my Bible. Please tell us. The more you say the more I'll like it."
+
+Dorn was not proof against this eloquence. And he quoted two of his
+authorities, Heald and Woolman, of the State Agricultural Experiment
+Station, where he had studied for two years.
+
+"Bunt, or stinking smut, is caused by two different species of
+microscopic fungi which live as parasites in the wheat plant. Both are
+essentially similar in their effects and their life-history. _Tilletia
+tritici_, or the rough-spored variety, is the common stinking smut of
+the Pacific regions, while _Tilletia foetans_, or the smooth-spored
+species, is the one generally found in the eastern United States.
+
+"The smut 'berries,' or 'balls,' from an infected head contain millions
+of minute bodies, the spores or 'seeds' of the smut fungus. These
+reproduce the smut in somewhat the same way that a true seed develops
+into a new plant. A single smut ball of average size contains a
+sufficient number of spores to give one for each grain of wheat in five
+or six bushels. It takes eight smut spores to equal the diameter of a
+human hair. Normal wheat grains from an infected field may have so many
+spores lodged on their surface as to give them a dark color, but other
+grains which show no difference in color to the naked eye may still
+contain a sufficient number of spores to produce a smutty crop if seed
+treatment is not practised.
+
+"When living smut spores are introduced into the soil with the seed
+wheat, or exist in the soil in which smut-free wheat is sown, a certain
+percentage of the wheat plants are likely to become infected. The smut
+spore germinates and produces first a stage of the smut plant in the
+soil. This first stage never infects a young seedling direct, but gives
+rise to secondary spores, or sporida, from which infection threads may
+arise and penetrate the shoot of a young seedling and reach the growing
+point. Here the fungus threads keep pace with the growth of the plant
+and reach maturity at or slightly before harvest-time.
+
+"Since this disease is caused by an internal parasite, it is natural to
+expect certain responses to its presence. It should be noted first that
+the smut fungus is living at the expense of its host plant, the wheat,
+and its effect on the host may be summarized as follows: The consumption
+of food, the destruction of food in the sporulating process, and the
+stimulating or retarding effect on normal physiological processes.
+
+"Badly smutted plants remain in many cases under-size and produce fewer
+and smaller heads. In the Fife and Bluestem varieties the infected heads
+previous to maturity exhibit a darker green color, and remain green
+longer than the normal heads. In some varieties the infected heads stand
+erect, when normal ones begin to droop as a result of the increasing
+weight of the ripening grain.
+
+"A crop may become infected with smut in a number of different ways.
+Smut was originally introduced with the seed, and many farmers are still
+planting it every season with their seed wheat. Wheat taken from a
+smutty crop will have countless numbers of loose spores adhering to the
+grains, also a certain number of unbroken smut balls. These are always a
+source of danger, even when the seed is treated with fungicides before
+sowing.
+
+"There are also chances for the infection of a crop if absolutely
+smut-free seed is employed. First, soil infection from a previous smutty
+crop; second, soil infection from wind-blown spores. Experiments have
+shown that separated spores from crushed smut balls lose their effective
+power in from two to three months, provided the soil is moist and loose,
+and in no case do they survive a winter.
+
+"It does not seem probable that wheat smut will be controlled by any
+single practice, but rather by the combined use of various methods: crop
+rotation; the use of clean seed; seed treatment with fungicides;
+cultural practices and breeding; and selection of varieties.
+
+"Failure to practise crop rotation is undoubtedly one of the main
+explanations for the general prevalence of smut in the wheat-fields of
+eastern Washington. Even with an intervening summer fallow, the smut
+from a previous crop may be a source of infection. Experience shows that
+a fall stubble crop is less liable to smut infection than a crop
+following summer fallow. The apparent explanation for this condition is
+the fact that the summer fallow becomes infected with wind-blown spores,
+while in a stubble crop the wind-blown spores, as well as those
+originating from the previous crop, are buried in plowing.
+
+"If clean seed or properly treated seed had been used by all farmers we
+should never have had a smut problem. High per cents. of smut indicate
+either soil infection or imperfect treatment. The principle of the
+chemical treatment is to use a poison which will kill the superficial
+spores of the smut and not materially injure the germinating power of
+the seed. The hot-water treatment is only recommended when one of the
+chemical 'steeps' is not effective.
+
+"Certain cultural practices are beneficial in reducing the amount of
+smut in all cases, while the value of others depends to some extent upon
+the source of the smut spores. The factors which always influence the
+amount of smut are the temperature of the soil during the germinating
+period, the amount of soil moisture, and the depth of seeding. Where
+seed-borne spores are the only sources of infection, attention to the
+three factors mentioned will give the only cultural practices for
+reducing the amount of smut.
+
+"Early seeding has been practised by various farmers, and they report a
+marked reduction in smut.
+
+"The replowing of the summer fallow after the first fall rains is
+generally effective in reducing the amount of smut.
+
+"Very late planting--that is, four or five weeks after the first good
+fall rains--is also an effective practice. Fall tillage of summer
+fallow, other than plowing, seems to be beneficial.
+
+"No smut-immune varieties of wheat are known, but the standard varieties
+show varying degrees of resistance. Spring wheats generally suffer less
+from smut than winter varieties. This is not due to any superior
+resistance, but rather to the fact that they escape infection. If only
+spring wheats were grown our smut problem would largely disappear; but a
+return to this practice is not suggested, since the winter wheats are
+much more desirable. It seems probable that the conditions which prevail
+during the growing season may have considerable influence on the per
+cent of smut in any given variety."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Dorn finished his discourse, to receive the thanks of his
+listeners, they walked back through the yard toward the road. Mr.
+Anderson, who led the way, halted rather abruptly.
+
+"Hum! Who're those men talkin' to my driver?" he queried.
+
+Dorn then saw a couple of strangers standing near the motor-car, engaged
+in apparently close conversation with the chauffeur. Upon the moment
+they glanced up to see Mr. Anderson approaching, and they rather
+hurriedly departed. Dorn had noted a good many strangers lately--men
+whose garb was not that of farmers, whose faces seemed foreign, whose
+actions were suspicious.
+
+"I'll bet a hundred they're I.W.W.'s," declared Anderson. "Take my
+hunch, Dorn."
+
+The strangers passed on down the road without looking back.
+
+"Wonder where they'll sleep to-night?" muttered Dorn.
+
+Anderson rather sharply asked his driver what the two men wanted. And
+the reply he got was that they were inquiring about work.
+
+"Did they speak English?" went on the rancher.
+
+"Well enough to make themselves understood," replied the driver.
+
+Dorn did not get a good impression from the shifty eyes and air of
+taciturnity of Mr. Anderson's man, and it was evident that the blunt
+rancher restrained himself. He helped his daughter into the car, and
+then put on his long coat. Next he shook hands with Dorn.
+
+"Young man, I've enjoyed meetin' you, an' have sure profited from same,"
+he said. "Which makes up for your dad! I'll run over here again to see
+you--around harvest-time. An' I'll be wishin' for that rain."
+
+"Thank you. If it does rain I'll be happy to see you," replied Dorn,
+with a smile.
+
+"Well, if it doesn't rain I won't come. I'll put it off another year,
+an' cuss them other fellers into holdin' off, too."
+
+"You're very kind. I don't know how I'd--we'd ever repay you in that
+case."
+
+"Don't mention it. Say, how far did you say it was to Palmer? We'll have
+lunch there."
+
+"It's fifteen miles--that way," answered Dorn. "If it wasn't for--for
+father I'd like you to stay--and break some of my bread."
+
+Dorn was looking at the girl as he spoke. Her steady gaze had been on
+him ever since she entered the car, and in the shade of her hat and the
+veil she was adjusting her eyes seemed very dark and sweet and
+thoughtful. She brightly nodded her thanks as she held the veil aside
+with both hands.
+
+"I wish you luck. Good-by," she said, and closed the veil.
+
+Still, Dorn could see her eyes through it, and now they were sweeter,
+more mysterious, more provocative of haunting thoughts. It flashed over
+him with dread certainty that he had fallen in love with her. The shock
+struck him mute. He had no reply for the rancher's hearty farewell. Then
+the car lurched away and dust rose in a cloud.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+With a strange knocking of his heart, high up toward his throat, Kurt
+Dorn stood stock-still, watching the moving cloud of dust until it
+disappeared over the hill.
+
+No doubt entered his mind. The truth, the fact, was a year old--a
+long-familiar and dreamy state--but its meaning had not been revealed to
+him until just a moment past. Everything had changed when she looked out
+with that sweet, steady gaze through the parted veil and then slowly
+closed it. She had changed. There was something intangible about her
+that last moment, baffling, haunting. He leaned against a crooked old
+gate-post that as a boy he had climbed, and the thought came to him that
+this spot would all his life be vivid and poignant in his memory. The
+first sight of a blue-eyed, sunny-haired girl, a year and more before,
+had struck deep into his unconscious heart; a second sight had made her
+an unforgettable reality: and a third had been the realization of love.
+
+It was sad, regrettable, incomprehensible, and yet somehow his inner
+being swelled and throbbed. Her name was Lenore Anderson. Her father was
+one of the richest men in the state of Washington. She had one brother,
+Jim, who would not wait for the army draft. Kurt trembled and a hot rush
+of tears dimmed his eyes. All at once his lot seemed unbearable. An
+immeasurable barrier had arisen between him and his old father--a
+hideous thing of blood, of years, of ineradicable difference; the broad
+acres of wheatland so dear to him were to be taken from him; love had
+overcome him with headlong rush, a love that could never be returned;
+and cruelest of all, there was the war calling him to give up his home,
+his father, his future, and to go out to kill and to be killed.
+
+It came to him while he leaned there, that, remembering the light of
+Lenore Anderson's eyes, he could not give up to bitterness and hatred,
+whatever his misfortunes and his fate. She would never be anything to
+him, but he and her brother Jim and many other young Americans must be
+incalculable all to her. That thought saved Kurt Dorn. There were other
+things besides his own career, his happiness; and the way he was placed,
+however unfortunate from a selfish point of view, must not breed a
+morbid self-pity.
+
+The moment of his resolution brought a flash, a revelation of what he
+owed himself. The work and the thought and the feeling of his last few
+weeks there at home must be intensified. He must do much and live
+greatly in little time. This was the moment of his renunciation, and he
+imagined that many a young man who had decided to go to war had
+experienced a strange spiritual division of self. He wondered also if
+that moment was not for many of them a let-down, a throwing up of
+ideals, a helpless retrograding and surrender to the brutalizing spirit
+of war. But it could never be so for him. It might have been had not
+that girl come into his life.
+
+The bell for the midday meal roused Kurt from his profound reverie, and
+he plodded back to the house. Down through the barnyard gate he saw the
+hired men coming, and a second glance discovered to him that two unknown
+men were with them. Watching for a moment, Kurt recognized the two
+strangers that had been talking to Mr. Anderson's driver. They seemed to
+be talking earnestly now. Kurt saw Jerry, a trusty and long-tried
+employee, rather unceremoniously break away from these strangers. But
+they followed him, headed him off, and with vehement nods and
+gesticulations appeared to be arguing with him. The other hired men
+pushed closer, evidently listening. Finally Jerry impatiently broke away
+and tramped toward the house. These strangers sent sharp words after
+him--words that Kurt could not distinguish, though he caught the tone of
+scorn. Then the two individuals addressed themselves to the other men;
+and in close contact the whole party passed out of sight behind the
+barn.
+
+Thoughtfully Kurt went into the house. He meant to speak to Jerry about
+the strangers, but he wanted to consider the matter first. He had
+misgivings. His father was not in the sitting-room, nor in the kitchen.
+Dinner was ready on the table, and the one servant, an old woman who had
+served the Dorns for years, appeared impatient at the lack of promptness
+in the men. Both father and son, except on Sundays, always ate with the
+hired help. Kurt stepped outside to find Jerry washing at the bench.
+
+"Jerry, what's keeping the men?" queried Kurt.
+
+"Wal, they're palaverin' out there with two I.W.W. fellers," replied
+Jerry.
+
+Kurt reached for the rope of the farm-bell, and rang it rather sharply.
+Then he went in to take his place at the table, and Jerry soon followed.
+Old man Dorn did not appear, which fact was not unusual. The other hired
+men did not enter until Jerry and Kurt were half done with the meal.
+They seemed excited and somewhat boisterous, Kurt thought, but once they
+settled down to eating, after the manner of hungry laborers, they had
+little to say. Kurt, soon finishing his dinner, went outdoors to wait
+for Jerry. That individual appeared to be long in coming, and loud
+voices in the kitchen attested to further argument. At last, however, he
+lounged out and began to fill a pipe.
+
+"Jerry, I want to talk to you," said Kurt. "Let's get away from the
+house."
+
+The hired man was a big, lumbering fellow, gnarled like an old oak-tree.
+He had a good-natured face and honest eyes.
+
+"I reckon you want to hear about them I.W.W. fellers?" he asked, as they
+walked away.
+
+"Yes," replied Kurt.
+
+"There's been a regular procession of them fellers, the last week or so,
+walkin' through the country," replied Jerry. "To-day's the first time
+any of them got to me. But I've heerd talk. Sunday when I was in Palmer
+the air was full of rumors."
+
+"Rumors of what?" queried Kurt.
+
+"All kinds," answered Jerry, nonchalantly scratching his stubby beard.
+"There's an army of I.W.W.'s comin' in from eastward. Idaho an' Montana
+are gittin' a dose now. Short hours; double wages; join the union;
+sabotage, whatever thet is; capital an' labor fight; threats if you
+don't fall in line; an' Lord knows what all."
+
+"What did those two fellows want of you?"
+
+"Wanted us to join the I.W.W.," replied the laborer.
+
+"Did they want a job?"
+
+"Not as I heerd. Why, one of them had a wad of bills thet would choke a
+cow. He did most of the talkin'. The little feller with the beady eyes
+an' the pock-marks, he didn't say much. He's Austrian an' not long in
+this country. The big stiff--Glidden, he called himself--must be some
+shucks in thet I.W.W. He looked an' talked oily at first--very
+persuadin'; but when I says I wasn't goin' to join no union he got sassy
+an' bossy. They made me sore, so I told him to go to hell. Then he said
+the I.W.W. would run the whole Northwest this summer--wheat-fields,
+lumberin', fruit-harvestin', railroadin'--the whole kaboodle, an' thet
+any workman who wouldn't join would git his, all right."
+
+"Well, Jerry, what do you think about this organization?" queried Kurt,
+anxiously.
+
+"Not much. It ain't a square deal. I ain't got no belief in them. What I
+heerd of their threatenin' methods is like the way this Glidden talks.
+If I owned a farm I'd drive such fellers off with a whip. There's goin'
+to be bad doin's if they come driftin' strong into the Bend."
+
+"Jerry, are you satisfied with your job?"
+
+"Sure. I won't join the I.W.W. An' I'll talk ag'in' it. I reckon a few
+of us will hev to do all the harvestin'. An', considerin' thet, I'll
+take a dollar a day more on my wages."
+
+"If father does not agree to that, I will," said Kurt. "Now how about
+the other men?"
+
+"Wal, they all air leanin' toward promises of little work an' lots of
+pay," answered Jerry, with a laugh. "Morgan's on the fence about
+joinin'. But Andrew agreed. He's Dutch an' pig-headed. Jansen's only too
+glad to make trouble fer his boss. They're goin' to lay off the rest of
+to-day an' talk with Glidden. They all agreed to meet down by the
+culvert. An' thet's what they was arguin' with me fer--wanted me to
+come."
+
+"Where's this man Glidden?" demanded Kurt. "I'll give him a piece of my
+mind."
+
+"I reckon he's hangin' round the farm--out of sight somewhere."
+
+"All right, Jerry. Now you go back to work. You'll never lose anything
+by sticking to us, I promise you that. Keep your eyes and ears open."
+
+Kurt strode back to the house, and his entrance to the kitchen evidently
+interrupted a colloquy of some kind. The hired men were still at table.
+They looked down at their plates and said nothing. Kurt left the
+sitting-room door open, and, turning, he asked Martha if his father had
+been to dinner.
+
+"No, an' what's more, when I called he takes to roarin' like a mad
+bull," replied the woman.
+
+Kurt crossed the sitting-room to knock upon his father's door. The reply
+forthcoming did justify the old woman's comparison. It certainly caused
+the hired men to evacuate the kitchen with alacrity. Old Chris Dorn's
+roar at his son was a German roar, which did not soothe the young man's
+rising temper. Of late the father had taken altogether to speaking
+German. He had never spoken English well. And Kurt was rapidly
+approaching the point where he would not speak German. A deadlock was in
+sight, and Kurt grimly prepared to meet it. He pounded on the locked
+door.
+
+"The men are going to lay off," he called.
+
+"Who runs this farm?" was the thundered reply.
+
+"The I.W.W. is going to run it if you sulk indoors as you have done
+lately," yelled Kurt. He thought that would fetch his father stamping
+out, but he had reckoned falsely. There was no further sound. Leaving
+the room in high dudgeon, Kurt hurried out to catch the hired men near
+at hand and to order them back to work. They trudged off surlily toward
+the barn.
+
+Then Kurt went on to search for the I.W.W. men, and after looking up and
+down the road, and all around, he at length found them behind an old
+strawstack. They were comfortably sitting down, backs to the straw,
+eating a substantial lunch. Kurt was angry and did not care. His
+appearance, however, did not faze the strangers. One of them, an
+American, was a man of about thirty years, clean-shaven, square-jawed,
+with light, steely, secretive gray eyes, and a look of intelligence and
+assurance that did not harmonize with his motley garb. His companion was
+a foreigner, small of stature, with eyes like a ferret and deep pits in
+his sallow face.
+
+"Do you know you're trespassing?" demanded Kurt.
+
+"You grudge us a little shade, eh, even to eat a bite?" said the
+American. He wrapped a paper round his lunch and leisurely rose, to
+fasten penetrating eyes upon the young man. "That's what I heard about
+you rich farmers of the Bend."
+
+"What business have you coming here?" queried Kurt, with sharp heat.
+"You sneak out of sight of the farmers. You trespass to get at our men
+and with a lot of lies and guff you make them discontented with their
+jobs. I'll fire these men just for listening to you."
+
+"Mister Dorn, we want you to fire them. That's my business out here,"
+replied the American.
+
+"Who are you, anyway?"
+
+"That's my business, too."
+
+Kurt passed from hot to cold. He could not miss the antagonism of this
+man, a bold and menacing attitude.
+
+"My foreman says your name's Glidden," went on Kurt, cooler this time,
+"and that you're talking I.W.W. as if you were one of its leaders; that
+you don't want a job; that you've got a wad of money; that you coax,
+then threaten; that you've intimidated three of our hands."
+
+"Your Jerry's a marked man," said Glidden, shortly.
+
+"You impudent scoundrel!" exclaimed Kurt. "Now you listen to this.
+You're the first I.W.W. man I've met. You look and talk like an
+American. But if you are American you're a traitor. We've a war to
+fight! War with a powerful country! Germany! And you come spreading
+discontent in the wheat-fields,... when wheat means life!... Get out of
+here before I--"
+
+"We'll mark you, too, Mister Dorn, and your wheat-fields," snapped
+Glidden.
+
+With one swift lunge Kurt knocked the man flat and then leaped to stand
+over him, watching for a move to draw a weapon. The little foreigner
+slunk back out of reach.
+
+"I'll start a little marking myself," grimly said Kurt. "Get up!"
+
+Slowly Glidden moved from elbow to knees, and then to his feet. His
+cheek was puffing out and his nose was bleeding. The light-gray eyes
+were lurid.
+
+"That's for your I.W.W.!" declared Kurt. "The first rule of your I.W.W.
+is to abolish capital, hey?"
+
+Kurt had not intended to say that. It slipped out in his fury. But the
+effect was striking. Glidden gave a violent start and his face turned
+white. Abruptly he hurried away. His companion shuffled after him. Kurt
+stared at them, thinking the while that if he had needed any proof of
+the crookedness of the I.W.W. he had seen it in Glidden's guilty face.
+The man had been suddenly frightened, and surprise, too, had been
+prominent in his countenance. Then Kurt remembered how Anderson had
+intimated that the secrets of the I.W.W. had been long hidden. Kurt,
+keen and quick in his sensibilities, divined that there was something
+powerful back of this Glidden's cunning and assurance. Could it be only
+the power of a new labor organization? That might well be great, but the
+idea did not convince Kurt. During a hurried and tremendous preparation
+by the government for war, any disorder such as menaced the country
+would be little short of a calamity. It might turn out a fatality. This
+so-called labor union intended to take advantage of a crisis to further
+its own ends. Yet even so, that fact did not wholly explain Glidden and
+his subtlety. Some nameless force loomed dark and sinister back of
+Glidden's meaning, and it was not peril to the wheatlands of the
+Northwest alone.
+
+Like a huge dog Kurt shook himself and launched into action. There were
+sense and pleasure in muscular activity, and it lessened the habit of
+worry. Soon he ascertained that only Morgan had returned to work in the
+fields. Andrew and Jansen were nowhere to be seen. Jansen had left four
+horses hitched to a harrow. Kurt went out to take up the work thus
+abandoned.
+
+It was a long field, and if he had earned a dollar for every time he had
+traversed its length, during the last ten years, he would have been a
+rich man. He could have walked it blindfolded. It was fallow ground,
+already plowed, disked, rolled, and now the last stage was to harrow it,
+loosening the soil, conserving the moisture.
+
+Morgan, far to the other side of this section, had the better of the
+job, for his harrow was a new machine and he could ride while driving
+the horses. But Kurt, using an old harrow, had to walk. The four big
+horses plodded at a gait that made Kurt step out to keep up with them.
+To keep up, to drive a straight line, to hold back on the reins, was
+labor for a man. It spoke well for Kurt that he had followed that old
+harrow hundreds of miles, that he could stand the strain, that he loved
+both the physical sense and the spiritual meaning of the toil.
+
+Driving west, he faced a wind laden with dust as dry as powder. At every
+sheeted cloud, whipping back from the hoofs of the horses and the steel
+spikes of the harrow, he had to bat his eyes to keep from being blinded.
+The smell of dust clogged his nostrils. As soon as he began to sweat
+under the hot sun the dust caked on his face, itching, stinging,
+burning. There was dust between his teeth.
+
+Driving back east was a relief. The wind whipped the dust away from him.
+And he could catch the fragrance of the newly turned soil. How brown and
+clean and earthy it looked! Where the harrow had cut and ridged, the
+soil did not look thirsty and parched. But that which was unharrowed
+cried out for rain. No cloud in the hot sky, except the yellow clouds of
+dust!
+
+On that trip east across the field, which faced the road, Dorn saw
+pedestrians in twos and threes passing by. Once he was hailed, but made
+no answer. He would not have been surprised to see a crowd, yet
+travelers were scarce in that region. The sight of these men, some of
+them carrying bags and satchels, was disturbing to the young farmer.
+Where were they going? All appeared outward bound toward the river. They
+came, of course, from the little towns, the railroads, the cities. At
+this season, with harvest-time near at hand, it had been in former years
+no unusual sight to see strings of laborers passing by. But this year
+they came earlier, and in greater numbers.
+
+With the wind in his face, however, Dorn saw nothing but the horses and
+the brown line ahead, and half the time they were wholly obscured in
+yellow dust. He began thinking about Lenore Anderson, just pondering
+that strange, steady look of a girl's eyes; and then he did not mind the
+dust or heat or distance. Never could he be cheated of his thoughts. And
+those of her, even the painful ones, gave birth to a comfort that he
+knew must abide with him henceforth on lonely labors such as this,
+perhaps in the lonelier watches of a soldier's duty. She had been
+curious, aloof, then sympathetic; she had studied his face; she had been
+an eloquent-eyed listener to his discourse on wheat. But she had not
+guessed his secret. Not until her last look--strange, deep, potent--had
+he guessed that secret himself.
+
+So, with mind both busy and absent, Kurt Dorn harrowed the fallow ground
+abandoned by his men; and when the day was done, with the sun setting
+hot and coppery beyond the dim, dark ranges, he guided the tired horses
+homeward and plodded back of them, weary and spent.
+
+He was to learn from Morgan, at the stables, that the old man had
+discharged both Andrew and Jansen. And Jansen, liberating some newly
+assimilated poison, had threatened revenge. He would see that any hired
+men would learn a thing or two, so that they would not sign up with
+Chris Dorn. In a fury the old man had driven Jansen out into the road.
+
+Sober and moody, Kurt put the horses away, and, washing the dust grime
+from sunburnt face and hands, he went to his little attic room, where he
+changed his damp and sweaty clothes. Then he went down to supper with
+mind made up to be lenient and silent with his old and sorely tried
+father.
+
+Chris Dorn sat in the light of the kitchen lamps. He was a huge man with
+a great, round, bullet-shaped head and a shock of gray hair and
+bristling, grizzled beard. His face was broad, heavy, and seemed sodden
+with dark, brooding thought. His eyes, under bushy brows, were pale
+gleams of fire. He looked immovable as to both bulk and will.
+
+Never before had Kurt Dorn so acutely felt the fixed, contrary, ruthless
+nature of his parent. Never had the distance between them seemed so
+great. Kurt shivered and sighed at once. Then, being hungry, he fell to
+eating in silence. Presently the old man shoved his plate back, and,
+wiping his face, he growled, in German:
+
+"I discharged Andrew and Jansen."
+
+"Yes, I know," replied Kurt. "It wasn't good judgment. What'll we do for
+hands?"
+
+"I'll hire more. Men are coming for the harvest."
+
+"But they all belong to the I.W.W.," protested Kurt.
+
+"And what's that?"
+
+In scarcely subdued wrath Kurt described in detail, and to the best of
+his knowledge, what the I.W.W. was, and he ended by declaring the
+organization treacherous to the United States.
+
+"How's that?" asked old Dorn, gruffly.
+
+Kurt was actually afraid to tell his father, who never read newspapers,
+who knew little of what was going on, that if the Allies were to win the
+war it was wheat that would be the greatest factor. Instead of that he
+said if the I.W.W. inaugurated strikes and disorder in the Northwest it
+would embarrass the government.
+
+"Then I'll hire I.W.W. men," said old Dorn.
+
+Kurt battled against a rising temper. This blind old man was his father.
+
+"But I'll not have I.W.W. men on the farm," retorted Kurt. "I just
+punched one I.W.W. solicitor."
+
+"I'll run this farm. If you don't like my way you can leave," darkly
+asserted the father.
+
+Kurt fell back in his chair and stared at the turgid, bulging forehead
+and hard eyes before him. What could be behind them? Had the war brought
+out a twist in his father's brain? Why were Germans so impossible?
+
+"My Heavens! father, would you turn me out of my home because we
+disagree?" he asked, desperately.
+
+"In my country sons obey their fathers or they go out for themselves."
+
+"I've not been a disobedient son," declared Kurt. "And here in America
+sons have more freedom--more say."
+
+"America has no sense of family life--no honest government. I hate the
+country."
+
+A ball of fire seemed to burst in Kurt.
+
+"That kind of talk infuriates me," he blazed. "I don't care if you are
+my father. Why in the hell did you come to America? Why did you stay?
+Why did you marry my mother--an American woman?... That's rot--just
+spiteful rot! I've heard you tell what life was in Europe when you were
+a boy. You ran off. You stayed in this country because it was a better
+country than yours.... Fifty years you've been in America--many years on
+this farm. And you love this land.... My God! father, can't you and men
+like you see the truth?"
+
+"Aye, I can," gloomily replied the old man. "The truth is we'll lose the
+land. That greedy Anderson will drive me off."
+
+"He will not. He's fine--generous," asserted Kurt, earnestly. "All he
+wanted was to see the prospects of the harvest and perhaps to help you.
+Anderson has not had interest on his money for three years. I'll bet
+he's paid interest demanded by the other stockholders in that bank you
+borrowed from. Why, he's our friend!"
+
+"Aye, and I see more," boomed the father. "He fetched his lass up here
+to make eyes at my son. I saw her--the sly wench!... Boy, you'll not
+marry her!"
+
+Kurt choked back his mounting rage.
+
+"Certainly I never will," he said, bitterly. "But I would if she'd have
+me."
+
+"What!" thundered Dorn, his white locks standing up and shaking like the
+mane of a lion. "That wheat banker's daughter! Never! I forbid it. You
+shall not marry any American girl."
+
+"Father, this is idle, foolish rant," cried Kurt, with a high warning
+note in his voice. "I've no idea of marrying.... But if I had one--whom
+else could I marry except an American girl?"
+
+"I'll sell the wheat--the land. We'll go back to Germany!"
+
+That was maddening to Kurt. He sprang up, sending dishes to the floor
+with a crash. He bent over to pound the table with a fist. Violent
+speech choked him and he felt a cold, tight blanching of his face.
+
+"Listen!" he rang out. "If I go to Germany it'll be as a soldier--to
+kill Germans!... I'm done--I'm through with the very name.... Listen to
+the last words I'll ever speak to you in German--the last! _To hell with
+Germany_!"
+
+Then Kurt plunged, blind in his passion, out of the door into the night.
+And as he went he heard his father cry out, brokenly:
+
+"My son! Oh, my son!"
+
+The night was dark and cool. A faint wind blew across the hills, and it
+was dry, redolent, sweet. The sky seemed an endless curving canopy of
+dark blue blazing with myriads of stars.
+
+Kurt staggered out of the yard, down along the edge of a wheat-field, to
+one of the straw-stacks, and there he flung himself down in an agony.
+
+"Oh, I'm ruined--ruined!" he moaned. "The break--has come!... Poor old
+dad!"
+
+He leaned there against the straw, shaking and throbbing, with a cold
+perspiration bathing face and body. Even the palms of his hands were
+wet. A terrible fit of anger was beginning to loose its hold upon him.
+His breathing was labored in gasps and sobs. Unutterable stupidity of
+his father--horrible cruelty of his position! What had he ever done in
+all his life to suffer under such a curse? Yet almost he clung to his
+wrath, for it had been righteous. That thing, that infernal twist in the
+brain, that was what was wrong with his father. His father who had been
+fifty years in the United States! How simple, then, to understand what
+was wrong with Germany.
+
+"By God! I am--American!" he panted, and it was as if he called to the
+grave of his mother, over there on the dark, windy hill.
+
+That tremendous uprising of his passion had been a vortex, an end, a
+decision. And he realized that even to that hour there had been a drag
+in his blood. It was over now. The hell was done with. His soul was
+free. This weak, quaking body of his housed his tainted blood and the
+emotions of his heart, but it could not control his mind, his will. Beat
+by beat the helpless fury in him subsided, and then he fell back and lay
+still for a long time, eyes shut, relaxed and still.
+
+A hound bayed mournfully; the insects chirped low, incessantly; the
+night wind rustled the silken heads of wheat.
+
+After a while the young man sat up and looked at the heavens, at the
+twinkling white stars, and then away across the shadows of round hills
+in the dusk. How lonely, sad, intelligible, and yet mystic the night and
+the scene!
+
+What came to him then was revealing, uplifting--a source of strength to
+go on. He was not to blame for what had happened; he could not change
+the future. He had a choice between playing the part of a man or that of
+a coward, and he had to choose the former. There seemed to be a spirit
+beside him--the spirit of his mother or of some one who loved him and
+who would have him be true to an ideal, and, if needful, die for it. No
+night in all his life before had been like this one. The dreaming hills
+with their precious rustling wheat meant more than even a spirit could
+tell. Where had the wheat come from that had seeded these fields? Whence
+the first and original seeds, and where were the sowers? Back in the
+ages! The stars, the night, the dark blue of heaven hid the secret in
+their impenetrableness. Beyond them surely was the answer, and perhaps
+peace.
+
+Material things--life, success--such as had inspired Kurt Dorn, on this
+calm night lost their significance and were seen clearly. They could not
+last. But the wheat there, the hills, the stars--they would go on with
+their task. Passion was the dominant side of a man declaring itself, and
+that was a matter of inheritance. But self-sacrifice, with its mercy,
+its succor, its seed like the wheat, was as infinite as the stars. He
+had long made up his mind, yet that had not given him absolute
+restraint. The world was full of little men, but he refused to stay
+little. This war that had come between him and his father had been bred
+of the fumes of self-centered minds, turned with an infantile fatality
+to greedy desires. His poor old blinded father could be excused and
+forgiven. There were other old men, sick, crippled, idle, who must
+suffer pain, but whose pain could be lightened. There were babies,
+children, women, who must suffer for the sins of men, but that suffering
+need no longer be, if men became honest and true.
+
+His sudden up-flashing love had a few hours back seemed a calamity. But
+out there beside the whispering wheat, under the passionless stars, in
+the dreaming night, it had turned into a blessing. He asked nothing but
+to serve. To serve her, his country, his future! All at once he who had
+always yearned for something unattainable had greatness thrust upon him.
+His tragical situation had evoked a spirit from the gods.
+
+To kiss that blue-eyed girl's sweet lips would be a sum of joy, earthly,
+all-satisfying, precious. The man in him trembled all over at the daring
+thought. He might revel in such dreams, and surrender to them, since she
+would never know, but the divinity he sensed there in the presence of
+those stars did not dwell on a woman's lips. Kisses were for the
+present, the all too fleeting present; and he had to concern himself
+with what he might do for one girl's future. It was exquisitely sad and
+sweet to put it that way, though Kurt knew that if he had never seen
+Lenore Anderson he would have gone to war just the same. He was not
+making an abstract sacrifice.
+
+The wheat-fields rolling before him, every clod of which had been
+pressed by his bare feet as a boy; the father whose changeless blood had
+sickened at the son of his loins; the life of hope, freedom, of action,
+of achievement, of wonderful possibility--these seemed lost to Kurt
+Dorn, a necessary renunciation when he yielded to the call of war.
+
+But no loss, no sting of bullet or bayonet, no torturing victory of
+approaching death, could balance in the scale against the thought of a
+picture of one American girl--blue-eyed, red-lipped, golden-haired--as
+she stepped somewhere in the future, down a summer lane or through a
+blossoming orchard, on soil that was free.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Toward the end of July eastern Washington sweltered under the most
+torrid spell of heat on record. It was a dry, high country, noted for an
+equable climate, with cool summers and mild winters. And this
+unprecedented wave would have been unbearable had not the atmosphere
+been free from humidity.
+
+The haze of heat seemed like a pall of thin smoke from distant forest
+fires. The sun rose, a great, pale-red ball, hot at sunrise, and it
+soared blazing-white at noon, to burn slowly westward through a
+cloudless, coppery sky, at last to set sullen and crimson over the
+ranges.
+
+Spokane, being the only center of iron, steel, brick, and masonry in
+this area, resembled a city of furnaces. Business was slack. The asphalt
+of the streets left clean imprints of a pedestrian's feet; bits of
+newspaper stuck fast to the hot tar. Down by the gorge, where the great
+green river made its magnificent plunges over the falls, people
+congregated, tarried, and were loath to leave, for here the blowing mist
+and the air set into motion by the falling water created a temperature
+that was relief.
+
+Citizens talked of the protracted hot spell, of the blasted crops, of an
+almost sure disaster to the wheat-fields, and of the activities of the
+I.W.W. Even the war, for the time being, gave place to the nearer
+calamities impending.
+
+Montana had taken drastic measures against the invading I.W.W. The
+Governor of Idaho had sent word to the camps of the organization that
+they had five days to leave that state. Spokane was awakening to the
+menace of hordes of strange, idle men who came in on the westbound
+freight-trains. The railroads had been unable to handle the situation.
+They were being hard put to it to run trains at all. The train crews
+that refused to join the I.W.W. had been threatened, beaten, shot at,
+and otherwise intimidated.
+
+The Chamber of Commerce sent an imperative appeal to representative
+wheat-raisers, ranchers, lumbermen, farmers, and bade them come to
+Spokane to discuss the situation. They met at the Hotel Davenport, where
+luncheon was served in one of the magnificently appointed dining-halls
+of that most splendid hotel in the West.
+
+The lion of this group of Spokane capitalists was Riesinberg, a man of
+German forebears, but all American in his sympathies, with a son already
+in the army. Riesinberg was president of a city bank and of the Chamber
+of Commerce. His first words to the large assembly of clean-cut,
+square-jawed, intent-eyed Westerners were: "Gentlemen, we are here to
+discuss the most threatening and unfortunate situation the Northwest was
+ever called upon to meet." His address was not long, but it was
+stirring. The Chamber of Commerce could provide unlimited means, could
+influence and control the state government; but it was from the visitors
+invited to this meeting, the men of the outlying districts which were
+threatened, that objective proofs must come and the best methods of
+procedure.
+
+The first facts to come out were that many crops were ruined already,
+but, owing to the increased acreage that year, a fair yield was
+expected; that wheat in the Bend would be a failure, though some farmers
+here and there would harvest well; that the lumber districts were not
+operating, on account of the I.W.W.
+
+Then it was that the organization of men who called themselves the
+Industrial Workers of the World drew the absorbed attention of the
+meeting. Depredations already committed stunned the members of the
+Chamber of Commerce.
+
+President Riesinberg called upon Beardsley, a prominent and intelligent
+rancher of the southern wheat-belt. Beardsley said:
+
+    "It is difficult to speak with any moderation of the outrageous
+    eruption of the I.W.W. It is nothing less than rebellion, and the
+    most effective means of suppressing rebellion is to apply a little
+    of that 'direct action' which is the favorite diversion of the
+    I.W.W.'s.
+
+    "The I.W.W. do not intend to accomplish their treacherous aims by
+    anything so feeble as speech; they scorn the ballot-box. They are
+    against the war, and their method of making known their protest is
+    by burning our grain, destroying our lumber, and blowing up
+    freight-trains. They seek to make converts not by argument, but by
+    threats and intimidation.
+
+    "We read that Western towns are seeking to deport these rebels. In
+    the old days we can imagine more drastic measures would have been
+    taken. The Westerners were handy with the rope and the gun in those
+    days. We are not counseling lynch law, but we think deportation is
+    too mild a punishment.
+
+    "We are too 'civilized' to apply the old Roman law, 'Spare the
+    conquered and extirpate the rebels,' but at least we could intern
+    them. The British have found it practicable to put German prisoners
+    to work at useful employment. Why couldn't we do the same with our
+    rebel I.W.W.'s?"
+
+Jones, a farmer from the Yakima Valley, told that business men,
+housewives, professional men, and high-school boys and girls would help
+to save the crop of Washington to the nation in case of labor trouble.
+Steps already had been taken to mobilize workers in stores, offices, and
+homes for work in the orchards and grain-fields, should the I.W.W.
+situation seriously threaten harvests.
+
+Pledges to go into the hay or grain fields or the orchards, with a
+statement of the number of days they were willing to work, had been
+signed by virtually all the men in North Yakima.
+
+Helmar, lumberman from the Blue Mountains, spoke feelingly; he said:
+
+    "My company is the owner of a considerable amount of timbered lands
+    and timber purchased from the state and from individuals. We have
+    been engaged in logging that land until our operations have been
+    stopped and our business paralyzed by an organization which calls
+    itself the Industrial Workers of the World, and by members of that
+    organization, and other lawless persons acting in sympathy with
+    them.
+
+    "Our employees have been threatened with physical violence and
+    death.
+
+    "Our works are picketed by individuals who camp out in the forests
+    and who intimidate and threaten our employees.
+
+    "Open threats have been made that our works, our logs, and our
+    timber will all be burned.
+
+    "Sabotage is publicly preached in the meetings, and in the
+    literature of the organization it is advised and upheld.
+
+    "The open boast is made that the lumbering industry, with all other
+    industry, will be paralyzed by this organization, by the destruction
+    of property used in industry and by the intimidation of laborers who
+    are willing to work.
+
+    "A real and present danger to the property of my company exists.
+    Unless protection is given to us it will probably be burned and
+    destroyed. Our lawful operations cannot be conducted because
+    laborers who are willing to work are fearful of their lives and are
+    subject to abuse, threats, and violence. Our camps, when in
+    operation, are visited by individuals belonging to the said
+    organization, and the men peaceably engaged in them threatened with
+    death if they do not cease work. All sorts of injury to property by
+    the driving of spikes in logs, the destruction of logs, and other
+    similar acts are encouraged and recommended.
+
+    "As I pointed out to the sheriff of our county, the season is a very
+    dry one and the woods are and will be, unless rain comes, in danger
+    of disastrous fires. The organization and its members have openly
+    and repeatedly asserted that they will burn the logs in the woods
+    and burn the forests of this company and other timber-holders before
+    they will permit logging operations to continue.
+
+    "Many individuals belonging to the organization are camped in the
+    open in the timbered country, and their very presence is a fire
+    menace. They are engaged in no business except to interfere with the
+    industry and to interfere with the logging of this company and
+    others who engaged in the logging business.
+
+    "We have done what we could in a lawful manner to continue our
+    operations and to protect our employees. We are now helpless, and
+    place the responsibility for the protection of our property and the
+    protection of our employees upon the board of county commissioners
+    and upon the officers of the county."
+
+Next President Riesinberg called upon a young reporter to read
+paragraphs of an I.W.W. speech he had heard made to a crowd of three
+hundred workmen. It was significant that several members of the Chamber
+of Commerce called for a certain paragraph to be reread. It was this:
+
+    "If you working-men could only stand together you could do in this
+    country what has been done in Russia," declared the I.W.W. orator.
+    "You know what the working-men did there to the slimy curs, the
+    gunmen, and the stool-pigeons of the capitalistic class. They bumped
+    them off. They sent them up to say, 'Good morning, Jesus.'"
+
+After a moment of muttering and another silence the president again
+addressed the meeting:
+
+    "Gentlemen, we have Anderson of Golden Valley with us to-day. If
+    there are any of you present who do not know him, you surely have
+    heard of him. His people were pioneers. He was born in Washington.
+    He is a type of the men who have made the Northwest. He fought the
+    Indians in early days and packed a gun for the outlaws--and to-day,
+    gentlemen, he owns a farm as big as Spokane County. We want to hear
+    from him."
+
+When Anderson rose to reply it was seen that he was pale and somber.
+Slowly he gazed at the assembly of waiting men, bowed; then he began,
+impressively:
+
+    "Gentlemen an' friends, I wish I didn't have to throw a bomb into
+    this here camp-fire talk. But I've got to. You're all talkin' I.W.W.
+    Facts have been told showin' a strange an' sudden growth of this
+    here four-flush labor union. We've had dealin's with them for
+    several years. But this year it's different.... All at once they've
+    multiplied and strengthened. There's somethin' behind them. A big
+    unseen hand is stackin' the deck.... An', countrymen, that
+    tremendous power is German gold!"
+
+Anderson's deep voice rang like a bell. His hearers sat perfectly
+silent. No surprise showed, but faces grew set and hard. After a pause
+of suspense, in which his denunciation had time to sink in, Anderson
+resumed:
+
+    "A few weeks ago a young man, a stranger, came to me an' asked for a
+    job. He could do anythin', he said. An' I hired him to drive my car.
+    But he wasn't much of a driver. We went up in the Bend country one
+    day, an' on that trip I got suspicious of him. I caught him talkin'
+    to what I reckoned was I.W.W. men. An' then, back home again, I
+    watched him an' kept my ears open. It didn't take long for me to
+    find discontent among my farm-hands. I hire about a hundred hands on
+    my ranches durin' the long off season, an' when harvest comes round
+    a good many more. All I can get, in fact.... Well, I found my hands
+    quittin' me, which was sure onusual. An' I laid it to that driver.
+
+    "One day not long ago I run across him hobnobbin' with the strange
+    man I'd seen talkin' with him on the Bend trip. But my driver--Nash,
+    he calls himself--didn't see me. That night I put a cowboy to watch
+    him. An' what this cowboy heard, put together two an' two, was that
+    Nash was assistant to an I.W.W. leader named Glidden. He had sent
+    for Glidden to come to look over my ranch. Both these I.W.W. men had
+    more money than they could well carry--lots of it gold! The way they
+    talked of this money proved that they did not know the source, but
+    the supply was unlimited.
+
+    "Next day Glidden could not be found. But my cowboy had learned
+    enough to show his methods. If these proselyters could not coax or
+    scare trusted men to join the I.W.W., they tried to corrupt them
+    with money. An' in most cases they're successful. I've not yet
+    sprung anythin' on my driver, Nash. But he can't get away, an'
+    meanwhile I'll learn much by watchin' him. Maybe through Nash I can
+    catch Glidden. An' so, gentlemen, here we have a plain case. An' the
+    menace is enough to chill the heart of every loyal citizen. Any way
+    you put it, if harvests can't be harvested, if wheat-fields an'
+    lumber forests are burned, if the state militia has to be called
+    out--any way you put it our government will be hampered, our
+    supplies kept from our allies--an' so the cause of Germany will be
+    helped.
+
+    "The I.W.W. have back of them an organized power with a definite
+    purpose. There can hardly be any doubt that that power is Germany.
+    The agitators an' leaders throughout the country are well paid.
+    Probably they, as individuals, do not know who pays them.
+    Undoubtedly a little gang of men makes the deals, handles the money.
+    We read that every U.S. attorney is investigating the I.W.W. The
+    government has determined to close down on them. But lawyers an' law
+    are slow to act. Meanwhile the danger to us is at hand.
+
+    "Gentlemen, to finish let me say that down in my country we're goin'
+    to rustle the I.W.W. in the good old Western way."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Golden Valley was the Garden of Eden of the Northwest. The southern
+slope rose to the Blue Mountains, whence flowed down the innumerable
+brooks that, uniting to form streams and rivers, abundantly watered the
+valley.
+
+The black reaches of timber extended down to the grazing-uplands, and
+these bordered on the sloping golden wheat-fields, which in turn
+contrasted so vividly with the lower green alfalfa-pastures; then came
+the orchards with their ruddy, mellow fruit, and lastly the bottom-lands
+where the vegetable-gardens attested to the wonderful richness of the
+soil. From the mountain-side the valley seemed a series of colored
+benches, stepping down, black to gray, and gray to gold, and gold to
+green with purple tinge, and on to the perfectly ordered, many-hued
+floor with its innumerable winding, tree-bordered streams glinting in
+the sunlight.
+
+The extremes of heat and cold never visited Golden Valley. Spokane and
+the Bend country, just now sweltering in a torrid zone, might as well
+have been in the Sahara, for all the effect it had on this garden spot
+of all the Inland Empire. It was hot in the valley, but not unpleasant.
+In fact, the greatest charm in this secluded vale was its pleasant
+climate all the year round. No summer cyclones, no winter blizzards, no
+cloudbursts or bad thunderstorms. It was a country that, once lived in,
+could never be left.
+
+There were no poor inhabitants in that great area of twenty-five hundred
+miles; and there were many who were rich. Prosperous little towns dotted
+the valley floor; and the many smooth, dusty, much-used roads all led to
+Ruxton, a wealthy and fine city.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Anderson, the rancher, had driven his car to Spokane. Upon his return he
+had with him a detective, whom he expected to use in the I.W.W.
+investigations, and a neighbor rancher. They had left Spokane early and
+had endured almost insupportable dust and heat. A welcome change began
+as they slid down from the bare desert into the valley; and once across
+the Copper River, Anderson began to breathe freer and to feel he was
+nearing home.
+
+"God's country!" he said, as he struck the first low swell of rising
+land, where a cool wind from off the wooded and watered hills greeted
+his face. Dust there still was, but it seemed a different kind and
+smelled of apple-orchards and alfalfa-fields. Here were hard, smooth
+roads, and Anderson sped his car miles and miles through a country that
+was a verdant fragrant bower, and across bright, shady streams and by
+white little hamlets.
+
+At Huntington he dropped his neighbor rancher, and also the detective,
+Hall, who was to go disguised into the districts overrun by the I.W.W. A
+further run of forty miles put him on his own property.
+
+Anderson owned a string of farms and ranches extending from the
+bottom-lands to the timber-line of the mountains. They represented his
+life of hard work and fair dealing. Many of these orchard and vegetable
+lands he had tenant farmers work on shares. The uplands or wheat and
+grass he operated himself. As he had accumulated property he had changed
+his place of residence from time to time, at last to build a beautiful
+and permanent home farther up on the valley slope than any of the
+others.
+
+It was a modern house, white, with a red roof. Situated upon a high
+level bench, with the waving gold fields sloping up from it and the
+green squares of alfalfa and orchards below, it appeared a landmark from
+all around, and could be plainly seen from Vale, the nearest little
+town, five miles away.
+
+Anderson had always loved the open, and he wanted a place where he could
+see the sun rise over the distant valley gateway, and watch it set
+beyond the bold black range in the west. He could sit on his front
+porch, wide and shady, and look down over two thousand acres of his own
+land. But from the back porch no eye could have encompassed the limit of
+his broad, swelling slopes of grain and grass.
+
+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-hoss."
+
+"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?
+
+"I thought he was Neuman," replied Kurt, feeling his way. "Is he in on
+the big deal with father?"
+
+"Which one?" queried the proprietor, with shrewd eyes, taking Kurt's
+measure. "You're in on both, of course."
+
+"Sure. I mean the wheat sale, not the I.W.W. deal," replied Kurt. He
+hazarded a guess with that mention of the I.W.W. No sooner had the words
+passed his lips than he divined he was on the track of sinister events.
+
+"Your father sold out to that Spokane miller. No, Neuman is not in on
+that."
+
+"I was surprised to hear father had sold the wheat. Was it speculation
+or guarantee?"
+
+"Old Chris guaranteed sixty bushels. There were friends of his here who
+advised against it. Did you have rain over there?"
+
+"Fine. The wheat will go over sixty bushels. I'm sorry I couldn't get
+here sooner."
+
+"When it rained you hurried over to boost the price. Well, it's too
+late."
+
+"Is Glidden here?" queried Kurt, hazarding another guess.
+
+"Don't talk so loud," warned the proprietor. "Yes, he just got here in a
+car with two other men. He's up-stairs having supper in his room."
+
+"Supper!" Kurt echoed the word, and averted his face to hide the leap of
+his blood. "That reminds me, I'm hungry."
+
+He went into the big, dimly lighted dining-room. There was a shelf on
+one side as he went in, and here, with his back turned to the room, he
+laid the disjointed gun and his hat. Several newspapers lying near
+attracted his eye. Quickly he slipped them under and around the gun, and
+then took a seat at the nearest table. A buxom German waitress came for
+his order. He gave it while he gazed around at his grim-faced old father
+and the burly Neuman, and his ears throbbed to the beat of his blood.
+His hand trembled on the table. His thoughts flashed almost too swiftly
+for comprehension. It took a stern effort to gain self-control.
+
+Evil of some nature was afoot. Neuman's presence there was a strange,
+disturbing fact. Kurt had made two guesses, both alarmingly correct. If
+he had any more illusions or hopes, he dispelled them. His father had
+been won over by this arch conspirator of the I.W.W. And, despite his
+father's close-fistedness where money was concerned, that eighty
+thousand dollars, or part of it, was in danger.
+
+Kurt wondered how he could get possession of it. If he could he would
+return it to the bank and wire a warning to the Spokane buyer that the
+wheat was not safe. He might persuade his father to turn over the amount
+of the debt to Anderson. While thinking and planning, Kurt kept an eye
+on his father and rather neglected his supper. Presently, when old Dorn
+and Neuman rose and left the dining-room, Kurt followed them. His father
+was whispering to the proprietor over the desk, and at Kurt's touch he
+glared his astonishment.
+
+"You here! What for?" he demanded, gruffly, in German.
+
+"I had to see you," replied Kurt, in English.
+
+"Did it rain?" was the old man's second demand, husky and serious.
+
+"The wheat is made, if we can harvest it," answered Kurt.
+
+The blaze of joy on old Dorn's face gave Kurt a twinge of pain. He hated
+to dispel it. "Come aside, here, a minute," he whispered, and drew his
+father over to a corner under a lamp. "I've got bad news. Look at this!"
+He produced the cake of phosphorus, careful to hide it from other
+curious eyes there, and with swift, low words he explained its meaning.
+He expected an outburst of surprise and fury, but he was mistaken.
+
+"I know about that," whispered his father, hoarsely. "There won't be any
+thrown in my wheat."
+
+"Father! What assurance have you of that?" queried Kurt, astounded.
+
+The old man nodded his gray head wisely. He knew, but he did not speak.
+
+"Do you think these I.W.W. plotters will spare your wheat?" asked Kurt.
+"You are wrong. They may lie to your face. But they'll betray you. The
+I.W.W. is backed by--by interests that want to embarrass the
+government."
+
+"What government?"
+
+"Why, ours--the U.S. government!"
+
+"That's not my government. The more it's embarrassed the better it will
+suit me."
+
+In the stress of the moment Kurt had forgotten his father's bitter and
+unchangeable hatred.
+
+"But you're--you're stupid," he hissed, passionately. "That government
+has protected you for fifty years."
+
+Old Dorn growled into his beard. His huge ox-eyes rolled. Kurt realized
+then finally how implacable and hopeless he was--how utterly German.
+Then Kurt importuned him to return the eighty thousand dollars to the
+bank until he was sure the wheat was harvested and hauled to the
+railroad.
+
+"My wheat won't burn," was old Dorn's stubborn reply.
+
+"Well, then, give me Anderson's thirty thousand. I'll take it to him at
+once. Our debt will be paid. We'll have it off our minds."
+
+"No hurry about that," replied his father.
+
+"But there is hurry," returned Kurt, in a hot whisper. "Anderson came to
+see you to-day. He wants his money."
+
+"Neuman holds the small end of that debt. I'll pay him. Anderson can
+wait."
+
+Kurt felt no amaze. He expected anything. But he could scarcely contain
+his fury. How this old man, his father, whom he had loved--how he had
+responded to the influences that must destroy him!
+
+"Anderson shall not wait," declared Kurt. "I've got some say in this
+matter. I've worked like a dog in those wheat-fields. I've a right to
+demand Anderson's money. He needs it. He has a tremendous harvest on his
+hands."
+
+Old Dorn shook his huge head in somber and gloomy thought. His broad
+face, his deep eyes, seemed to mask and to hide. It was an expression
+Kurt had seldom seen there, but had always hated. It seemed so old to
+Kurt, that alien look, something not born of his time.
+
+"Anderson is a capitalist," said Chris Dorn, deep in his beard. "He
+seeks control of farmers and wheat in the Northwest. Ranch after ranch
+he's gained by taking up and foreclosing mortgages. He's against labor.
+He grinds down the poor. He cheated Neuman out of a hundred thousand
+bushels of wheat. He bought up my debt. He meant to ruin me. He--"
+
+"You're talking I.W.W. rot," whispered Kurt, shaking with the effort to
+subdue his feelings. "Anderson is fine, big, square--a developer of the
+Northwest. Not an enemy! He's our friend. Oh! if only you had an
+American's eyes, just for a minute!... Father, I want that money for
+Anderson."
+
+"My son, I run my own business," replied Dorn, sullenly, with a pale
+fire in his opaque eyes. "You're a wild boy, unfaithful to your blood.
+You've fallen in love with an American girl.... Anderson says he needs
+money!"... With hard, gloomy face the old man shook his head. "He thinks
+he'll harvest!" Again that strange shake of finality. "I know what I
+know.... I keep my money.... We'll have other rule.... I keep my money."
+
+Kurt had vibrated to those most significant words and he stared
+speechless at his father.
+
+"Go home. Get ready for harvest," suddenly ordered old Dorn, as if he
+had just awakened to the fact of Kurt's disobedience in lingering here.
+
+"All right, father," replied Kurt, and, turning on his heel, he strode
+outdoors.
+
+When he got beyond the light he turned and went back to a position where
+in the dark he could watch without being seen. His father and the hotel
+proprietor were again engaged in earnest colloquy. Neuman had
+disappeared. Kurt saw the huge shadow of a man pass across a drawn blind
+in a room up-stairs. Then he saw smaller shadows, and arms raised in
+vehement gesticulation. The very shadows were sinister. Men passed in
+and out of the hotel. Once old Dorn came to the door and peered all
+around. Kurt observed that there was a dark side entrance to this hotel.
+Presently Neuman returned to the desk and said something to old Dorn,
+who shook his head emphatically, and then threw himself into a chair, in
+a brooding posture that Kurt knew well. He had seen it so often that he
+knew it had to do with money. His father was refusing demands of some
+kind. Neuman again left the office, this time with the proprietor. They
+were absent some little time.
+
+During this period Kurt leaned against a tree, hidden in the shadow,
+with keen eyes watching and with puzzled, anxious mind. He had
+determined, in case his father left that office with Neuman, on one of
+those significant disappearances, to slip into the hotel at the side
+entrance and go up-stairs to listen at the door of the room with the
+closely drawn blind. Neuman returned soon with the hotel man, and the
+two of them half led, half dragged old Dorn out into the street. They
+took the direction toward the railroad. Kurt followed at a safe distance
+on the opposite side of the street. Soon they passed the stores with
+lighted windows, then several dark houses, and at length the railroad
+station. Perhaps they were bound for the train. Kurt heard rumbling in
+the distance. But they went beyond the station, across the track, and
+turned to the right.
+
+Kurt was soft-footed and keen-eyed. He just kept the dim shadows in
+range. They were heading for some freight-cars that stood upon a
+side-track. The dark figures disappeared behind them. Then one figure
+reappeared, coming back. Kurt crouched low. This man passed within a few
+yards of Kurt and he was whispering to himself. After he was safely out
+of earshot Kurt stole on stealthily until he reached the end of the
+freight-cars. Here he paused, listening. He thought he heard low voices,
+but he could not see the men he was following. No doubt they were
+waiting in the secluded gloom for the other men apparently necessary for
+that secret conference. Kurt had sensed this event and he had determined
+to be present. He tried not to conjecture. It was best for him to apply
+all his faculties to the task of slipping unseen and unheard close to
+these men who had involved his father in some dark plot.
+
+Not long after Kurt hid himself on the other side of the freight-car he
+heard soft-padded footsteps and subdued voices. Dark shapes appeared to
+come out of the gloom. They passed him. He distinguished low, guttural
+voices, speaking German. These men, three in number, were scarcely out
+of sight when Kurt laid his rifle on the projecting shelf of the
+freight-car and followed them.
+
+Presently he came to deep shadow, where he paused. Low voices drew him
+on again, then a light made him thrill. Now and then the light appeared
+to be darkened by moving figures. A dark object loomed up to cut off
+Kurt's view. It was a pile of railroad ties, and beyond it loomed
+another. Stealing along these, he soon saw the light again, quite close.
+By its glow he recognized his father's huge frame, back to him, and the
+burly Neuman on the other side, and Glidden, whose dark face was working
+as he talked. These three were sitting, evidently on a flat pile of
+ties, and the other two men stood behind. Kurt could not make out the
+meaning of the low voices. Pressing closer to the freight-car, he
+cautiously and noiselessly advanced.
+
+Glidden was importuning with expressive hands and swift, low utterance.
+His face gleamed dark, hard, strong, intensely strung with corded,
+quivering muscles, with eyes apparently green orbs of fire. He spoke in
+German.
+
+Kurt dared not go closer unless he wanted to be discovered, and not yet
+was he ready for that. He might hear some word to help explain his
+father's strange, significant intimations about Anderson.
+
+"...must--have--money," Glidden was saying. To Kurt's eyes treachery
+gleamed in that working face. Neuman bent over to whisper gruffly in
+Dorn's ear. One of the silent men standing rubbed his hands together.
+Old Dorn's head was bowed. Then Glidden spoke so low and so swiftly that
+Kurt could not connect sentences, but with mounting blood he stood
+transfixed and horrified, to gather meaning from word on word, until he
+realized Anderson's doom, with other rich men of the Northwest, was
+sealed--that there were to be burnings of wheat-fields and of
+storehouses and of freight-trains--destruction everywhere.
+
+"I give money," said old Dorn, and with heavy movement he drew from
+inside his coat a large package wrapped in newspaper. He laid it before
+him in the light and began to unwrap it. Soon there were disclosed two
+bundles of bills--the eighty thousand dollars.
+
+Kurt thrilled in all his being. His poor father was being misled and
+robbed. A melancholy flash of comfort came to Kurt! Then at sight of
+Glidden's hungry eyes and working face and clutching hands Kurt pulled
+his hat far down, drew his revolver, and leaped forward with a yell,
+"Hands up!"
+
+He discharged the revolver right in the faces of the stunned plotters,
+and, snatching up the bundle of money, he leaped over the light,
+knocking one of the men down, and was gone into the darkness, without
+having slowed in the least his swift action.
+
+Wheeling round the end of the freight-car, he darted back, risking a
+hard fall in the darkness, and ran along the several cars to the first
+one, where he grasped his rifle and kept on. He heard his father's roar,
+like that of a mad bull, and shrill yells from the other men. Kurt
+laughed grimly. They would never catch him in the dark. While he ran he
+stuffed the money into his inside coat pockets. Beyond the railroad
+station he slowed down to catch his breath. His breast was heaving, his
+pulse hammering, and his skin was streaming. The excitement was the
+greatest under which he had ever labored.
+
+"Now--what shall--I do?" he panted. A freight-train was lumbering toward
+him and the head-light was almost at the station. The train appeared to
+be going slowly through without stopping. Kurt hurried on down the track
+a little farther. Then he waited. He would get on that train and make
+his way somehow to Ruxton, there to warn Anderson of the plot against
+his life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Kurt rode to Adrian on that freight, and upon arriving in the yards
+there he jumped off, only to mount another, headed south. He meant to be
+traveling while it was dark. No passenger-trains ran at night and he
+wanted to put as much distance between him and Wheatly as possible
+before daylight.
+
+He had piled into an open box-car. It was empty, at least of freight,
+and the floor appeared to have a thin covering of hay. The train,
+gathering headway, made a rattling rolling roar. Kurt hesitated about
+getting up and groping back in the pitch-black corners of the car. He
+felt that it contained a presence besides his own. And suddenly he was
+startled by an object blacker than the shadow, that sidled up close to
+him. Kurt could not keep the cold chills from chasing up and down his
+back. The object was a man, who reached for Kurt and felt of him with a
+skinny hand.
+
+"I.W.W.?" he whispered, hoarsely, in Kurt's ear.
+
+"Yes," replied Kurt.
+
+"Was that Adrian where you got on?"
+
+"It sure was," answered Kurt, with grim humor.
+
+"Than you're the feller?"
+
+"Sure," replied Kurt. It was evident that he had embarked upon an
+adventure.
+
+"When do we stall this freight?"
+
+"Not while we're on it, you can gamble."
+
+Other dark forms sidled out of the gloomy depths of that cavern-like
+corner and drew close to Kurt. He realized that he had fallen in with
+I.W.W. men who apparently had taken him for an expected messenger or
+leader. He was importuned for tobacco, drink, and money, and he judged
+that his begging companions consisted of an American tramp, an Austrian,
+a negro, and a German. Fine society to fall into! That eighty thousand
+dollars became a tremendous burden.
+
+"How many men on this freight?" queried Kurt, thinking he could ask
+questions better than answer them. And he was told there were about
+twenty-five, all of whom expected money. At this information Kurt rather
+closely pressed his hand upon the revolver in his side coat pocket. By
+asking questions and making judicious replies he passed what he felt was
+the dark mark in that mixed company of I.W.W. men; and at length, one by
+one, they melted away to their warmer corners, leaving Kurt by the door.
+He did not mind the cold. He wanted to be where, at the first indication
+of a stop, he could jump off the train.
+
+With his hand on his gun and hugging the bulging coat pockets close to
+him, Kurt settled himself for what he believed would be interminable
+hours. He strained eyes and ears for a possible attack from the riffraff
+I.W.W. men hidden there in the car. And that was why, perhaps, that it
+seemed only a short while until the train bumped and slowed, preparatory
+to stopping. The instant it was safe Kurt jumped out and stole away in
+the gloom. A fence obstructed further passage. He peered around to make
+out that he was in a road. Thereupon he hurried along it until he was
+out of hearing of the train. There was light in the east, heralding a
+dawn that Kurt surely would welcome. He sat down to wait, and addressed
+to his bewildered judgment a query as to whether or not he ought to keep
+on carrying the burdensome rifle. It was not only heavy, but when
+daylight came it might attract attention, and his bulging coat would
+certainly invite curiosity. He was in a predicament; nevertheless, he
+decided to hang on to the rifle.
+
+He almost fell asleep, waiting there with his back against a fence-post.
+The dawn came, and then the rosy sunrise. And he discovered, not half a
+mile away, a good-sized town, where he believed he surely could hire an
+automobile.
+
+Waiting grew to be so tedious that he decided to risk the early hour,
+and proceeded toward the town. Upon the outskirts he met a farmer boy,
+who, in reply to a question, said that the town was Connell. Kurt found
+another early riser in the person of a blacksmith who evidently was a
+Yankee and proud of it. He owned a car that he was willing to hire out
+on good security. Kurt satisfied him on that score, and then proceeded
+to ask how to get across the Copper River and into Golden Valley. The
+highway followed the railroad from that town to Kahlotus, and there
+crossed a big trunk-line railroad, to turn south toward the river.
+
+In half an hour, during which time Kurt was enabled to breakfast, the
+car was ready. It was a large car, rather ancient and the worse for
+wear, but its owner assured Kurt that it would take him where he wanted
+to go and he need not be afraid to drive fast. With that inspiring
+knowledge Kurt started off.
+
+Before ten o'clock Kurt reached Kilo, far across the Copper River, with
+the Blue Mountains in sight, and from there less confusing directions to
+follow. He had been lucky. He had passed the wreck of the freight-train
+upon which he had ridden from Adrian; his car had been surrounded by
+rough men, and only quick wits saved him at least delay; he had been
+hailed by more than one group of tramping I.W.W. men; and he had passed
+camps and freight-yards where idlers were congregated. And lastly, he
+had seen, far across the valley, a pall of smoke from forest fire.
+
+He was going to reach "Many Waters" in time to warn Anderson, and that
+fact gave him strange exultation. When it was assured and he had the
+eighty thousand dollars deposited in a bank he could feel that his gray,
+gloomy future would have several happy memories. How would Lenore
+Anderson feel toward a man who had saved her father? The thought was too
+rich, too sweet for Kurt to dwell upon.
+
+Before noon Kurt began to climb gradually up off the wonderfully fertile
+bottom-lands where the endless orchards and boundless gardens delighted
+his eye, and the towns grew fewer and farther between. Kurt halted at
+Huntington for water, and when he was about ready to start a man rushed
+out of a store, glanced hurriedly up and down the almost deserted
+street, and, espying Kurt, ran to him.
+
+"Message over 'phone! I.W.W.! Hell to pay!" he cried, excitedly.
+
+"What's up? Tell me the message," replied Kurt, calmly.
+
+"It just come--from Vale. Anderson, the big rancher! He 'phoned to send
+men out on all roads--to stop his car! His daughter's in it! She's been
+made off with! I.W.W.'s!"
+
+Kurt's heart leaped. The bursting blood burned through him and receded
+to leave him cold, tingling. Anything might happen to him this day! He
+reached inside the seat to grasp the disjointed rifle, and three swift
+movements seemed to serve to unwrap it and put the pieces together.
+
+"What else did Anderson say?" he asked, sharply.
+
+"That likely the car would head for the hills, where the I.W.W.'s are
+camped."
+
+"What road from here leads that way?"
+
+"Take the left-hand road at the end of town," replied the man, more
+calmly. "Ten miles down you'll come to a fork. There's where the
+I.W.W.'s will turn off to go up into the foot-hills. Anderson just
+'phoned. You can head off his car if it's on the hill road. But you'll
+have to drive.... Do you know Anderson's car? Don't you want men with
+you?"
+
+"No time!" called Kurt, as he leaped into the seat and jammed on the
+power.
+
+"I'll send cars all over," shouted the man, as Kurt whirred away.
+
+Kurt's eyes and hands and feet hurt with the sudden intensity of strain.
+All his nervous force seemed set upon the one great task of driving and
+guiding that car at the limit of its speed. Huntington flashed behind,
+two indistinct streaks of houses. An open road, slightly rising,
+stretched ahead. The wind pressed so hard that he could scarcely
+breathe. The car gave forth a humming roar.
+
+Kurt's heart labored, swollen and tight, high in his breast, and his
+thoughts were swift, tumultuous. An agony of dread battled with a
+dominating but strange certainty. He felt belief in his luck.
+Circumstances one by one had led to this drive, and in every one passed
+by he felt the direction of chance.
+
+He sped by fields of wheat, a wagon that he missed by an inch, some
+stragglers on the road, and then, far ahead, he saw a sign-post of the
+forks. As he neared it he gradually shut off the power, to stop at the
+cross-roads. There he got out to search for fresh car tracks turning up
+to the right. There were none. If Anderson's car was coming on that road
+he would meet it.
+
+Kurt started again, but at reasonable speed, while his eyes were sharp
+on the road ahead. It was empty. It sloped down for a long way, and made
+a wide curve to the right, along the base of hilly pastureland, and then
+again turned. And just as Kurt's keen gaze traveled that far a big
+automobile rounded the bend, coming fast. He recognized the red color,
+the shape of the car.
+
+"Anderson's!" he cried, with that same lift of his heart, that bursting
+gush of blood. "No dream!... I see it!... And I'll stop it!"
+
+The advantage was all his. He would run along at reasonable speed,
+choose a narrow place, stop his car so as to obstruct the road, and get
+out with his rifle.
+
+It seemed a long stretch down that long slope, and his car crept along
+while the other gradually closed the gap. Slower and slower Kurt ran,
+then turned half across the road and stopped. When he stepped out the
+other car was two hundred yards or more distant. Kurt saw when the
+driver slackened his speed. There appeared to be only two people in the
+car, both in front. But Kurt could not be sure of that until it was only
+fifty yards away.
+
+Then he swung out his rifle and waved for the driver to stop. But he did
+not stop. Kurt heard a scream. He saw a white face. He saw the driver
+swing his hand across that white face, dashing it back.
+
+"Halt!" yelled Kurt, at the top of his lungs.
+
+But the driver hunched down and put on the power. The red car leaped. As
+it flashed by Kurt recognized Nash and Anderson's daughter. She looked
+terrified. Kurt dared not shoot, for fear of hitting the girl. Nash
+swerved, took the narrow space left him, smashing the right front wheel
+of Kurt's car, and got by.
+
+Kurt stepped aside and took a quick shot at the tire of Nash's left hind
+wheel. He missed. His heart sank and he was like ice as he risked
+another. The little high-power bullet struck and blew the tire off the
+wheel. Nash's car lurched, skidded into the bank not thirty yards away.
+
+With a bound Kurt started for it, and he was there when Nash had twisted
+out of his seat and over the door.
+
+"Far enough! Don't move!" ordered Kurt, presenting the rifle.
+
+Nash was ghastly white, with hunted eyes and open mouth, and his hands
+shook.
+
+"Oh it's--Kurt Dorn!" cried a broken voice.
+
+Kurt saw the girl fumble with the door on her side, open it, and stagger
+out of his sight. Then she reappeared round the car. Bareheaded,
+disheveled, white as chalk, with burning eyes and bleeding lips, she
+gazed at Kurt as if to make sure of her deliverance.
+
+"Miss Anderson--if he's harmed you--" broke out Kurt, hoarsely.
+
+"Oh!... Don't kill him!... He hasn't touched me," she replied, wildly.
+
+"But your lips are bleeding."
+
+"Are they?" She put a trembling hand to them. "He--he struck me....
+That's nothing... But you--you have saved me--from God only knows what!"
+
+"I have! From him?" demanded Kurt. "What is he?"
+
+"He's a German!" returned Lenore, and red burned out of the white of her
+cheeks. "Secret agent--I.W.W.!... Plotter against my father's life!...
+Oh, he knocked father off the car--dragged him!... He ran the car
+away--with me--forced me back--he struck me!... Oh, if I were a man!"
+
+Nash responded with a passion that made his face drip with sweat and
+distort into savage fury of defeat and hate.
+
+"You two-faced cat!" he hissed. "You made love to me! You fooled me! You
+let me--"
+
+"Shut up!" thundered Kurt. "You German dog! I can't murder you, because
+I'm American. Do you get that? But I'll beat you within an inch of your
+life!"
+
+As Kurt bent over to lay down the rifle, Nash darted a hand into the
+seat for weapon of some kind. But Kurt, in a rush, knocked him over the
+front guard. Nash howled. He scrambled up with bloody mouth. Kurt was on
+him again.
+
+"Take that!" cried Kurt, low and hard, as he swung his arm. The big fist
+that had grasped so many plow-handles took Nash full on that bloody
+mouth and laid him flat. "Come on, German! Get out of the trench!"
+
+Like a dog Nash thrashed and crawled, scraping his hands in the dirt, to
+jump up and fling a rock that Kurt ducked by a narrow margin. Nash
+followed it, swinging wildly, beating at his adversary.
+
+Passion long contained burst in Kurt. He tasted the salt of his own
+blood where he had bitten his lips. Nash showed as in a red haze. Kurt
+had to get his hands on this German, and when he did it liberated a
+strange and terrible joy in him. No weapon would have sufficed. Hardly
+aware of Nash's blows, Kurt tore at him, swung and choked him, bore him
+down on the bank, and there beat him into a sodden, bloody-faced heap.
+
+Only then did a cry of distress, seemingly from far off, pierce Kurt's
+ears. Miss Anderson was pulling at him with frantic hands.
+
+"Oh, don't kill him! Please don't kill him!" she was crying. "Kurt!--for
+my sake, don't kill him!"
+
+That last poignant appeal brought Kurt to his senses. He let go of Nash.
+He allowed the girl to lead him back. Panting hard, he tried to draw a
+deep, full breath.
+
+"Oh, he doesn't move!" whispered Lenore, with wide eyes on Nash.
+
+"Miss Anderson--he's not--even insensible," panted Kurt. "But he's
+licked--good and hard."
+
+The girl leaned against the side of the car, with a hand buried in her
+heaving breast. She was recovering. The gray shade left her face. Her
+eyes, still wide and dark and beginning to glow with softer emotions,
+were upon Kurt.
+
+"You--you were the one to come," she murmured. "I prayed. I was terribly
+frightened. Ruenke was taking me--to the I.W.W. camp, up in the hills."
+
+"Ruenke?" queried Kurt.
+
+"Yes, that's his German name."
+
+Kurt awoke to the exigencies of the situation. Searching in the car, he
+found a leather belt. With this he securely bound Ruenke's hands behind
+his back, then rolled him down into the road.
+
+"My first German prisoner," said Kurt, half seriously. "Now, Miss
+Anderson, we must be doing things. We don't want to meet a lot of
+I.W.W.'s out here. My car is out of commission. I hope yours is not
+broken."
+
+Kurt got into the car and found, to his satisfaction, that it was not
+damaged so far as running-gear was concerned. After changing the ruined
+tire he backed down the road and turned to stop near where Ruenke lay.
+Opening the rear door, Kurt picked him up as if he had been a sack of
+wheat and threw him into the car. Next he secured the rifle that had
+been such a burden and had served him so well in the end.
+
+"Get in, Miss Anderson," he said, "and show me where to drive you home."
+
+She got in beside him, making a grimace as she saw Ruenke lying behind
+her. Kurt started and ran slowly by the damaged car.
+
+"He knocked a wheel off. I'll have to send back."
+
+"Oh, I thought it was all over when we hit!" said the girl.
+
+Kurt experienced a relaxation that was weakening. He could hardly hold
+the wheel and his mood became one of exaltation.
+
+"Father suspected this Ruenke," went on Lenore. "But he wanted to find
+out things from him. And I--I undertook--to twist Mr. Germany round my
+finger. I made a mess of it.... He lied. I didn't make love to him. But
+I listened to his love-making, and arrogant German love-making it was!
+I'm afraid I made eyes at him and let him believe I was smitten.... Oh,
+and all for nothing! I'm ashamed... But he lied!"
+
+Her confidence, at once pathetic and humorous and contemptuous,
+augmented Kurt's Homeric mood. He understood that she would not even let
+him, for a moment, have a wrong impression of her.
+
+"It must have been hard," agreed Kurt. "Didn't you find out anything at
+all?"
+
+"Not much," she replied. Then she put a hand on his sleeve. "Your
+knuckles are all bloody."
+
+"So they are. I got that punching our German friend."
+
+"Oh, how you did beat him!" she cried. "I had to look. My ire was up,
+too!... It wasn't very womanly--of me--that I gloried in the sight."
+
+"But you cried out--you pulled me away!" exclaimed Kurt.
+
+"That was because I was afraid you'd kill him," she replied.
+
+Kurt swerved his glance, for an instant, to her face. It was at once
+flushed and pale, with the deep blue of downcast eyes shadowy through
+her long lashes, exceedingly sweet and beautiful to Kurt's sight. He
+bent his glance again to the road ahead. Miss Anderson felt kindly and
+gratefully toward him, as was, of course, natural. But she was somehow
+different from what she had seemed upon the other occasions he had seen
+her. Kurt's heart was full to bursting.
+
+"I might have killed him," he said. "I'm glad--you stopped me.
+That--that frenzy of mine seemed to be the breaking of a dam. I have
+been dammed up within. Something had to break. I've been unhappy for a
+long time."
+
+"I saw that. What about?" she replied.
+
+"The war, and what it's done to father. We're estranged. I hate
+everything German. I loved the farm. My chance in life is gone. The
+wheat debt--the worry about the I.W.W.--and that's not all."
+
+Again she put a gentle hand on his sleeve and left it there for a
+moment. The touch thrilled all through Kurt.
+
+"I'm sorry. Your position is sad. But maybe it is not utterly hopeless.
+You--you'll come back after the war."
+
+"I don't know that I want to come back," he said. "For then--it'd be
+just as bad--worse.... Miss Anderson, it won't hurt to tell you the
+truth.... A year ago--that first time I saw you--I fell in love with
+you. I think--when I'm away--over in France--I'd like to feel that you
+know. It can't hurt you. And it'll be sweet to me.... I fought against
+the--the madness. But fate was against me.... I saw you again.... And it
+was all over with me!"
+
+He paused, catching his breath. She was perfectly quiet. He looked on
+down the winding road. There were dust-clouds in the distance.
+
+"I'm afraid I grew bitter and moody," he went on. "But the last
+forty-eight hours have changed me forever... I found that my poor old
+dad had been won over by these unscrupulous German agents of the I.W.W.
+But I saved his name.... I've got the money he took for the wheat we may
+never harvest. But if we do harvest I can pay all our debt.... Then I
+learned of a plot to ruin your father--to kill him!... I was on my way
+to 'Many Waters.' I can warn him.... Last of all I have saved you."
+
+The little hand dropped away from his coat sleeve. A soft,
+half-smothered cry escaped her. It seemed to him she was about to weep
+in her exceeding pity.
+
+"Miss Anderson, I--I'd rather not have--you pity me."
+
+"Mr. Dorn, I certainly don't pity you," she replied, with an unexpected,
+strange tone. It was full. It seemed to ring in his ears.
+
+"I know there never was and never could be any hope for me. I--I--"
+
+"Oh, you know that!" murmured the soft, strange voice.
+
+But Kurt could not trust his ears and he had to make haste to terminate
+the confession into which his folly and emotion had betrayed him. He
+scarcely heard her words.
+
+"Yes.... I told you why I wanted you to know.... And now forget
+that--and when I'm gone--if you think of me ever, let it be about how
+much better it made me--to have all this good luck--to help your father
+and to save you!"
+
+The dust-cloud down the road came from a string of automobiles, flying
+along at express speed. Kurt saw them with relief.
+
+"Here come the cars on your trail," he called out. "Your father will be
+in one of them."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Kurt opened the door of the car and stepped down. He could not help his
+importance or his pride. Anderson, who came running between two cars
+that had stopped abreast, was coatless and hatless, covered with dust,
+pale and fire-eyed.
+
+"Mr. Anderson, your daughter is safe--unharmed," Kurt assured him.
+
+"My girl!" cried the father, huskily, and hurried to where she leaned
+out of her seat.
+
+"All right, dad," she cried, as she embraced him. "Only a little shaky
+yet."
+
+It was affecting for Dorn to see that meeting, and through it to share
+something of its meaning. Anderson's thick neck swelled and colored, and
+his utterance was unintelligible. His daughter loosened her arm from
+round him and turned her face toward Kurt. Then he imagined he saw two
+blue stars, sweetly, strangely shining upon him.
+
+"Father, it was our friend from the Bend," she said. "He happened
+along."
+
+Anderson suddenly changed to the cool, smiling man Kurt remembered.
+
+"Howdy, Kurt?" he said, and crushed Kurt's hand. "What'd you do to him?"
+
+Kurt made a motion toward the back of the car. Then Anderson looked over
+the seats. With that he opened the door and in one powerful haul he drew
+Ruenke sliding out into the road. Ruenke's bruised and bloody face was
+uppermost, a rather gruesome sight. Anderson glared down upon him, while
+men from the other cars crowded around. Ruenke's eyes resembled those of
+a cornered rat. Anderson's jaw bulged, his big hands clenched.
+
+"Bill, you throw this fellow in your car and land him in jail. I'll make
+a charge against him," said the rancher.
+
+"Mr. Anderson, I can save some valuable time," interposed Kurt. "I've
+got to return a car I broke down. And there's my wheat. Will you have
+one of these men drive me back?"
+
+"Sure. But won't you come home with us?" said Anderson.
+
+"I'd like to. But I must get home," replied Kurt. "Please let me speak a
+few words for your ear alone." He drew Anderson aside and briefly told
+about the eighty thousand dollars; threw back his coat to show the
+bulging pockets. Then he asked Anderson's advice.
+
+"I'd deposit the money an' wire the Spokane miller," returned the
+rancher. "I know him. He'll leave the money in the bank till your wheat
+is safe. Go to the national bank in Kilo. Mention my name."
+
+Then Kurt told Anderson of the plot against his fortunes and his life.
+
+"Neuman! I.W.W.! German intrigue!" growled the rancher. "All in the same
+class!... Dorn, I'm forewarned, an' that's forearmed. I'll beat this
+outfit at their own game."
+
+They returned to Anderson's car. Kurt reached inside for his rifle.
+
+"Aren't you going home with us?" asked the girl.
+
+"Why, Miss Anderson, I--I'm sorry. I--I'd love to see 'Many Waters,'"
+floundered Kurt. "But I can't go now. There's no need. I must hurry back
+to--to my troubles."
+
+"I wanted to tell you something--at home," she returned, shyly.
+
+"Tell me now," said Kurt.
+
+She gave him such a glance as he had never received in his life. Kurt
+felt himself as wax before those blue eyes. She wanted to thank him.
+That would be sweet, but would only make his ordeal harder. He steeled
+himself.
+
+"You won't come?" she asked, and her smile was wistful.
+
+"No--thank you ever so much."
+
+"Will you come to see me before you--you go to war?"
+
+"I'll try."
+
+"But you must promise. You've done so much for me and my father.... I--I
+want you to come to see me--at my home."
+
+"Then I'll come," he replied.
+
+Anderson clambered into the car beside his daughter and laid his big
+hands on the wheel.
+
+"Sure he'll come, or we'll go after him," he declared, heartily. "So
+long, son."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Late in the forenoon of the next day Kurt Dorn reached home. A hot
+harvest wind breathed off the wheat-fields. It swelled his heart to see
+the change in the color of that section of Bluestem--the gold had a
+tinge of rich, ripe brown.
+
+Kurt's father awaited him, a haggard, gloomy-faced man, unkempt and
+hollow-eyed.
+
+"Was it you who robbed me?" he shouted hoarsely.
+
+"Yes," replied Kurt. He had caught the eager hope and fear in the old
+man's tone. Kurt expected that confession would bring on his father's
+terrible fury, a mood to dread. But old Dorn showed immense relief. He
+sat down in his relaxation from what must have been intense strain. Kurt
+saw a weariness, a shade, in the gray lined face that had never been
+there before.
+
+"What did you do with the money?" asked the old man.
+
+"I banked it in Kilo," replied Kurt. "Then I wired your miller in
+Spokane.... So you're safe if we can harvest the wheat."
+
+Old Dorn nodded thoughtfully. There had come a subtle change in him.
+Presently he asked Kurt if men had been hired for the harvest.
+
+"No. I've not seen any I would trust," replied Kurt, and then he briefly
+outlined Anderson's plan to insure a quick and safe harvesting of the
+grain. Old Dorn objected to this on account of the expense. Kurt argued
+with him and patiently tried to show him the imperative need of it.
+Dorn, apparently, was not to be won over; however, he was remarkably
+mild in comparison with what Kurt had expected.
+
+"Father, do you realize now that the men you were dealing with at
+Wheatly are dishonest? I mean with you. They would betray you."
+
+Old Dorn had no answer for this. Evidently he had sustained some kind of
+shock that he was not willing to admit.
+
+"Look here, father," went on Kurt, in slow earnestness. He spoke in
+English, because nothing would make him break his word and ever again
+speak a word of German. And his father was not quick to comprehend
+English. "Can't you see that the I.W.W. mean to cripple us wheat farmers
+this harvest?"
+
+"No," replied old Dorn, stubbornly.
+
+"But they do. They don't _want_ work. If they accept work it is for a
+chance to do damage. All this I.W.W. talk about more wages and shorter
+hours is deceit. They make a bold face of discontent. That is all a lie.
+The I.W.W. is out to ruin the great wheat-fields and the great lumber
+forests of the Northwest."
+
+"I do not believe that," declared his father, stoutly. "What for?"
+
+Kurt meant to be careful of that subject.
+
+"No matter what for. It does not make any difference what it's for.
+We've got to meet it to save our wheat.... Now won't you believe me?
+Won't you let me manage the harvest?"
+
+"I will not believe," replied old Dorn, stubbornly. "Not about _my_
+wheat. I know they mean to destroy. They are against rich men like
+Anderson. But not me or my wheat!"
+
+"There is where you are wrong. I'll prove it in a very few days. But in
+that time I can prepare for them and outwit them. Will you let me?"
+
+"Go ahead," replied old Dorn, gruffly.
+
+It was a concession that Kurt was amazed and delighted to gain. And he
+set about at once to act upon it. He changed his clothes and satisfied
+his hunger; then, saddling his horse, he started out to visit his farmer
+neighbors.
+
+The day bade fair to be rich in experience. Jerry, the foreman, was
+patrolling his long beat up and down the highway. Jerry carried a
+shot-gun and looked like a sentry. The men under him were on the other
+side of the section of wheat, and the ground was so rolling that they
+could not be seen from the highway. Jerry was unmistakably glad and
+relieved to see Kurt.
+
+"Some goin's-on," he declared, with a grin. "Since you left there's been
+one hundred and sixteen I.W.W. tramps along this here road."
+
+"Have you had any trouble?" inquired Kurt.
+
+"Wal, I reckon it wasn't trouble, but every time I took a peg at some
+sneak I sort of broke out sweatin' cold."
+
+"You shot at them?"
+
+"Sure I shot when I seen any loafin' along in the dark. Two of them shot
+back at me, an' after thet I wasn't particular to aim high.... Reckon
+I'm about dead for sleep."
+
+"I'll relieve you to-night," replied Kurt. "Jerry, doesn't the wheat
+look great?"
+
+"Wal, I reckon. An' walkin' along here when it's quiet an' no wind
+blowin', I can just hear the wheat crack. It's gittin' ripe fast, an'
+sure the biggest crop we ever raised.... But I'm tellin' you--when I
+think how we'll ever harvest it my insides just sinks like lead!"
+
+Kurt then outlined Anderson's plan, which was received by the foreman
+with eager approval and the assurance that the neighbor farmers would
+rally to his call.
+
+Kurt found his nearest neighbor, Olsen, cutting a thin, scarcely ripe
+barley. Olsen was running a new McCormack harvester, and appeared
+delighted with the machine, but cast down by the grain prospects. He did
+not intend to cut his wheat at all. It was a dead loss.
+
+"Two sections--twelve hundred an' eighty acres!" he repeated, gloomily.
+"An' the third bad year! Dorn, I can't pay the interest to my bank."
+
+Olsen's sun-dried and wind-carved visage was as hard and rugged and
+heroic as this desert that had resisted him for years. Kurt saw under
+the lines and the bronze all the toil and pain and unquenchable hope
+that had made Olsen a type of the men who had cultivated this desert of
+wheat.
+
+"I'll give you five hundred dollars to help me harvest," said Kurt,
+bluntly, and briefly stated his plan.
+
+Olsen whistled. He complimented Anderson's shrewd sense. He spoke
+glowingly of that magnificent section of wheat that absolutely must be
+saved. He promised Kurt every horse and every man on his farm. But he
+refused the five hundred dollars.
+
+"Oh, say, you'll have to accept it," declared Kurt.
+
+"You've done me good turns," asserted Olsen.
+
+"But nothing like this. Why, this will be a rush job, with all the men
+and horses and machines and wagons I can get. It'll cost ten--fifteen
+thousand dollars to harvest that section. Even at that, and paying
+Anderson, we'll clear twenty thousand or more. Olsen, you've got to take
+the money."
+
+"All right, if you insist. I'm needin' it bad enough," replied Olsen.
+
+Further conversation with Olsen gleaned the facts that he was the only
+farmer in their immediate neighborhood who did not have at least a
+little grain worth harvesting. But the amount was small and would
+require only slight time. Olsen named farmers that very likely would not
+take kindly to Dorn's proposition, and had best not be approached. The
+majority, however, would stand by him, irrespective of the large wage
+offered, because the issue was one to appeal to the pride of the Bend
+farmers. Olsen appeared surprisingly well informed upon the tactics of
+the I.W.W., and predicted that they would cause trouble, but be run out
+of the country. He made the shrewd observation that when even those
+farmers who sympathized with Germany discovered that their wheat-fields
+were being menaced by foreign influences and protected by the home
+government, they would experience a change of heart. Olsen said the war
+would be a good thing for the United States, because they would win it,
+and during the winning would learn and suffer and achieve much.
+
+Kurt rode away from Olsen in a more thoughtful frame of mind. How
+different and interesting the points of view of different men! Olsen had
+never taken the time to become a naturalized citizen of the United
+States. There had never been anything to force him to do it. But his
+understanding of the worth of the United States and his loyalty to it
+were manifest in his love for his wheatlands. In fact, they were
+inseparable. Probably there were millions of pioneers, emigrants,
+aliens, all over the country who were like Olsen, who needed the fire of
+the crucible to mold them into a unity with Americans. Of such,
+Americans were molded!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Kurt rode all day, and when, late that night, he got home, weary and
+sore and choked, he had enlisted the services of thirty-five farmers to
+help him harvest the now famous section of wheat.
+
+His father had plainly doubted the willingness of these neighbors to
+abandon their own labors, for the Bend exacted toil for every hour of
+every season, whether rich or poor in yield. Likewise he was plainly
+moved by the facts. His seamed and shaded face of gloom had a moment of
+light.
+
+"They will make short work of this harvest," he said, thoughtfully.
+
+"I should say so," retorted Kurt. "We'll harvest and haul that grain to
+the railroad in just three days."
+
+"Impossible!" ejaculated Dorn.
+
+"You'll see," declared Kurt. "You'll see who's managing this harvest."
+
+He could not restrain his little outburst of pride. For the moment the
+great overhanging sense of calamity that for long had haunted him faded
+into the background. It did seem sure that they would save this splendid
+yield of wheat. How much that meant to Kurt--in freedom from debt, in
+natural love of the fruition of harvest, in the loyalty to his
+government! He realized how strange and strong was the need in him to
+prove he was American to the very core of his heart. He did not yet
+understand that incentive, but he felt it.
+
+After eating dinner Kurt took his rifle and went out to relieve Jerry.
+
+"Only a few more days and nights!" he exclaimed to his foreman. "Then
+we'll have all the harvesters in the country right in our wheat."
+
+"Wal, a hell of a lot can happen before then," declared Jerry,
+pessimistically.
+
+Kurt was brought back to realities rather suddenly. But questioning
+Jerry did not elicit any new or immediate cause for worry. Jerry
+appeared tired out.
+
+"You go get some sleep," said Kurt.
+
+"All right. Bill's been dividin' this night watch with me. I reckon
+he'll be out when he wakes up," replied Jerry, and trudged away.
+
+Kurt shouldered his rifle and slowly walked along the road with a
+strange sense that he was already doing army duty in protecting property
+which was at once his own and his country's.
+
+The night was dark, cool, and quiet. The heavens were starry bright. A
+faint breeze brought the tiny crackling of the wheat. From far distant
+came the bay of a hound. The road stretched away pale and yellow into
+the gloom. In the silence and loneliness and darkness, in all around
+him, and far across the dry, whispering fields, there was an invisible
+presence that had its affinity in him, hovered over him shadowless and
+immense, and waved in the bursting wheat. It was life. He felt the wheat
+ripening. He felt it in reawakened tenderness for his old father and in
+the stir of memory of Lenore Anderson. The past active and important
+hours had left little room for thought of her.
+
+But now she came back to him, a spirit in keeping with his steps, a
+shadow under the stars, a picture of sweet, wonderful young womanhood.
+His whole relation of thought toward her had undergone some marvelous
+change. The most divine of gifts had been granted him--an opportunity to
+save her from harm, perhaps from death. He had served her father. How
+greatly he could not tell, but if measured by the gratitude in her eyes
+it would have been infinite. He recalled that expression--blue, warm,
+soft, and indescribably strange with its unuttered hidden meaning. It
+was all-satisfying for him to realize that she had been compelled to
+give him a separate and distinct place in her mind. He must stand apart
+from all others she knew. It had been his fortune to preserve her
+happiness and the happiness that she must be to sisters and mother, and
+that some day she would bestow upon some lucky man. They would all owe
+it to him. And Lenore Anderson knew he loved her.
+
+These things had transformed his relation of thought toward her. He had
+no regret, no jealousy, no fear. Even the pang of suppressed and
+overwhelming love had gone with his confession.
+
+But he did remember her presence, her beauty, her intent blue glance,
+and the faint, dreaming smile of her lips--remembered them with a
+thrill, and a wave of emotion, and a contraction of his heart. He had
+promised to see her once more, to afford her the opportunity, no doubt,
+to thank him, to try to make him see her gratitude. He would go, but he
+wished it need not be. He asked no more. And seeing her again might
+change his fulness of joy to something of pain.
+
+So Kurt trod the long road in the darkness and silence, pausing, and
+checking his dreams now and then, to listen and to watch. He heard no
+suspicious sounds, nor did he meet any one. The night was melancholy,
+with a hint of fall in its cool breath.
+
+Soon he would be walking a beat in one of the training-camps, with a
+bugle-call in his ears and the turmoil of thousands of soldiers in the
+making around him: soon, too, he would be walking the deck of a
+transport, looking back down the moon-blanched wake of the ship toward
+home, listening to the mysterious moan of the ocean; and then soon
+feeling under his feet the soil of a foreign country, with hideous and
+incomparable war shrieking its shell furies and its man anguish all
+about him. But no matter how far away he ever got, he knew Lenore
+Anderson would be with him as she was there on that dim, lonely starlit
+country road.
+
+And in these long hours of his vigil Kurt Dorn divined a relation
+between his love for Lenore Anderson and a terrible need that had grown
+upon him. A need of his heart and his soul! More than he needed her, if
+even in his wildest dreams he had permitted himself visions of an
+earthly paradise, he needed to prove to his blood and his spirit that he
+was actually and truly American. He had no doubt of his intelligence,
+his reason, his choice. The secret lay hidden in the depths of him, and
+he knew it came from the springs of the mother who had begotten him. His
+mother had given him birth, and by every tie he was mostly hers.
+
+Kurt had been in college during the first year of the world war. And his
+name, his fair hair and complexion, his fluency in German, and his
+remarkable efficiency in handicrafts had opened him to many a hint, many
+a veiled sarcasm that had stung him like a poison brand. There was
+injustice in all this war spirit. It changed the minds of men and women.
+He had not doubted himself until those terrible scenes with his father,
+and, though he had reacted to them as an American, he had felt the
+drawing, burning blood tie. He hated everything German and he knew he
+was wrong in doing so. He had clear conception in his mind of the
+difference between the German war motives and means, and those of the
+other nations.
+
+Kurt's problem was to understand himself. His great fight was with his
+own soul. His material difficulties and his despairing love had suddenly
+been transformed, so that they had lent his spirit wings. How many poor
+boys and girls in America must be helplessly divided between parents and
+country! How many faithful and blind parents, obedient to the laws of
+mind and heart, set for all time, must see a favorite son go out to
+fight against all they had held sacred!
+
+That was all bad enough, but Kurt had more to contend with. No illusions
+had he of a chastened German spirit, a clarified German mind, an
+unbrutalized German heart. Kurt knew his father. What would change his
+father? Nothing but death! Death for himself or death for his only son!
+Kurt had an incalculable call to prove forever to himself that he was
+free. He had to spill his own blood to prove himself, or he had to spill
+that of an enemy. And he preferred that it should be his own. But that
+did not change a vivid and terrible picture which haunted him at times.
+He saw a dark, wide, and barren shingle of the world, a desert of
+desolation made by man, where strange, windy shrieks and thundering
+booms and awful cries went up in the night, and where drifting palls of
+smoke made starless sky, and bursts of reddish fires made hell.
+
+Suddenly Kurt's slow pacing along the road was halted, as was the trend
+of his thought. He was not sure he had heard a sound. But he quivered
+all over. The night was far advanced now; the wind was almost still; the
+wheat was smooth and dark as the bosom of a resting sea. Kurt listened.
+He imagined he heard, far away, the faint roar of an automobile. But it
+might have been a train on the railroad. Sometimes on still nights he
+caught sounds like that.
+
+Then a swish in the wheat, a soft thud, very low, unmistakably came to
+Kurt's ear. He listened, turning his ear to the wind. Presently he heard
+it again--a sound relating both to wheat and earth. In a hot flash he
+divined that some one had thrown fairly heavy bodies into the
+wheat-fields. Phosphorus cakes! Kurt held his breath while he peered
+down the gloomy road, his heart pounding, his hands gripping the rifle.
+And when he descried a dim form stealthily coming toward him he yelled,
+"Halt!"
+
+Instantly the form wavered, moved swiftly, with quick pad of footfalls.
+Kurt shot once--twice--three times--and aimed as best he could to hit.
+The form either fell or went on out of sight in the gloom. Kurt answered
+the excited shouts of his men, calling them to come across to him. Then
+he went cautiously down the road, peering on the ground for a dark form.
+But he failed to find it, and presently had to admit that in the dark
+his aim had been poor. Bill came out to relieve Kurt, and together they
+went up and down the road for a mile without any glimpse of a skulking
+form. It was almost daylight when Kurt went home to get a few hours'
+sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Next day was one of the rare, blistering-hot days with a furnace wind
+that roared over the wheat-fields. The sky was steely and the sun like
+copper. It was a day which would bring the wheat to a head.
+
+At breakfast Jerry reported that fresh auto tracks had been made on the
+road during the night; and that dust and wheat all around the great
+field showed a fresh tramping.
+
+Kurt believed a deliberate and particular attempt had been made to
+insure the destruction of the Dorn wheat-field. And he ordered all hands
+out to search for the dangerous little cakes of phosphorus.
+
+It was difficult to find them. The wheat was almost as high as a man's
+head and very thick. To force a way through it without tramping it down
+took care and time. Besides, the soil was soft, and the agents who had
+perpetrated this vile scheme had perfectly matched the color. Kurt
+almost stepped on one of the cakes before he saw it. His men were very
+slow in finding any. But Kurt's father seemed to walk fatally right to
+them, for in a short hundred yards he found three. They caused a
+profound change in this gloomy man. Not a word did he utter, but he
+became animated by a tremendous energy.
+
+The search was discouraging. It was like hunting for dynamite bombs that
+might explode at any moment. All Kurt's dread of calamity returned
+fourfold. The intense heat of the day, that would ripen the wheat to
+bursting, would likewise sooner or later ignite the cakes of phosphorus.
+And when Jerry found a cake far inside the field, away from the road,
+showing that powerful had been the arm that had thrown it there, and how
+impossible it would be to make a thorough search, Kurt almost succumbed
+to discouragement. Still, he kept up a frenzied hunting and inspired the
+laborers to do likewise.
+
+About ten o'clock an excited shout from Bill drew Kurt's attention, and
+he ran along the edge of the field. Bill was sweaty and black, yet
+through it all Kurt believed he saw the man was pale. He pointed with
+shaking hand toward Olsen's hill.
+
+Kurt vibrated to a shock. He saw a long circular yellow column rising
+from the hill, slanting away on the strong wind.
+
+"Dust!" he cried, aghast.
+
+"Smoke!" replied Bill, hoarsely.
+
+The catastrophe had fallen. Olsen's wheat was burning. Kurt experienced
+a profound sensation of sadness. What a pity! The burning of wheat--the
+destruction of bread--when part of the world was starving! Tears dimmed
+his eyes as he watched the swelling column of smoke.
+
+Bill was cursing, and Kurt gathered that the farm-hand was predicting
+fires all around. This was inevitable. But it meant no great loss for
+most of the wheat-growers whose yield had failed. For Kurt and his
+father, if fire got a hold in their wheat, it meant ruin. Kurt's sadness
+was burned out by a slow and growing rage.
+
+"Bill, go hitch up to the big mower," ordered Kurt. "We'll have to cut
+all around our field. Bring drinking water and whatever you can lay a
+hand on ... anything to fight fire!"
+
+Bill ran thumping away over the clods. Then it happened that Kurt looked
+toward his father. The old man was standing with his arms aloft, his
+face turned toward the burning wheat, and he made a tragic figure that
+wrung Kurt's heart.
+
+Jerry came running up. "Fire! Fire! Olsen's burnin'! Look! By all thet's
+dirty, them I.W.W.'s hev done it!... Kurt, we're in fer hell! Thet
+wind's blowin' straight this way."
+
+"Jerry, we'll fight till we drop," replied Kurt. "Tell the men and
+father to keep on searching for phosphorus cakes.... Jerry, you keep to
+the high ground. Watch for fires starting on our land. If you see one
+yell for us and make for it. Wheat burns slow till it gets started. We
+can put out fires if we're quick."
+
+"Kurt, there ain't no chance on earth fer us!" yelled Jerry, pale with
+anger. His big red hands worked. "If fire starts we've got to hev a lot
+of men.... By Gawd! if I ain't mad!"
+
+"Don't quit, Jerry," said Kurt, fiercely. "You never can tell. It looks
+hopeless. But we'll never give up. Hustle now!"
+
+Jerry shuffled off as old Dorn came haltingly, as if stunned, toward
+Kurt. But Kurt did not want to face his father at that moment. He needed
+to fight to keep up his own courage.
+
+"Never mind that!" yelled Kurt, pointing at Olsen's hill. "Keep looking
+for those damned pieces of phosphorus!"
+
+With that Kurt dove into the wheat, and, sweeping wide his arms to make
+a passage, he strode on, his eyes bent piercingly upon the ground close
+about him. He did not penetrate deeper into the wheat from the road than
+the distance he estimated a strong arm could send a stone. Almost at
+once his keen sight was rewarded. He found a cake of phosphorus half
+buried in the soil. It was dry, hard and hot either from the sun or its
+own generating power. That inspired Kurt. He hurried on. Long practice
+enabled him to slip through the wheat as a barefoot country boy could
+run through the corn-fields. And his passion gave him the eyes of a
+hunting hawk sweeping down over the grass. To and fro he passed within
+the limits he had marked, oblivious to time and heat and effort. And
+covering that part of the wheat-field bordering the road he collected
+twenty-seven cakes of phosphorus, the last few of which were so hot they
+burnt his hands.
+
+Then he had to rest. He appeared as wet as if he had been plunged into
+water; his skin burned, his eyes pained, his breast heaved. Panting and
+spent, he lay along the edge of the wheat, with closed eyelids and lax
+muscles.
+
+When he recovered he rose and went back along the road. The last quarter
+of the immense wheat-field lay upon a slope of a hill, and Kurt had to
+mount this before he could see the valley. From the summit he saw a
+sight that caused him to utter a loud exclamation. Many columns of smoke
+were lifting from the valley, and before him the sky was darkened.
+Olsen's hill was as if under a cloud. No flames showed anywhere, but in
+places the line of smoke appeared to be approaching.
+
+"It's a thousand to one against us," he said, bitterly, and looked at
+his watch. He was amazed to see that three hours had passed since he had
+given orders to the men. He hurried back to the house. No one was there
+except the old servant, who was wringing her hands and crying that the
+house would burn. Throwing the cakes of phosphorus into a
+watering-trough, Kurt ran into the kitchen, snatched a few biscuits, and
+then made for the fields, eating as he went.
+
+He hurried down a lane that bordered the big wheat-field. On this side
+was fallow ground for half the length of the section, and the other half
+was ripe barley, dry as tinder, and beyond that, in line with the
+burning fields, a quarter-section of blasted wheat. The men were there.
+Kurt saw at once that other men with horses and machines were also
+there. Then he recognized Olsen and two other of his neighbors. As he
+ran up he was equally astounded and out of breath, so that he could not
+speak. Old Dorn sat with gray head bowed on his hand.
+
+"Hello!" shouted Olsen. His grimy face broke into a hard smile. "Fires
+all over! Wheat's burnin' like prairie grass! Them chips of phosphorus
+are sure from hell!... We've come over to help."
+
+"You--did! You left--your fields!" gasped Kurt.
+
+"Sure. They're not much to leave. And we're goin' to save this section
+of yours or bust tryin'!... I sent my son in his car, all over, to hurry
+men here with horses, machines, wagons."
+
+Kurt was overcome. He could only wring Olsen's hand. Here was an answer
+to one of his brooding, gloomy queries. Something would be gained, even
+if the wheat was lost. Kurt had scarcely any hope left.
+
+"What's to be done?" he panted, hoarsely. In this extremity Olsen seemed
+a tower of strength. This sturdy farmer was of Anderson's breed, even if
+he was a foreigner. And he had fought fires before.
+
+"If we have time we'll mow a line all around your wheat," replied Olsen.
+
+"Reckon we won't have time," interposed Jerry, pointing to a smoke far
+down in the corner of the stunted wheat. "There's a fire startin'."
+
+"They'll break out all over," said Olsen, and he waved a couple of his
+men away. One had a scythe and the other a long pole with a wet burlap
+bag tied on one end. They hurried toward the little cloud of smoke.
+
+"I found a lot of cakes over along the road," declared Kurt, with a grim
+surety that he had done that well.
+
+"They've surrounded your wheat," returned Olsen. "But if enough men get
+here we'll save the whole section.... Lucky you've got two wells an'
+that watertank. We'll need all the water we can get. Keep a man pumpin'.
+Fetch all the bags an' brooms an' scythes. I'll post lookouts along this
+lane to watch for fires breakin' out in the big field. When they do
+we've got to run an' cut an' beat them out.... It won't be long till
+most of this section is surrounded by fire."
+
+Thin clouds of smoke were then blowing across the fields and the wind
+that carried them was laden with an odor of burning wheat. To Kurt it
+seemed to be the fragrance of baking bread.
+
+"How'd it be to begin harvestin'?" queried Jerry. "Thet wheat's ripe."
+
+"No combines should be risked in there until we're sure the danger's
+past," replied Olsen. "There! I see more of our neighbors comin' down
+the road. We're goin' to beat the I.W.W."
+
+That galvanized Kurt into action and he found himself dragging Jerry
+back to the barns. They hitched a team to a heavy wagon, in record time,
+and then began to load with whatever was available for fighting fire.
+They loaded a barrel, and with huge buckets filled it with water.
+Leaving Jerry to drive, Kurt rushed back to the fields. During his short
+absence more men, with horses and machines, had arrived; fire had broken
+out in the stunted wheat, and also, nearer at hand, in the barley. Kurt
+saw his father laboring like a giant. Olsen was taking charge, directing
+the men. The sky was obscured now, and all the west was thick with
+yellow smoke. The south slopes and valley floor were clouding. Only in
+the east, over the hill, did the air appear clear. Back of Kurt, down
+across the barley and wheat on the Dorn land, a line of fire was
+creeping over the hill. This was on the property adjoining Olsen's.
+Gremniger, the owner, had abandoned his own fields. At the moment he was
+driving a mower along the edge of the barley, cutting a nine-foot path.
+Men behind him were stacking the sheaves. The wind was as hot as if from
+a blast-furnace; the air was thick and oppressive; the light of day was
+growing dim.
+
+Kurt, mounted on the seat of one of the combine threshers, surveyed with
+rapid and anxious gaze all the points around him, and it lingered over
+the magnificent sweep of golden wheat. The wheat bowed in waves before
+the wind, and the silken rustle, heard above the confusion of yelling
+men, was like a voice whispering to Kurt. Somehow his dread lessened
+then and other emotions predominated. He saw more and more farmers
+arrive, in cars, in wagons, with engines and threshers, until the lane
+was lined with them and men were hurrying everywhere.
+
+Suddenly Kurt espied a slender column of smoke rising above the wheat
+out in front of him toward the highway. This was the first sign of fire
+in the great section that so many farmers had come to protect. Yelling
+for help, he leaped off the seat and ran with all his might toward the
+spot. Breasting that thick wheat was almost as hard as breasting waves.
+Jerry came yelling after him, brandishing a crude beater; and both of
+them reached the fire at once. It was a small circle, burning slowly.
+Madly Kurt rushed in to tear and stamp as if the little hissing flames
+were serpents. He burned his hands through his gloves and his feet
+through his boots. Jerry beat hard, accompanying his blows with profane
+speech plainly indicating that he felt he was at work on the I.W.W. In
+short order they put out this little fire. Returning to his post, Kurt
+watched until he was called to lend a hand down in the stunted wheat.
+
+Fire had crossed and had gotten a hold on Dorn's lower field. Here the
+wheat was blasted and so burned all the more fiercely. Horses and mowers
+had to be taken away to the intervening barley-field. A weird, smoky,
+and ruddy darkness enveloped the scene. Dim red fire, in lines and dots
+and curves, appeared on three sides, growing larger and longer, meeting
+in some places, crisscrossed by black figures of threshing men
+belaboring the flames. Kurt came across his father working like a
+mad-man. Kurt warned him not to overexert himself, and the father never
+heard. Now and then his stentorian yell added to the medley of cries and
+shouts and blows, and the roar of the wind fanning the flames.
+
+Kurt was put to beating fire in the cut wheat. He stood with flames
+licking at his boots. It was astonishing how tenacious the fire
+appeared, how it crept along, eating up the mowed wheat. All the men
+that could be spared there were unable to check it and keep it out of
+the standing grain. When it reached this line it lifted a blaze, flamed
+and roared, and burned like wildfire in grass. The men were driven back,
+threshing and beating, all to no avail. Kurt fell into despair. There
+was no hope. It seemed like an inferno.
+
+Flaring high, the light showed the black, violently agitated forms of
+the fighters, and the clouds of yellow smoke, coalescing and drifting,
+changing to dark and soaring high.
+
+Olsen had sent three mowers abreast down the whole length of the
+barley-field before the fire reached that line. It was a wise move, and
+if anything could do so it would save the day. The leaping flame, thin
+and high, and a mile long, curled down the last of the standing wheat
+and caught the fallen barley. But here its speed was checked. It had to
+lick a way along the ground.
+
+In desperation, in unabated fury, the little army of farmers and
+laborers, with no thought of personal gain, with what seemed to Kurt a
+wonderful and noble spirit, attacked this encroaching line of fire like
+men whose homes and lives and ideals had been threatened with
+destruction. Kurt's mind worked as swiftly as his tireless hands. This
+indeed was being in a front line of battle. The scene was weird, dark,
+fitful, at times impressive and again unreal. These neighbors of his,
+many of them aliens, some of them Germans, when put to this vital test,
+were proving themselves. They had shown little liking for the Dorns, but
+here was love of wheat, and so, in some way, loyalty to the government
+that needed it. Here was the answer of the Northwest to the I.W.W. No
+doubt if the perpetrators of that phosphorus trick could have been laid
+hold of then, blood would have been shed. Kurt sensed in the fierce
+energy, in the dark, grimy faces, shining and wet under the light, in
+the hoarse yell and answering shout, a nameless force that was finding
+itself and centering on one common cause.
+
+His old father toiled as ten men. That burly giant pushed ever in the
+lead, and his hoarse call and strenuous action told of more than a
+mercenary rage to save his wheat.
+
+Fire never got across that swath of cut barley. It was beaten out as if
+by a thousand men. Shadow and gloom enveloped the fighters as they
+rested where their last strokes had fallen. Over the hills faint
+reflection of dying flames lit up the dark clouds of smoke. The battle
+seemed won.
+
+Then came the thrilling cry: "Fire! Fire!"
+
+One of the outposts came running out of the dark.
+
+"Fire! the other side! Fire!" rang out Olsen's yell.
+
+Kurt ran with the gang pell-mell through the dark, up the barley slope,
+to see a long red line, a high red flare, and lifting clouds of ruddy
+smoke. Fire in the big wheat-field! The sight inflamed him, carried him
+beyond his powers, and all he knew was that he became the center of a
+dark and whirling melee encircled by living flames that leaped only to
+be beaten down. Whether that threshing chaos of fire and smoke and wheat
+was short or long was beyond him to tell but the fire was extinguished
+to the last spark.
+
+Walking back with the weary crowd, Kurt felt a clearer breeze upon his
+face. Smoke was not flying so thickly. Over the western hill, through a
+rift in the clouds, peeped a star. The only other light he saw twinkled
+far down the lane. It was that of a lantern. Dark forms barred it now
+and then. Slowly Kurt recovered his breath. The men were talking and
+tired voices rang with assurance that the fire was beaten.
+
+Some one called Kurt. The voice was Jerry's. It seemed hoarse and
+strained. Kurt could see the lean form of his man, standing in the light
+of the lantern. A small dark group of men, silent and somehow
+impressive, stood off a little in the shadow.
+
+"Here I am, Jerry," called Kurt, stepping forward. Just then Olsen
+joined Jerry.
+
+"Boy, we've beat the I.W.W.'s, but--but--" he began, and broke off
+huskily.
+
+"What's the matter?" queried Kurt, and a cold chill shot over him.
+
+Jerry plucked at his sleeve.
+
+"Your old man--your dad--he's overworked hisself," whispered Jerry.
+"It's tough.... Nobody could stop him."
+
+Kurt felt that the fulfilment of his icy, sickening dread had come.
+Jerry's dark face, even in the uncertain light, was tragic.
+
+"Boy, his heart went back on him--he's dead!" said Olsen, solemnly.
+
+Kurt pushed the kind hands aside. A few steps brought him to where,
+under the light of the lantern, lay his father, pale and still, with a
+strange softening of the iron cast of intolerance.
+
+"Dead!" whispered Kurt, in awe and horror. "Father! Oh, he's
+gone!--without a word--"
+
+Again Jerry plucked at Kurt's sleeve.
+
+"I was with him," said Jerry. "I heard him fall an' groan.... I had the
+light. I bent over, lifted his head.... An' he said, speaking English,
+'Tell my son--I was wrong!'... Then he died. An' thet was all."
+
+Kurt staggered away from the whispering, sympathetic foreman, out into
+the darkness, where he lifted his face in the thankfulness of a breaking
+heart.
+
+It had, indeed, taken the approach of death to change his hard old
+father. "Oh, he meant--that if he had his life to live over again--he
+would be different!" whispered Kurt. That was the one great word needed
+to reconcile Kurt to his father.
+
+The night had grown still except for the murmuring of the men. Smoke
+veiled the horizon. Kurt felt an intense and terrible loneliness. He was
+indeed alone in the world. A hard, tight contraction of throat choked
+back a sob. If only he could have had a word with his father! But no
+grief, nothing could detract from the splendid truth of his father's
+last message. In the black hours soon to come Kurt would have that to
+sustain him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+The bright sun of morning disclosed that wide, rolling region of the
+Bend to be a dreary, blackened waste surrounding one great wheat-field,
+rich and mellow and golden.
+
+Kurt Dorn's neighbor, Olsen, in his kind and matter-of-fact way, making
+obligation seem slight, took charge of Kurt's affairs, and made the
+necessary and difficult decisions. Nothing must delay the harvesting and
+transporting of the wheat. The women folk arranged for the burial of old
+Chris Dorn.
+
+Kurt sat and moved about in a gloomy kind of trance for a day and a
+half, until his father was laid to rest beside his mother, in the little
+graveyard on the windy hill. After that his mind slowly cleared. He kept
+to himself the remainder of that day, avoiding the crowd of harvesters
+camping in the yard and adjacent field; and at sunset he went to a
+lonely spot on the verge of the valley, where with sad eyes he watched
+the last rays of sunlight fade over the blackened hills. All these hours
+had seemed consecrated to his father's memory, to remembered acts of
+kindness and of love, of the relation that had gone and would never be
+again. Reproach and remorse had abided with him until that sunset hour,
+when the load eased off his heart.
+
+Next morning he went out to the wheat-field.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What a wonderful harvesting scene greeted Kurt Dorn! Never had its like
+been seen in the Northwest, nor perhaps in any other place. A huge pall
+of dust, chaff, and smoke hung over the vast wheat-field, and the air
+seemed charged with a roar. The glaring gold of the wheat-field appeared
+to be crisscrossed everywhere with bobbing black streaks of
+horses--bays, blacks, whites, and reds; by big, moving painted machines,
+lifting arms and puffing straw; by immense wagons piled high with
+sheaves of wheat, lumbering down to the smoking engines and the
+threshers that sent long streams of dust and chaff over the lifting
+straw-stacks; by wagons following the combines to pick up the plump
+brown sacks of wheat; and by a string of empty wagons coming in from the
+road.
+
+Olsen was rushing thirty combine threshers, three engine
+threshing-machines, forty wagon-teams, and over a hundred men well known
+to him. There was a guard around the field. This unprecedented harvest
+had attracted many spectators from the little towns. They had come in
+cars and on horseback and on foot. Olsen trusted no man on that field
+except those he knew.
+
+The wonderful wheat-field was cut into a thousand squares and angles and
+lanes and curves. The big whirring combines passed one another, stopped
+and waited and turned out of the way, leaving everywhere little patches
+and cubes of standing wheat, that soon fell before the onslaught of the
+smaller combines. This scene had no regularity. It was one of confusion;
+of awkward halts, delays, hurries; of accident. The wind blew clouds of
+dust and chaff, alternately clearing one space to cloud another. And a
+strange roar added the last heroic touch to this heroic field. It was
+indeed the roar of battle--men and horses governing the action of
+machinery, and all fighting time. For in delay was peril to the wheat.
+
+Once Kurt ran across the tireless and implacable Olsen. He seemed a man
+of dust and sweat and fury.
+
+"She's half cut an' over twenty thousand bushels gone to the railroad!"
+he exclaimed. "An' we're speedin' up."
+
+"Olsen, I don't get what's going on," replied Kurt. "All this is like a
+dream."
+
+"Wake up. You'll be out of debt an' a rich man in three days," added
+Olsen, and went his way.
+
+In the afternoon Kurt set out to work as he had never worked in his
+life. There was need of his strong hands in many places, but he could
+not choose any one labor and stick by it for long. He wanted to do all.
+It was as if this was not a real and wonderful harvest of his father's
+greatest wheat yield, but something that embodied all years, all
+harvests, his father's death, the lifting of the old, hard debt, the
+days when he had trod the fields barefoot, and this day when, strangely
+enough, all seemed over for him. Peace dwelt with him, yet no hope.
+Behind his calm he could have found the old dread, had he cared to look
+deeply. He loved these heroic workers of the fields. It had been given
+to him--a great task--to be the means of creating a test for them, his
+neighbors under a ban of suspicion; and now he could swear they were as
+true as the gold of the waving wheat. More than a harvest was this most
+strenuous and colorful of all times ever known in the Bend; it had a
+significance that uplifted him. It was American.
+
+First Kurt began to load bags of wheat, as they fell from the whirring
+combines, into the wagons. For his powerful arms a full bag, containing
+two bushels, was like a toy for a child. With a lift and a heave he
+threw a bag into a wagon. They were everywhere, these brown bags,
+dotting the stubble field, appearing as if by magic in the wake of the
+machines. They rolled off the platforms. This toil, because it was hard
+and heavy, held Kurt for an hour, but it could not satisfy his enormous
+hunger to make that whole harvest his own. He passed to pitching sheaves
+of wheat and then to driving in the wagons. From that he progressed to a
+seat on one of the immense combines, where he drove twenty-four horses.
+No driver there was any surer than Kurt of his aim with the little
+stones he threw to spur a lagging horse. Kurt had felt this when, as a
+boy, he had begged to be allowed to try his hand; he liked the shifty
+cloud of fragrant chaff, now and then blinding and choking him; and he
+liked the steady, rhythmic tramps of hooves and the roaring whir of the
+great complicated machine. It fascinated him to see the wide swath of
+nodding wheat tremble and sway and fall, and go sliding up into the
+inside of that grinding maw, and come out, straw and dust and chaff, and
+a slender stream of gold filling the bags.
+
+This day Kurt Dorn was gripped by the unknown. Some far-off instinct of
+future drove him, set his spiritual need, and made him register with his
+senses all that was so beautiful and good and heroic in the scene about
+him.
+
+Strangely, now and then a thought of Lenore Anderson entered his mind
+and made sudden havoc. It tended to retard action. He trembled and
+thrilled with a realization that every hour brought closer the meeting
+he could not avoid. And he discovered that it was whenever this memory
+recurred that he had to leave off his present task and rush to another.
+Only thus could he forget her.
+
+The late afternoon found him feeding sheaves of wheat to one of the
+steam-threshers. He stood high upon a platform and pitched sheaves from
+the wagons upon the sliding track of the ponderous, rattling
+threshing-machine. The engine stood off fifty yards or more, connected
+by an endless driving-belt to the thresher. Here indeed were whistle and
+roar and whir, and the shout of laborers, and the smell of smoke, sweat,
+dust, and wheat. Kurt had arms of steel. If they tired he never knew it.
+He toiled, and he watched the long spout of chaff and straw as it
+streamed from the thresher to lift, magically, a glistening,
+ever-growing stack. And he felt, as a last and cumulative change, his
+physical effort, and the physical adjuncts of the scene, pass into
+something spiritual, into his heart and his memory.
+
+The end of that harvest-time came as a surprise to Kurt. Obsessed with
+his own emotions, he had actually helped to cut the wheat and harvest
+it; he had seen it go swath by swath, he had watched the huge wagons
+lumber away and the huge straw-stacks rise without realizing that the
+hours of this wonderful harvest were numbered.
+
+Sight of Olsen coming in from across the field, and the sudden cessation
+of roar and action, made Kurt aware of the end. It seemed a calamity.
+But Olsen was smiling through his dust-caked face. About him were
+relaxation, an air of finality, and a subtle pride.
+
+"We're through," he said. "She tallies thirty-eight thousand, seven
+hundred an' forty-one bushels. It's too bad the old man couldn't live to
+hear that."
+
+Olsen gripped Kurt's hand and wrung it.
+
+"Boy, I reckon you ought to take that a little cheerfuller," he went on.
+"But--well it's been a hard time.... The men are leavin' now. In two
+hours the last wagons will unload at the railroad. The wheat will all be
+in the warehouse. An' our worry's ended."
+
+"I--I hope so," responded Kurt. He seemed overcome with the passionate
+longing to show his gratitude to Olsen. But the words would not flow.
+"I--I don't know how to thank you.... All my life--"
+
+"We beat the I.W.W.," interposed the farmer, heartily. "An' now what'll
+you do, Dorn?"
+
+"Why, I'll hustle to Kilo, get my money, send you a check for yourself
+and men, pay off the debt to Anderson, and then--"
+
+But Kurt did not conclude his speech. His last words were
+thought-provoking.
+
+"It's turned out well," said Olsen, with satisfaction, and, shaking
+hands again with Kurt, he strode back to his horses.
+
+At last the wide, sloping field was bare, except for the huge
+straw-stacks. A bright procession lumbered down the road, led by the
+long strings of wagons filled with brown bags. A strange silence had
+settled down over the farm. The wheat was gone. That waving stretch of
+gold had fallen to the thresher and the grain had been hauled away. The
+neighbors had gone, leaving Kurt rich in bushels of wheat, and richer
+for the hearty farewells and the grips of horny hands. Kurt's heart was
+full.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was evening. Kurt had finished his supper. Already he had packed a
+few things to take with him on the morrow. He went out to the front of
+the house. Stars were blinking. There was a low hum of insects from the
+fields. He missed the soft silken rustle of the wheat. And now it seemed
+he could sit there in the quiet darkness, in that spot which had been
+made sweet by Lenore Anderson's presence, and think of her, the meeting
+soon to come. The feeling abiding with him then must have been
+happiness, because he was not used to it. Without deserving anything, he
+had asked a great deal of fate, and, lo! it had been given him. All was
+well that ended well. He realized now the terrible depths of despair
+into which he had allowed himself to be plunged. He had been weak,
+wrong, selfish. There was something that guided events.
+
+He needed to teach himself all this, with strong and repeated force, so
+that when he went to give Lenore Anderson the opportunity to express her
+gratitude, to see her sweet face again, and to meet the strange, warm
+glance of her blue eyes, so mysterious and somehow mocking, he could be
+a man of restraint, of pride, like any American, like any other college
+man she knew. This was no time for a man to leave a girl bearing a
+burden of his unsolicited love, haunted, perhaps, by a generous reproach
+that she might have been a little to blame. He had told her the truth,
+and so far he had been dignified. Now let him bid her good-by, leaving
+no sorrow for her, and, once out of her impelling presence, let come
+what might come. He could love her then; he could dare what he had never
+dared; he could surrender himself to the furious, insistent sweetness of
+a passion that was sheer bliss in its expression. He could imagine
+kisses on the red lips that were not for him.
+
+A husky shout from somewhere in the rear of the house diverted Kurt's
+attention. He listened. It came again. His name! It seemed a strange
+call from out of the troubled past that had just ended. He hurried
+through the house to the kitchen. The woman stood holding a lamp,
+staring at Jerry.
+
+Jerry appeared to have sunk against the wall. His face was pallid, with
+drops of sweat standing out, with distorted, quivering lower jaw. He
+could not look at Kurt. He could not speak. With shaking hand he pointed
+toward the back of the house.
+
+Filled with nameless dread, Kurt rushed out. He saw nothing unusual,
+heard nothing. Rapidly he walked out through the yard, and suddenly he
+saw a glow in the sky above the barns. Then he ran, so that he could get
+an unobstructed view of the valley.
+
+The instant he obtained this he halted as if turned to stone. The valley
+was a place of yellow light. He stared. With the wheat-fields all
+burned, what was the meaning of such a big light? That broad flare had a
+center, low down on the valley floor. As he gazed a monstrous flame
+leaped up, lighting colossal pillars of smoke that swirled upward, and
+showing plainer than in day the big warehouse and lines of freight-cars
+at the railroad station, eight miles distant.
+
+"My God!" gasped Kurt. "The warehouse--my wheat--on fire!"
+
+Clear and unmistakable was the horrible truth. Kurt heard the roar of
+the sinister flames. Transfixed, he stood there, at first hardly able to
+see and to comprehend. For miles the valley was as light as at noonday.
+An awful beauty attended the scene. How lurid and sinister the red heart
+of that fire? How weird and hellish and impressive of destruction those
+black, mountain-high clouds of smoke! He saw the freight-cars disappear
+under this fierce blazing and smoking pall. He watched for what seemed
+endless moments. He saw the changes of that fire, swift and terrible.
+And only then did Kurt Dorn awaken to the full sense of the calamity.
+
+"All that work--Olsen's sacrifice--and the farmers'--my father's
+death--all for nothing!" whispered Kurt. "They only waited--those
+fiends--to fire the warehouse and the cars!"
+
+The catastrophe had fallen. The wheat was burning. He was ruined. His
+wheatland must go to Anderson. Kurt thought first and most poignantly of
+the noble farmers who had sacrificed the little in their wheat-fields to
+save the much in his. Never could he repay them.
+
+Then he became occupied with a horrible heat that seemed to have come
+from the burning warehouse to all his pulses and veins and to his heart
+and his soul.
+
+This fiendish work, as had been forecast, was the work of the I.W.W.
+Behind it was Glidden and perhaps behind him was the grasping, black
+lust of German might. Kurt's loss was no longer abstract or
+problematical. It was a loss so real and terrible that it confounded
+him. He shook and gasped and reeled. He wrung his hands and beat his
+breast while the tumult swayed him, the physical hate at last yielding
+up its significance. What then, was his great loss? He could not tell.
+The thing was mighty, like the sense of terror and loneliness in the
+black night. Not the loss for his farmer neighbors, so true in his hour
+of trial! Not the loss of his father, nor the wheat, nor the land, nor
+his ruined future! But it must be a loss, incalculable and
+insupportable, to his soul. His great ordeal had been the need, a
+terrible and incomprehensible need, to kill something intangible in
+himself. He had meant to do it. And now the need was shifted, subject to
+a baser instinct. If there was German blood in him, poisoning the very
+wells of his heart he could have spilled it, and so, whether living or
+dead, have repudiated the taint. That was now clear in his
+consciousness. But a baser spark had ignited all the primitive passion
+of the forebears he felt burning and driving within him. He felt no
+noble fire. He longed to live, to have a hundredfold his strength and
+fury, to be gifted with a genius for time and place and bloody deed, to
+have the war-gods set him a thousand opportunities, to beat with iron
+mace and cut with sharp bayonet and rend with hard hand--to kill and
+kill and kill the hideous thing that was German.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Kurt rushed back to the house. Encountering Jerry, he ordered him to run
+and saddle a couple of horses. Then Kurt got his revolver and a box of
+shells, and, throwing on his coat, he hurried to the barn. Jerry was
+leading out the horses. It took but short work to saddle them. Jerry was
+excited and talkative. He asked Kurt many questions, which excited few
+replies.
+
+When Kurt threw himself into the saddle Jerry yelled, "Which way?"
+
+"Down the trail!" replied Kurt, and was off.
+
+"Aw, we'll break our necks!" came Jerry's yell after him.
+
+Kurt had no fear of the dark. He knew that trail almost as well by night
+as by day. His horse was a mettlesome colt that had not been worked
+during the harvest, and he plunged down the dim, winding trail as if,
+indeed, to verify Jerry's fears. Presently the thin, pale line that was
+the trail disappeared on the burned wheat-ground. Here Kurt was at fault
+as to direction, but he did not slacken the pace for that. He heard
+Jerry pounding along in the rear, trying to catch up. The way the colt
+jumped ditches and washes and other obstructions proved his keen sight.
+Kurt let him go. And then the ride became both perilous and thrilling.
+
+Kurt could not see anything on the blackened earth. But he knew from the
+contour of the hills just about where to expect to reach the fence and
+the road. And he did not pull the horse too soon. When he found the gate
+he waited for Jerry, who could be heard calling from the darkness. Kurt
+answered him.
+
+"Here's the gate!" yelled Kurt, as Jerry came galloping up. "Good road
+all the way now!"
+
+"Lickity-cut then!" shouted Jerry to whom the pace had evidently
+communicated enthusiasm.
+
+The ride then became a race, with Kurt drawing ahead. Kurt could see the
+road, a broad, pale belt, dividing the blackness on either side; and he
+urged the colt to a run. The wind cut short Kurt's breath, beat at his
+ears, and roared about them. Closer and closer drew the red flare of the
+dying fire, casting long rays of light into Kurt's eyes.
+
+The colt was almost run out when he entered the circle of reddish flare.
+Kurt saw the glowing ruins of the elevators and a long, fiery line of
+box-cars burned to the wheels. Men were running and shouting round in
+front of the little railroad station, and several were on the roof with
+brooms and buckets. The freight-house had burned, and evidently the
+station itself had been on fire. Across the wide street of the little
+village the roof of a cottage was burning. Men were on top of it,
+beating the shingles. Hoarse yells greeted Kurt as he leaped out of the
+saddle. He heard screams of frightened women. On the other side of the
+burned box-cars a long, thin column of sparks rose straight upward. Over
+the ruins of the elevators hung a pall of heavy smoke. Just then Jerry
+came galloping up, his lean face red in the glow.
+
+"Thet you, Kurt! Say, the sons of guns are burnin' down the town." He
+leaped off. "Lemme have your bridle. I'll tie the hosses up. Find out
+what we can do."
+
+Kurt ran here and there, possessed by impotent rage. The wheat was gone!
+That fact gave him a hollow, sickening pang. He met farmers he knew.
+They all threw up their hands at sight of him. Not one could find a
+voice. Finally he met Olsen. The little wheat farmer was white with
+passion. He carried a gun.
+
+"Hello, Dorn! Ain't this hell? They got your wheat!" he said hoarsely.
+
+"Olsen! How'd it happen? Wasn't anybody set to guard the elevators?"
+
+"Yes. But the I.W.W.'s drove all the guards off but Grimm, an' they beat
+him up bad. Nobody had nerve enough to shoot."
+
+"Olsen, if I run into the Glidden I'll kill him," declared Kurt.
+
+"So will I.... But, Dorn, they're a hard crowd. They're over there on
+the side, watchin' the fire. A gang of them! Soon as I can get the men
+together we'll drive them out of town. There'll be a fight, if I don't
+miss my guess."
+
+"Hurry the men! Have all of them get their guns! Come on!"
+
+"Not yet, Dorn. We're fightin' fire yet. You an' Jerry help all you
+can."
+
+Indeed, it appeared there was danger of more than one cottage burning.
+The exceedingly dry weather of the past weeks had made shingles like
+tinder, and wherever a glowing spark fell on them there straightway was
+a smoldering fire. Water, a scarce necessity in that region, had been
+used until all wells and pumps became dry. It was fortunate that most of
+the roofs of the little village had been constructed of galvanized iron.
+Beating out blazes and glowing embers with brooms was not effective
+enough. When it appeared that the one cottage nearest the rain of sparks
+was sure to go, Kurt thought of the railroad watertank below the
+station. He led a number of men with buckets to the tank, and they soon
+drowned out the smoldering places.
+
+Meanwhile the blazes from the box-cars died out, leaving only the dull
+glow from the red heap that had once been the elevators. However, this
+gave forth light enough for any one to be seen a few rods distant.
+Sparks had ceased to fall, and from that source no further danger need
+be apprehended. Olsen had been going from man to man, sending those who
+were not armed home for guns. So it came about that half an hour after
+Kurt's arrival a score of farmers, villagers, and a few railroaders were
+collected in a group, listening to the pale-faced Olsen.
+
+"Men, there's only a few of us, an' there's hundreds, mebbe, in thet
+I.W.W. gang, but we've got to drive them off," he said, doggedly.
+"There's no tellin' what they'll do if we let them hang around any
+longer. They know we're weak in numbers. We've got to do some shootin'
+to scare them away."
+
+Kurt seconded Olsen in ringing voice.
+
+"They've threatened your homes," he said. "They've burned my
+wheat--ruined me. They were the death of my father.... These are facts
+I'm telling you. We can't wait for law or for militia. We've got to meet
+this I.W.W. invasion. They have taken advantage of the war situation.
+They're backed by German agents. It's now a question of our property.
+We've got to fight!"
+
+The crowd made noisy and determined response. Most of them had small
+weapons; a few had shot-guns or rifles.
+
+"Come on, men," called Olsen. "I'll do the talkin'. An' if I say shoot,
+why, you shoot!"
+
+It was necessary to go around the long line of box-cars. Olsen led the
+way, with Kurt just back of him. The men spoke but little and in
+whispers. At the left end of the line the darkness was thick enough to
+make objects indistinct.
+
+Once around the corner, Kurt plainly descried a big dark crowd of men
+whose faces showed red in the glow of the huge pile of embers which was
+all that remained of the elevators. They did not see Olsen's men.
+
+"Hold on," whispered Olsen. "If we get in a fight here we'll be in a bad
+place. We've nothin' to hide behind. Let's go off--more to the left--an'
+come up behind those freight-cars on the switches. That'll give us cover
+an' we'll have the I.W.W.'s in the light."
+
+So he led off to the left, keeping in the shadow, and climbed between
+several lines of freight-cars, all empty, and finally came out behind
+the I.W.W.'s. Olsen led to within fifty yards of them, and was halted by
+some observant member of the gang who sat with the others on top of a
+flat-car.
+
+This man's yell stilled the coarse talk and laughter of the gang.
+
+"What's that?" shouted a cold, clear voice with authority in it.
+
+Kurt thought he recognized the voice, and it caused a bursting, savage
+sensation in his blood.
+
+"Here's a bunch of farmers with guns!" yelled the man from the flat-car.
+
+Olsen halted his force near one of the detached lines of box-cars, which
+he probably meant to take advantage of in case of a fight.
+
+"Hey, you I.W.W.'s!" he shouted, with all his might.
+
+There was a moment's silence.
+
+"There's no I.W.W.'s here," replied the authoritative voice.
+
+Kurt was sure now that he recognized Glidden's voice. Excitement and
+anger then gave place to deadly rage.
+
+"Who are you?" yelled Olsen.
+
+"We're tramps watchin' the fire," came the reply.
+
+"You set that fire!"
+
+"No, we didn't."
+
+Kurt motioned Olsen to be silent, as with lifting breast he took an
+involuntary step forward.
+
+"Glidden, I know you!" he shouted, in hard, quick tones. "I'm Kurt Dorn.
+I've met you. I know your voice.... Take your gang--get out of here--or
+we'll kill you!"
+
+This pregnant speech caused a blank dead silence. Then came a white
+flash, a sharp report. Kurt heard the thud of a bullet striking some one
+near him. The man cried out, but did not fall.
+
+"Spread out an' hide!" ordered Olsen. "An' shoot fer keeps!"
+
+The little crowd broke and melted into the shadows behind and under the
+box-cars. Kurt crawled under a car and between the wheels, from which
+vantage-point he looked out. Glidden's gang were there in the red glow,
+most of them now standing. The sentry who had given the alarm still sat
+on top of the flat-car, swinging his legs. His companions, however, had
+jumped down. Kurt heard men of his own party crawling and whispering
+behind him, and he saw dim, dark, sprawling forms under the far end of
+the car.
+
+"Boss, the hayseeds have run off," called the man from the flat car.
+
+Laughter and jeers greeted this sally.
+
+Kurt concluded it was about time to begin proceedings. Resting his
+revolver on the side of the wheel behind which he lay, he took steady
+aim at the sentry, holding low. Kurt was not a good shot with a revolver
+and the distance appeared to exceed fifty yards. But as luck would have
+it, when he pulled trigger the sentry let out a loud bawl of terror and
+pain, and fell off the car to the ground. Flopping and crawling like a
+crippled chicken, he got out of sight below.
+
+Kurt's shot was a starter for Olsen's men. Four or five of the shot-guns
+boomed at once; then the second barrels were discharged, along with a
+sharper cracking of small arms. Pandemonium broke loose in Glidden's
+gang. No doubt, at least, of the effectiveness of the shot-guns! A
+medley of strange, sharp, enraged, and anguished cries burst upon the
+air, a prelude to a wild stampede. In a few seconds that lighted spot
+where the I.W.W. had grouped was vacant, and everywhere were fleeing
+forms, some swift, others slow. So far as Kurt could see, no one had
+been fatally injured. But many had been hurt, and that fact augured well
+for Olsen's force.
+
+Presently a shot came from some hidden enemy. It thudded into the wood
+of the car over Kurt. Some one on his side answered it, and a heavy
+bullet, striking iron, whined away into the darkness. Then followed
+flash here and flash there, with accompanying reports and whistles of
+lead. From behind and under and on top of cars opened up a fire that
+proved how well armed these so-called laborers were. Their volley
+completely drowned the desultory firing of Olsen's squad.
+
+Kurt began to wish for one of the shot-guns. It was this kind of weapon
+that saved Olsen's followers. There were a hundred chances to one of
+missing an I.W.W. with a single bullet, while a shot-gun, aimed fairly
+well, was generally productive of results. Kurt stopped wasting his
+cartridges. Some one was hurt behind his car and he crawled out to see.
+A villager named Schmidt had been wounded in the leg, not seriously, but
+bad enough to disable him. He had been using a double-barreled
+breech-loading shot-gun, and he wore a vest with rows of shells in the
+pockets across the front. Kurt borrowed gun and ammunition; and with
+these he hurried back to his covert, grimly sure of himself. At thought
+of Glidden he became hot all over, and this heat rather grew with the
+excitement of battle.
+
+With the heavy fowling-piece loaded, Kurt peeped forth from behind his
+protecting wheel and watched keenly for flashes or moving dark figures.
+The I.W.W. had begun to reserve their fire, to shift their positions,
+and to spread out, judging from a wider range of the reports. It looked
+as if they meant to try and surround Olsen's band. It was
+extraordinary--the assurance and deadly intent of this riffraff gang of
+tramp labor-agitators. In preceding years a crowd of I.W.W. men had been
+nothing to worry a rancher. Vastly different it seemed now. They acted
+as if they had the great war back of them.
+
+Kurt crawled out of his hiding-place, and stole from car to car, in
+search of Olsen. At last he found the rancher, in company with several
+men, peering from behind a car. One of his companions was sitting down
+and trying to wrap something round his foot.
+
+"Olsen, they're spreading out to surround us," whispered Kurt.
+
+"That's what Bill here just said," replied Olsen, nervously. "If this
+keeps up we'll be in a tight place. What'll we do, Dorn?"
+
+"We mustn't break and run, of all things," said Kurt. "They'd burn the
+village. Tell our men to save their shells.... If I only could get some
+cracks at a bunch of them together--with this big shot-gun!"
+
+"Say, we've been watchin' that car--the half-size one, there--next the
+high box-car," whispered Olsen.
+
+"It's full of them. Sometimes we see a dozen shots come from it, all at
+once."
+
+"Olsen, I've an idea," returned Kurt, excitedly. "You fellows keep
+shooting--attract their attention. I'll slip below, climb on top of a
+box-car, and get a rake-off at that bunch."
+
+"It's risky, Dorn," said Olsen, with hesitation. "But if you could get
+in a few tellin' shots--start that gang on the run!"
+
+"I'll try it," rejoined Kurt, and forthwith stole off back toward the
+shadow. It struck him that there was more light then when the attack
+began. The fire had increased, or perhaps the I.W.W. had started
+another; at any rate, the light was growing stronger, and likewise the
+danger greater. As he crossed an open space a bullet whizzed by him, and
+then another zipped by to strike up the gravel ahead. These were not
+random shots. Some one was aiming at him. How strange and rage-provoking
+to be shot at deliberately! What a remarkable experience for a young
+wheat farmer! Raising wheat in the great Northwest had assumed
+responsibilities. He had to run, and he was the more furious because of
+that. Another bullet, flying wide, hummed to his left before he gained
+the shelter of the farthest line of freight-cars. Here he hid and
+watched. The firing appeared to be all behind him, and, thus encouraged,
+he stole along to the end of the line of cars, and around. A bright
+blaze greeted his gaze. An isolated car was on fire. Kurt peered forth
+to make sure of his bearings, and at length found the high derrick by
+which he had marked the box-car that he intended to climb.
+
+He could see plainly, and stole up to his objective point, with little
+risk to himself until he climbed upon the box-car. He crouched low,
+almost on hands and knees, and finally gained the long shadow of a shed
+between the tracks. Then he ran past the derrick to the dark side of the
+car. He could now plainly see the revolver flashes and could hear the
+thud and spang of their bullets striking. Drawing a deep breath, Kurt
+climbed up the iron ladder on the dark side of the car.
+
+He had the same sensation that possessed him when he was crawling to get
+a pot-shot at a flock of wild geese. Only this was mightily more
+exciting. He did not forget the risk. He lay flat and crawled little by
+little. Every moment he expected to be discovered. Olsen had evidently
+called more of his men to his side, for they certainly were shooting
+diligently. Kurt heard a continuous return fire from the car he was
+risking so much to get a shot at. At length he was within a yard of the
+end of the car--as far as he needed to go. He rested a moment. He was
+laboring for breath, sweating freely, on fire with thrills.
+
+His plan was to raise himself on one knee and fire as many double shots
+as possible. Presently he lifted his head to locate the car. It was half
+in the bright light, half in the shadow, lengthwise toward him, about
+sixty or seventy yards distant, and full of men. He dropped his head,
+tingling all over. It was a disappointment that the car stood so far
+away. With fine shot he could not seriously injure any of the I.W.W.
+contingent, but he was grimly sure of the fright and hurt he could
+inflict. In his quick glance he had seen flashes of their guns, and many
+red faces, and dark, huddled forms.
+
+Kurt took four shells and set them, end up, on the roof of the car close
+to him. Then, cocking the gun, he cautiously raised himself to one knee.
+He discharged both barrels at once. What a boom and what a terrified
+outburst of yells! Swiftly he broke the gun, reloaded, fired as before,
+and then again. The last two shots were fired at the men piling
+frantically over the side of the car, yelling with fear. Kurt had heard
+the swishing pattering impact of those swarms of small shot. The I.W.W.
+gang ran pell-mell down the open track, away from Kurt and toward the
+light. As he reloaded the gun he saw men running from all points to join
+the gang. With an old blunderbuss of a shot-gun he had routed the I.W.W.
+It meant relief to Olsen's men; but Kurt had yet no satisfaction for the
+burning of his wheat, for the cruel shock that had killed his father.
+
+"Come on, Olsen!" he yelled, at the top of his lungs. "They're a lot of
+cowards!"
+
+Then in his wild eagerness he leaped off the car. The long jump landed
+him jarringly, but he did not fall or lose hold of the gun. Recovering
+his balance, he broke into a run. Kurt was fast on his feet. Not a young
+man of his neighborhood nor any of his college-mates could outfoot him
+in a race. And then these I.W.W. fellows ran like stiff-legged tramps,
+long unused to such mode of action. And some of them were limping as
+they ran. Kurt gained upon them. When he got within range he halted
+short and freed two barrels. A howl followed the report. Some of the
+fleeing ones fell, but were dragged up and on by companions. Kurt
+reloaded and, bounding forward like a deer, yelling for Olsen, he ran
+until he was within range, then stopped to shoot again. Thus he
+continued until the pursued got away from the circle of light. Kurt saw
+the gang break up, some running one way and some another. There were
+sheds and cars and piles of lumber along the track, affording places to
+hide. Kurt was halted by the discovery that he had no more ammunition.
+Panting, he stopped short, realizing that he had snapped an empty gun at
+men either too tired or too furious or too desperate to run any farther.
+
+"He's out of shells!" shouted a low, hard voice that made Kurt leap. He
+welcomed the rush of dark forms, and, swinging the gun round his head,
+made ready to brain the first antagonist who neared him. But some one
+leaped upon him from behind. The onslaught carried him to his knees.
+Bounding up, he broke the gun stock on the head of his assailant, who
+went down in a heap. Kurt tried to pull his revolver. It became
+impossible, owing to strong arms encircling him. Wrestling, he freed
+himself, only to be staggered by a rush of several men, all pouncing
+upon him at once. Kurt went down, but, once down, he heaved so
+powerfully that he threw off the whole crew. Up again, like a cat, he
+began to fight. Big and strong and swift, with fists like a
+blacksmith's, Kurt bowled over this assailant and that one. He thought
+he recognized Glidden in a man who kept out of his reach and who was
+urging on the others. Kurt lunged at him and finally got his hands on
+him. That was fatal for Kurt, because in his fury he forgot Glidden's
+comrades. In one second his big hand wrenched a yell of mortal pain out
+of Glidden; then a combined attack of the others rendered Kurt
+powerless. A blow on the head stunned him--made all dark.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+It seemed that Kurt did not altogether lose consciousness, for he had
+vague sensations of being dragged along the ground. Presently the
+darkness cleared from his mind and he opened his eyes. He lay on his
+back. Looking up, he saw stars through the thin, broken clouds of smoke.
+A huge pile of railroad ties loomed up beside him.
+
+He tried to take note of his situation. His hands were tied in front of
+him, not so securely, he imagined, that he could not work them free. His
+legs had not been tied. Both his head and shoulder, on the left side,
+pained him severely. Upon looking around, Kurt presently made out the
+dark form of a man. He appeared rigid with attention, but that evidently
+had no relation to Kurt. The man was listening and watching for his
+comrades. Kurt heard no voices or shots. After a little while, however,
+he thought he heard distant footsteps on the gravel. He hardly knew what
+to make of his predicament. If there was only one guard over him, escape
+did not seem difficult, unless that guard had a gun.
+
+"Hello, you!" he called.
+
+"Hello, yourself" replied the man, jerking up in evident surprise.
+
+"What's your name?" inquired Kurt, amiably.
+
+"Well, it ain't J.J. Hill or Anderson," came the gruff response.
+
+Kurt laughed. "But you would be one of those names if you could, now
+wouldn't you?" went on Kurt.
+
+"My name is Dennis," gloomily returned the man.
+
+"It certainly is. _That_ is the name of all I.W.W.'s," said Kurt.
+
+"Say, are you the fellow who had the shot-gun?"
+
+"I sure am," replied Kurt.
+
+"I ought to knock you on the head."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I'll have to eat standing up for a month."
+
+"Yes?" queried Kurt.
+
+"The seat of my pants must have made a good target, for you sure pasted
+it full of birdshot."
+
+Kurt smothered a laugh. Then he felt the old anger leap up. "Didn't you
+burn my wheat?"
+
+"Are you that young Dorn?"
+
+"Yes, I am," replied Kurt, hotly.
+
+"Well, I didn't burn one damn straw of your old wheat."
+
+"You didn't! But you're with these men? You're an I.W.W. You've been
+fighting these farmers here."
+
+"If you want to know, I'm a tramp," said the man, bitterly. "Years ago I
+was a prosperous oil-producer in Ohio. I had a fine oil-field. Along
+comes a big fellow, tries to buy me out, and, failing that, he shot off
+dynamite charges into the ground next my oil-field.... Choked my wells!
+Ruined me!... I came west--went to farming. Along comes a corporation,
+steals my water for irrigation--and my land went back to desert.... So I
+quit working and trying to be honest. It doesn't pay. The rich men are
+getting all the richer at the expense of the poor. So now I'm a tramp."
+
+"Friend, that's a hard-luck story," said Kurt. "It sure makes me
+think.... But I'll tell you what--you don't belong to this I.W.W.
+outfit, even if you are a tramp."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because you're American! That's why."
+
+"Well, I know I am. But I can be American and travel with a labor union,
+can't I?"
+
+"No. This I.W.W. is no labor union. It never was. Their very first rule
+is to abolish capital. They're anarchists. And now they're backed by
+German money. The I.W.W. is an enemy to America. All this hampering of
+railroads, destruction of timber and wheat, is an aid to Germany in the
+war. The United States is at war! My God! man, can't you see it's your
+own country that must suffer for such deals as this wheat-burning
+to-night?"
+
+"The hell you say!" ejaculated the man, in amaze.
+
+"This Glidden is a German agent--perhaps a spy. He's no labor leader.
+What does he care for the interests of such men as you?"
+
+"Young man, if you don't shut up you'll give me a hankering to go back
+to real work."
+
+"I hope I do. Let me give you a hunch. Throw down this I.W.W. outfit. Go
+to Ruxton and get Anderson of 'Many Waters' ranch to give you a job.
+Tell him who you are and that I sent you."
+
+"Anderson of 'Many Waters,' hey? Well, maybe it'll surprise you to know
+that Glidden is operating there, has a lot of men there, and is going
+there from here."
+
+"No, it doesn't surprise me. I hope he does go there. For if he does
+he'll get killed."
+
+"Sssssh!" whispered the guard. "Here comes some of the gang."
+
+Kurt heard low voices and soft footfalls. Some dark forms loomed up.
+
+"Bradford, has he come to yet?" queried the brutal voice of Glidden.
+
+"Nope," replied the guard. "I guess he had a hard knock. He's never
+budged."
+
+"We've got to beat it out of here," said Glidden. "It's long after
+midnight. There's a freight-train down the track. I want all the gang to
+board it. You run along, Bradford, and catch up with the others."
+
+"What're you going to do with this young fellow?" queried Bradford,
+curiously.
+
+"That's none of your business," returned Glidden.
+
+"Maybe not. But I reckon I'll ask, anyhow. You want me to join your
+I.W.W., and I'm asking questions. Labor strikes--standing up for your
+rights--is one thing, and burning wheat or slugging young farmers is
+another. Are you going to let this Dorn go?"
+
+Kurt could plainly see the group of five men, Bradford standing over the
+smaller Glidden, and the others strung and silent in the intensity of
+the moment.
+
+"I'll cut his throat," hissed Glidden.
+
+Bradford lunged heavily. The blow he struck Glidden was square in the
+face. Glidden would have had a hard fall but for the obstruction in the
+shape of his comrades, upon whom he was knocked. They held him up.
+Glidden sagged inertly, evidently stunned or unconscious. Bradford
+backed guardedly away out of their reach, then, wheeling, he began to
+run with heavy, plodding strides.
+
+Glidden's comrades seemed anxiously holding him up, peering at him, but
+no one spoke. Kurt saw his opportunity. With one strong wrench he freed
+his hands. Feeling in his pocket for his gun, he was disturbed to find
+that it had been taken. He had no weapon. But he did not hesitate.
+Bounding up, he rushed like a hurricane upon the unprepared group. He
+saw Glidden's pale face upheld to the light of the stars, and by it saw
+that Glidden was recovering. With all his might Kurt swung as he rushed,
+and the blow he gave the I.W.W. leader far exceeded Bradford's. Glidden
+was lifted so powerfully against one of his men that they both fell.
+Then Kurt, striking right and left, beat down the other two, and,
+leaping over them, he bounded away into the darkness. Shrill piercing
+yells behind him lent him wings.
+
+But he ran right into another group of I.W.W. men, dozens in number, he
+thought, and by the light of what appeared to be a fire they saw him as
+quickly as he saw them. The yells behind were significant enough. Kurt
+had to turn to run back, and he had to run the gauntlet of the men he
+had assaulted. They promptly began to shoot at Kurt. The whistle of lead
+was uncomfortably close. Never had he run so fleetly. When he flashed
+past the end of the line of cars, into comparative open, he found
+himself in the light of a new fire. This was a shed perhaps a score of
+rods or less from the station. Some one was yelling beyond this, and
+Kurt thought he recognized Jerry's voice, but he did not tarry to make
+sure. Bullets scattering the gravel ahead of him and singing around his
+head, and hoarse cries behind, with a heavy-booted tread of pursuers,
+gave Kurt occasion to hurry. He flew across the freight-yard, intending
+to distance his pursuers, then circle round the station to the village.
+
+Once he looked back. The gang, well spread out, was not far behind him,
+just coming into the light of the new fire. No one in it could ever
+catch him, of that Kurt was sure.
+
+Suddenly a powerful puff of air, like a blast of wind, seemed to lift
+him. At the same instant a dazzling, blinding, yellow blaze illuminated
+the whole scene. The solid earth seemed to rock under Kurt's flying
+feet, and then a terrific roar appalled him. He was thrown headlong
+through the air, and all about him seemed streaks and rays and bursts of
+fire. He alighted to plow through the dirt until the momentum of force
+had been expended. Then he lay prone, gasping and choking, almost blind,
+but sensitive to the rain of gravel and debris, the fearful cries of
+terrified men, taste of smoke and dust, and the rank smell of exploded
+gasoline.
+
+Kurt got up to grope his way through the murky darkness. He could escape
+now. If that explosion had not killed his pursuers it had certainly
+scared them off. He heard men running and yelling off to the left. A
+rumble of a train came from below the village. Finally Kurt got clear of
+the smoke, to find that he had wandered off into one of the fields
+opposite the station. Here he halted to rest a little and to take
+cognizance of his condition. It surprised him to find out that he was
+only bruised, scratched, and sore. He had expected to find himself full
+of bullets.
+
+"Whew! They blew up the gasoline-shed!" he soliloquized. "But some of
+them miscalculated, for if I don't lose my guess there was a bunch of
+I.W.W. closer to that gasoline than I was.... Some adventure!... I got
+another punch at Glidden. I felt it in my bones that I'd get a crack at
+him. Oh, for another!... And that Bradford! He did make me think. How he
+slugged Glidden! Good! Good! There's your old American spirit coming
+out."
+
+Kurt sat down to rest and to listen. He found he needed a rest. The only
+sound he heard was the rumbling of a train, gradually drawing away. A
+heavy smoke rose from the freight-yard, but there were no longer any
+blazes or patches of red fire. Perhaps the explosion had smothered all
+the flames.
+
+It had been a rather strenuous evening, he reflected. A good deal of
+satisfaction lay in the fact that he had severely punished some of the
+I.W.W. members, if he had not done away with any of them.
+
+When he thought of Glidden, however, he did not feel any satisfaction.
+His fury was gone, but in its place was a strong judgment that such men
+should be made examples. He certainly did not want to run across Glidden
+again, because if he did he would have blood on his hands.
+
+Kurt's chance meeting with the man Bradford seemed far the most
+interesting, if not thrilling, incident of the evening. It opened up a
+new point of view. How many of the men of that motley and ill-governed
+I.W.W. had grievances like Bradford's? Perhaps there were many. Kurt
+tried to remember instances when, in the Northwest wheat country,
+laborers and farmers had been cheated or deceived by men of large
+interests. It made him grave to discover that he could recall many such
+instances. His own father had long nursed a grievance against Anderson.
+Neuman, his father's friend, had a hard name. And there were many who
+had profited by the misfortune of others. That, after all, was a
+condition of life. He took it for granted, then, that all members of the
+I.W.W. were not vicious or dishonest. He was glad to have this proof.
+The I.W.W. had been organized by labor agitators, and they were the ones
+to blame, and their punishment should be severest. Kurt began to see
+where the war, cruel as it would be, was going to be of immeasurable
+benefit to the country.
+
+It amazed Kurt, presently, to note that dawn was at hand. He waited
+awhile longer, wanting to be sure not to meet any lingering members of
+the I.W.W. It appeared, indeed, that they had all gone.
+
+He crossed the freight-yard. A black ruin, still smoldering, lay where
+the elevators had been. That wonderful wheat yield of his had been
+destroyed. In the gray dawn it was hard to realize. He felt a lump in
+his throat. Several tracks were littered with the remains of burned
+freight-cars. When Kurt reached the street he saw men in front of the
+cottages. Some one hailed him, and then several shouted. They met him
+half-way. Jerry and Olsen were in the party.
+
+"We was pretty much scared," said Jerry, and his haggard face showed his
+anxiety.
+
+"Boy, we thought the I.W.W. had made off with you," added Olsen,
+extending his hand.
+
+"Not much! Where are they?" replied Kurt.
+
+"Gone on a freight-train. When Jerry blew up the gasoline-shed that
+fixed the I.W.W."
+
+"Jerry, did you do that?" queried Kurt.
+
+"I reckon."
+
+"Well, you nearly blew me off the map. I was running, just below the
+shed. When that explosion came I was lifted and thrown a mile. Thought
+I'd never light!"
+
+"So far as we can tell, nobody was killed," said Olsen. "Some of our
+fellows have got bullet-holes to nurse. But no one is bad hurt."
+
+"That's good. I guess we came out lucky," replied Kurt.
+
+"You must have had some fight, runnin' off that way after the I.W.W.'s.
+We heard you shootin' an' the I.W.W.'s yellin'. That part was fun. Tell
+us what happened to you."
+
+So Kurt had to narrate his experiences from the time he stole off with
+the big shot-gun until his friends saw him again. It made rather a long
+story, which manifestly was of exceeding interest to the villagers.
+
+"Dorn," said one of the men, "you an' Jerry saved this here village from
+bein' burned."
+
+"We all had a share. I'm sure glad they're gone. Now what damage was
+done?"
+
+It turned out that there had been little hurt to the property of the
+villagers. Some freight-cars full of barley, loaded and billed by the
+railroad people, had been burned, and this loss of grain would probably
+be paid for by the company. The loss of wheat would fall upon Kurt. In
+the haste of that great harvest and its transportation to the village no
+provision had been made for loss. The railroad company had not accepted
+his wheat for transportation, and was not liable.
+
+"Olsen, according to our agreement I owe you fifteen thousand dollars,"
+said Kurt.
+
+"Yes, but forget it," replied Olsen. "You're the loser here."
+
+"I'll pay it," replied Kurt.
+
+"But, boy, you're ruined!" ejaculated the farmer. "You can't pay that
+big price now. An' we don't expect it."
+
+"Didn't you leave your burning fields to come help us save ours?"
+queried Kurt.
+
+"Sure. But there wasn't much of mine to burn."
+
+"And so did many of the other men who came to help. I tell you, Olsen,
+that means a great deal to me. I'll pay my debt or--or--"
+
+"But how can you?" interrupted Olsen, reasonably. "Sometime, when you
+raise another crop like this year, then you could pay."
+
+"The farm will bring that much more than I owe Anderson."
+
+"You'll give up the farm?" exclaimed Olsen.
+
+"Yes. I'll square myself."
+
+"Dorn, we won't take that money," said the farmer, deliberately.
+
+"You'll have to take it. I'll send you a check soon--perhaps to-morrow."
+
+"Give up your land!" repeated Olsen. "Why, that's unheard of! Land in
+your family so many years!... What will you do?"
+
+"Olsen, I waited for the draft just on account of my father. If it had
+not been for him I'd have enlisted. Anyway, I'm going to war."
+
+That silenced the little group of grimy-faced men.
+
+"Jerry, get our horses and we'll ride home," said Kurt.
+
+The tall foreman strode off. Kurt sensed something poignant in the
+feelings of the men, especially Olsen. This matter of the I.W.W. dealing
+had brought Kurt and his neighbors closer together. And he thought it a
+good opportunity for a few words about the United States and the war and
+Germany. So he launched forth into an eloquent expression of some of his
+convictions. He was still talking when Jerry returned with the horses.
+At length he broke off, rather abruptly, and, saying good-by, he
+mounted.
+
+"Hold on, Kurt," called Olsen, and left the group to lay a hand on the
+horse and to speak low. "What you said struck me deep. It applies pretty
+hard to us of the Bend. We've always been farmers, with no thought of
+country. An' that's because we left our native country to come here. I'm
+not German an' I've never been for Germany. But many of my neighbors an'
+friends are Germans. This war never has come close till now. I know
+Germans in this country. They have left their fatherland an' they are
+lost to that fatherland!... It may take some time to stir them up, to
+make them see, but the day will come.... Take my word for it, Dorn, the
+German-Americans of the Northwest, when it comes to a pinch, will find
+themselves an' be true to the country they have adopted."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+The sun was up, broad and bright, burning over the darkened
+wheat-fields, when Kurt and Jerry reached home. Kurt had never seen the
+farm look like that--ugly and black and bare. But the fallow ground,
+hundreds of acres of it, billowing away to the south, had not suffered
+any change of color or beauty. To Kurt it seemed to smile at him, to bid
+him wait for another spring.
+
+And that thought was poignant, for he remembered he must leave at once
+for "Many Waters."
+
+He found, when he came to wash the blood and dirt from his person, that
+his bruises were many. There was a lump on his head, and his hands were
+skinned. After changing his clothes and packing a few things in a
+valise, along with his papers, he went down to breakfast. Though
+preoccupied in mind, he gathered that both the old housekeeper and Jerry
+were surprised and dismayed to see him ready to leave. He had made no
+mention of his intentions. And it struck him that this, somehow, was
+going to be hard.
+
+Indeed, when the moment came he found that speech was difficult and his
+voice not natural.
+
+"Martha--Jerry--I'm going away for good," he said, huskily. "I mean to
+make over the farm to Mr. Anderson. I'll leave you in charge here--and
+recommend that you be kept on. Here's your money up to date.... I'm
+going away to the war--and the chances are I'll never come back."
+
+The old housekeeper, who had been like a mother to him for many years,
+began to cry; and Jerry struggled with a regret that he could not speak.
+
+Abruptly Kurt left them and hurried out of the house. How strange that
+difficult feelings had arisen--emotions he had never considered at all!
+But the truth was that he was leaving his home forever. All was
+explained in that.
+
+First he went to the graves of his father and mother, out on the south
+slope, where there were always wind and sun. The fire had not desecrated
+the simple burying-ground. There was no grass. But a few trees and
+bushes kept it from appearing bare.
+
+Kurt sat down in the shade near his mother's grave and looked away
+across the hills with dim eyes. Something came to him--a subtle
+assurance that his mother approved of his going to war. Kurt remembered
+her--slow, quiet, patient, hard-working, dominated by his father.
+
+The slope was hot and still, with only a rustling of leaves in the wind.
+The air was dry. Kurt missed the sweet fragrance of wheat. What odor
+there was seemed to be like that of burning weeds. The great, undulating
+open of the Bend extended on three sides. His parents had spent the best
+of their lives there and had now been taken to the bosom of the soil
+they loved. It seemed natural. Many were the last resting-places of
+toilers of the wheat there on those hills. And surely in the long
+frontier days, and in the ages before, men innumerable had gone back to
+the earth from which they had sprung. The dwelling-places of men were
+beautiful; it was only life that was sad. In this poignant, revealing
+hour Kurt could not resist human longings and regrets, though he gained
+incalculable strength from these two graves on the windy slope. It was
+not for any man to understand to the uttermost the meaning of life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he left he made his way across some of the fallow land and some of
+the stubble fields that had yielded, alas! so futilely, such abundant
+harvest. His boyhood days came back to him, when he used to crush down
+the stubble with his bare feet. Every rod of the way revealed some
+memory. He went into the barn and climbed into the huge, airy loft. It
+smelled of straw and years of dust and mice. The swallows darted in and
+out, twittering. How friendly they were! Year after year they had
+returned to their nests--the young birds returning to the homes of the
+old. Home even for birds was a thing of first and vital importance.
+
+It was a very old barn that had not many more useful years to stand.
+Kurt decided that he would advise that it be strengthened. There were
+holes in the rough shingling and boards were off the sides. In the
+corners and on the rafters was an accumulation of grain dust as thick as
+snow. Mice ran in and out, almost as tame as the swallows. He seemed to
+be taking leave of them. He recalled that he used to chase and trap mice
+with all a boy's savage ingenuity. But that boyish instinct, along with
+so many things so potential then, was gone now.
+
+Best of all he loved the horses. Most of these were old and had given
+faithful service for many years. Indeed, there was one--Old Badge--that
+had carried Kurt when he was a boy. Once he and a neighbor boy had gone
+to the pasture to fetch home the cows. Old Badge was there, and nothing
+would do but that they ride him. From the fence Kurt mounted to his
+broad back. Then the neighbor boy, full of the devil, had struck Old
+Badge with a stick. The horse set off at a gallop for home with Kurt,
+frantically holding on, bouncing up and down on his back. That had been
+the ride of Kurt's life. His father had whipped him, too, for the
+adventure.
+
+How strangely vivid and thought-compelling were these ordinary adjuncts
+to his life there on the farm. It was only upon giving them up that he
+discovered their real meaning. The hills of bare fallow and of yellow
+slope, the old barn with its horses, swallows, mice, and odorous loft,
+the cows and chickens--these appeared to Kurt, in the illuminating light
+of farewell, in their true relation to him. For they, and the labor of
+them, had made him what he was.
+
+Slowly he went back to the old house and climbed the stairs. Only three
+rooms were there up-stairs, and one of these, his mother's, had not been
+opened for a long time. It seemed just the same as when he used to go to
+her with his stubbed toes and his troubles. She had died in that room.
+And now he was a man, going out to fight for his country. How strange!
+Why? In his mother's room he could not answer that puzzling question. It
+stung him, and with a last look, a good-by, and a word of prayer on his
+lips, he turned to his own little room.
+
+He entered and sat down on the bed. It was small, with the slope of the
+roof running down so low that he had learned to stoop when close to the
+wall. There was no ceiling. Bare yellow rafters and dark old shingles
+showed. He could see light through more than one little hole. The window
+was small, low, and without glass. How many times he had sat there,
+leaning out in the hot dusk of summer nights, dreaming dreams that were
+never to come true. Alas for the hopes and illusions of boyhood! So long
+as he could remember, this room was most closely associated with his
+actions and his thoughts. It was a part of him. He almost took it into
+his confidence as if it were human. Never had he become what he had
+dared to dream he would, yet, somehow, at that moment he was not
+ashamed. It struck him then what few belongings he really had. But he
+had been taught to get along with little.
+
+Living in that room was over for him. He was filled with unutterable
+sadness. Yet he would not have had it any different. Bigger, and
+selfless things called to him. He was bidding farewell to his youth and
+all that it related to. A solemn procession of beautiful memories passed
+through his mind, born of the nights there in that room of his boyhood,
+with the wind at the eaves and the rain pattering on the shingles. What
+strong and vivid pictures! No grief, no pain, no war could rob him of
+this best heritage from the past.
+
+He got up to go. And then a blinding rush of tears burned his eyes. This
+room seemed dearer than all the rest of his home. It was hard to leave.
+His last look was magnified, transformed. "Good-by!" he whispered, with
+a swelling constriction in his throat. At the head of the dark old
+stairway he paused a moment, and then with bowed head he slowly
+descended.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+An August twilight settled softly down over "Many Waters" while Lenore
+Anderson dreamily gazed from her window out over the darkening fields so
+tranquil now after the day's harvest toil.
+
+Of late, in thoughtful hours such as this, she had become conscious of
+strain, of longing. She had fought out a battle with herself, had
+confessed her love for Kurt Dorn, and, surrendering to the enchantment
+of that truth, had felt her love grow with every thought of him and
+every beat of a thrilling pulse. In spite of a longing that amounted to
+pain and a nameless dread she could not deny, she was happy. And she
+waited, with a woman's presaging sense of events, for a crisis that was
+coming.
+
+Presently she heard her father down-stairs, his heavy tread and hearty
+voice. These strenuous harvest days left him little time for his family.
+And Lenore, having lost herself in her dreams, had not, of late, sought
+him out in the fields. She was waiting, and, besides, his keen eyes, at
+once so penetrating and so kind, had confused her. Few secrets had she
+ever kept from her father.
+
+"Where's Lenore?" she heard him ask, down in the dining-room.
+
+"Lenorry's mooning," replied Kathleen, with a giggle.
+
+"Ah-huh? Well, whereabouts is she moonin'?" went on Anderson.
+
+"Why, in her room!" retorted the child. "And you can't get a word out of
+her with a crowbar."
+
+Anderson's laugh rang out with a jingle of tableware. He was eating his
+supper. Then Lenore heard her mother and Rose and Kathleen all burst out
+with news of a letter come that day from Jim, away training to be a
+soldier. It was Rose who read this letter aloud to her father, and
+outside of her swift, soft voice the absolute silence attested to the
+attention of the listeners. Lenore's heart shook as she distinguished a
+phrase here and there, for Jim's letter had been wonderful for her. He
+had gained weight! He was getting husky enough to lick his father! He
+was feeling great! There was not a boy in the outfit who could beat him
+to a stuffed bag of a German soldier! And he sure could make some job
+with that old bayonet! So ran Jim's message to the loved ones at home.
+Then a strange pride replaced the quake in Lenore's heart. Not now would
+she have had Jim stay home. She had sacrificed him. Something subtler
+than thought told her she would never see him again. And, oh, how dear
+he had become!
+
+Then Anderson roared his delight in that letter and banged the table
+with his fist. The girls excitedly talked in unison. But the mother was
+significantly silent. Lenore forgot them presently and went back to her
+dreaming. It was just about dark when her father called.
+
+"Lenore."
+
+"Yes, father," she replied.
+
+"I'm comin' up," he said, and his heavy tread sounded in the hall. It
+was followed by the swift patter of little feet. "Say, you kids go back.
+I want to talk to Lenore."
+
+"Daddy," came Kathleen's shrill, guilty whisper, "I was only in
+fun--about her mooning."
+
+The father laughed again and slowly mounted the stairs. Lenore reflected
+uneasily that he seldom came to her room. Also, when he was most
+concerned with trouble he usually sought her.
+
+"Hello! All in the dark?" he said, as he came in. "May I turn on the
+light?"
+
+Lenore assented, though not quite readily. But Anderson did not turn on
+the light. He bumped into things on the way to where she was curled up
+in her window-seat, and he dropped wearily into Lenore's big arm-chair.
+
+"How are you, daddy?" she inquired.
+
+"Dog tired, but feelin' fine," he replied. "I've got a meetin' at eight
+an' I need a rest. Reckon I'd like to smoke--an' talk to you--if you
+don't mind."
+
+"I'd sure rather listen to my dad than any one," she replied, softly.
+She knew he had come with news or trouble or need of help. He always
+began that way. She could measure his mood by the preliminaries before
+his disclosure. And she fortified herself.
+
+"Wasn't that a great letter from the boy?" began Anderson, as he lit a
+cigar. By the flash of the match Lenore got a glimpse of his dark and
+unguarded face. Indeed, she did well to fortify herself.
+
+"Fine!... He wrote it to me. I laughed. I swelled with pride. It sent my
+blood racing. It filled me with fight.... Then I sneaked up here to
+cry."
+
+"Ah-huh!" exclaimed Anderson, with a loud sigh. Then for a moment of
+silence the end of his cigar alternately paled and glowed. "Lenore, did
+you get any--any kind of a hunch from Jim's letter?"
+
+"I don't exactly understand what you mean," replied Lenore.
+
+"Did somethin'--strange an' different come to you?" queried Anderson,
+haltingly, as if words were difficult to express what he meant.
+
+"Why, yes--I had many strange feelings."
+
+"Jim's letter was just like he talks. But to me it said somethin' he
+never meant an' didn't know.... Jim will never come back!"
+
+"Yes, dad--I divined just that," whispered Lenore.
+
+"Strange about that," mused Anderson, with a pull on his cigar.
+
+And then followed a silence. Lenore felt how long ago her father had
+made his sacrifice. There did not seem to be any need for more words
+about Jim. But there seemed a bigness in the bond of understanding
+between her and her father. A cause united them, and they were sustained
+by unfaltering courage. The great thing was the divine spark in the boy
+who could not have been held back. Lenore gazed out into the darkening
+shadows. The night was very still, except for the hum of insects, and
+the cool air felt sweet on her face. The shadows, the silence, the
+sleeping atmosphere hovering over "Many Waters," seemed charged with a
+quality of present sadness, of the inexplicable great world moving to
+its fate.
+
+"Lenore, you haven't been around much lately," resumed Anderson. "Sure
+you're missed. An' Jake swears a lot more than usual."
+
+"Father, you told me to stay at home," she replied.
+
+"So I did. An' I reckon it's just as well. But when did you ever before
+mind me?"
+
+"Why, I always obey you," replied Lenore, with her low laugh.
+
+"Ah-huh! Not so I'd notice it.... Lenore, have you seen the big clouds
+of smoke driftin' over 'Many Waters' these last few days?"
+
+"Yes. And I've smelled smoke, too.... From forest fire, is it not?"
+
+"There's fire in some of the timber, but the wind's wrong for us to get
+smoke from the foot-hills."
+
+"Then where does the smoke come from?" queried Lenore, quickly.
+
+"Some of the Bend wheat country's been burned over."
+
+"Burned! You mean the wheat?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Oh! What part of the Bend?"
+
+"I reckon it's what you called young Dorn's desert of wheat."
+
+"Oh, what a pity!... Have you had word?"
+
+"Nothin' but rumors yet. But I'm fearin' the worst an' I'm sorry for our
+young friend."
+
+A sharp pain shot through Lenore's breast, leaving behind an ache.
+
+"It will ruin him!" she whispered.
+
+"Aw no, not that bad," declared Anderson, and there was a red streak in
+the dark where evidently he waved his cigar in quick, decisive action.
+"It'll only be tough on him an' sort of embarrassin' for me--an' you.
+That boy's proud.... I'll bet he raised hell among them I.W.W.'s, if he
+got to them." And Anderson chuckled with the delight he always felt in
+the Western appreciation of summary violence justly dealt.
+
+Lenore felt the rising tide of her anger. She was her father's daughter,
+yet always had been slow to wrath. That was her mother's softness and
+gentleness tempering the hard spirit of her father. But now her blood
+ran hot, beating and bursting about her throat and temples. And there
+was a leap and quiver to her body.
+
+"Dastards! Father, those foreign I.W.W. devils should be shot!" she
+cried, passionately. "To ruin those poor, heroic farmers! To ruin
+that--that boy! It's a crime! And, oh, to burn his beautiful field of
+wheat--with all his hopes! Oh, what shall I call that!"
+
+"Wal, lass, I reckon it'd take stronger speech than any you know,"
+responded Anderson. "An' I'm usin' that same."
+
+Lenore sat there trembling, with hot tears running down her cheeks, with
+her fists clenched so tight that her nails cut into her palms. Rage only
+proved to her how impotent she was to avert catastrophe. How bitter and
+black were some trials! She shrank with a sense of acute pain at thought
+of the despair there must be in the soul of Kurt Dorn.
+
+"Lenore," began Anderson, slowly--his tone was stronger, vibrant with
+feeling--"you love this young Dorn!"
+
+A tumultuous shock shifted Lenore's emotions. She quivered as before,
+but this was a long, shuddering thrill shot over her by that spoken
+affirmation. What she had whispered shyly and fearfully to herself when
+alone and hidden--what had seemed a wonderful and forbidden secret--her
+father had spoken out. Lenore gasped. Her anger fled as it had never
+been. Even in the dark she hid her face and tried to grasp the wild,
+whirling thoughts and emotions now storming her. He had not asked. He
+had affirmed. He knew. She could not deceive him even if she would. And
+then for a moment she was weak, at the mercy of contending tides.
+
+"Sure I seen he was in love with you," Anderson was saying. "Seen that
+right off, an' I reckon I'd not thought much of him if he hadn't
+been.... But I wasn't sure of you till the day Dorn saved you from
+Ruenke an' fetched you back. Then I seen. An' I've been waitin' for you
+to tell me."
+
+"There's--nothing--to tell," faltered Lenore.
+
+"I reckon there is," he replied. Leaning over, he threw his cigar out of
+the window and took hold of her.
+
+Lenore had never felt him so impelling. She was not proof against the
+strong, warm pressure of his hand. She felt in its clasp, as she had
+when a little girl, a great and sure safety. It drew her irresistibly.
+She crept into his arms and buried her face on his shoulder, and she had
+a feeling that if she could not relieve her heart it would burst.
+
+"Oh, d--dad," she whispered, with a soft, hushed voice that broke
+tremulously at her lips, "I--I love him!... I do love him.... It's
+terrible!... I knew it--that last time you took me to his home--when he
+said he was going to war.... And, oh, now you know!"
+
+Anderson held her tight against his broad breast that lifted her with
+its great heave. "Ah-huh! Reckon that's some relief. I wasn't so darn
+sure," said Anderson. "Has he spoken to you?"
+
+"Spoken! What do you mean?"
+
+"Has Dorn told you he loved you?"
+
+Lenore lifted her face. If that confession of hers had been relief to
+her father it had been more so to her. What had seemed terrible began to
+feel natural. Still, she was all intense, vibrating, internally
+convulsed.
+
+"Yes, he has," she replied, shyly. "But such a confession! He told it as
+if to explain what he thought was boldness on his part. He had fallen in
+love with me at first sight!... And then meeting me was too much for
+him. He wanted me to know. He was going away to war. He asked
+nothing.... He seemed to apologize for--for daring to love me. He asked
+nothing. And he has absolutely not the slightest idea I care for him."
+
+"Wal, I'll be dog-goned!" ejaculated Anderson. "What's the matter with
+him?"
+
+"Dad, he is proud," replied Lenore, dreamily. "He's had a hard struggle
+out there in his desert of wheat. They've always been poor. He imagines
+there's a vast distance between an heiress of 'Many Waters' and a farmer
+boy. Then, more than all, I think, the war has fixed a morbid trouble in
+his mind. God knows it must be real enough! A house divided against
+itself is what he called his home. His father is German. He is American.
+He worshiped his mother, who was a native of the United States. He has
+become estranged from his father. I don't know--I'm not sure--but I felt
+that he was obsessed by a calamity in his German blood. I divined that
+was the great reason for his eagerness to go to war."
+
+"Wal, Kurt Dorn's not goin' to war," replied her father. "I fixed that
+all right."
+
+An amazing and rapturous start thrilled over Lenore. "Daddy!" she cried,
+leaping up in his arms, "what have you done?"
+
+"I got exemption for him, that's what," replied Anderson, with great
+satisfaction.
+
+"Exemption!" exclaimed Lenore, in bewilderment.
+
+"Don't you remember the government official from Washington? You met him
+in Spokane. He was out West to inspire the farmers to raise more wheat.
+There are many young farmers needed a thousand times more on the
+wheat-fields than on the battle-fields. An' Kurt Dorn is one of them.
+That boy will make the biggest sower of wheat in the Northwest. I
+recommended exemption for Dorn. An' he's exempted an' doesn't know it."
+
+"Doesn't know! He'll _never_ accept exemption," declared Lenore.
+
+"Lass, I'm some worried myself," rejoined Anderson. "Reckon you've
+explained Dorn to me--that somethin' queer about him.... But he's
+sensible. He can be told things. An' he'll see how much more he's needed
+to raise wheat than to kill Germans."
+
+"But, father--suppose he _wants_ to kill Germans?" asked Lenore,
+earnestly. How strangely she felt things about Dorn that she could not
+explain.
+
+"Then, by George! it's up to you, my girl," replied her father, grimly.
+"Understand me. I've no sentiment about Dorn in this matter. One good
+wheat-raiser is worth a dozen soldiers. To win the war--to feed our
+country after the war--why, only a man like me knows what it 'll take!
+It means millions of bushels of wheat!... I've sent my own boy. He'll
+fight with the best or the worst of them. But he'd never been a man to
+raise wheat. All Jim ever raised is hell. An' his kind is needed now. So
+let him go to war. But Dorn must be kept home. An' that's up to Lenore
+Anderson."
+
+"Me!... Oh--how?" cried Lenore, faintly.
+
+"Woman's wiles, daughter," said Anderson, with his frank laugh. "When
+Dorn comes let me try to show him his duty. The Northwest can't spare
+young men like him. He'll see that. If he has lost his wheat he'll come
+down here to make me take the land in payment of the debt. I'll accept
+it. Then he'll say he's goin' to war, an' then I'll say he ain't....
+We'll have it out. I'll offer him such a chance here an' in the Bend
+that he'd have to be crazy to refuse. But if he has got a twist in his
+mind--if he thinks he's got to go out an' kill Germans--then you'll have
+to change him."
+
+"But, dad, how on earth can I do that?" implored Lenore, distracted
+between hope and joy and fear.
+
+"You're a woman now. An' women are in this war up to their eyes. You'll
+be doin' more to keep him home than if you let him go. He's moony about
+you. You can make him stay. An' it's your future--your happiness....
+Child, no Anderson ever loves twice."
+
+"I cannot throw myself into his arms," whispered Lenore, very low.
+
+"Reckon I didn't mean you to," returned Anderson, gruffly.
+
+"Then--if--if he does not ask me to--to marry him--how can I--"
+
+"Lenore, no man on earth could resist you if you just let yourself be
+sweet--as sweet as you are sometimes. Dorn could never leave you!"
+
+"I'm not so sure of that, daddy," she murmured.
+
+"Then take my word for it," he replied, and he got up from the chair,
+though still holding her. "I'll have to go now.... But I've shown my
+hand to you. Your happiness is more to me than anythin' else in this
+world. You love that boy. He loves you. An' I never met a finer lad!
+Wal, here's the point. He need be no slacker to stay home. He can do
+more good here. Then outside of bein' a wheat man for his army an' his
+country he can be one for me. I'm growin' old, my lass!... Here's the
+biggest ranch in Washington to look after, an' I want Kurt Dorn to look
+after it.... Now, Lenore, do we understand each other?"
+
+She put her arms around his neck. "Dear old daddy, you're the
+wonderfulest father any girl ever had! I would do my best--I would obey
+even if I did not love Kurt Dorn.... To hear you speak so of him--oh,
+its sweet! It--chokes me!... Now, good-night.... Hurry, before I--"
+
+She kissed him and gently pushed him out of the room. Then before the
+sound of his slow footfalls had quite passed out of hearing she lay
+prone upon her bed, her face buried in the pillow, her hands clutching
+the coverlet, utterly surrendered to a breaking storm of emotion.
+Terrible indeed had come that presaged crisis of her life. Love of her
+wild brother Jim, gone to atone forever for the errors of his youth;
+love of her father, confessing at last the sad fear that haunted him;
+love of Dorn, that stalwart clear-eyed lad who set his face so bravely
+toward a hopeless, tragic fate--these were the burden of the flood of
+her passion, and all they involved, rushing her from girlhood into
+womanhood, calling to her with imperious desires, with deathless
+loyalty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+After Lenore's paroxysm of emotion had subsided and she lay quietly in
+the dark, she became aware of soft, hurried footfalls passing along the
+path below her window. At first she paid no particular heed to them, but
+at length the steady steps became so different in number, and so regular
+in passing every few moments, that she was interested to go to her
+window and look out. Watching there awhile, she saw a number of men,
+whispering and talking low, come from the road, pass under her window,
+and disappear down the path into the grove. Then no more came. Lenore
+feared at first these strange visitors might be prowling I.W.W. men. She
+concluded, however, that they were neighbors and farm-hands, come for
+secret conference with her father.
+
+Important events were pending, and her father had not taken her into his
+confidence! It must be, then, something that he did not wish her to
+know. Only a week ago, when the I.W.W. menace had begun to be serious,
+she had asked him how he intended to meet it, and particularly how he
+would take sure measures to protect himself. Anderson had laughed down
+her fears, and Lenore, absorbed in her own tumult, had been easily
+satisfied. But now, with her curiosity there returned a two-fold dread.
+
+She put on a cloak and went down-stairs. The hour was still early. She
+heard the girls with her mother in the sitting-room. As Lenore slipped
+out she encountered Jake. He appeared to loom right out of the darkness
+and he startled her.
+
+"Howdy, Miss Lenore!" he said. "Where might you be goin'?"
+
+"Jake, I'm curious about the men I heard passing by my window," she
+replied. Then she observed that Jake had a rifle under his arm, and she
+added, "What are you doing with that gun?"
+
+"Wal, I've sort of gone back to packin' a Winchester," replied Jake.
+
+Lenore missed his smile, ever ready for her. Jake looked somber.
+
+"You're on guard!" she exclaimed.
+
+"I reckon. There's four of us boys round the house. You're not goin' off
+thet step, Miss Lenore."
+
+"Oh, ah-huh!" replied Lenore, imitating her father, and bantering Jake,
+more for the fun of it than from any intention of disobeying him. "Who's
+going to keep me from it?"
+
+"I am. Boss's orders, Miss Lenore. I'm dog-gone sorry. But you sure
+oughtn't to be outdoors this far," replied Jake.
+
+"Look here, my cowboy dictator. I'm going to see where those men went,"
+said Lenore, and forthwith she stepped down to the path.
+
+Then Jake deliberately leaned his rifle against a post and, laying hold
+of her with no gentle hands, he swung her in one motion back upon the
+porch. The broad light streaming out of the open door showed that,
+whatever his force meant, it had paled his face to exercise it.
+
+"Why, Jake--to handle me that way!" cried Lenore, in pretended reproach.
+She meant to frighten or coax the truth out of him. "You hurt me!"
+
+"I'm beggin' your pardon if I was rough," said Jake. "Fact is, I'm a
+little upset an' I mean bizness."
+
+Whereupon Lenore stepped back to close the door, and then, in the
+shadow, she returned to Jake and whispered: "I was only in fun. I would
+not think of disobeying you. But you can trust me. I'll not tell, and
+I'll worry less if I know what's what.... Jake, is father in danger?"
+
+"I reckon. But the best we could do was to make him stand fer a guard.
+There's four of us cowpunchers with him all day, an' at night he's
+surrounded by guards. There ain't much chance of his gittin' hurt. So
+you needn't worry about thet."
+
+"Who are these men I heard passing? Where are they from?"
+
+"Farmers, ranchers, cowboys, from all over this side of the river."
+
+"There must have been a lot of them," said Lenore, curiously.
+
+"Reckon you never heerd the quarter of what's come to attend Anderson's
+meetin'."
+
+"What for? Tell me, Jake."
+
+The cowboy hesitated. Lenore heard his big hand slap round the
+rifle-stock.
+
+"We've orders not to tell thet," he replied.
+
+"But, Jake, you can tell _me_. You always tell me secrets. I'll not
+breathe it."
+
+Jake came closer to her, and his tall head reached to a level with hers,
+where she stood on the porch. Lenore saw his dark, set face, his
+gleaming eyes.
+
+"Wal, it's jest this here," he whispered, hoarsely. "Your dad has
+organized vigilantes, like he belonged to in the early days.... An' it's
+the vigilantes thet will attend to this I.W.W. outfit."
+
+Those were thrilling words to Jake, as was attested by his emotion, and
+they surely made Lenore's knees knock together. She had heard many
+stories from her father of that famous old vigilante band, secret,
+making the law where there was no law.
+
+"Oh, I might have expected that of dad!" she murmured.
+
+"Wal, it's sure the trick out here. An' your father's the man to deal
+it. There'll be dog-goned little wheat burned in this valley, you can
+gamble on thet."
+
+"I'm glad. I hate the very thought.... Jake, you know about Mr. Dorn's
+misfortune?"
+
+"No, I ain't heerd about him. But I knowed the Bend was burnin' over,
+an' of course I reckoned Dorn would lose his wheat. Fact is, he had the
+only wheat up there worth savin' ... Wal, these I.W.W.'s an' their
+German bosses hev put it all over the early days when rustlin' cattle,
+holdin' up stage-coaches, an' jest plain cussedness was stylish."
+
+"Jake, I'd rather have lived back in the early days," mused Lenore.
+
+"Me too, though I ain't no youngster," he replied. "Reckon you'd better
+go in now, Miss Lenore.... Don't you worry none or lose any sleep."
+
+Lenore bade the cowboy good-night and went to the sitting-room. Her
+mother sat preoccupied, with sad and thoughtful face. Rose was writing
+many pages to Jim. Kathleen sat at the table, surreptitiously eating
+while she was pretending to read.
+
+"My, but you look funny, Lenorry!" she cried.
+
+"Why don't you laugh, then?" retorted Lenore.
+
+"You're white. Your eyes are big and purple. You look like a starved
+cannibal.... If that's what it's like to be in love--excuse me--I'll
+never fall for any man!"
+
+"You ought to be in bed. Mother I recommend the baby of the family be
+sent up-stairs."
+
+"Yes, child, it's long past your bedtime," said Mrs. Anderson.
+
+"Aw, no!" wailed Kathleen.
+
+"Yes," ordered her mother.
+
+"But you'd never thought of it--if Lenorry hadn't said so," replied
+Kathleen.
+
+"You should obey Lenore," reprovingly said Mrs. Anderson.
+
+"What? Me! Mind her!" burst out Kathleen, hotly, as she got up to go.
+"Well, I guess not!" Kathleen backed to the door and opened it. Then
+making a frightful face at Lenore, most expressive of ridicule and
+revenge, she darted up-stairs.
+
+"My dear, will you write to your brother?" inquired Mrs. Anderson.
+
+"Yes," replied Lenore. "I'll send mine with Rose's."
+
+Mrs. Anderson bade the girls good-night and left the room. After that
+nothing was heard for a while except the scratching of pens.
+
+It was late when Lenore retired, yet she found sleep elusive. The
+evening had made subtle, indefinable changes in her. She went over in
+mind all that had been said to her and which she felt, with the result
+that one thing remained to torment and perplex and thrill her--to keep
+Kurt Dorn from going to war.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next day Lenore did not go out to the harvest fields. She expected Dorn
+might arrive at any time, and she wanted to be there when he came. Yet
+she dreaded the meeting. She had to keep her hands active that day, so
+in some measure to control her mind. A thousand times she felt herself
+on the verge of thrilling and flushing. Her fancy and imagination seemed
+wonderfully active. The day was more than usually golden, crowned with
+an azure blue, like the blue of the Pacific. She worked in her room,
+helped her mother, took up her knitting, and sewed upon a dress, and
+even lent a hand in the kitchen. But action could not wholly dull the
+song in her heart. She felt unutterably young, as if life had just
+opened, with haunting, limitless, beautiful possibilities. Never had the
+harvest-time been so sweet.
+
+Anderson came in early from the fields that day. He looked like a
+farm-hand, with his sweaty shirt, his dusty coat, his begrimed face. And
+when he kissed Lenore he left a great smear on her cheek.
+
+"That's a harvest kiss, my lass," he said, with his big laugh. "Best of
+the whole year!"
+
+"It sure is, dad," she replied. "But I'll wait till you wash your face
+before I return it. How's the harvest going?"
+
+"We had trouble to-day," he said.
+
+"What happened?"
+
+"Nothin' much, but it was annoyin'. We had some machines crippled, an'
+it took most of the day to fix them.... We've got a couple of hundred
+hands at work. Some of them are I.W.W.'s, that's sure. But they all
+swear they are not an' we have no way to prove it. An' we couldn't catch
+them at their tricks.... All the same, we've got half your big
+wheat-field cut. A thousand acres, Lenore!... Some of the wheat 'll go
+forty bushels to the acre, but mostly under that."
+
+"Better than last harvest," Lenore replied, gladly. "We are lucky....
+Father, did you hear any news from the Bend?"
+
+"Sure did," he replied, and patted her head. "They sent me a message up
+from Vale.... Young Dorn wired from Kilo he'd be here to-day."
+
+"To-day!" echoed Lenore, and her heart showed a tendency to act
+strangely.
+
+"Yep. He'll be here soon," said Anderson, cheerfully. "Tell your mother.
+Mebbe he'll come for supper. An' have a room ready for him."
+
+"Yes, father," replied Lenore.
+
+"Wal, if Dorn sees you as you look now--sleeves rolled up, apron on,
+flour on your nose--a regular farmer girl--an' sure huggable, as Jake
+says--you won't have no trouble winnin' him."
+
+"How you talk!" exclaimed Lenore, with burning cheeks. She ran to her
+room and made haste to change her dress.
+
+But Dorn did not arrive in time for supper. Eight o'clock came without
+his appearing, after which, with keen disappointment, Lenore gave up
+expecting him that night. She was in her father's study, helping him
+with the harvest notes and figures, when Jake knocked and entered.
+
+"Dorn's here," he announced.
+
+"Good. Fetch him in," replied Anderson.
+
+"Father, I--I'd rather go," whispered Lenore.
+
+"You stay right along by your dad," was his reply, "an' be a real
+Anderson."
+
+When Lenore heard Dorn's step in the hall the fluttering ceased in her
+heart and she grew calm. How glad she would be to see him! It had been
+the suspense of waiting that had played havoc with her feelings.
+
+Then Dorn entered with Jake. The cowboy set down a bag and went out. He
+seemed strange to Lenore and very handsome in his gray flannel suit.
+
+As he stepped forward in greeting Lenore saw how white he was, how
+tragic his eyes. There had come a subtle change in his face. It hurt
+her.
+
+"Miss Anderson, I'm glad to see you," he said, and a flash of red
+stained his white cheeks. "How are you?"
+
+"Very well, thank you," she replied, offering her hand. "I'm glad to see
+you."
+
+They shook hands, while Anderson boomed out: "Hello, son! I sure am glad
+to welcome you to 'Many Waters.'"
+
+No doubt as to the rancher's warm and hearty greeting! It warmed some of
+the coldness out of Dorn's face.
+
+"Thank you. It's good to come--yet it's--it's hard."
+
+Lenore saw his throat swell. His voice seemed low and full of emotion.
+
+"Bad news to tell," said Anderson. "Wal, forget it.... Have you had
+supper?"
+
+"Yes. At Huntington. I'd have been here sooner, but we punctured a tire.
+My driver said the I.W.W. was breaking bottles on the roads."
+
+"I.W.W. Now where'd I ever hear that name?" asked Anderson, quizzically.
+"Bustin' bottles, hey! Wal, they'll be bustin' their heads presently....
+Sit down, Dorn. You look fine, only you're sure pale."
+
+"I lost my father," said Dorn.
+
+"What! Your old man? Dead?... Aw, that's tough!"
+
+Lenore felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to go to Dorn. "Oh, I'm
+sorry!" she said.
+
+"That is a surprise," went on Anderson, rather huskily. "My Lord! But
+it's only round the corner for every man.... Come on, tell us all about
+it, an' the rest of the bad news.... Get it over. Then, mebbe Lenore n'
+me--"
+
+But Anderson did not conclude his last sentence.
+
+Dorn's face began to work as he began to talk, and his eyes were dark
+and deep, burning with gloom.
+
+"Bad news it is, indeed.... Mr. Anderson, the I.W.W. marked us....
+You'll remember your suggestion about getting my neighbors to harvest
+our wheat in a rush. I went all over, and almost all of them came. We
+had been finding phosphorus everywhere. Then, on the hot day, fires
+broke out all around. My neighbors left their own burning fields to save
+ours. We fought fire. We fought fire all around us, late into the
+night.... My father had grown furious, maddened at the discovery of how
+he had been betrayed by Glidden. You remember the--the plot, in which
+some way my father was involved. He would not believe the I.W.W. meant
+to burn _his_ wheat. And when the fires broke out he worked like a
+mad-man.... It killed him!... I was not with him when he died. But
+Jerry, our foreman was.... And my father's last words were, 'Tell my son
+I was wrong.'... Thank God he sent me that message! I think in that he
+confessed the iniquity of the Germans.... Well, my neighbor, Olsen,
+managed the harvest. He sure rushed it. I'd have given a good deal for
+you and Miss Anderson to have seen all those big combines at work on one
+field. It was great. We harvested over thirty-eight thousand bushels and
+got all the wheat safely to the elevators at the station.... And that
+night the I.W.W. burned the elevators!"
+
+Anderson's face turned purple. He appeared about to explode. There was a
+deep rumbling within his throat that Lenore knew to be profanity
+restrained on account of her presence. As for her own feelings, they
+were a strange mixture of sadness for Dorn and pride in her father's
+fury, and something unutterably sweet in the revelation about to be made
+to this unfortunate boy. But she could not speak a word just then, and
+it appeared that her father was in the same state.
+
+Evidently the telling of his story had relieved Dorn. The strain relaxed
+in his white face and it lost a little of its stern fixity. He got up
+and, opening his bag, he took out some papers.
+
+"Mr. Anderson, I'd like to settle all this right now," he said. "I want
+it off my mind."
+
+"Go ahead, son, an' settle," replied Anderson, thickly. He heaved a big
+sigh and then sat down, fumbling for a match to light his cigar. When he
+got it lighted he drew in a big breath and with it manifestly a great
+draught of consoling smoke.
+
+"I want to make over the--the land--in fact, all the property--to
+you--to settle mortgage and interest," went on Dorn, earnestly, and then
+paused.
+
+"All right. I expected that," returned Anderson, as he emitted a cloud
+of smoke.
+
+"The only thing is--" here Dorn hesitated, evidently with difficult
+speech--"the property is worth more than the debt."
+
+"Sure. I know," said Anderson, encouragingly.
+
+"I promised our neighbors big money to harvest our wheat. You remember
+you told me to offer it. Well, they left their own wheat and barley
+fields to burn, and they saved ours. And then they harvested it and
+hauled it to the railroad.... I owe Andrew Olsen fifteen thousand
+dollars for himself and the men who worked with him.... If I could pay
+that--I'd--almost be happy.... Do you think my property is worth that
+much more than the debt?"
+
+"I think it is--just about," replied Anderson. "We'll mail the money to
+Olsen.... Lenore, write out a check to Andrew Olsen for fifteen
+thousand."
+
+Lenore's hand trembled as she did as her father directed. It was the
+most poorly written check she had ever drawn. Her heart seemed too big
+for her breast just then. How cool and calm her father was! Never had
+she loved him quite so well as then. When she looked up from her task it
+was to see a change in Kurt Dorn that suddenly dimmed her eyes.
+
+"There, send this to Olsen," said Anderson. "We'll run into town in a
+day or so an' file the papers."
+
+Lenore had to turn her gaze away from Dorn. She heard him in broken,
+husky accents try to express his gratitude.
+
+"Ah-huh! Sure--sure!" interrupted Anderson, hastily. "Now listen to me.
+Things ain't so bad as they look.... For instance, we're goin' to fool
+the I.W.W. down here in the valley."
+
+"How can you? There are so many," returned Dorn.
+
+"You'll see. We're just waitin' a chance."
+
+"I saw hundreds of I.W.W. men between her and Kilo."
+
+"Can you tell an I.W.W. from any other farm-hand?" asked Anderson.
+
+"Yes, I can," replied Dorn, grimly.
+
+"Wal, I reckon we need you round here powerful much," said the rancher,
+dryly. "Dorn, I've got a big proposition to put up to you."
+
+Lenore, thrilling at her father's words, turned once more. Dorn appeared
+more composed.
+
+"Have you?" he inquired, in surprise.
+
+"Sure. But there's no hurry about tellin' you. Suppose we put it off."
+
+"I'd rather hear it now. My stay here must be short. I--I--You know--"
+
+"Hum! Sure I know.... Wal then, it's this: Will you go in business with
+me? Want you to work that Bend wheat-farm of yours for me--on half
+shares.... More particular I want you to take charge of 'Many Waters.'
+You see, I'm--not so spry as I used to be. It's a big job, an' I've a
+lot of confidence in you. You'll live here, of course, an' run to an'
+fro with one of my cars. I've some land-development schemes--an', to cut
+it short, there's a big place waitin' for you in the Northwest."
+
+"Mr. Anderson!" cried Dorn, in a kind of rapturous amaze. Red burned out
+the white of his face. "That's great! It's too great to come true.
+You're good!... If I'm lucky enough to come back from the war--"
+
+"Son, you're not goin' to war!" interposed Anderson.
+
+"What!" exclaimed Dorn, blankly. He stared as if he had not heard
+aright.
+
+Anderson calmly repeated his assertion. He was smiling; he looked kind;
+but underneath that showed the will that had made him what he was.
+
+"But I _am_!" flashed the young man, as if he had been misunderstood.
+
+"Listen. You're like all boys--hot-headed an' hasty. Let me talk a
+little," resumed Anderson. And he began to speak of the future of the
+Northwest. He painted that in the straight talk of a farmer who knew,
+but what he predicted seemed like a fairy-tale. Then he passed to the
+needs of the government and the armies, and lastly the people of the
+nation. All depended upon the farmer! Wheat was indeed the staff of life
+and of victory! Young Dorn was one of the farmers who could not be
+spared. Patriotism was a noble thing. Fighting, however, did not alone
+constitute a duty and loyalty to the nation. This was an economic war, a
+war of peoples, and the nation that was the best fed would last longest.
+Adventure and the mistaken romance of war called indeed to all
+red-blooded young Americans. It was good that they did call. But they
+should not call the young farmer from his wheat-fields.
+
+"But I've been drafted!" Dorn spoke with agitation. He seemed bewildered
+by Anderson's blunt eloquence. His intelligence evidently accepted the
+elder man's argument, but something instinctive revolted.
+
+"There's exemption, my boy. Easy in your case," replied Anderson.
+
+"Exemption!" echoed Dorn, and a dark tide of blood rose to his temples.
+"I wouldn't--I couldn't ask for that!"
+
+"You don't need to," said the rancher. "Dorn, do you recollect that
+Washington official who called on you some time ago?"
+
+"Yes," replied Dorn, slowly.
+
+"Did he say anythin' about exemption?"
+
+"No. He asked me if I wanted it, that's all."
+
+"Wal, you had it right then. I took it upon myself to get exemption for
+you. That government official heartily approved of my recommendin'
+exemption for you. An' he gave it."
+
+"Anderson! You took--it upon--yourself--" gasped Dorn, slowly rising. If
+he had been white-faced before, he was ghastly now.
+
+"Sure I did.... Good Lord! Dorn, don't imagine I ever questioned your
+nerve.... It's only you're not needed--or rather, you're needed more at
+home.... I let my son Jim go to war. That's enough for one family!"
+
+But Dorn did not grasp the significance of Anderson's reply.
+
+"How dared you? What right had you?" he demanded passionately.
+
+"No right at all, lad," replied Anderson. "I just recommended it an' the
+official approved it."
+
+"But I refuse!" cried Dorn, with ringing fury. "I won't accept
+exemption."
+
+"Talk sense now, even if you are mad," returned Anderson, rising. "I've
+paid you a high compliment, young man, an' offered you a lot. More 'n
+you see, I guess.... Why won't you accept exemption?"
+
+"I'm going to war!" was the grim, hard reply.
+
+"But you're needed here. You'd be more of a soldier here. You could do
+more for your country than if you gave a hundred lives. Can't you see
+that?"
+
+"Yes, I can," assented Dorn, as if forced.
+
+"You're no fool, an' you're a loyal American. Your duty is to stay home
+an' raise wheat."
+
+"I've a duty to myself," returned Dorn, darkly.
+
+"Son, your fortune stares you right in the face--here. Are you goin' to
+turn from it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You want to get in that war? You've got to fight?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ah-huh!" Anderson threw up his hands in surrender. "Got to kill some
+Germans, hey?... Why not come out to my harvest fields an' hog-stick a
+few of them German I.W.W.'s?"
+
+Dorn had no reply for that.
+
+"Wal, I'm dog-gone sorry," resumed Anderson. "I see it's a tough place
+for you, though I can't understand. You'll excuse me for mixin' in your
+affairs.... An' now, considerin' other ways I've really helped you, I
+hope you'll stay at my home for a few days. We all owe you a good deal.
+My family wants to make up to you. Will you stay?"
+
+"Thank you--yes--for a few days," replied Dorn.
+
+"Good! That'll help some. Mebbe, after runnin' around 'Many Waters' with
+Le--with the girls--you'll begin to be reasonable. I hope so."
+
+"You think me ungrateful!" exclaimed Dorn, shrinking.
+
+"I don't think nothin'," replied Anderson. "I turn you over to Lenore."
+He laughed as he pronounced Dorn's utter defeat. And his look at Lenore
+was equivalent to saying the issue now depended upon her, and that he
+had absolutely no doubt of its outcome. "Lenore, take him in to meet
+mother an' the girls, an' entertain him. I've got work to do."
+
+Lenore felt the blushes in her cheeks and was glad Dorn did not look at
+her. He seemed locked in somber thought. As she touched him and bade him
+come he gave a start; then he followed her into the hall. Lenore closed
+her father's door, and the instant she stood alone with Dorn a wonderful
+calmness came to her.
+
+"Miss Anderson, I'd rather not--not meet your mother and sisters
+to-night," said Dorn. "I'm upset. Won't it be all right to wait till
+to-morrow?"
+
+"Surely. But I think they've gone to bed," replied Lenore, as she
+glanced into the dark sitting-room. "So they have.... Come, let us go
+into the parlor."
+
+Lenore turned on the shaded lights in the beautiful room. How
+inexplicable was the feeling of being alone with him, yet utterly free
+of the torment that had possessed her before! She seemed to have divined
+an almost insurmountable obstacle in Dorn's will. She did not have her
+father's assurance. It made her tremble to realize her responsibility
+--that her father's earnest wishes and her future of love or
+woe depended entirely upon what she said and did. But she felt that
+indeed she had become a woman. And it would take a woman's wit and charm
+and love to change this tragic boy.
+
+"Miss--Anderson," he began, brokenly, with restraint let down, "your
+father--doesn't understand. I've _got_ to go.... And even if I am
+spared--I couldn't ever come back.... To work for him--all the time in
+love with you--I couldn't stand it.... He's so good. I know I could care
+for him, too.... Oh, I thought I was bitterly resigned--hard--inhuman.
+But all this makes it--so--so much worse."
+
+He sat down heavily, and, completely unnerved, he covered his face with
+his hands. His shoulders heaved and short, strangled sobs broke from
+him.
+
+Lenore had to overcome a rush of tenderness. It was all she could do to
+keep from dropping to her knees beside him and slipping her arms around
+his neck. In her agitation she could not decide whether that would be
+womanly or not; only, she must make no mistakes. A hot, sweet flush went
+over her when she thought that always as a last resort she could reveal
+her secret and use her power. What would he do when he discovered she
+loved him?
+
+"Kurt, I understand," she said, softly, and put a hand on his shoulder.
+And she stood thus beside him, sadly troubled, vaguely divining that her
+presence was helpful, until he recovered his composure. As he raised his
+head and wiped tears from his eyes he made no excuses for his weakness,
+nor did he show any shame.
+
+"Miss Anderson--" he began.
+
+"Please call me Lenore. I feel so--so stiff when you are formal. My
+friends call me Lenore," she said.
+
+"You mean--you consider me your friend?" he queried.
+
+"Indeed I do," she replied, smiling.
+
+"I--I'm afraid I misunderstood your asking me to visit you," he said. "I
+thank you. I'm proud and glad that you call me your friend. It will be
+splendid to remember--when I am over there."
+
+"I wonder if we could talk of anything except trouble and war," replied
+Lenore, plaintively. "If we can't, then let's look at the bright side."
+
+"Is there a bright side?" he asked, with his sad smile.
+
+"Every cloud, you know.... For instance, if you go to war--"
+
+"Not if. I _am_ going," he interrupted.
+
+"Oh, so you say," returned Lenore, softly. And she felt deep in her the
+inception of a tremendous feminine antagonism. It stirred along her
+pulse. "Have your own way, then. But _I_ say, _if_ you go, think how
+fine it will be for me to get letters from you at the front--and to
+write you!"
+
+"You'd like to hear from me?... You would answer?" he asked,
+breathlessly.
+
+"Assuredly. And I'll knit socks for you."
+
+"You're--very good," he said, with strong feeling.
+
+Lenore again saw his eyes dim. How strangely sensitive he was! If he
+exaggerated such a little kindness as she had suggested, if he responded
+to it with such emotion, what would he do when the great and marvelous
+truth of her love was flung in his face? The very thought made Lenore
+weak.
+
+"You'll go to training-camp," went on Lenore, "and because of your
+wonderful physique and your intelligence you will get a commission. Then
+you'll go to--France." Lenore faltered a little in her imagined
+prospect. "You'll be in the thick of the great battles. You'll give and
+take. You'll kill some of those--those--Germans. You'll be wounded and
+you'll be promoted.... Then the Allies will win. Uncle Sam's grand army
+will have saved the world.... Glorious!... You'll come back--home to
+us--to take the place dad offered you.... There! that is the bright
+side."
+
+Indeed, the brightness seemed reflected in Dorn's face.
+
+"I never dreamed you could be like this," he said, wonderingly.
+
+"Like what?"
+
+"I don't know just what I mean. Only you're different from my--my
+fancies. Not cold or--or proud."
+
+"You're beginning to get acquainted with me, that's all. After you've
+been here awhile--"
+
+"Please don't make it so hard for me," he interrupted, appealingly. "I
+can't stay."
+
+"Don't you want to?" she asked.
+
+"Yes. And I will stay a couple of days. But no longer. It'll be hard
+enough to go then."
+
+"Perhaps I--we'll make it so hard for you that you can't go."
+
+Then he gazed piercingly at her, as if realizing a will opposed to his,
+a conviction not in sympathy with his.
+
+"You're going to keep this up--this trying to change my mind?"
+
+"I surely am," she replied, both wistfully and wilfully.
+
+"Why? I should think you'd respect my sense of duty."
+
+"Your duty is more here than at the front. The government man said so.
+My father believes it. So do I.... You have some other--other thing you
+think duty."
+
+"I hate Germans!" he burst out, with a dark and terrible flash.
+
+"Who does not?" she flashed back at him, and she rose, feeling as if
+drawn by a powerful current. She realized then that she must be prepared
+any moment to be overwhelmed by the inevitable climax of this meeting.
+But she prayed for a little more time. She fought her emotions.
+
+She saw him tremble. "Lenore, I'd better run off in the night," he said.
+
+Instinctively, with swift, soft violence, she grasped his hands. Perhaps
+the moment had come. She was not afraid, but the suddenness of her
+extremity left her witless.
+
+"You would not!... That would be unkind--not like you at all.... To run
+off without giving me a chance--without good-by!... Promise me you will
+not."
+
+"I promise," he replied, wearily, as if nonplussed by her attitude. "You
+said you understood me. But I can't understand you."
+
+She released his hands and turned away. "I promise--that you shall
+understand--very soon."
+
+"You feel sorry for me. You pity me. You think I'll only be
+cannon-fodder for the Germans. You want to be nice, kind, sweet to
+me--to send me away with better thoughts.... Isn't that what you think?"
+
+He was impatient, almost angry. His glance blazed at her. All about him,
+his tragic face, his sadness, his defeat, his struggle to hold on to his
+manliness and to keep his faith in nobler thoughts--these challenged
+Lenore's compassion, her love, and her woman's combative spirit to save
+and to keep her own. She quivered again on the brink of betraying
+herself. And it was panic alone that held her back.
+
+"Kurt--I think--presently I'll give you the surprise of your life," she
+replied, and summoned a smile.
+
+How obtuse he was! How blind! Perhaps the stress of his emotion, the
+terrible sense of his fate, left him no keenness, no outward
+penetration. He answered her smile, as if she were a child whose
+determined kindness made him both happy and sad.
+
+"I dare say you will," he replied. "You Andersons are full of
+surprises.... But I wish you would not do any more for me. I am like a
+dog. The kinder you are to me the more I love you.... How dreadful to go
+away to war--to violence and blood and death--to all that's
+brutalizing--with my heart and mind full of love for a noble girl like
+you!--If I come to love you any more I'll not be a man."
+
+To Lenore he looked very much of a man, so tall and lithe and
+white-faced, with his eyes of fire, his simplicity, and his tragic
+refusal of all that was for most men the best of life. Whatever his
+ideal, it was magnificent. Lenore had her chance then, but she was
+absolutely unable to grasp it. Her blood beat thick and hot. If she
+could only have been sure of herself! Or was it that she still cared too
+much for herself? The moment had not come. And in her tumult there was a
+fleeting fury at Dorn's blindness, at his reverence of her, that he dare
+not touch her hand. Did he imagine she was stone?
+
+"Let us say good night," she said. "You are worn out. And I am--not just
+myself. To-morrow we'll be--good friends.... Father will take you to
+your room."
+
+Dorn pressed the hand she offered, and, saying good-night, he followed
+her to the hall. Lenore tapped on the door of her father's study, then
+opened it.
+
+"Good night, dad. I'm going up," she said. "Will you look after Kurt?"
+
+"Sure. Come in, son," replied her father.
+
+Lenore felt Dorn's strange, intent gaze upon her as she passed him.
+Lightly she ran up-stairs and turned at the top. The hall was bright and
+Dorn stood full in the light, his face upturned. It still wore the
+softer expression of those last few moments. Lenore waved her hand, and
+he smiled. The moment was natural. Youth to youth! Lenore felt it. She
+marveled that he did not. A sweet devil of wilful coquetry possessed
+her.
+
+"Oh, did you say you wouldn't go?" she softly called.
+
+"I said only good night," he replied.
+
+"If you _don't_ go, then you will never be General Dorn, will you? What
+a pity!"
+
+"I'll go. And then it will be--'Private Dorn--missing. No relatives,'"
+he replied.
+
+That froze Lenore. Her heart quaked. She gazed down upon him with all
+her soul in her eyes. She knew it and did not care. But he could not
+see.
+
+"Good night, Kurt Dorn," she called, and ran to her room.
+
+Composure did not come to her until she was ready for bed, with the
+light out and in her old seat at the window. Night and silence and
+starlight always lent Lenore strength. She prayed to them now and to the
+spirit she knew dwelt beyond them. And then she whispered what her
+intelligence told her was an unalterable fact--Kurt Dorn could never be
+changed. But her sympathy and love and passion, all that was womanly
+emotion, stormed at her intelligence and refused to listen to it.
+
+Nothing short of a great shock would divert Dorn from his tragic
+headlong rush toward the fate he believed unalterable. Lenore sensed a
+terrible, sinister earnestness in him. She could not divine its meaning.
+But it was such a driving passion that no man possessing it and free to
+the violence of war could ever escape death. Even if by superhuman
+strife, and the guidance of Providence, he did escape death, he would
+have lost something as precious as life. If Dorn went to war at all--if
+he ever reached those blood-red trenches, in the thick of fire and
+shriek and ferocity--there to express in horrible earnestness what she
+vaguely felt yet could not define--then so far as she was concerned she
+imagined that she would not want him to come back.
+
+That was the strength of spirit that breathed out of the night and the
+silence to her. Dorn would go to war as no ordinary soldier, to obey, to
+fight, to do his duty; but for some strange, unfathomable obsession of
+his own. And, therefore, if he went at all he was lost. War, in its
+inexplicable horror, killed the souls of endless hordes of men.
+Therefore, if he went at all she, too, was lost to the happiness that
+might have been hers. She would never love another man. She could never
+marry. She would never have a child.
+
+So his soul and her happiness were in the balance weighed against a
+woman's power. It seemed to Lenore that she felt hopelessly unable to
+carry the issue to victory; and yet, on the other hand, a tumultuous and
+wonderful sweetness of sensation called to her, insidiously, of the
+infallible potency of love. What could she do to save Dorn's life and
+his soul? There was only one answer to that. She would do anything. She
+must make him love her to the extent that he would have no will to carry
+out this desperate intent. There was little time to do that. The gradual
+growth of affection through intimacy and understanding was not possible
+here. It must come as a flash of lightning. She must bewilder him with
+the revelation of her love, and then by all its incalculable power hold
+him there.
+
+It was her father's wish; it would be the salvation of Dorn; it meant
+all to her. But if to keep him there would make him a slacker, Lenore
+swore she would die before lifting her lips to his. The government would
+rather he stayed to raise wheat than go out and fight men. Lenore saw
+the sanity, the cardinal importance of that, as her father saw it. So
+from all sides she was justified. And sitting there in the darkness and
+silence, with the cool wind in her face, she vowed she would be all
+woman, all sweetness, all love, all passion, all that was feminine and
+terrible, to keep Dorn from going to war.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Lenore awakened early. The morning seemed golden. Birds were singing at
+her window. What did that day hold in store for her? She pressed a hand
+hard on her heart as if to hold it still. But her heart went right on,
+swift, exultant, throbbing with a fullness that was almost pain.
+
+Early as she awakened, it was, nevertheless, late when she could direct
+her reluctant steps down-stairs. She had welcomed every little
+suggestion and task to delay the facing of her ordeal.
+
+There was merriment in the sitting-room, and Dorn's laugh made her glad.
+The girls were at him, and her father's pleasant, deep voice chimed in.
+Evidently there was a controversy as to who should have the society of
+the guest. They had all been to breakfast. Mrs. Anderson expressed
+surprise at Lenore's tardiness, and said she had been called twice.
+Lenore had heard nothing except the birds and the music of her thoughts.
+She peeped into the sitting-room.
+
+"Didn't you bring me anything?" Kathleen was inquiring of Dorn.
+
+Dorn was flushed and smiling. Anderson stood beaming upon them, and Rose
+appeared to be inclined toward jealousy.
+
+"Why--you see--I didn't even know Lenore had a little sister," Dorn
+explained.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Kathleen, evidently satisfied. "All Lenorry's beaux
+bring me things. But I believe I'm going to like you best."
+
+Lenore had intended to say good morning. She changed her mind, however,
+at Kathleen's naive speech, and darted back lest she be seen. She felt
+the blood hot in her cheeks. That awful, irrepressible Kathleen! If she
+liked Dorn she would take possession of him. And Kathleen was lovable,
+irresistible. Lenore had a sudden thought that Kathleen would aid the
+good cause if she could be enlisted. While Lenore ate her breakfast she
+listened to the animated conversation in the sitting-room. Presently her
+father came in.
+
+"Hello, Lenore! Did you get up?" he greeted her, cheerily.
+
+"I hardly ever did, it seems.... Dad, the day was something to face,"
+she said.
+
+"Ah-huh! It's like getting up to work. Lenore, the biggest duty of life
+is to hide your troubles.... Dorn looks like a human bein' this mornin'.
+The kids have won him. I reckon he needs that sort of cheer. Let them
+have him. Then after a while you fetch him out to the wheat-field.
+Lenore, our harvestin' is half done. Every day I've expected some trick
+or deviltry. But it hasn't come yet."
+
+"Are any of the other ranchers having trouble?" she inquired.
+
+"I hear rumors of bad work. But facts told by ranchers an' men who were
+here only yesterday make little of the rumors. All that burnin' of wheat
+an' timber, an' the destruction of machines an' strikin' of farm-hands,
+haven't hit Golden Valley yet. We won't need any militia here, you can
+bet on that."
+
+"Father, it won't do to be over-confident," she said, earnestly. "You
+know you are the mark for the I.W.W. sabotage. If you are not
+careful--any moment--"
+
+Lenore paused with a shudder.
+
+"Lass, I'm just like I was in the old rustlin' days. An' I've surrounded
+myself with cowboys like Jake an' Bill, an' old hands who pack guns an'
+keep still, as in the good old Western days. We're just waitin' for the
+I.W.W.'s to break loose."
+
+"Then what?" queried Lenore.
+
+"Wal, we'll chase that outfit so fast it'll be lost in dust," he
+replied.
+
+"But if you chase them away, it 'll only be into another state, where
+they'll make trouble for other farmers. You don't do any real good."
+
+"My dear, I reckon you've said somethin' strong," he replied, soberly,
+and went out.
+
+Then Kathleen came bouncing in. Her beautiful eyes were full of mischief
+and excitement. "Lenorry, your new beau has all the others skinned to a
+frazzle," she said.
+
+For once Lenore did not scold Kathleen, but drew her close and
+whispered: "Do you want to please me? Do you want me to do _everything_
+for you?"
+
+"I sure do," replied Kathleen, with wonderful eyes.
+
+"Then be nice, sweet, good to him.... make him love you.... Don't tease
+him about my other beaux. Think how you can make him like 'Many
+Waters.'"
+
+"Will you promise--_everything_?" whispered Kathleen, solemnly.
+Evidently Lenore's promises were rare and reliable.
+
+"Yes. Cross my heart. There! And you must not tell."
+
+Kathleen was a precocious child, with all the potentialities of youth.
+She could not divine Lenore's motive, but she sensed a new and
+fascinating mode of conduct for herself. She seemed puzzled a little at
+Lenore's earnestness.
+
+"It's a bargain," she said, soberly, as if she had accepted no slight
+gauge.
+
+"Now, Kathleen, take him all over the gardens, the orchards, the corrals
+and barns," directed Lenore. "Be sure to show him the horses--my horses,
+especially. Take him round the reservoir--and everywhere except the
+wheat-fields. I want to take him there myself. Besides, father does not
+want you girls to go out to the harvest."
+
+Kathleen nodded and ran back to the sitting-room. Lenore heard them all
+go out together. Before she finished breakfast her mother came in again.
+
+"Lenore, I like Mr. Dorn," she said, meditatively. "He has an
+old-fashioned manner that reminds me of my boy friends when I was a
+girl. I mean he's more courteous and dignified than boys are nowadays. A
+splendid-looking boy, too. Only his face is so sad. When he smiles he
+seems another person."
+
+"No wonder he's sad," replied Lenore, and briefly told Kurt Dorn's
+story.
+
+"Ah!" sighed Mrs. Anderson. "We have fallen upon evil days.... Poor
+boy!... Your father seems much interested in him. And you are too, my
+daughter?"
+
+"Yes, I am," replied Lenore, softly.
+
+Two hours later she heard Kathleen's gay laughter and pattering feet.
+Lenore took her wide-brimmed hat and went out on the porch. Dorn was
+indeed not the same somber young man he had been.
+
+"Good morning, Kurt," said Lenore, extending her hand.
+
+The instant he greeted her she saw the stiffness, the aloofness had gone
+from him. Kathleen had made him feel at home. He looked younger. There
+was color in his face.
+
+"Kathleen, I'll take charge of Mr. Dorn now, if you will allow me that
+pleasure."
+
+"Lenorry, I sure hate to give him up. We sure had a fine time."
+
+"Did he like 'Many Waters'?"
+
+"Well, if he didn't he's a grand fibber," replied Kathleen. "But he did.
+You can't fool me. I thought I'd never get him back to the house." Then,
+as she tripped up the porch steps, she shook a finger at Dorn.
+"Remember!"
+
+"I'll never forget," said Dorn, and he was as earnest as he was amiable.
+Then, as she disappeared, he exclaimed to Lenore, "What an adorable
+little girl!"
+
+"Do you like Kathleen?"
+
+"Like her!" Dorn laughed in a way to make light of such words. "My life
+has been empty. I see that."
+
+"Come, we'll go out to the wheat-fields," said Lenore. "What do you
+think of 'Many Waters'? This is harvest-time. You see 'Many Waters' at
+its very best."
+
+"I can hardly tell you," he replied. "All my life I've lived on my
+barren hills. I seem to have come to another world. 'Many Waters' is
+such a ranch as I never dreamed of. The orchards, the fruit, the
+gardens--and everywhere running water! It all smells so fresh and sweet.
+And then the green and red and purple against that background of blazing
+gold!... 'Many Waters' is verdant and fruitful. The Bend is desert."
+
+"Now that you've been here, do you like it better than your barren
+hills?" asked Lenore.
+
+Kurt hesitated. "I don't know," he answered, slowly. "But maybe that
+desert I've lived in accounts for much I lack."
+
+"Would you like to stay at 'Many Waters'--if you weren't going to war?"
+
+"I might prefer 'Many Waters' to any place on earth. It's a paradise.
+But I would not chose to stay here."
+
+"Why? When you return--you know--my father will need you here. And if
+anything should happen to him I will have to run the ranch. Then _I_
+would need you."
+
+Dorn stopped in his tracks and gazed at her as if there were slight
+misgivings in his mind.
+
+"Lenore, if you owned this ranch would you want me--_me_ for your
+manager?" he asked, bluntly.
+
+"Yes," she replied.
+
+"You would? Knowing I was in love with you?"
+
+"Well, I had forgotten that," she replied, with a little laugh. "It
+would be rather embarrassing--and funny, wouldn't it?"
+
+"Yes, it would," he said, grimly, and walked on again. He made a gesture
+of keen discomfiture. "I knew you hadn't taken me seriously."
+
+"I believed you, but I could not take you _very_ seriously," she
+murmured.
+
+"Why not?" he demanded, as if stung, and his eyes flashed on her.
+
+"Because your declaration was not accompanied by the
+usual--question--that a girl naturally expects under such
+circumstances."
+
+"Good Heaven! You say that?... Lenore Anderson, you think me insincere
+because I did not ask you to marry me," he asserted, with bitter pathos.
+
+"No. I merely said you were not--_very_ serious," she replied. It was
+fascination to torment him this way, yet it hurt her, too. She was
+playing on the verge of a precipice, not afraid of a misstep, but
+glorying in the prospect of a leap into the abyss. Something deep and
+strange in her bade her make him show her how much he loved her. If she
+drove him to desperation she would reward him.
+
+"I am going to war," he began, passionately, "to fight for you and your
+sisters.... I am ruined.... The only noble and holy feeling left to
+me--that I can have with me in the dark hours--is my love for you. If
+you do not believe that, I am indeed the most miserable of beggars! Most
+boys going to the front leave many behind whom they love. I have no one
+but you.... don't make me a coward."
+
+"I believe you. Forgive me," she said.
+
+"If I had asked you to marry me--_me_--why, I'd have been a selfish,
+egotistical fool. You are far above me. And I want you to know I know
+it.... But even if I had not--had the blood I have--even if I had been
+prosperous instead of ruined, I'd never have asked you, unless I came
+back whole from the war."
+
+They had been walking out the lane during this conversation and had come
+close to the wheat-field. The day was hot, but pleasant, the dry wind
+being laden with harvest odors. The hum of the machines was like the
+roar in a flour-mill.
+
+"If you go to war--and come back whole--?" began Lenore, tantalizingly.
+She meant to have no mercy upon him. It was incredible how blind he was.
+Yet how glad that made her. He resembled his desert hills, barren of
+many little things, but rich in hidden strength, heroic of mold.
+
+"Then just to add one more to the conquests girls love I'll--I'll
+propose to you," he declared, banteringly.
+
+"Beware, boy! I might accept you," she exclaimed.
+
+His play was short-lived. He could not be gay, even under her influence.
+
+"Please don't jest," he said, frowning. "Can't we talk of something
+besides love and war?"
+
+"They seem to be popular just now," she replied, audaciously. "Anyway,
+all's fair--you know."
+
+"No, it is not fair," he returned, low-voiced and earnest. "So once for
+all let me beg of you, don't jest. Oh, I know you're sweet. You're full
+of so many wonderful, surprising words and looks. I can't understand
+you.... But I beg of you, don't make me a fool!"
+
+"Well, if you pay such compliments and if I--want them--what then? You
+are very original, very gallant, Mr. Kurt Dorn, and I--I rather like
+you."
+
+"I'll get angry with you," he threatened.
+
+"You couldn't.... I'm the only girl you're going to leave behind--and if
+you got angry I'd never write to you."
+
+It thrilled Lenore and wrung her heart to see how her talk affected him.
+He was in a torment. He believed she spoke lightly, girlishly, to tease
+him--that she was only a gay-hearted girl, fancy-free and just a little
+proud of her conquest over even him.
+
+"I surrender. Say what you like," he said, resignedly. "I'll stand
+anything--just to get your letters."
+
+"If you go I'll write as often as you want me to," she replied.
+
+With that they emerged upon the harvest-field. Machines and engines
+dotted the golden slope, and wherever they were located stood towering
+straw-stacks. Horses and men and wagons were strung out as far as the
+eye could see. Long streams of chaff and dust and smoke drifted upward.
+
+"Lenore, there's trouble in the very air," said Dorn. "Look!"
+
+She saw a crowd of men gathering round one of the great
+combine-harvesters. Some one was yelling.
+
+"Let's stay away from trouble," replied Lenore. "We've enough of our
+own."
+
+"I'm going over there," declared Dorn. "Perhaps you'd better wait for
+me--or go back."
+
+"Well! You're the first boy who ever--"
+
+"Come on," he interrupted, with grim humor. "I'd rather enjoy your
+seeing me break loose--as I will if there's any I.W.W. trickery."
+
+Before they got to the little crowd Lenore both heard and saw her
+father. He was in a rage and not aware of her presence. Jake and Bill,
+the cowboys, hovered over him. Anderson strode to and fro, from one side
+of the harvester to the other. Lenore did not recognize any of the
+harvest-hands, and even the driver was new to her. They were not a
+typical Western harvest crew, that was certain. She did not like their
+sullen looks, and Dorn's muttered imprecation, the moment he neared
+them, confirmed her own opinion.
+
+Anderson's foreman stood gesticulating, pale and anxious of face.
+
+"No, I don't hold you responsible," roared the rancher. "But I want
+action.... I want to know why this machine's broke down."
+
+"It was in perfect workin' order," declared the foreman. "I don't know
+why it broke down."
+
+"That's the fourth machine in two days. No accident, I tell you,"
+shouted Anderson. Then he espied Dorn and waved a grimy hand. "Come
+here, Dorn," he called, and stepped out of the group of dusty men.
+"Somethin' wrong here. This new harvester's broke down. It's a McCormack
+an' new to us. But it has worked great an' I jest believe it's been
+tampered with... Do you know these McCormack harvesters?"
+
+"Yes. They're reliable," replied Dorn.
+
+"Ah-huh! Wal, get your coat off an' see what's been done to this one."
+
+Dorn took off his coat and was about to throw it down, when Lenore held
+out her hand for it.
+
+"Unhitch the horses," said Dorn.
+
+Anderson gave this order, which was complied with. Then Dorn disappeared
+around or under the big machine.
+
+"Lenore, I'll bet he tells us somethin' in a minute," said Anderson to
+her. "These new claptraps are beyond me. I'm no mechanic."
+
+"Dad, I don't like the looks of your harvest-hands," whispered Lenore.
+
+"Wal, this is a sample of the lot I hired. No society for you, my lass!"
+
+"I'm going to stay now," she replied.
+
+Dorn appeared to be raising a racket somewhere out of sight under or
+inside the huge harvester. Rattling and rasping sounds, creaks and
+cracks, attested to his strong and impatiently seeking hands.
+
+Presently he appeared. His white shirt had been soiled by dust and
+grease. There was chaff in his fair hair. In one grimy hand he held a
+large monkey-wrench. What struck Lenore most was the piercing intensity
+of his gaze as he fixed it upon her father.
+
+"Anderson, I knew right where to find it," he said, in a sharp, hard
+voice. "This monkey-wrench was thrown upon the platform, carried to the
+elevator into the thresher.... Your machine is torn to pieces
+inside--out of commission!"
+
+"Ah-huh!" exclaimed Anderson, as if the truth was a great relief.
+
+"Where'd that monkey-wrench come from?" asked the foreman, aghast. "It's
+not ours. I don't buy that kind."
+
+Anderson made a slight, significant motion to the cowboys. They lined up
+beside him, and, like him, they looked dangerous.
+
+"Come here, Kurt," he said, and then, putting Lenore before him, he
+moved a few steps aside, out of earshot of the shifty-footed
+harvest-hands. "Say, you called the turn right off, didn't you?"
+
+"Anderson, I've had a hard experience, all in one harvest-time," replied
+Dorn. "I'll bet you I can find out who threw this wrench into your
+harvester."
+
+"I don't doubt you, my lad. But how?"
+
+"It had to be thrown by one of these men near the machine. That
+harvester hasn't run twenty feet from where the trick was done.... Let
+these men face me. I'll find the guilty one."
+
+"Wait till we get Lenore out of the way," replied Anderson
+
+"Boss, me an' Bill can answer fer thet outfit as it stands, an' no risks
+fer nobody," put in Jake, coolly.
+
+Anderson's reply was cut short by a loud explosion. It frightened
+Lenore. She imagined one of the steam-engines had blown up.
+
+"That thresher's on fire," shouted Dorn, pointing toward a big machine
+that was attached by an endless driving belt to an engine.
+
+The workmen, uttering yells and exclamations, ran toward the scene of
+the new accident, leaving Anderson, his daughter, and the foreman
+behind. Smoke was pouring out of the big harvester. The harvest-hands
+ran wildly around, shouting and calling, evidently unable to do
+anything. The line of wagons full of wheat-sheaves broke up; men dragged
+at the plunging horses. Then flame followed the smoke out of the
+thresher.
+
+"I've heard of threshers catchin' fire," said Anderson, as if
+dumfounded, "but I never seen one.... Now how on earth did that happen?"
+
+"Another trick, Anderson," replied Dorn. "Some I.W.W. has stuffed a
+handful of matches into a wheat-sheaf. Or maybe a small bomb!"
+
+"Ah-huh!... Come on, let's go over an' see my money burn up.... Kurt,
+I'm gettin' some new education these days."
+
+Dorn appeared to be unable to restrain himself. He hurried on ahead of
+the others. And Anderson whispered to Lenore, "I'll bet somethin's
+comin' off!"
+
+This alarmed Lenore, yet it also thrilled her.
+
+The threshing-machine burned like a house of cards. Farm-hands came
+running from all over the field. But nothing, manifestly, could be done
+to save the thresher. Anderson, holding his daughter's arm, calmly
+watched it burn. There was excitement all around; it had not been
+communicated, however, to the rancher. He looked thoughtful. The foreman
+darted among the groups of watchers and his distress was very plain.
+Dorn had gotten out of sight. Lenore still held his coat and wondered
+what he was doing. She was thoroughly angry and marveled at her father's
+composure. The big thresher was reduced to a blazing, smoking hulk in
+short order.
+
+Dorn came striding up. His face was pale and his mouth set.
+
+"Mr. Anderson, you've got to make a strong stand--and quick," he said,
+deliberately.
+
+"I reckon. An' I'm ready, if it's the right time," replied the rancher.
+"But what can we prove?"
+
+"That's proof," declared Dorn, pointing at the ruined thresher. "Do you
+know all your honest hands?"
+
+"Yes, an' I've got enough to clean up this outfit in no time. We're only
+waitin'."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Wal, I reckon for what's just come off."
+
+"Don't let them go any farther.... Look at these fellows. Can't you tell
+the I.W.W.'s from the others?"
+
+"No, I can't unless I count all the new harvest-hands I.W.W.'s."
+
+"Every one you don't know here is in with that gang," declared Dorn, and
+he waved a swift hand at the groups. His eyes swept piercingly over, and
+apparently through, the men nearest at hand.
+
+At this juncture Jake and Bill, with two other cowboys, strode up to
+Anderson.
+
+"Another accident, boss," said Jake, sarcastically. "Ain't it about time
+we corralled some of this outfit?"
+
+Anderson did not reply. He had suddenly imitated Lenore, who had become
+solely bent upon Dorn's look. That indeed was cause for interest. It was
+directed at a member of the nearest group--a man in rough garb, with
+slouch-hat pulled over his eyes. As Lenore looked she saw this man,
+suddenly becoming aware of Dorn's scrutiny, hastily turn and walk away.
+
+"Hold on!" called Dorn, his voice a ringing command. It halted every
+moving person on that part of the field. Then Dorn actually bounded
+across the intervening space.
+
+"Come on, boys," said Anderson, "get in this. Dorn's spotted some one,
+an' now that's all we want.... Lenore, stick close behind me. Jake, you
+keep near her."
+
+They moved hastily to back up Dorn, who had already reached the workman
+he had halted. Anderson took out a whistle and blew such a shrill blast
+that it deafened Lenore, and must have been heard all over the
+harvest-field. Not improbably that was a signal agreed upon between
+Anderson and his men. Lenore gathered that all had been in readiness for
+a concerted movement and that her father believed Dorn's action had
+brought the climax.
+
+"Haven't I seen you before?" queried Dorn, sharply.
+
+The man shook his head and kept it bent a little, and then he began to
+edge back nearer to the stragglers, who slowly closed into a group
+behind him. He seemed nervous, shifty.
+
+"He can't speak English," spoke up one of them, gruffly.
+
+Dorn looked aggressive and stern. Suddenly his hand flashed out to
+snatch off the slouch-hat which hid the fellow's face. Amazingly, a gray
+wig came with it. This man was not old. He had fair thick hair.
+
+For a moment Dorn gazed at the slouch-hat and wig. Then with a fierce
+action he threw them down and swept a clutching hand for the man. The
+fellow dodged and, straightening up, he reached for a gun. But Dorn
+lunged upon him. Then followed a hard grappling sound and a hoarse yell.
+Something bright glinted in the sun. It made a sweeping circle, belched
+fire and smoke. The report stunned Lenore. She shut her eyes and clung
+to her father. She heard cries, a scuffling, sodden blows.
+
+"Jake! Bill!" called Anderson. "Hold on! No gun-play yet! Dorn's makin'
+hash out of that fellow.... But watch the others sharp!"
+
+Then Lenore looked again. Dorn had twisted the man around and was in the
+act of stripping off the further disguise of beard, disclosing the pale
+and convulsed face of a comparatively young man.
+
+_"Glidden!"_ burst out Dorn. His voice had a terrible ring of furious
+amaze. His whole body seemed to gather as in a knot and then to spring.
+The man called Glidden went down before that onslaught, and his gun went
+flying aside.
+
+Three of Glidden's group started for it. The cowboy Bill leaped forward,
+a gun in each hand. "Hyar!... Back!" he yelled. And then all except the
+two struggling principals grew rigid.
+
+Lenore's heart was burning in her throat. The movements of Dorn were too
+swift for her sight. But Glidden she saw handled as if by a giant. Up
+and down he seemed thrown, with bloody face, flinging arms, while he
+uttered hoarse bawls. Dorn's form grew more distinct. It plunged and
+swung in frenzied energy. Lenore heard men running and yells from all
+around. Her father spread wide his arm before her, so that she had to
+bend low to see. He shouted a warning. Jake was holding a gun thrust
+forward.
+
+"Boss, he's goin' to kill Glidden!" said the cowboy, in a low tone.
+
+Anderson's reply was incoherent, but its meaning was plain.
+
+Lenore's lips and tongue almost denied her utterance. "Oh!... Don't let
+him!"
+
+The crowd behind the wrestling couple swayed back and forth, and men
+changed places here and there. Bill strode across the space, guns
+leveled. Evidently this action was due to the threatening movements of
+several workmen who crouched as if to leap on Dorn as he whirled in his
+fight with Glidden.
+
+"Wal, it's about time!" yelled Anderson, as a number of lean, rangy men,
+rushing from behind, reached Bill's side, there to present an armed and
+threatening front.
+
+All eyes now centered on Dorn and Glidden. Lenore, seeing clearly for
+the first time, suffered a strange, hot paroxysm of emotion never before
+experienced by her. It left her weak. It seemed to stultify the cry that
+had been trying to escape her. She wanted to scream that Dorn must not
+kill the man. Yet there was a ferocity in her that froze the cry.
+Glidden's coat and blouse were half torn off; blood covered him; he
+strained and flung himself weakly in that iron clutch. He was beaten and
+bent back. His tongue hung out, bloody, fluttering with strangled cries.
+A ghastly face, appalling in its fear of death!
+
+Lenore broke her mute spell of mingled horror and passion.
+
+"For God's sake, don't let Dorn kill him!" she implored.
+
+"Why not?" muttered Anderson. "That's Glidden. He killed Dorn's
+father--burned his wheat--ruined him!"
+
+"Dad--for _my_--sake!" she cried brokenly.
+
+"Jake, stop him!" yelled Anderson. "Pull him off!"
+
+As Lenore saw it, with eyes again half failing her, Jake could not
+separate Dorn from his victim.
+
+"Leggo, Dorn!" he yelled. "You're cheatin' the gallows!...Hey, Bill,
+he's a bull!... Help, hyar--quick!"
+
+Lenore did not see the resulting conflict, but she could tell by
+something that swayed the crowd when Glidden had been freed.
+
+"Hold up this outfit!" yelled Anderson to his men. "Come on, Jake, drag
+him along." Jake appeared, leading the disheveled and wild-eyed Dorn.
+"Son, you did my heart good, but there was some around here who didn't
+want you to spill blood. An' that's well. For I am seein' red....Jake,
+you take Dorn an' Lenore a piece toward the house, then hurry back."
+
+Then Lenore felt that she had hold of Dorn's arm and she was listening
+to Jake without understanding a word he said, while she did hear her
+father's yell of command, "Line up there, you I.W.W.'s!"
+
+Jake walked so swiftly that Lenore had to run to keep up. Dorn stumbled.
+He spoke incoherently. He tried to stop. At this Lenore clasped his arm
+and cried, "Oh, Kurt, come home with me!"
+
+They hurried down the slope. Lenore kept looking back. The crowd
+appeared bunched now, with little motion. That relieved her. There was
+no more fighting.
+
+Presently Dorn appeared to go more willingly. He had relaxed. "Let go,
+Jake," he said. "I'm--all right--now. That arm hurts."
+
+"Wal, you'll excuse me, Dorn, for handlin' you rough.... Mebbe you don't
+remember punchin' me one when I got between you an' Glidden?"
+
+"Did I?... I couldn't see, Jake," said Dorn. His voice was weak and had
+a spent ring of passion in it. He did not look at Lenore, but kept his
+face turned toward the cowboy.
+
+"I reckon this 's fur enough," rejoined Jake, halting and looking back.
+"No one comin'. An' there'll be hell to pay out there. You go on to the
+house with Miss Lenore.... Will you?"
+
+"Yes," replied Dorn.
+
+"Rustle along, then.... An' you, Miss Lenore, don't you worry none about
+us."
+
+Lenore nodded and, holding Dorn's arm closely, she walked as fast as she
+could down the lane.
+
+"I--I kept your coat," she said, "though I never thought of it--till
+just now."
+
+She was trembling all over, hot and cold by turns, afraid to look up at
+him, yet immensely proud of him, with a strange, sickening dread. He
+walked rather dejectedly now, or else bent somewhat from weakness. She
+stole a quick glance at his face. It was white as a sheet. Suddenly she
+felt something wet and warm trickle from his arm down into her hand.
+Blood! She shuddered, but did not lose her hold. After a faintish
+instant there came a change in her.
+
+"Are you--hurt?" she asked.
+
+"I guess--not. I don't know," he said.
+
+"But the--the blood," she faltered.
+
+He held up his hands. His knuckles were bloody and it was impossible to
+tell whether from injury to them or not. But his left forearm was badly
+cut.
+
+"The gun cut me.... And he bit me, too," said Dorn. "I'm sorry you were
+there.... What a beastly spectacle for you!"
+
+"Never mind me," she murmured. "I'm all right _now!_... But, oh!--"
+
+She broke off eloquently.
+
+"Was it you who had the cowboys pull me off him? Jake said, as he broke
+me loose, 'For Miss Lenore's sake!'"
+
+"It was dad who sent them. But I begged him to."
+
+"That was Glidden, the I.W.W. agitator and German agent.... He--just the
+same as murdered my father.... He burned my wheat--lost my all!"
+
+"Yes, I--I know, Kurt," whispered Lenore.
+
+"I meant to kill him!"
+
+"That was easy to tell.... Oh, thank God, you did not!... Come, don't
+let us stop." She could not face the piercing, gloomy eyes that went
+through her.
+
+"Why should you care?.... Some one will have to kill Glidden."
+
+"Oh, do not talk so," she implored. "Surely, now you're glad you did
+not?"
+
+"I don't understand myself. But I'm certainly sorry you were there....
+There's a beast in men--in me!... I had a gun in my pocket. But do you
+think I'd have used it?... I wanted to feel his flesh tear, his bones
+break, his blood spurt--"
+
+"Kurt!"
+
+"Yes!... That was the Hun in me!" he declared, in sudden bitter passion.
+
+"Oh, my friend, do not talk so!" she cried. "You make me--Oh, there is
+_no_ Hun in you!"
+
+"Yes, that's what ails me!"
+
+"There is _not_!" she flashed back, roused to passion. "You had been
+made desperate. You acted as any wronged man! You fought. He tried to
+kill you. I saw the gun. No one could blame you.... I had my own reason
+for begging dad to keep you from killing him--a selfish woman's
+reason!... But I tell you I was so furious--so wrought up--that if it
+had been any man but _you_--he should have killed him!"
+
+"Lenore, you're beyond my understanding," replied Dorn, with emotion.
+"But I thank you--for excusing me--for standing up for me."
+
+"It was nothing....Oh, how you bleed!.... Doesn't that hurt?"
+
+"I've no pain--no feeling at all--except a sort of dying down in me of
+what must have been hell."
+
+They reached the house and went in. No one was there, which fact
+relieved Lenore.
+
+"I'm glad mother and the girls won't see you," she said, hurriedly. "Go
+up to your room. I'll bring bandages."
+
+He complied without any comment. Lenore searched for what she needed to
+treat a wound and ran up-stairs. Dorn was sitting on a chair in his
+room, holding his arm, from which blood dripped to the floor. He smiled
+at her.
+
+"You would be a pretty Red Cross nurse," he said.
+
+Lenore placed a bowl of water on the floor and, kneeling beside Dorn,
+took his arm and began to bathe it. He winced. The blood covered her
+fingers.
+
+"My blood on your hands!" he exclaimed, morbidly. "German blood!"
+
+"Kurt, you're out of your head," retorted Lenore, hotly. "If you dare to
+say that again I'll--" She broke off.
+
+"What will you do?"
+
+Lenore faltered. What would she do? A revelation must come, sooner or
+later, and the strain had begun to wear upon her. She was stirred to her
+depths, and instincts there were leaping. No sweet, gentle, kindly
+sympathy would avail with this tragic youth. He must be carried by
+storm. Something of the violence he had shown with Glidden seemed
+necessary to make him forget himself. All his whole soul must be set in
+one direction. He could not see that she loved him, when she had looked
+it, acted it, almost spoken it. His blindness was not to be endured.
+
+"Kurt Dorn, don't dare to--to say that again!"
+
+She ceased bathing his arm, and looked up at him suddenly quite pale.
+
+"I apologize. I am only bitter," he said. "Don't mind what I say....
+It's so good of you--to do this."
+
+Then in silence Lenore dressed his wound, and if her heart did beat
+unwontedly, her fingers were steady and deft. He thanked her, with moody
+eyes seeing far beyond her.
+
+"When I lie--over there--with--"
+
+"If you go!" she interrupted. He was indeed hopeless. "I advise you to
+rest a little."
+
+"I'd like to know what becomes of Glidden," he said.
+
+"So should I. That worries me."
+
+"Weren't there a lot of cowboys with guns?"
+
+"So many that there's no need for you to go out--and start another
+fight."
+
+"I did start it, didn't I?"
+
+"You surely did," She left him then, turning in the doorway to ask him
+please to be quiet and let the day go by without seeking those excited
+men again. He smiled, but he did not promise.
+
+For Lenore the time dragged between dread and suspense. From her window
+she saw a motley crowd pass down the lane to the main road. No
+harvesters were working. At the noon meal only her mother and the girls
+were present. Word had come that the I.W.W. men were being driven from
+"Many Waters." Mrs. Anderson worried, and Lenore's sisters for once were
+quiet. All afternoon the house was lifeless. No one came or left. Lenore
+listened to every little sound. It relieved her that Dorn had remained
+in his room. Her hope was that the threatened trouble had been averted,
+but something told her that the worst was yet to come.
+
+It was nearly supper-time when she heard the men returning. They came in
+a body, noisy and loitering, as if reluctant to break away from one
+another. She heard the horses tramp into the barns and the loud voices
+of drivers.
+
+When she went down-stairs she encountered her father. He looked
+impressive, triumphant! His effort at evasion did not deceive Lenore.
+But she realized at once that in this instance she could not get any
+news from him. He said everything was all right and that I.W.W. men were
+to be deported from Washington. But he did not want any supper, and he
+had a low-voiced, significant interview with Dorn. Lenore longed to know
+what was pending. Dorn's voice, when he said at his door, "Anderson,
+I'll go!" was ringing, hard, and deadly. It frightened Lenore. Go where?
+What were they going to do? Lenore thought of the vigilantes her father
+had organized.
+
+Supper-time was an ordeal. Dorn ate a little; then excusing himself, he
+went back to his room. Lenore got through the meal somehow, and, going
+outside, she encountered Jake. The moment she questioned him she knew
+something extraordinary had taken place or was about to take place. She
+coaxed and entreated. For once Jake was hard to manage. But the more
+excuses he made, the more he evaded her, the greater became Lenore's
+need to know. And at last she wore the cowboy out. He could not resist
+her tears, which began to flow in spite of her.
+
+"See hyar, Miss Lenore, I reckon you care a heap fer young Dorn--beggin'
+your pardon?" queried Jake.
+
+"Care for him!... Jake, I love him."
+
+"Then take a hunch from me an' keep him home--with you--to-night."
+
+"Does father want Kurt Dorn to go--wherever he's going?"
+
+"Wal, I should smile! Your dad likes the way Dorn handles I.W.W.'s,"
+replied Jake, significantly.
+
+"Vigilantes!" whispered Lenore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+Lenore waited for Kurt, and stood half concealed behind the curtains. It
+had dawned upon her that she had an ordeal at hand. Her heart
+palpitated. She heard his quick step on the stairs. She called before
+she showed herself.
+
+"Hello!... Oh, but you startled me!" he exclaimed. He had been
+surprised, too, at the abrupt meeting. Certainly he had not been
+thinking of her. His pale, determined face attested to stern and
+excitable thought.
+
+He halted before her.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Lenore.
+
+"To see your father."
+
+"What about?"
+
+"It's rather important," he replied, with hesitation.
+
+"Will it take long?"
+
+He showed embarrassment. "I--He--We'll be occupied 'most all evening."
+
+"Indeed!... Very well. If you'd rather be--_occupied_--than spend the
+evening with me!" Lenore turned away, affecting a disdainful and hurt
+manner.
+
+"Lenore, it's not that," he burst out. "I--I'd rather spend an evening
+with you than anybody else--or do anything."
+
+"That's very easy to say, Mr. Dorn," she returned, lightly.
+
+"But it's true," he protested.
+
+"Come out of the hall. Father will hear us," she said, and led him into
+the room. It was not so light in there, but what light there was fell
+upon his face and left hers in shadow.
+
+"I've made an--an appointment for to-night," he declared, with
+difficulty.
+
+"Can't you break it?" she asked.
+
+"No. That would lay me open to--to cowardice--perhaps your father's
+displeasure."
+
+"Kurt Dorn, it's brave to give up some things!... And if you go you'll
+incur _my_ displeasure."
+
+"Go!" he ejaculated, staring at her.
+
+"Oh, I know!... And I'm--well, not flattered to see you'd rather go hang
+I.W.W.'s than stay here with me." Lenore did not feel the assurance and
+composure with which she spoke. She was struggling with her own
+feelings. She believed that just as soon as she and Kurt understood each
+other--faced each other without any dissimulation--then she would feel
+free and strong. If only she could put the situation on a sincere
+footing! She must work for that. Her difficulty was with a sense of
+falsity. There was no time to plan. She must change his mind.
+
+Her words had made him start.
+
+"Then you know?" he asked.
+
+"Of course."
+
+"I'm sorry for that," he replied, soberly, as he brushed a hand up
+through his wet hair.
+
+"But you will stay home?"
+
+"No," he returned, shortly, and he looked hard.
+
+"Kurt, I don't want _you_ mixed up with any lynching-bees," she said,
+earnestly.
+
+"I'm a citizen of Washington. I'll join the vigilantes. I'm American.
+I've been ruined by these I.W.W.'s. No man in the West has lost so much!
+Father--home--land--my great harvest of wheat!... Why shouldn't I go?"
+
+"There's no reason except--_me_," she replied, rather unsteadily.
+
+He drew himself up, with a deep breath, as if fortifying himself.
+"That's a mighty good reason.... But you will be kinder if you withdraw
+your objections."
+
+"Can't you conceive of any reason why I--I beg you not to go?"
+
+"I can't," he replied, staring at her. It seemed that every moment he
+spent in her presence increased her effect upon him. Lenore felt this,
+and that buoyed up her failing courage.
+
+"Kurt, you've made a very distressing--a terrible and horrible blunder,"
+she said, with a desperation that must have seemed something else to
+him.
+
+"My heavens! What have I done?" he gasped, his face growing paler. How
+ready he was to see more catastrophe! It warmed her heart and
+strengthened her nerve.
+
+The moment had come. Even if she did lose her power of speech she still
+could show him what his blunder was. Nothing in all her life had ever
+been a hundredth part as hard as this. Yet, as the words formed, her
+whole heart seemed to be behind them, forcing them out. If only he did
+not misunderstand!
+
+Then she looked directly at him and tried to speak. Her first attempt
+was inarticulate, her second was a whisper, "Didn't you ever--think I--I
+might care for you?"
+
+It was as if a shock went over him, leaving him trembling. But he did
+not look as amazed as incredulous. "No, I certainly never did," he said.
+
+"Well--that's your blunder--for I--I do. You--you never--never--asked
+me."
+
+"You do what--care for me?... What on earth do you mean by that?"
+
+Lenore was fighting many emotions now, the one most poignant being a
+wild desire to escape, which battled with an equally maddening one to
+hide her face on his breast.
+
+Yet she could see how white he had grown--how different. His hands
+worked convulsively and his eyes pierced her very soul.
+
+"What should a girl mean--telling she cared?"
+
+"I don't know. Girls are beyond me," he replied, stubbornly.
+
+"Indeed that's true. I've felt so far beyond you--I had to come to
+this."
+
+"Lenore," he burst out, hoarsely, "you talk in riddles! You've been so
+strange, yet so fine, so sweet! And now you say you care for me!...
+Care?... What does that mean? A word can drive me mad. But I never dared
+to hope. I love you--love you--love you--my God! you're all I've left to
+love. I--"
+
+"Do you think you've a monopoly on all the love in the world?"
+interrupted Lenore, coming to her real self. His impassioned declaration
+was all she needed. Her ordeal was over.
+
+It seemed as if he could not believe his ears or eyes.
+
+"Monopoly! World!" he echoed. "Of course I don't. But--"
+
+"Kurt, I love you just as much as--as you love me.... So there!"
+
+Lenore had time for one look at his face before he enveloped her. What a
+relief to hide her own! It was pressed to his breast very closely. Her
+eyes shut, and she felt hot tears under the lids. All before her
+darkened sight seemed confusion, whirling chaos. It seemed that she
+could not breathe and, strangely, did not need to. How unutterably happy
+she felt! That was an age-long moment--wonderful for her own relief and
+gladness--full of changing emotions. Presently Kurt appeared to be
+coming to some semblance of rationality. He released her from that
+crushing embrace, but still kept an arm around her while he held her off
+and looked at her.
+
+"Lenore, will you kiss me?" he whispered.
+
+She could have cried out in sheer delight at the wonder of that whisper
+in her ear. It had been she who had changed the world for Kurt Dorn.
+
+"Yes--presently," she replied, with a tremulous little laugh. "Wait
+till--I get my breath--"
+
+"I was beside myself--am so yet," he replied, low voiced as if in awe.
+"I've been lifted to heaven.... It cannot be true. I believe, yet I'll
+not be sure till you kiss me.... You--Lenore Anderson, this girl of my
+dreams! Do you love me--is it true?"
+
+"Yes, Kurt, indeed I do--very dearly," she replied, and turned to look
+up into his face. It was transfigured. Lenore's heart swelled as a deep
+and profound emotion waved over her.
+
+"Please kiss me--then."
+
+She lifted her face, flushing scarlet. Their lips met. Then with her
+head upon his shoulder and her hands closely held she answered the
+thousand and one questions of a bewildered and exalted lover who could
+not realize the truth. Lenore laughed at him and eloquently furnished
+proof of her own obsession, and told him how and why and when it all
+came about.
+
+Not for hours did Kurt come back to actualities. "I forgot about the
+vigilantes," he exclaimed, suddenly. "It's too late now.... How the time
+has flown!... Oh, Lenore, thought of other things breaks in, alas!"
+
+He kissed her hand and got up. Another change was coming over him.
+Lenore had long expected the moment when realization would claim his
+attention. She was prepared.
+
+"Yes, you forgot your appointment with dad and the vigilantes. You've
+missed some excitement and violence."
+
+His face had grown white again--grave now and troubled. "May I speak to
+your father?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," she replied.
+
+"If I come back from the war--well--not crippled--will you promise to
+marry me?"
+
+"Kurt, I promise now."
+
+That seemed to shake him. "But, Lenore, it is not fair to you. I don't
+believe a soldier should bind a girl by marriage or engagement before he
+goes to war. She should be free.... I want you to be free."
+
+"That's for you to say," she replied, softly. "But for my part, I don't
+want to be free--if you go away to war."
+
+"If!... I'm going," he said, with a start. "You don't want to be free?
+Lenore, would you be engaged to me?"
+
+"My dear boy, of course I would.... It seems I _am,_ doesn't it?" she
+replied, with one of her deep, low laughs.
+
+He gazed at her, fascinated, worked upon by overwhelming emotions.
+"Would you marry me--before I go?"
+
+"Yes," she flashed.
+
+He bent and bowed then under the storm. Stumbling to her, almost on his
+knees, he brokenly expressed his gratitude, his wonder, his passion, and
+the terrible temptation that he must resist, which she must help him to
+resist.
+
+"Kurt, I love you. I will see things through your eyes, if I must. I
+want to be a comfort to you, not a source of sorrow."
+
+"But, Lenore, what comfort can I find?... To leave you now is going to
+be horrible!... To part from you now--I don't see how I can."
+
+Then Lenore dared to broach the subject so delicate, so momentous.
+
+"You need not part from me. My father has asked me to try to keep you
+home. He secured exemption for you. You are more needed here than at the
+front. You can feed many soldiers. You would be doing your duty--with
+honor!... You would be a soldier. The government is going to draft young
+men for farm duty. Why not you? There are many good reasons why you
+would be better than most young men. Because you know wheat. And wheat
+is to become the most important thing in the world. No one misjudges
+your loyalty.... And surely you see that the best service to your
+country is what you can do best."
+
+He sat down beside her, with serious frown and somber eyes. "Lenore, are
+you asking me not to go to war?"
+
+"Yes, I am," she replied. "I have thought it all over. I've given up my
+brother. I'd not ask you to stay home if you were needed at the front as
+much as here. That question I have had out with my conscience.... Kurt,
+don't think me a silly, sentimental girl. Events of late have made me a
+woman."
+
+He buried his face in his hands. "That's the most amazing of
+all--you--Lenore Anderson, my American girl--asking me not to go to
+war."
+
+"But, dear, it is not so amazing. It's reasonable. Your peculiar point
+of view makes it look different. I am no weak, timid, love-sick girl
+afraid to let you go!... I've given you good, honorable, patriotic
+reasons for your exemption from draft. Can you see that?"
+
+"Yes. I grant all your claims. I know wheat well enough to tell you that
+if vastly more wheat-raising is not done the world will starve. That
+would hold good for the United States in forty years without war."
+
+"Then if you see my point why are you opposed to it?" she asked.
+
+"Because I am Kurt Dorn," he replied, bitterly.
+
+His tone, his gloom made her shiver. It would take all her intelligence
+and wit and reason to understand him, and vastly more than that to
+change him. She thought earnestly. This was to be an ordeal profoundly
+more difficult than the confession of her love. It was indeed a crisis
+dwarfing the other she had met. She sensed in him a remarkably strange
+attitude toward this war, compared with that of her brother or other
+boys she knew who had gone.
+
+"Because you are Kurt Dorn," she said, thoughtfully. "It's in the name,
+then.... But I think it a pretty name--a good name. Have I not consented
+to accept it as mine--for life?"
+
+He could not answer that. Blindly he reached out with a shaking hand, to
+find hers, to hold it close. Lenore felt the tumult in him. She was
+shocked. A great tenderness, sweet and motherly, flooded over her.
+
+"Dearest, in this dark hour--that was so bright a little while ago--you
+must not keep anything from me," she replied. "I will be true to you. I
+will crush my selfish hopes. I will be your mother.... tell me why you
+must go to war because you are Kurt Dorn."
+
+"My father was German. He hated this country--yours and mine. He plotted
+with the I.W.W. He hated your father and wanted to destroy him....
+Before he died he realized his crime. For so I take the few words he
+spoke to Jerry. But all the same he was a traitor to my country. I bear
+his name. I have German in me.... And by God I'm going to pay!"
+
+His deep, passionate tones struck into Lenore's heart. She fought with a
+rising terror. She was beginning to understand him. How helpless she
+felt--how she prayed for inspiration--for wisdom!
+
+"Pay!... How?" she asked.
+
+"In the only way possible. I'll see that a Dorn goes to war--who will
+show his American blood--who will fight and kill--and be killed!"
+
+His passion, then, was more than patriotism. It had its springs in the
+very core of his being. He had, it seemed, a debt that he must pay. But
+there was more than this in his grim determination. And Lenore divined
+that it lay hidden in his bitter reference to his German blood. He hated
+that--doubted himself because of it. She realized now that to keep him
+from going to war would be to make him doubt his manhood and eventually
+to despise himself. No longer could she think of persuading him to stay
+home. She must forget herself. She knew then that she had the power to
+keep him and she could use it, but she must not do so. This tragic thing
+was a matter of his soul. But if he went to war with this bitter
+obsession, with this wrong motive, this passionate desire to spill blood
+in him that he hated, he would lose his soul. He must be changed. All
+her love, all her woman's flashing, subtle thought concentrated on this
+fact. How strange the choice that had been given her! Not only must she
+relinquish her hope of keeping him home, but she must perhaps go to
+desperate ends to send him away with a changed spirit. The moment of
+decision was agony for her.
+
+"Kurt, this is a terrible hour for both of us," she said, "but, thank
+Heaven, you have confessed to me. Now I will confess to you."
+
+"Confess?... You?... What nonsense!" he exclaimed. But in his surprise
+he lifted his head from his hands to look at her.
+
+"When we came in here my mind was made up to make you stay home. Father
+begged me to do it, and I had my own selfish motive. It was love. Oh, I
+do love you, Kurt, more than you can dream of!... I justified my
+resolve. I told you that. But I wanted you. I wanted your love--your
+presence. I longed for a home with you as husband--master--father to my
+babies. I dreamed of all. It filled me with terror to think of you going
+to war. You might be crippled--mangled--murdered.... Oh, my dear, I
+could not bear the thought!... So I meant to overcome you. I had it all
+planned. I meant to love you--to beg you--to kiss you--to make you
+stay--"
+
+"Lenore, what are you saying?" he cried, in shocked amaze.
+
+She flung her arms round his neck. "Oh, I could--I could have kept you!"
+she answered, low voiced and triumphant. "It fills me with joy.... Tell
+me I could have kept you--tell me."
+
+"Yes. I've no power to resist you. But I might have hated--"
+
+"Hush!... It's all might have.... I've risen above myself."
+
+"Lenore, you distress me. A little while ago you bewildered me with your
+sweetness and love.... Now--you look like an angel or a goddess.... Oh,
+to have your face like this--always with me! Yet it distresses me--so
+terrible in purpose. What are you about to tell me? I see something--"
+
+"Listen," she broke in. "I meant to make you weak. I implore you now to
+be strong. You must go to war! But with all my heart and soul I beg you
+to go with a changed spirit.... You were about to do a terrible thing.
+You hated the German in you and meant to kill it by violence. You
+despised the German blood and you meant to spill it. Like a wild man you
+would have rushed to fight, to stab and beat, to murder--and you would
+have left your breast open for a bayonet-thrust.... Oh, I know it!...
+Kurt, you are horribly wrong. That is no way to go to war.... War is a
+terrible business, but men don't wage it for motives such as yours. We
+Americans all have different strains of blood--English--French--German.
+One is as good as another. You are obsessed--you are out of your head on
+this German question. You must kill that idea--kill it with one
+bayonet-thrust of sense.... You must go to war as my soldier--with my
+ideal. Your country has called you to help uphold its honor, its pledged
+word. You must fight to conquer an enemy who threatens to destroy
+freedom.... You must be brave, faithful, merciful, clean--an American
+soldier!... You are only one of a million. You have no personal need for
+war. You are as good, as fine, as noble as any man--my choice, sir, of
+all the men in the world!... I am sending you. I am giving you up....
+Oh, my darling--you will never know how hard it is!... But go! Your life
+has been sad. You have lost so much. I feel in my woman's heart what
+will be--if only you'll change--if you see God in this as I see. Promise
+me. Love that which you hated. Prove for yourself what I believe. Trust
+me--promise me... Then--oh, I know God will send you back to me!"
+
+He fell upon his knees before her to bury his face in her lap. His whole
+frame shook. His hands plucked at her dress. A low sob escaped him.
+
+"Lenore," he whispered, brokenly, "I can't see God in this--for me!... I
+can't promise!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Thirty masked men sat around a long harvest mess-table. Two lanterns
+furnished light enough to show a bare barnlike structure, the
+rough-garbed plotters, the grim set of hard lips below the half-masks,
+and big hands spread out, ready to draw from the hat that was passing.
+
+The talk was low and serious. No names were spoken. A heavy man, at the
+head of the table, said: "We thirty, picked men, represent the country.
+Let each member here write on his slip of paper his choice of punishment
+for the I.W.W.'s--death or deportation...."
+
+The members of the band bent their masked faces and wrote in a dead
+silence. A noiseless wind blew through the place. The lanterns
+flickered; huge shadows moved on the walls. When the papers had been
+passed back to the leader he read them.
+
+"Deportation," he announced. "So much for the I.W.W. men.... Now for the
+leader.... But before we vote on what to do with Glidden let me read an
+extract from one of his speeches. This is authentic. It has been
+furnished by the detective lately active in our interest. Also it has
+been published. I read it because I want to bring home to you all an
+issue that goes beyond our own personal fortunes here."
+
+Leaning toward the flickering flare of the lantern, the leader read from
+a slip of paper: "If the militia are sent out here to hinder the I.W.W.
+we will make it so damned hot for the government that no troops will be
+able to go to France.... I don't give a damn what this country is
+fighting for.... I am fighting for the rights of labor.... American
+soldiers are Uncle Sam's scabs in disguise."
+
+The deep, impressive voice ended. The leader's huge fist descended upon
+the table with a crash. He gazed up and down the rows of sinister masked
+figures. "Have you anything to say?"
+
+"No," replied one.
+
+"Pass the slips," said another.
+
+And then a man, evidently on in years, for his hair was gray and he
+looked bent, got up. "Neighbors," he began "I lived here in the early
+days. For the last few years I've been apologizing for my home town. I
+don't want to apologize for it any longer."
+
+He sat down. And a current seemed to wave from him around that dark
+square of figures. The leader cleared his throat as if he had much to
+say, but he did not speak. Instead he passed the hat. Each man drew
+forth a slip of paper and wrote upon it. The action was not slow.
+Presently the hat returned round the table to the leader. He spilled its
+contents, and with steady hand picked up the first slip of paper.
+
+"Death!" he read, sonorously, and laid it down to pick up another. Again
+he spoke that grim word. The third brought forth the same, and likewise
+the next, and all, until the verdict had been called out thirty times.
+
+"At daylight we'll meet," boomed out that heavy voice. "Instruct
+Glidden's guards to make a show of resistance.... We'll hang Glidden to
+the railroad bridge. Then each of you get your gangs together. Round up
+all the I.W.W.'s. Drive them to the railroad yard. There we'll put them
+aboard a railroad train of empty cars. And that train will pass under
+the bridge where Glidden will be hanging.... We'll escort them out of
+the country."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That August dawn was gray and cool, with gold and pink beginning to
+break over the dark eastern ranges. The town had not yet awakened. It
+slept unaware of the stealthy forms passing down the gray road and of
+the distant hum of motor-cars and trot of hoofs.
+
+Glidden's place of confinement was a square warehouse, near the edge of
+town. Before the improvised jail guards paced up and down, strangely
+alert.
+
+Daylight had just cleared away the gray when a crowd of masked men
+appeared as if by magic and bore down upon the guards. There was an
+apparent desperate resistance, but, significantly, no cries or shots.
+The guards were overpowered and bound.
+
+The door of the jail yielded to heavy blows of an ax. In the corner of a
+dim, bare room groveled Glidden, bound so that he had little use of his
+body. But he was terribly awake. When six men entered he asked,
+hoarsely: "What're you--after?... What--you mean?"
+
+They jerked him erect. They cut the bonds from his legs. They dragged
+him out into the light of breaking day.
+
+When he saw the masked and armed force he cried: "My God!... What'll
+you--do with me?"
+
+Ghastly, working, sweating, his face betrayed his terror.
+
+"You're to be hanged by the neck," spoke a heavy, solemn voice.
+
+The man would have collapsed but for the strong hands that upheld him.
+
+"What--for?" he gasped.
+
+"For I.W.W. crimes--for treason--for speeches no American can stand in
+days like these." Then this deep-voiced man read to Glidden words of his
+own.
+
+"Do you recognize that?"
+
+Glidden saw how he had spoken his own doom. "Yes, I said that," he had
+nerve left to say. "But--I insist on arrest--trial--justice!... I'm no
+criminal.... I've big interests behind me.... You'll suffer--"
+
+A loop of a lasso, slung over his head and jerked tight, choked off his
+intelligible utterance. But as the silent, ruthless men dragged him away
+he gave vent to terrible, half-strangled cries.
+
+The sun rose red over the fertile valley--over the harvest fields and
+the pastures and the orchards, and over the many towns that appeared
+lost in the green and gold of luxuriance.
+
+In the harvest districts west of the river all the towns were visited by
+swift-flying motor-cars that halted long enough for a warning to be
+shouted to the citizens, "Keep off the streets!"
+
+Simultaneously armed forces of men, on foot and on horseback, too
+numerous to count, appeared in the roads and the harvest fields.
+
+They accosted every man they met. If he were recognized or gave proof of
+an honest identity he was allowed to go; otherwise he was marched along
+under arrest. These armed forces were thorough in their search, and in
+the country districts they had an especial interest in likely
+camping-places, and around old barns and straw-stacks. In the towns they
+searched every corner that was big enough to hide a man.
+
+So it happened that many motley groups of men were driven toward the
+railroad line, where they were held until a freight-train of empty
+cattle-cars came along. This train halted long enough to have the I.W.W.
+contingent driven aboard, with its special armed guard following, and
+then it proceeded on to the next station. As stations were many, so were
+the halts, and news of the train with its strange freight flashed ahead.
+Crowds lined the railroad tracks. Many boys and men in these crowds
+carried rifles and pistols which they leveled at the I.W.W. prisoners as
+the train passed. Jeers and taunts and threats accompanied this
+presentation of guns.
+
+Before the last station of that wheat district was reached full three
+hundred members of the I.W.W., or otherwise suspicious characters, were
+packed into the open cars. At the last stop the number was greatly
+augmented, and the armed forces were cut down to the few guards who were
+to see the I.W.W. deported from the country. Here provisions and
+drinking-water were put into the cars. And amid a hurrahing roar of
+thousands the train with its strange load slowly pulled out.
+
+It did not at once gather headway. The engine whistled a prolonged
+blast--a signal or warning not lost on many of its passengers.
+
+From the front cars rose shrill cries that alarmed the prisoners in the
+rear. The reason soon became manifest. Arms pointed and eyes stared at
+the figure of a man hanging from a rope fastened to the center of a high
+bridge span under which the engine was about to pass.
+
+The figure swayed in the wind. It turned half-way round, disclosing a
+ghastly, distorted face, and a huge printed placard on the breast, then
+it turned back again. Slowly the engine drew one car-load after another
+past the suspended body of the dead man. There were no more cries. All
+were silent in that slow-moving train. All faces were pale, all eyes
+transfixed.
+
+The placard on the hanged man's breast bore in glaring red a strange
+message: _Last warning_. 3-7-77.
+
+The figures were the ones used in the frontier days by vigilantes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A dusty motor-car climbed the long road leading up to the Neuman ranch.
+It was not far from Wade, a small hamlet of the wheat-growing section,
+and the slopes of the hills, bare and yellow with waving grain, bore
+some semblance to the Bend country. Four men--a driver and three
+cowboys--were in the automobile.
+
+A big stone gate marked the entrance to Neuman's ranch. Cars and
+vehicles lined the roadside. Men were passing in and out. Neuman's home
+was unpretentious, but his barns and granaries and stock-houses were
+built on a large scale.
+
+"Bill, are you goin' in with me after this pard of the Kaiser's?"
+inquired Jake, leisurely stretching himself as the car halted. He opened
+the door and stiffly got out. "Gimme a hoss any day fer gittin' places!"
+
+"Jake, my regard fer your rep as Anderson's foreman makes me want to hug
+the background," replied Bill. "I've done a hell of a lot these last
+forty-eight hours."
+
+"Wal, I reckon you have, Bill, an' no mistake.... But I was figgerin' on
+you wantin' to see the fun."
+
+"Fun!... Jake, it 'll be fun enough fer me to sit hyar an' smoke in the
+shade, an' watch fer you to come a-runnin' from thet big German
+devil.... Pard, they say he's a bad man!"
+
+"Sure. I know thet. All them Germans is bad."
+
+"If the boss hadn't been so dog-gone strict about gun-play I'd love to
+go with you," responded Bill. "But he didn't give me no orders. You're
+the whole outfit this round-up."
+
+"Bill, you'd have to take orders from me," said Jake, coolly.
+
+"Sure. Thet's why I come with Andy."
+
+The other cowboy, called Andy, manifested uneasiness, and he said: "Aw,
+now, Jake, you ain't a-goin' to ask me to go in there?... An' me hatin'
+Germans the way I do!"
+
+"Nope. I guess I'll order Bill to go in an' fetch Neuman out," replied
+Jake, complacently, as he made as if to re-enter the car.
+
+Bill collapsed in his seat. "Jake," he expostulated, weakly, "this job
+was given you because of your rep fer deploomacy.... Sure I haven't none
+of thet.... An' you, Jake, why you're the smoothest an' slickest talker
+thet ever come to the Northwest."
+
+Evidently Jake had a vulnerable point. He straightened up with a little
+swagger. "Wal, you watch me," he said. "I'll fetch the big Dutchman
+eatin' out of my hand.... An' say, when we git him in the car an' start
+back let's scare the daylights out of him."
+
+"Thet'd be powerful fine. But how?"
+
+"You fellers take a hunch from me," replied Jake. And he strode off up
+the lane toward the ranch-house.
+
+Jake had been commissioned to acquaint Neuman with the fact that recent
+developments demanded his immediate presence at "Many Waters." The
+cowboy really had a liking for the job, though he pretended not to.
+
+Neuman had not yet begun harvesting. There were signs to Jake's
+experienced eye that the harvest-hands were expected this very day. Jake
+fancied he knew why the rancher had put off his harvesting. And also he
+knew that the extra force of harvest-hands would not appear. He was
+regarded with curiosity by the women members of the Neuman household,
+and rather enjoyed it. There were several comely girls in evidence. Jake
+did not look a typical Northwest foreman and laborer. Booted and
+spurred, with his gun swinging visibly, and his big sombrero and gaudy
+scarf, he looked exactly what he was, a cowman of the open ranges.
+
+His inquiries elicited the fact that Neuman was out in the fields,
+waiting for the harvest-hands.
+
+"Wal, if he's expectin' thet outfit of I.W.W.'s he'll never harvest,"
+said Jake, "for some of them is hanged an' the rest run out of the
+country."
+
+Jake did not wait to see the effect of his news. He strode back toward
+the fields, and with the eye of a farmer he appraised the barns and
+corrals, and the fields beyond. Neuman raised much wheat, and enough
+alfalfa to feed his stock. His place was large and valuable, but not
+comparable to "Many Waters."
+
+Out in the wheat-fields were engines with steam already up, with
+combines and threshers and wagons waiting for the word to start. Jake
+enjoyed the keen curiosity roused by his approach. Neuman strode out
+from a group of waiting men. He was huge of build, ruddy-faced and
+bearded, with deep-set eyes.
+
+"Are you Neuman?" inquired Jake.
+
+"That's me," gruffly came the reply.
+
+"I'm Anderson's foreman. I've been sent over to tell you thet you're
+wanted pretty bad at 'Many Waters.'"
+
+The man stared incredulously. "What?... Who wants me?"
+
+"Anderson. An' I reckon there's more--though I ain't informed."
+
+Neuman rumbled a curse. Amaze dominated him. "Anderson!... Well, I don't
+want to see him," he replied.
+
+"I reckon you don't," was the cowboy's cool reply.
+
+The rancher looked him up and down. However familiar his type was to
+Anderson, it was strange to Neuman. The cowboy breathed a potential
+force. The least significant thing about his appearance was that
+swinging gun. He seemed cool and easy, with hard, keen eyes. Neuman's
+face took a shade off color.
+
+"But I'm going to harvest to-day," he said. "I'm late. I've a hundred
+hands coming."
+
+"Nope. You haven't none comin'," asserted Jake.
+
+"What!" ejaculated Neuman.
+
+"Reckon it's near ten o'clock," said the cowboy. "We run over here
+powerful fast."
+
+"Yes, it's near ten," bellowed Neuman, on the verge of a rage.... "I
+haven't harvest-hands coming!... What's this talk?"
+
+"Wal, about nine-thirty I seen all your damned I.W.W.'s, except what was
+shot an' hanged, loaded in a cattlecar an' started out of the country."
+
+A blow could not have hit harder than the cowboy's biting speech.
+Astonishment and fear shook Neuman before he recovered control of
+himself.
+
+"If it's true, what's that to me?" he bluffed, in hoarse accents.
+
+"Neuman, I didn't come to answer questions," said the cowboy, curtly.
+"My boss jest sent me fer you, an' if you bucked on comin', then I was
+to say it was your only chance to avoid publicity an' bein' run out of
+the country."
+
+Neuman was livid of face now and shaking all over his huge frame.
+
+"Anderson threatens me!" he shouted. "Anderson suspicions me!... _Gott
+in Himmel_!... Me he always cheated! An' now he insults--"
+
+"Say, it ain't healthy to talk like thet about my boss," interrupted
+Jake, forcibly. "An' we're wastin' time. If you don't go with me we'll
+be comin' back--the whole outfit of us!... Anderson means you're to face
+his man!"
+
+"What man?"
+
+"Dorn. Young Dorn, son of old Chris Dorn of the Bend.... Dorn has some
+things to tell you thet you won't want made public.... Anderson's givin'
+you a square deal. If it wasn't fer thet I'd sling my gun on you!... Do
+you git my hunch?"
+
+The name of Dorn made a slack figure of the aggressive Neuman.
+
+"All right--I go," he said, gruffly, and without a word to his men he
+started off.
+
+Jake followed him. Neuman made a short cut to the gate, thus avoiding a
+meeting with any of his family. At the road, however, some men observed
+him and called in surprise, but he waved them back.
+
+"Bill, you an' Andy collect yourselves an' give Mr. Neuman a seat," said
+Jake, as he opened the door to allow the farmer to enter.
+
+The two cowboys gave Neuman the whole of the back seat, and they
+occupied the smaller side seats. Jake took his place beside the driver.
+
+"Burn her up!" was his order.
+
+The speed of the car made conversation impossible until the limits of a
+town necessitated slowing down. Then the cowboys talked. For all the
+attention they paid to Neuman, he might as well not have been present.
+Before long the driver turned into a road that followed a railroad track
+for several miles and then crossed it to enter a good-sized town. The
+streets were crowded with people and the car had to be driven slowly. At
+this juncture Jake suggested.
+
+"Let's go down by the bridge."
+
+"Sure," agreed his allies.
+
+Then the driver turned down a still more peopled street that sloped a
+little and evidently overlooked the railroad tracks. Presently they came
+in sight of a railroad bridge, around which there appeared to be an
+excited yet awestruck throng. All faces were turned up toward the
+swaying form of a man hanging by a rope tied to the high span of the
+bridge.
+
+"Wal, Glidden's hangin' there yet," remarked Jake, cheerfully.
+
+With a violent start Neuman looked out to see the ghastly placarded
+figure, and then he sank slowly back in his seat. The cowboys apparently
+took no notice of him. They seemed to have forgotten his presence.
+
+"Funny they'd cut all the other I.W.W.'s down an' leave Glidden hangin'
+there," observed Bill.
+
+"Them vigilantes sure did it up brown," added Andy. "I was dyin' to join
+the band. But they didn't ask me."
+
+"Nor me," replied Jake, regretfully. "An' I can't understand why, onless
+it was they was afeared I couldn't keep a secret."
+
+"Who is them vigilantes, anyhow?" asked Bill, curiously.
+
+"Wal, I reckon nobody knows. But I seen a thousand armed men this
+mornin'. They sure looked bad. You ought to have seen them poke the
+I.W.W.'s with cocked guns."
+
+"Was any one shot?" queried Andy.
+
+"Not in the daytime. Nobody killed by this Citizens' Protective League,
+as they call themselves. They just rounded up all the suspicious men an'
+herded them on to thet cattle-train an' carried them off. It was at
+night when the vigilantes worked--masked an' secret an' sure bloody.
+Jest like the old vigilante days! ... An' you can gamble they ain't
+through yet."
+
+"Uncle Sam won't need to send any soldiers here."
+
+"Wal, I should smile not. Thet'd be a disgrace to the Northwest. It was
+a bad time fer the I.W.W. to try any tricks on us."
+
+Jake shook his lean head and his jaw bulged. He might have been
+haranguing, cowboy-like, for the benefit of the man they feigned not to
+notice, but it was plain, nevertheless, that he was angry.
+
+"What gits me wuss 'n them I.W.W.'s is the skunks thet give Uncle Sam
+the double-cross," said Andy, with dark face. "I'll stand fer any man
+an' respect him if he's aboveboard an' makes his fight in the open. But
+them coyotes thet live off the land an' pretend to be American when they
+ain't--they make me pisen mad."
+
+"I heerd the vigilantes has marked men like thet," observed Bill.
+
+"I'll give you a hunch, fellers," replied Jake, grimly. "By Gawd! the
+West won't stand fer traitors!"
+
+All the way to "Many Waters," where it was possible to talk and be
+heard, the cowboys continued in like strain. And not until the driver
+halted the car before Anderson's door did they manifest any awareness of
+Neuman.
+
+"Git out an' come in," said Jake to the pallid, sweating rancher.
+
+He led Neuman into the hall and knocked upon Anderson's study door. It
+was opened by Dorn.
+
+"Wal, hyar we are," announced Jake, and his very nonchalance attested to
+pride.
+
+Anderson was standing beside his desk. He started, and his hand flashed
+back significantly as he sighted his rival and enemy.
+
+"No gun-play, boss, was your orders," said Jake. "An' Neuman ain't
+packin' no gun."
+
+It was plain that Anderson made a great effort at restraint. But he
+failed. And perhaps the realization that he could not kill this man
+liberated his passion. Then the two big ranchers faced each
+other--Neuman livid and shaking, Anderson black as a thunder-cloud.
+
+"Neuman, you hatched up a plot with Glidden to kill me," said Anderson,
+bitterly.
+
+Neuman, in hoarse, brief answer, denied it.
+
+"Sure! Deny it. What do we care? ... We've got you, Neuman," burst out
+Anderson, his heavy voice ringing with passion. "But it's not your
+low-down plot thet's r'iled me. There's been a good many men who've
+tried to do away with me. I've outplayed you in many a deal. So your
+personal hate for me doesn't count. I'm sore--an' you an' me can't live
+in the same place, because you're a damned traitor. You've lived here
+for twenty years. You've grown rich off the country. An' you'd sell us
+to your rotten Germany. What I think of you for that I'm goin' to tell
+you."
+
+Anderson paused to take a deep breath. Then he began to curse Neuman.
+All the rough years of his frontier life, as well as the quieter ones of
+his ranching days, found expression in the swift, thunderous roll of his
+terrible scorn. Every vile name that had ever been used by cowboy,
+outlaw, gambler, leaped to Anderson's stinging tongue. All the keen,
+hard epithets common to the modern day he flung into Neuman's face. And
+he ended with a profanity that was as individual in character as its
+delivery was intense.
+
+"I'm callin' you for my own relief," he concluded, "an' not that I
+expect to get under your hide."
+
+Then he paused. He wiped the beaded drops from his forehead, and he
+coughed and shook himself. His big fists unclosed. Passion gave place to
+dignity.
+
+"Neuman, it's a pity you an' men like you can't see the truth. That's
+the mystery to me--why any one who had spent half a lifetime an'
+prospered here in our happy an' beautiful country could ever hate it. I
+never will understand that. But I do understand that America will never
+harbor such men for long. You have your reasons, I reckon. An' no doubt
+you think you're justified. That's the tragedy. You run off from
+hard-ruled Germany. You will not live there of your own choice. You
+succeed here an' live in peace an' plenty.... An', by God! you take up
+with a lot of foreign riffraff an' double-cross the people you owe so
+much!... What's wrong with your mind?... Think it over.... An' that's
+the last word I have for you."
+
+Anderson, turning to his desk, took up a cigar and lighted it. He was
+calm again. There was really sadness where his face had shown only fury.
+Then he addressed Dorn.
+
+"Kurt, it's up to you now," he said. "As my superintendent an' some-day
+partner, what you'll say goes with me.... I don't know what bein' square
+would mean in relation to this man."
+
+Anderson sat down heavily in his desk chair and his face became obscured
+in cigar smoke.
+
+"Neuman, do you recognize me?" asked Dorn, with his flashing eyes on the
+rancher.
+
+"No," replied Neuman.
+
+"I'm Chris Dorn's son. My father died a few days ago. He overtaxed his
+heart fighting fire in the wheat ... Fire set by I.W.W. men. Glidden's
+men! ... They burned our wheat. Ruined us!"
+
+Neuman showed shock at the news, at the sudden death of an old friend,
+but he did not express himself in words.
+
+"Do you deny implication in Glidden's plot to kill Anderson?" demanded
+Dorn.
+
+"Yes," replied Neuman.
+
+"Well, you're a liar!" retorted Dorn. "I saw you with Glidden and my
+father. I followed you at Wheatly--out along the railroad tracks. I
+slipped up and heard the plot. It was I who snatched the money from my
+father."
+
+Neuman's nerve was gone, but with his stupid and stubborn process of
+thought he still denied, stuttering incoherently.
+
+"Glidden has been hanged," went on Dorn. "A vigilante band has been
+organized here in the valley. Men of your known sympathy will not be
+safe, irrespective of your plot against Anderson. But as to that,
+publicity alone will be enough to ruin you.... Americans of the West
+will not tolerate traitors.... Now the question you've got to decide is
+this. Will you take the risks or will you sell out and leave the
+country?"
+
+"I'll sell out," replied Neuman.
+
+"What price do you put on your ranch as it stands?"
+
+"One hundred thousand dollars."
+
+Dorn turned to Anderson and asked, "Is it worth that much?"
+
+"No. Seventy-five thousand would be a big price," replied the rancher.
+
+"Neuman, we will give you seventy-five thousand for your holdings. Do
+you accept?"
+
+"I have no choice," replied Neuman, sullenly.
+
+"Choice!" exclaimed Dorn. "Yes, you have. And you're not being cheated.
+I've stated facts. You are done in this valley. You're ruined _now!_ And
+Glidden's fate stares you in the face.... Will you sell and leave the
+country?"
+
+"Yes," came the deep reply, wrenched from a stubborn breast.
+
+"Go draw up your deeds, then notify us," said Dorn, with finality.
+
+Jake opened the door. Stolidly and slowly Neuman went out, precisely as
+he had entered, like a huge man in conflict with unintelligible
+thoughts.
+
+"Send him home in the car," called Anderson.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+For two fleeting days Lenore Anderson was happy when she forgot,
+miserable when she remembered. Then the third morning dawned.
+
+At the breakfast-table her father had said, cheerily, to Dorn: "Better
+take off your coat an' come out to the fields. We've got some job to
+harvest that wheat with only half-force.... But, by George! my trouble's
+over."
+
+Dorn looked suddenly blank, as if Anderson's cheery words had recalled
+him to the realities of life. He made an incoherent excuse and left the
+table.
+
+"Ah-huh!" Anderson's characteristic exclamation might have meant little
+or much. "Lenore, what ails the boy?"
+
+"Nothing that I know of. He has been as--as happy as I am," she replied.
+
+"Then it's all settled?"
+
+"Father, I--I--"
+
+Kathleen's high, shrill, gleeful voice cut in: "Sure it's settled! Look
+at Lenorry blush!"
+
+Lenore indeed felt the blood stinging face and neck. Nevertheless, she
+laughed.
+
+"Come into my room," said Anderson.
+
+She followed him there, and as he closed the door she answered his
+questioning look by running into his arms and hiding her face.
+
+"Wal, I'll be dog-goned!" the rancher ejaculated, with emotion. He held
+her and patted her shoulder with his big hand. "Tell me, Lenore."
+
+"There's little to tell," she replied, softly. "I love him--and he loves
+me so--so well that I've been madly happy--in spite of--of--"
+
+"Is that all?" asked Anderson, dubiously.
+
+"Is not that enough?"
+
+"But Dorn's lovin' you so well doesn't say he'll not go to war."
+
+And it was then that forgotten bitterness returned to poison Lenore's
+cup of joy.
+
+"Ah!"... she whispered.
+
+"Good Lord! Lenore, you don't mean you an' Dorn have been alone all the
+time these few days--an' you haven't settled that war question?" queried
+Anderson, in amaze.
+
+"Yes.... How strange!... But since--well, since something
+happened--we--we forgot," she replied, dreamily.
+
+"Wal, go back to it," said Anderson, forcibly. "I want Dorn to help
+me.... Why, he's a wonder!... He's saved the situation for us here in
+the valley. Every rancher I know is praisin' him high. An' he sure
+treated Neuman square. An' here I am with three big wheat-ranches on my
+hands!... Lenore, you've got to keep him home."
+
+"Dad!... I--I could not!" replied Lenore. She was strangely realizing an
+indefinable change in herself. "I can't try to keep him from going to
+war. I never thought of that since--since we confessed our love.... But
+it's made some difference.... It'll kill me, I think, to let him go--but
+I'd die before I'd ask him to stay home."
+
+"Ah-huh!" sighed Anderson, and, releasing her, he began to pace the
+room. "I don't begin to understand you, girl. But I respect your
+feelin's. It's a hell of a muddle!... I'd forgotten the war myself while
+chasin' off them I.W.W.'s.... But this war has _got_ to be reckoned
+with!... Send Dorn to me!"
+
+Lenore found Dorn playing with Kathleen. These two had become as brother
+and sister.
+
+"Kurt, dad wants to see you," said Lenore seriously.
+
+Dorn looked startled, and the light of fun on his face changed to a
+sober concern.
+
+"You told him?"
+
+"Yes, Kurt, I told him what little I had to tell."
+
+He gave her a strange glance and then slowly went toward her father's
+study. Lenore made a futile attempt to be patient. She heard her
+father's deep voice, full and earnest, and she heard Dorn's quick,
+passionate response. She wondered what this interview meant. Anderson
+was not one to give up easily. He had set his heart upon holding this
+capable young man in the great interests of the wheat business. Lenore
+could not understand why she was not praying that he be successful. But
+she was not. It was inexplicable and puzzling--this change in her--this
+end of her selfishness. Yet she shrank in terror from an impinging
+sacrifice. She thrust the thought from her with passionate physical
+gesture and with stern effort of will.
+
+Dorn was closeted with her father for over an hour. When he came out he
+was white, but apparently composed. Lenore had never seen his eyes so
+piercing as when they rested upon her.
+
+"Whew!" he exclaimed, and wiped his face. "Your father has my poor old
+dad--what does Kathleen say?--skinned to a frazzle!"
+
+"What did he say?" asked Lenore, anxiously.
+
+"A lot--and just as if I didn't know it all better than he knows,"
+replied Dorn, sadly. "The importance of wheat; his three ranches and
+nobody to run them; his growing years; my future and a great opportunity
+as one of the big wheat men of the Northwest; the present need of the
+government; his only son gone to war, which was enough for his
+family.... And then he spoke of you--heiress to 'Many Waters'--what a
+splendid, noble girl you were--like your mother! What a shame to ruin
+your happiness--your future!... He said you'd make the sweetest of
+wives--the truest of mothers!... Oh, my God!"
+
+Lenore turned away her face, shocked to her heart by his tragic passion.
+Dorn was silent for what seemed a long time.
+
+"And--then he cussed me--hard--as no doubt I deserved," added Dorn.
+
+"But--what did you say?" she whispered.
+
+"I said a lot, too," replied Dorn, remorsefully.
+
+"Did--did you--?" began Lenore, and broke off, unable to finish.
+
+"I arrived--to where I am now--pretty dizzy," he responded, with a smile
+that was both radiant and sorrowful. He took her hands and held them
+close. "Lenore!... if I come home from the war--still with my arms and
+legs--whole--will you marry me?"
+
+"Only come home _alive_, and no matter what you lose, yes!--yes!" she
+whispered, brokenly.
+
+"But it's a conditional proposal, Lenore," he insisted. "You must never
+marry half a man."
+
+"I will marry _you_!" she cried, passionately.
+
+It seemed to her that she loved him all the more, every moment, even
+though he made it so hard for her. Then through blurred, dim eyes she
+saw him take something from his pocket and felt him put a ring on her
+finger.
+
+"It fits! Isn't that lucky," he said, softly. "My mother's ring,
+Lenore...."
+
+He kissed her hand.
+
+Kathleen was standing near them, open-eyed and open-mouthed, in an
+ecstasy of realization.
+
+"Kathleen, your sister has promised to marry me--when I come from the
+war," said Dorn to the child.
+
+She squealed with delight, and, manifestly surrendering to a
+long-considered temptation, she threw her arms around his neck and
+hugged him close.
+
+"It's perfectly grand!" she cried. "But what a chump you are for going
+at all--when you could marry Lenorry!"
+
+That was Kathleen's point of view, and it must have coincided somewhat
+with Mr. Anderson's.
+
+"Kathleen, you wouldn't have me be a slacker?" asked Dorn, gently.
+
+"No. But we let Jim go," was her argument.
+
+Dorn kissed her, then turned to Lenore. "Let's go out to the fields."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not a long walk to the alfalfa, but by the time she got there
+Lenore's impending woe was as if it had never been. Dorn seemed
+strangely gay and unusually demonstrative; apparently he forgot the
+war-cloud in the joy of the hour. That they were walking in the open
+seemed not to matter to him.
+
+"Kurt, some one will see you," Lenore remonstrated.
+
+"You're more beautiful than ever to-day," he said, by way of answer, and
+tried to block her way.
+
+Lenore dodged and ran. She was fleet, and eluded him down the lane,
+across the cut field, to a huge square stack of baled alfalfa. But he
+caught her just as she got behind its welcome covert. Lenore was far
+less afraid of him than of laughing eyes. Breathless, she backed up
+against the stack.
+
+"You're--a--cannibal!" she panted. But she did not make much resistance.
+
+"You're--a goddess!" he replied.
+
+"Me!... Of what?"
+
+"Why, of 'Many Waters'!... Goddess of wheat!... The sweet, waving wheat,
+rich and golden--the very spirit of life!"
+
+"If anybody sees you--mauling me--this way--I'll not seem a goddess to
+him.... My hair is down--my waist--Oh, Kurt!"
+
+Yet it did not very much matter how she looked or what happened. Beyond
+all was the assurance of her dearness to him. Suddenly she darted away
+from him again. Her heart swelled, her spirit soared, her feet were
+buoyant and swift. She ran into the uncut alfalfa. It was thick and
+high, tangling round her feet. Here her progress was retarded. Dorn
+caught up with her. His strong hands on her shoulders felt masterful,
+and the sweet terror they inspired made her struggle to get away.
+
+"You shall--not--hold me!" she cried.
+
+"But I will. You must be taught--not to run," he said, and wrapped her
+tightly in his arms.
+
+"Now surrender your kisses meekly!"
+
+"I--surrender!... But, Kurt, someone will see... Dear, we'll go
+back--or--somewhere--"
+
+"Who can see us here but the birds?" he said, and the strong hands held
+her fast. "You will kiss me--enough--right now--even if the whole
+world--looked on!" he said, ringingly. "Lenore, my soul!... Lenore, I
+love you!"
+
+He would not be denied. And if she had any desire to deny him it was
+lost in the moment. She clasped his neck and gave him kiss for kiss.
+
+But her surrender made him think of her. She felt his effort to let her
+go.
+
+Lenore's heart felt too big for her breast. It hurt. She clung to his
+hand and they walked on across the field and across a brook, up the
+slope to one of Lenore's favorite seats. And there she wanted to rest.
+She smoothed her hair and brushed her dress, aware of how he watched
+her, with his heart in his eyes.
+
+Had there ever in all the years of the life of the earth been so perfect
+a day? How dazzling the sun! What heavenly blue the sky! And all beneath
+so gold, so green! A lark caroled over Lenore's head and a quail
+whistled in the brush below. The brook babbled and gurgled and murmured
+along, happy under the open sky. And a soft breeze brought the low roar
+of the harvest fields and the scent of wheat and dust and straw.
+
+Life seemed so stingingly full, so poignant, so immeasurably worth
+living, so blessed with beauty and richness and fruitfulness.
+
+"Lenore, your eyes are windows--and I can see into your soul. I can
+read--and first I'm uplifted and then I'm sad."
+
+It was he who talked and she who listened. This glorious day would be
+her strength when the--Ah! but she would not complete a single bitter
+thought.
+
+She led him away, up the slope, across the barley-field, now cut and
+harvested, to the great, swelling golden spaces of wheat. Far below, the
+engines and harvesters were humming. Here the wheat waved and rustled in
+the wind. It was as high as Lenore's head.
+
+"It's fine wheat," observed Dorn. "But the wheat of my desert hills was
+richer, more golden, and higher than this."
+
+"No regrets to-day!" murmured Lenore, leaning to him.
+
+There was magic in those words--the same enchantment that made the hours
+fly. She led him, at will, here and there along the rustling-bordered
+lanes. From afar they watched the busy harvest scene, with eyes that
+lingered long on a great, glittering combine with its thirty-two horses
+plodding along.
+
+"I can drive them. Thirty-two horses!" she asserted, proudly.
+
+"No!"
+
+"Yes. Will you come? I will show you."
+
+"It is a temptation," he said, with a sigh. "But there are eyes there.
+They would break the spell."
+
+"Who's talking about eyes now?" she cried.
+
+They spent the remainder of that day on the windy wheat-slope, high up,
+alone, with the beauty and richness of "Many Waters" beneath them. And
+when the sun sent its last ruddy and gold rays over the western hills,
+and the weary harvesters plodded homeward, Lenore still lingered, loath
+to break the spell. For on the way home, she divined, he would tell her
+he was soon to leave.
+
+Sunset and evening star! Their beauty and serenity pervaded Lenore's
+soul. Surely there was a life somewhere else, beyond in that infinite
+space. And the defeat of earthly dreams was endurable.
+
+They walked back down the wheat lanes hand in hand, as dusk shadowed the
+valley; and when they reached the house he told her gently that he must
+go.
+
+"But--you will stay to-night?" she whispered.
+
+"No. It's all arranged," he replied, thickly. "They're to drive me
+over--my train's due at eight.... I've kept it--till the last few
+minutes."
+
+They went in together.
+
+"We're too late for dinner," said Lenore, but she was not thinking of
+that, and she paused with head bent. "I--I want to say good-by to
+you--here." She pointed to the dim, curtained entrance of the
+living-room.
+
+"I'd like that, too," he replied. "I'll go up and get my bag. Wait."
+
+Lenore slowly stepped to that shadowed spot beyond the curtains where
+she had told her love to Dorn; and there she stood, praying and fighting
+for strength to let him go, for power to conceal her pain. The one great
+thing she could do was to show him that she would not stand in the way
+of his duty to himself. She realized then that if he had told her
+sooner, if he were going to remain one more hour at "Many Waters," she
+would break down and beseech him not to leave her.
+
+She saw him come down-stairs with his small hand-bag, which he set down.
+His face was white. His eyes burned. But her woman's love made her
+divine that this was not a shock to his soul, as it was to hers, but
+stimulation--a man's strange spiritual accounting to his fellow-men.
+
+He went first into the dining-room, and Lenore heard her mother's and
+sisters' voices in reply to his. Presently he came out to enter her
+father's study. Lenore listened, but heard no sound there. Outside, a
+motor-car creaked and hummed by the window, to stop by the side porch.
+Then the door of her father's study opened and closed, and Dorn came to
+where she was standing.
+
+Lenore did precisely as she had done a few nights before, when she had
+changed the world for him. But, following her kiss, there was a terrible
+instant when, with her arms around his neck, she went blind at the
+realization of loss. She held to him with a savage intensity of
+possession. It was like giving up life. She knew then, as never before,
+that she had the power to keep him at her side. But a thought saved her
+from exerting it--the thought that she could not make him less than
+other men--and so she conquered.
+
+"Lenore, I want you to think always--how you loved me," he said.
+
+"Loved you? Oh, my boy! It seems your lot has been hard. You've
+toiled--you've lost all--and now..."
+
+"Listen," he interrupted, and she had never heard his voice like that.
+"The thousands of boys who go to fight regard it a duty. For our
+country!... I had that, but more.... My father was German... and he was
+a traitor. The horror for me is that I hate what is German in _me_.... I
+will have to kill that. But you've helped me.... I know I'm American.
+I'll do my duty, whatever it is. I would have gone to war only a beast
+with my soul killed before I ever got there.... With no hope--no
+possibility of return!... But you love me!... Can't you see--how great
+the difference?"
+
+Lenore understood and felt it in his happiness. "Yes, Kurt, I know....
+Thank God, I've helped you.... I want you to go. I'll pray always. I
+believe you will come back to me.... Life could not be so utterly
+cruel..." She broke off.
+
+"Life can't rob me now--nor death," he cried, in exaltation. "I have
+your love. Your face will always be with me--as now--lovely and
+brave!... Not a tear!... And only that sweet smile like an angel's!...
+Oh, Lenore, what a girl you are!"
+
+"Say good-by--and go," she faltered. Another moment would see her
+weaken.
+
+"Yes, I must hurry." His voice was a whisper--almost gone. He drew a
+deep breath. "Lenore--my promised wife--my star for all the black
+nights--God bless you--keep you!... Good-by!"
+
+She spent all her strength in her embrace, all her soul in the passion
+of her farewell kiss. Then she stood alone, tottering, sinking. The
+swift steps, now heavy and uneven, passed out of the hall--the door
+closed--the motor-car creaked and rolled away--the droning hum ceased.
+
+For a moment of despairing shock, before the storm broke, Lenore blindly
+wavered there, unable to move from the spot that had seen the beginning
+and the end of her brief hour of love. Then she summoned strength to
+drag herself to her room, to lock her door.
+
+Alone! In the merciful darkness and silence and loneliness!... She need
+not lie nor play false nor fool herself here. She had let him go!
+Inconceivable and monstrous truth! For what?... It was not now with her,
+that deceiving spirit which had made her brave. But she was a woman. She
+fell upon her knees beside her bed, shuddering.
+
+That moment was the beginning of her sacrifice, the sacrifice she shared
+in common now with thousands of other women. Before she had pitied; now
+she suffered. And all that was sweet, loving, noble, and motherly--all
+that was womanly--rose to meet the stretch of gray future, with its
+endless suspense and torturing fear, its face of courage for the light
+of day, its despair for the lonely night, and its vague faith in the
+lessons of life, its possible and sustaining and eternal hope of God.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+    Camp--, _October_--.
+
+    Dear Sister Lenore,--It's been long since I wrote you. I'm sorry,
+    dear. But I haven't just been in shape to write. Have been
+    transferred to a training-camp not far from New York. I don't like
+    it. The air is raw, penetrating, different from our high mountain
+    air in the West. So many gray, gloomy days! And wet--why you never
+    saw a rain in Washington! Fine bunch of boys, though. We get up in
+    the morning at 4:30. Sweep the streets of the camp! I'm glad to get
+    up and sweep, for I'm near frozen long before daylight. Yesterday I
+    peeled potatoes till my hands were cramped. Nine million spuds, I
+    guess! I'm wearing citizen's clothes--too thin, by gosh!--and
+    sleeping in a tent, on a canvas cot, with one blanket. Wouldn't care
+    a--(scoose me, sis)--I wouldn't mind if I had a real gun, and some
+    real fighting to look forward to. Some life, I don't think! But I
+    meant to tell you why I'm here.
+
+    You remember how I always took to cowboys. Well, I got chummy with a
+    big cow puncher from Montana. His name was Andersen. Isn't that
+    queer? His name same as mine except for the last e where I have o.
+    He's a Swede or Norwegian. True-blue American? Well, I should smile.
+    Like all cowboys! He's six feet four, broad as a door, with a flat
+    head of an Indian, and a huge, bulging chin. Not real handsome, but
+    say! he's one of the finest fellows that ever lived. We call him
+    Montana.
+
+    There were a lot of rough-necks in our outfit, and right away I got
+    in bad. You know I never was much on holding my temper. Anyway, I
+    got licked powerful fine, as dad would say, and I'd been all beaten
+    up but for Montana. That made us two fast friends, and sure some
+    enemies, you bet.
+
+    We had the tough luck to run into six of the rough-necks, just
+    outside of the little town, where they'd been drinking. I never
+    heard the name of one of that outfit. We weren't acquainted at all.
+    Strange how they changed my soldier career, right at the start! This
+    day, when we met them, they got fresh, and of course I had to start
+    something. I soaked that rough-neck, sis, and don't you forget it.
+    Well, it was a fight, sure. I got laid out--not knocked out, for I
+    could see--but I wasn't any help to pard Montana. It looked as if he
+    didn't need any. The rough-necks jumped him. Then, one after
+    another, he piled them up in the road. Just a swing--and down went
+    each one--cold. But the fellow I hit came to and, grabbing up a
+    pick-handle, with all his might he soaked Montana over the head.
+    What an awful crack! Montana went down, and there was blood
+    everywhere.
+
+    They took Montana to the hospital, sewed up his head. It wasn't long
+    before he seemed all right again, but he told me sometimes he felt
+    queer. Then they put us on a troop-train, with boys from California
+    and all over, and we came East. I haven't seen any of those other
+    Western boys, though, since we got here.
+
+    One day, without any warning, Montana keeled over, down and out.
+    Paralysis! They took him to a hospital in New York. No hope, the
+    doctors said, and he was getting worse all the time. But some New
+    York surgeon advised operation, anyway. So they opened that
+    healed-over place in his head, where the pick-handle hit--and what
+    do you think they found? A splinter off that pick-handle, stuck two
+    inches under his skull, in his brain! They took it out. Every day
+    they expected Montana to die. But he didn't. But he _will_ die. I
+    went over to see him. He's unconscious part of the time--crazy the
+    rest. No part of his right side moves! It broke me all up. Why
+    couldn't that soak he got have been on the Kaiser's head?
+
+    I tell you, Lenore, a fellow has his eye teeth cut in this getting
+    ready to go to war. It makes me sick. I enlisted to fight, not to be
+    chased into a climate that doesn't agree with me--not to sweep roads
+    and juggle a wooden gun. There are a lot of things, but say! I've
+    got to cut out that kind of talk.
+
+    I feel almost as far away from you all as if I were in China. But
+    I'm nearer France! I hope you're well and standing pat, Lenore.
+    Remember, you're dad's white hope. I was the black sheep, you know.
+    Tell him I don't regard my transfer as a disgrace. The officers
+    didn't and he needn't. Give my love to mother and the girls. Tell
+    them not to worry. Maybe the war will be over before--I'll write you
+    often now, so cheer up.
+
+    Your loving brother,
+
+    Jim.
+
+
+    Camp--, _October_--.
+
+    My Dearest Lenore,--If my writing is not very legible it is because
+    my hand shakes when I begin this sweet and sacred privilege of
+    writing to my promised wife. My other letter was short, and this is
+    the second in the weeks since I left you. What an endless time! You
+    must understand and forgive me for not writing oftener and for not
+    giving you definite address.
+
+    I did not want to be in the Western regiment, for reasons hard to
+    understand. I enlisted in New York and am trying hard to get into
+    the Rainbow Division, with some hope of success. There is nothing to
+    me in being a member of a crack regiment, but it seems that this one
+    will see action first of all American units. I don't want to be an
+    officer, either.
+
+    How will it be possible for me to write you as I want to--letters
+    that will be free of the plague of myself--letters that you can
+    treasure if I never come back? Sleeping and waking, I never forget
+    the wonderful truth of your love for me. It did not seem real when I
+    was with you, but, now that we are separated, I know that it is
+    real. Mostly my mind contains only two things--this constant memory
+    of you, and that other terrible thing of which I will not speak. All
+    else that I think or do seems to be mechanical.
+
+    The work, the training, is not difficult for me, though so many boys
+    find it desperately hard. You know I followed a plow, and that is
+    real toil. Right now I see the brown fallow hills and the great
+    squares of gold. But visions or thoughts of home are rare. That is
+    well, for they hurt like a stab. I cannot think now of a single
+    thing connected with my training here that I want to tell you. Yet
+    some things I must tell. For instance, we have different
+    instructors, and naturally some are more forcible than others. We
+    have one at whom the boys laugh. He tickles them. They like him. But
+    he is an ordeal for me. The reason is that in our first bayonet
+    practice, when we rushed and thrust a stuffed bag, he made us yell,
+    _"God damn you, German--die!"_ I don't imagine this to be general
+    practice in army exercises, but the fact is he started us that way.
+    I can't forget. When I begin to charge with a bayonet those words
+    leap silently, but terribly, to my lips. Think of this as reality,
+    Lenore--a sad and incomprehensible truth in 1917. All in me that is
+    spiritual, reasonable, all that was once hopeful, revolts at this
+    actuality and its meaning. But there is another side, that dark one,
+    which revels in anticipation. It is the cave-man in me, hiding by
+    night, waiting with a bludgeon to slay. I am beginning to be struck
+    by the gradual change in my comrades. I fancied that I alone had
+    suffered a retrogression. I have a deep consciousness of baseness
+    that is going to keep me aloof from them. I seem to be alone with my
+    own soul. Yet I seem to be abnormally keen to impressions. I feel
+    what is going on in the soldiers' minds, and it shocks me, set me
+    wondering, forces me to doubt myself. I keep saying it must be my
+    peculiar way of looking at things.
+
+    Lenore, I remember your appeal to me. Shall I ever forget your sweet
+    face--your sad eyes when you bade me hope in God?--I am trying, but
+    I do not see God yet. Perhaps that is because of my morbidness--my
+    limitations. Perhaps I will face him over there, when I go down into
+    the Valley of the Shadow. One thing, however, I do begin to see is
+    that there is a divinity in men. Slowly something divine is
+    revealing itself to me. To give up work, property, friends, sister,
+    mother, home, sweetheart, to sacrifice all and go out to fight for
+    country, for honor--that indeed is divine. It is beautiful. It
+    inspires a man and lifts his head. But, alas! if he is a thinking
+    man, when he comes in contact with the actual physical preparation
+    for war, he finds that the divinity was the hour of his sacrifice
+    and that, to become a good soldier, he must change, forget, grow
+    hard, strong, merciless, brutal, humorous, and callous, all of which
+    is to say base. I see boys who are tender-hearted, who love life,
+    who were born sufferers, who cannot inflict pain! How many silent
+    cries of protest, of wonder, of agony, must go up in the night over
+    this camp! The sum of them would be monstrous. The sound of them, if
+    voiced, would be a clarion blast to the world. It is sacrifice that
+    is divine, and not the making of an efficient soldier.
+
+    I shall write you endlessly. The action of writing relieves me. I
+    feel less burdened now. Sometimes I cannot bear the burden of all
+    this unintelligible consciousness. My mind is not large enough.
+    Sometimes I feel that I am going to be every soldier and every
+    enemy--each one in his strife or his drifting or his agony or his
+    death. But despite that feeling I seem alone in a horde. I make no
+    friends. I have no way to pass my leisure but writing. I can hardly
+    read at all. When off duty the boys amuse themselves in a hundred
+    ways--going to town, the theaters, and movies; chasing the girls
+    (especially that to judge by their talk); play; boxing; games; and I
+    am sorry to add, many of them gamble and drink. But I cannot do any
+    of these things. I cannot forget what I am here for. I cannot forget
+    that I am training to kill men. Never do I forget that soon I will
+    face death. What a terrible, strange, vague thrill that sends
+    shivering over me! Amusement and forgetfulness are past for Kurt
+    Dorn. I am concerned with my soul. I am fighting that black passion
+    which makes of me a sleepless watcher and thinker.
+
+    If this war only lets me live long enough to understand its meaning!
+    Perhaps that meaning will be the meaning of life, in which case I am
+    longing for the unattainable. But underneath it all must be a
+    colossal movement of evolution, of spiritual growth--or of
+    retrogression. Who knows? When I ask myself what I am going to fight
+    for, I answer--for my country, as a patriot--for my hate, as an
+    individual. My time is almost up. I go on duty. The rain is roaring
+    on the thin roof. How it rains in this East! Whole days and nights
+    it pours. I cannot help but think of my desert hills, always so
+    barren and yellow, with the dust-clouds whirling. One day of this
+    rain, useless and wasted here, would have saved the Bend crop of
+    wheat. Nature is almost as inscrutable as God.
+
+    Lenore, good-by for this time. Think of me, but not as lonely or
+    unhappy or uncomfortable out there in the cold, raw, black, wet
+    night. I will be neither. Some one--a spirit--will keep beside me as
+    I step the beat. I have put unhappiness behind me. And no rain or
+    mud or chill will ever feaze me.
+
+    Yours with love,
+
+    Kurt Dorn.
+
+
+    Camp--, _October_--.
+
+    Dear Sister Lenore,--After that little letter of yours I could do
+    nothing more than look up another pin like the one I sent Kathleen.
+    I inclose it. Hope you will wear it.
+
+    I'm very curious to see what your package contains. It hasn't
+    arrived yet. All the mail comes late. That makes the boys sore.
+
+    The weather hasn't been so wet lately as when I last wrote, but it's
+    colder. Believe me these tents are not steam-heated! But we grin and
+    try to look happy. It's not the most cheerful thing to hear the old
+    call in the morning and tumble out in the cold gray dawn. Say! I've
+    got two blankets now. _Two!_ Just time for mess, then we hike down
+    the road. I'm in for artillery now, I guess. The air service really
+    fascinated me, but you can't have what you want in this business.
+
+    _Saturday_.--This letter will be in sections. No use sending you a
+    little dab of news now and then. I'll write when I can, and mail
+    when the letter assumes real proportions. Your package arrived and I
+    was delighted. I think I slept better last night on your little
+    pillow than any night since we were called out. My pillow before was
+    your sleeveless jersey.
+
+    It's after three A.M. and I'm on guard--that is, battery guard, and
+    I have to be up from midnight to reveille, not on a post, but in my
+    tent, so that if any of my men (I'm a corporal now), whom I relieve
+    every two hours, get into trouble they can call me. Non-coms. go on
+    guard once in six days, so about every sixth night I get along with
+    no sleep.
+
+    We have been ordered to do away with all personal property except
+    shaving outfit and absolutely necessary articles. We can't keep a
+    foot-locker, trunk, valise, or even an ordinary soap-box in our
+    tents. Everything must be put in one barrack bag, a canvas sack just
+    like a laundry-bag.
+
+    Thank the girls for the silk handkerchief and candy they sent. I
+    sure have the sweetest sisters of any boy I know. I never
+    appreciated them when I had them. I'm learning bitter truths these
+    days. And tell mother I'll write her soon. Thank her for the pajamas
+    and the napkins. Tell her I'm sorry a soldier has no use for either.
+
+    This morning I did my washing of the past two weeks, and I was so
+    busy that I didn't hear the bugle blow, and thereby got on the
+    "black book." Which means that I won't get any time off soon.
+
+    Before I forget, Lenore, let me tell you that I've taken ten
+    thousand dollars' life insurance from the government, in your favor
+    as beneficiary. This costs me only about six and a half dollars per
+    month, and in case of my death--Well, I'm a soldier, now. Please
+    tell Rose I've taken a fifty-dollar Liberty Bond of the new issue
+    for her. This I'm paying at the rate of five dollars per month and
+    it will be delivered to her at the end of ten months. Both of these,
+    of course, I'm paying out of my government pay as a soldier. The
+    money dad sent me I spent like water, lent to the boys, threw away.
+    Tell him not to send me any more. Tell him the time has come for Jim
+    Anderson to make good. I've a rich dad and he's the best dad any
+    harum-scarum boy ever had. I'm going to prove more than one thing
+    this trip.
+
+    We hear so many rumors, and none of them ever come true. One of them
+    is funny--that we have so many rich men with political influence in
+    our regiment that we will never get to France! Isn't that the limit?
+    But it's funny because, if we have rich men, I'd like to see them.
+    Still, there are thirty thousand soldiers here, and in my neck of
+    the woods such rumors are laughed and cussed at. We hear also that
+    we're going to be ordered South. I wish that would come true. It's
+    so cold and drab and muddy and monotonous.
+
+    My friend Montana fooled everybody. He didn't die. He seems to be
+    hanging on. Lately he recovered consciousness. Told me he had no
+    feeling on his left side, except sometimes his hand itched, you
+    know, like prickly needles. But Montana will never be any good
+    again. That fine big cowboy! He's been one grand soldier. It sickens
+    me sometimes to think of the difference between what thrilled me
+    about this war game and what we get. Maybe, though--There goes my
+    call. I must close. Love to all.
+
+    Jim.
+
+
+    New York City, _October_--.
+
+    Dearest Lenore,--It seems about time that I had a letter from you.
+    I'm sure letters are on the way, but they do not come quickly. The
+    boys complain of the mail service. Isn't it strange that there is
+    not a soul to write me except you? Jeff, my farm-hand, will write me
+    whenever I write him, which I haven't done yet.
+
+    I'm on duty here in New York at an armory bazaar. It's certainly the
+    irony of fate. Why did the officer pick on me, I'd like to know? But
+    I've never complained of an order so far, and I'm standing it.
+    Several of us--and they chose the husky boys--have been sent over
+    here, for absolutely no purpose that I can see except to exhibit
+    ourselves in uniform. It's a woman's bazaar, to raise money for
+    war-relief work and so on. The hall is almost as large as that field
+    back of your house, and every night it is packed with people, mostly
+    young. My comrades are having fun out of it, but I feel like a fish
+    out of water.
+
+    Just the same, Lenore, I'm learning more every day. If I was not so
+    disgusted I'd think this was a wonderful opportunity. As it is, I
+    regard it only as an experience over which I have no control and
+    that interests me in spite of myself. New York is an awful
+    place--endless, narrow, torn-up streets crowded with hurrying
+    throngs, taxicabs, cars, and full of noise and dust. I am always
+    choked for air. And these streets reek. Where do the people come
+    from and where are they going? They look wild, as if they had to go
+    somewhere, but did not know where that was. I've no time or
+    inclination to see New York, though under happier circumstances I
+    think I'd like to.
+
+    People in the East seem strange to me. Still, as I never mingled
+    with many people in the West, I cannot say truly whether Eastern
+    people are different from Western people. But I think so. Anyway,
+    while I was in Spokane, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles I
+    did not think people were greatly concerned about the war. Denver
+    people appeared not to realize there was a war. But here in New York
+    everything is war. You can't escape it. You see that war will soon
+    obsess rich and poor, alien and neutral and belligerent, pacifist
+    and militarist. Since I wrote you last I've tried to read the
+    newspapers sent to us. It's hard to tell you which makes me the
+    sicker--the prattle of the pacifist or the mathematics of the
+    military experts. Both miss the spirit of men. Neither has any soul.
+    I think the German minds must all be mathematical.
+
+    But I want to write about the women and girls I see, here in New
+    York, in the camps and towns, on the trains, everywhere. Lenore, the
+    war has thrown them off their balance. I have seen and studied at
+    close hand women of all classes. Believe me, as the boys say, I have
+    thought more than twice whether or not I would tell you the stark
+    truth. But somehow I am impelled to. I have an overwhelming
+    conviction that all American girls and mothers should know what the
+    truth is. They will never be told, Lenore, and most would never
+    believe if they were told. And that is one thing wrong with people.
+
+    I believe every soldier, from the time he enlists until the war is
+    ended, should be kept away from women. This is a sweeping statement
+    and you must take into account the mind of him who makes it. But I
+    am not leaping at conclusions. The soldier boys have terrible peril
+    facing them long before they get to the trenches. Not all, or nearly
+    all, the soldiers are going to be vitally affected by the rottenness
+    of great cities or by the mushroom hotbeds of vice springing up near
+    the camps. These evils exist and are being opposed by military and
+    government, by police and Y.M.C.A., and good influence of good
+    people. But they will never wholly stamp it out.
+
+    Nor do I want to say much about the society women who are "rushing"
+    the officers. There may be one here and there with her heart in the
+    right place, but with most of them it must be, first, this something
+    about war that has unbalanced women; and secondly, a fad, a novelty,
+    a new sentimental stunt, a fashion set by some leader. Likewise I
+    want to say but little about the horde of common, street-chasing,
+    rattled-brained women and girls who lie in wait for soldiers at
+    every corner, so to speak. All these, to be sure, may be
+    unconsciously actuated by motives that do not appear on the surface;
+    and if this be true, their actions are less bold, less raw than they
+    look.
+
+    What I want to dwell upon is my impression of something strange,
+    unbalanced, incomprehensible, about the frank conduct of so many
+    well-educated, refined, and good women I see; and about the
+    eagerness, restlessness, the singular response of nice girls to
+    situations that are not natural.
+
+    To-night a handsome, stylishly gowned woman of about thirty came up
+    to me with a radiant smile and a strange brightness in her eyes.
+    There were five hundred couples dancing on the floor, and the music
+    and sound of sliding feet made it difficult to hear her. She said:
+    "You handsome soldier boy! Come dance with me?" I replied politely
+    that I did not dance. Then she took hold of me and said, "I'll teach
+    you." I saw a wedding-ring on the hand she laid on my arm. Then I
+    looked straight at her, "Madam, very soon I'll be learning the dance
+    of death over in France, and my mind's concerned with that." She
+    grew red with anger. She seemed amazed. And she snapped, "Well, you
+    _are_ a queer soldier!" Later I watched her flirting and dancing
+    with an officer.
+
+    Overtures and advances innumerable have been made to me, ranging
+    from the assured possession-taking onslaught like this woman's to
+    the slight, subtle something, felt more than seen, of a more complex
+    nature. And, Lenore, I blush to tell you this, but I've been mobbed
+    by girls. They have a thousand ways of letting a soldier _know!_ I
+    could not begin to tell them. But I do not actually realize what it
+    is that is conveyed, that I know; and I am positive the very large
+    majority of soldiers _misunderstand_. At night I listen to the talks
+    of my comrades, and, well--if the girls only heard! Many times I go
+    out of hearing, and when I cannot do that I refuse to hear.
+
+    Lenore, I am talking about nice girls now. I am merciless. There are
+    many girls like you--they seem like you, though none so pretty. I
+    mean, you know, there are certain manners and distinctions that at
+    once mark a really nice girl. For a month I've been thrown here and
+    there, so that it seems I've seen as many girls as soldiers. I have
+    been sent to different entertainments given for soldiers. At one
+    place a woman got up and invited the girls to ask the boys to dance.
+    At another a crowd of girls were lined up wearing different ribbons,
+    and the boys marched along until each one found the girl wearing a
+    ribbon to match the one he wore. That was his partner. It was
+    interesting to see the eager, mischievous, brooding eyes of these
+    girls as they watched and waited. Just as interesting was it to see
+    this boy's face when he found his partner was ugly, and that boy
+    swell with pride when he found he had picked a "winner." It was all
+    adventure for both boys and girls. But I saw more than that in it.
+    Whenever I could not avoid meeting a girl I tried to be agreeable
+    and to talk about war, and soldiers, and what was going on. I did
+    not dance, of course, and I imagine more than one girl found me a
+    "queer soldier."
+
+    It always has touched me, though, to see and feel the sweetness,
+    graciousness, sympathy, kindness, and that other indefinable
+    something, in the girls I have met. How they made me think of you,
+    Lenore! No doubt about their hearts, their loyalty, their
+    Americanism. Every soldier who goes to France can fight for some
+    girl! They make you feel that. I believe I have gone deeper than
+    most soldiers in considering what I will call war-relation of the
+    sexes. If it is normal, then underneath it all is a tremendous
+    inscrutable design of nature or God. If that be true, actually true,
+    then war must be inevitable and right! How horrible! My thoughts
+    confound me sometimes. Anyway, the point I want to make is this: I
+    heard an officer tell an irate father, whose two daughters had been
+    insulted by soldiers: "My dear sir, it is regrettable. These men
+    will be punished. But they are not greatly to blame, because so many
+    girls throw themselves at their heads. Your daughters did not, of
+    course, but they should not have come here." That illustrates the
+    fixed idea of the military, all through the ranks--_Women throw
+    themselves at soldiers!_ It is true that they do. But the idea is
+    false, nevertheless, because the mass of girls are misunderstood.
+
+    Misunderstood!--I can tell you why. Surely the mass of American
+    girls are nice, fine, sweet, wholesome. They are young. The news of
+    war liberates something in them that we can find no name for. But it
+    must be noble. A soldier! The very name, from childhood, is one to
+    make a girl thrill. What then the actual thing, the uniform,
+    invested somehow with chivalry and courage, the clean-cut athletic
+    young man, somber and fascinating with his intent eyes, his serious
+    brow, or his devil-may-care gallantry, the compelling presence of
+    him that breathes of his sacrifice, of his near departure to
+    privation, to squalid, comfortless trenches, to the fire and hell of
+    war, to blood and agony and death--in a word to fight, fight, fight
+    for women!... So through this beautiful emotion women lose their
+    balance and many are misunderstood. Those who would not and could
+    not be bold are susceptible to advances that in an ordinary time
+    would not affect them. War invests a soldier with a glamour. Love at
+    first sight, flirtations, rash intimacies, quick engagements,
+    immediate marriages. The soldier who is soon going away to fight and
+    perhaps to die strikes hard at the very heart of a girl. Either she
+    is not her real self then, or else she is suddenly transported to a
+    womanhood that is instinctive, elemental, universal for the future.
+    She feels what she does not know. She surrenders because there is an
+    imperative call to the depths of her nature. She sacrifices because
+    she is the inspiritor of the soldier, the reward for his loss, the
+    savior of the race. If women are the spoils of barbarous conquerors,
+    they are also the sinews, the strength, the soul of defenders.
+
+    And so, however you look at it, war means for women sacrifice,
+    disillusion, heartbreak, agony, doom. I feel that so powerfully that
+    I am overcome; I am sick at the gaiety and playing; I am full of
+    fear, wonder, admiration, and hopeless pity for them.
+
+    No man can tell what is going on in the souls of soldiers while
+    noble women are offering love and tenderness, throwing themselves
+    upon the altar of war, hoping blindly to send their great spirits
+    marching to the front. Perhaps the man who lives through the war
+    will feel the change in his soul if he cannot tell it. Day by day I
+    think I see a change in my comrades. As they grow physically
+    stronger they seem to grow spiritually lesser. But maybe that is
+    only my idea. I see evidences of fear, anger, sullenness, moodiness,
+    shame. I see a growing indifference to fatigue, toil, pain. As these
+    boys harden physically they harden mentally. Always, 'way off there
+    is the war, and that seems closely related to the near duty
+    here--what it takes to make a man. These fellows will measure men
+    differently after this experience with sacrifice, obedience, labor,
+    and pain. In that they will become great. But I do not think these
+    things stimulate a man's mind. Changes are going on in me, some of
+    which I am unable to define. For instance, physically I am much
+    bigger and stronger than I was. I weigh one hundred and eighty
+    pounds! As for my mind, something is always tugging at it. I feel
+    that it grows tired. It wants to forget. In spite of my will, all of
+    these keen desires of mine to know everything lag and fail often,
+    and I catch myself drifting. I see and feel and hear without
+    thinking. I am only an animal then. At these times sight of blood,
+    or a fight, or a plunging horse, or a broken leg--and these sights
+    are common--affects me little until I am quickened and think about
+    the meaning of it all. At such moments I have a revulsion of
+    feeling. With memory comes a revolt, and so on, until I am the
+    distressed, inquisitive, and morbid person I am now. I shudder at
+    what war will make me. Actual contact with earth, exploding guns,
+    fighting comrades, striking foes, will make brutes of us all. It is
+    wrong to shed another man's blood. If life was meant for that why do
+    we have progress? I cannot reconcile a God with all this horror. I
+    have misgivings about my mind. If I feel so acutely here in safety
+    and comfort, what shall I feel over there in peril and agony? I fear
+    I shall laugh at death. Oh, Lenore, consider that! To laugh in the
+    ghastly face of death! If I yield utterly to a fiendish joy of
+    bloody combat, then my mind will fail, and that in itself would be
+    evidence of God.
+
+    I do not read over my letters to you, I just write. Forgive me if
+    they are not happier. Every hour I think of you. At night I see your
+    face in the shadow of the tent wall. And I love you unutterably.
+
+    Faithfully,
+
+    Kurt Dorn.
+
+
+    Camp ----, _November_ --,
+
+    Dear Sister,--It's bad news I've got for you this time. Something
+    bids me tell you, though up to now I've kept unpleasant facts to
+    myself.
+
+    The weather has knocked me out. My cold came back, got worse and
+    worse. Three days ago I had a chill that lasted for fifteen minutes.
+    I shook like a leaf. It left me, and then I got a terrible pain in
+    my side. But I didn't give in, which I feel now was a mistake. I
+    stayed up till I dropped.
+
+    I'm here in the hospital. It's a long shed with three stoves, and a
+    lot of beds with other sick boys. My bed is far away from a stove.
+    The pain is bad yet, but duller, and I've fever. I'm pretty sick,
+    honey. Tell mother and dad, but not the girls. Give my love to all.
+    And don't worry. It'll all come right in the end. This beastly
+    climate's to blame.
+
+
+    _Later_,--It's night now. I was interrupted. I'll write a few more
+    lines. Hope you can read them. It's late and the wind is moaning
+    outside. It's so cold and dismal. The fellow in the bed next to me
+    is out of his head. Poor devil! He broke his knee, and they put off
+    the operation--too busy! So few doctors and so many patients! And
+    now he'll lose his leg. He's talking about home. Oh, Lenore! _Home!_
+    I never knew what home was--till now.
+
+    I'm worse to-night. But I'm always bad at night. Only, to-night I
+    feel strange. There's a weight on my chest, besides the pain. That
+    moan of wind makes me feel so lonely. There's no one here--and I'm
+    so cold. I've thought a lot about you girls and mother and dad. Tell
+    dad I made good.
+
+    Jim
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+Jim's last letter was not taken seriously by the other members of the
+Anderson family. The father shook his head dubiously. "That ain't like
+Jim," but made no other comment. Mrs. Anderson sighed. The young sisters
+were not given to worry. Lenore, however, was haunted by an unwritten
+meaning in her brother's letter.
+
+Weeks before, she had written to Dorn and told him to hunt up Jim. No
+reply had yet come from Dorn. Every day augmented her uneasiness, until
+it was dreadful to look for letters that did not come. All this
+fortified her, however, to expect calamity. Like a bolt out of the clear
+sky it came in the shape of a telegram from Camp ---- saying that Jim
+was dying.
+
+The shock prostrated the mother. Jim had been her favorite. Mr. Anderson
+left at once for the East. Lenore had the care of her mother and the
+management of "Many Waters" on her hands, which duties kept her
+mercifully occupied. Mrs. Anderson, however, after a day, rallied
+surprisingly. Lenore sensed in her mother the strength of the spirit
+that sacrificed to a noble and universal cause. It seemed to be Mrs.
+Anderson's conviction that Jim had been shot, or injured by accident in
+gun-training, or at least by a horse. Lenore did not share her mother's
+idea and was reluctant to dispel it. On the evening of the fifth day
+after Mr. Anderson's departure a message came, saying that he had
+arrived too late to see Jim alive. Mrs. Anderson bore the news bravely,
+though she weakened perceptibly.
+
+The family waited then for further news. None came. Day after day
+passed. Then one evening, while Lenore strolled in the gloaming,
+Kathleen came running to burst out with the announcement of their
+father's arrival. He had telephoned from Vale for a car to meet him.
+
+Not long after that, Lenore, who had gone to her room, heard the return
+of the car and recognized her father's voice. She ran down in time to
+see him being embraced by the girls, and her mother leaning with bowed
+head on his shoulder.
+
+"Yes, I fetched Jim--back," he said, steadily, but very low. "It's all
+arranged.... An' we'll bury him to-morrow."
+
+"Oh--dad!" cried Lenore.
+
+"Hello, my girl!" he replied, and kissed her. "I'm sorry to tell you I
+couldn't locate Kurt Dorn.... That New York--an' that trainin' camp!"
+
+He held up his hands in utter futility of expression. Lenore's quick
+eyes noted his face had grown thin and haggard, and she made sure with a
+pang that his hair was whiter.
+
+"I'm sure glad to be home," he said, with a heavy expulsion of breath.
+"I want to clean up an' have a bite to eat."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lenore was so disappointed at failing to hear from Dorn that she did not
+think how singular it was her father did not tell more about Jim. Later
+he seemed more like himself, and told them simply that Jim had
+contracted pneumonia and died without any message for his folk at home.
+This prostrated Mrs. Anderson again.
+
+Later Lenore sought her father in his room. He could not conceal from
+her that he had something heartrending on his mind. Then there was more
+than tragedy in his expression. Lenore felt a leap of fear at what
+seemed her father's hidden anger. She appealed to him--importuned him.
+Plainer it came to her that he wanted to relieve himself of a burden.
+Then doubling her persuasions, she finally got him to talk.
+
+"Lenore, it's not been so long ago that right here in this room Jim
+begged me to let him enlist. He wasn't of age. But would I let him
+go--to fight for the honor of our country--for the future safety of our
+home?... We all felt the boy's eagerness, his fire, his patriotism.
+Wayward as he's been, we suddenly were proud of him. We let him go. We
+gave him up. He was a part of our flesh an' blood--sent by us
+Andersons--to do our share."
+
+Anderson paused in his halting speech, and swallowed hard. His white
+face twitched strangely and his brow was clammy. Lenore saw that his
+piercing gaze looked far beyond her for the instant that he broke down.
+
+"Jim was a born fighter," the father resumed. "He wasn't vicious. He
+just had a leanin' to help anybody. As a lad he fought for his little
+pards--always on the right side--an' he always fought fair.... This
+opportunity to train for a soldier made a man of him. He'd have made his
+mark in the war. Strong an' game an' fierce, he'd ... he'd ... Well,
+he's dead--he's _dead!_... Four months after enlistment he's dead....
+An' he never had a rifle in his hands! He never had his hands on a
+machine-gun or a piece of artillery!... He never had a uniform! He never
+had an overcoat! He never ..."
+
+Then Mr. Anderson's voice shook so that he had to stop to gain control.
+Lenore was horrified. She felt a burning stir within her.
+
+"Lemme get this--out," choked Anderson, his face now livid, his veins
+bulging. "I'm drove to tell it. I was near all day locatin' Jim's
+company. Found the tent where he'd lived. It was cold, damp, muddy.
+Jim's messmates spoke high of him. Called him a prince!... They all owed
+him money. He'd done many a good turn for them. He had only a thin
+blanket, an' he caught cold. All the boys had colds. One night he gave
+that blanket to a boy sicker than he was. Next day he got worse....
+There was miles an' miles of them tents. I like to never found the
+hospital where they'd sent Jim. An' then it was six o'clock in the
+mornin'--a raw, bleak day that'd freeze one of us to the marrow. I had
+trouble gettin' in. But a soldier went with me an'--an' ..."
+
+Anderson's voice went to a whisper, and he looked pityingly at Lenore.
+
+"That hospital was a barn. No doctors! Too early.... The nurses weren't
+in sight. I met one later, an', poor girl! she looked ready to drop
+herself!... We found Jim in one of the little rooms. No heat! It was
+winter there.... Only a bed!... Jim lay on the floor, dead! He'd fallen
+or pitched off the bed. He had on only his underclothes that he had
+on--when he--left home.... He was stiff--an' must have--been dead--a
+good while."
+
+Lenore held out her trembling hands. "Dead--Jim dead--like that!" she
+faltered.
+
+"Yes. He got pneumonia," replied Anderson, hoarsely. "The camp was full
+of it."
+
+"But--my God! Were not the--the poor boys taken care of?" implored
+Lenore, faintly.
+
+"It's a terrible time. All was done that _could_ be done!"
+
+"Then--it was all--for nothing?"
+
+"All! All! Our boy an' many like him--the best blood of our
+country--Western blood--dead because ... because ..."
+
+Anderson's voice failed him.
+
+"Oh, Jim! Oh, my brother!... Dead like a poor neglected dog! Jim--who
+enlisted to fight--for--"
+
+Lenore broke down then and hurried away to her room.
+
+With great difficulty Mrs. Anderson was revived, and it became manifest
+that the prop upon which she had leaned had been slipped from under her.
+The spirit which had made her strong to endure the death of her boy
+failed when the sordid bald truth of a miserable and horrible waste of
+life gave the lie to the splendid fighting chance Jim had dreamed of.
+
+When Anderson realized that she was fading daily he exhausted himself in
+long expositions of the illness and injury and death common to armies in
+the making. More deaths came from these causes than from war. It was the
+elision of the weaker element--the survival of the fittest; and some,
+indeed very many, mothers must lose their sons that way. The government
+was sound at the core, he claimed; and his own rage was at the few
+incompetents and profiteers. These must be weeded out--a process that
+was going on. The gigantic task of a government to draft and prepare a
+great army and navy was something beyond the grasp of ordinary minds.
+Anderson talked about what he had seen and heard, proving the wonderful
+stride already made. But all that he said now made no impression upon
+Mrs. Anderson. She had made her supreme sacrifice for a certain end, and
+that was as much the boy's fiery ambition to fight as it was her duty,
+common with other mothers, to furnish a man at the front. What a
+hopeless, awful sacrifice! She sank under it.
+
+Those were trying days for Lenore, just succeeding her father's return;
+and she had little time to think of herself. When the mail came, day
+after day, without a letter from Dorn, she felt the pang in her breast
+grow heavier. Intimations crowded upon her of impending troubles that
+would make the present ones seem light.
+
+It was not long until the mother was laid to rest beside the son.
+
+When that day ended, Lenore and her father faced each other in her room,
+where he had always been wont to come for sympathy. They gazed at each
+other, with hard, dry eyes. Stark-naked truth--grim reality--the nature
+of this catastrophe--the consciousness of war--dawned for each in the
+look of the other. Brutal shock and then this second exceeding bitter
+woe awakened their minds to the futility of individual life.
+
+"Lenore--it's over!" he said, huskily, as he sank into a chair. "Like a
+nightmare!... What have I got to live for?"
+
+"You have us girls," replied Lenore. "And if you did not have us there
+would be many others for you to live for.... Dad, can't you see--_now_?"
+
+"I reckon. But I'm growin' old an' mebbe I've quit."
+
+"No, dad, you'll never quit. Suppose all we Americans quit. That'd mean
+a German victory. Never! Never! Never!"
+
+"By God! you're right!" he ejaculated, with the trembling strain of his
+face suddenly fixing. Blood and life shot into his eyes. He got up
+heavily and began to stride to and fro before her. "You see clearer than
+me. You always did, Lenore."
+
+"I'm beginning to see, but I can't tell you," replied Lenore, closing
+her eyes. Indeed, there seemed a colossal vision before her, veiled and
+strange. "Whatever happens, we _cannot_ break. It's because of the war.
+We have our tasks--greater now than ever we believe could be thrust upon
+us. Yours to show men what you are made of! To raise wheat as never
+before in your life! Mine to show my sisters and my friends--all the
+women--what their duty is. We must sacrifice, work, prepare, and fight
+for the future."
+
+"I reckon," he nodded solemnly. "Loss of mother an' Jim changes this
+damned war. Whatever's in my power to do must go on. So some one can
+take it up when I--"
+
+"That's the great conception, dad," added Lenore, earnestly. "We are
+tragically awakened. We've been surprised--terribly struck in the dark.
+Something monstrous and horrible!... I can feel the menace in it for
+all--over every family in this broad land."
+
+"Lenore, you said once that Jim--Now, how'd you know it was all over for
+him?"
+
+"A woman's heart, dad. When I said good-by to Jim I knew it was good-by
+forever."
+
+"Did you feel that way about Kurt Dorn?"
+
+"No. He will come back to me. I dream it. It's in my spirit--my instinct
+of life, my flesh-and-blood life of the future--it's in my belief in
+God. Kurt Dorn's ordeal will be worse than death for him. But I believe
+as I pray--that he will come home alive."
+
+"Then, after all, you do hope," said her father. "Lenore, when I was
+down East, I seen what women were doin'. The bad women are good an' the
+good women are great. I think women have more to do with war then men,
+even if they do stay home. It must be because women are mothers....
+Lenore, you've bucked me up. I'll go at things now. The need for wheat
+next year will be beyond calculation. I'll buy ten thousand acres of
+that wheatland round old Chris Dorn's farm. An' my shot at the Germans
+will be wheat. I'll raise a million bushels!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next morning in the mail was a long, thick envelope addressed to Lenore
+in handwriting that shook her heart and made her fly to the seclusion of
+her room.
+
+    New York City, _November_ --.
+
+    DEAREST,--when you receive this I will be in France.
+
+Then Lenore sustained a strange shock. The beloved handwriting faded,
+the thick sheets of paper fell; and all about her seemed dark and
+whirling, as the sudden joy and excitement stirred by the letter changed
+to sickening pain.
+
+"_France!_ He's in France?" she whispered. "Oh, Kurt!" A storm of love
+and terror burst over her. It had the onset and the advantage of a
+bewildering surprise. It laid low, for the moment, her fortifications of
+sacrifice, strength, and resolve. She had been forced into womanhood,
+and her fear, her agony, were all the keener for the intelligence and
+spirit that had repudiated selfish love. Kurt Dorn was in France in the
+land of the trenches! Strife possessed her and had a moment of raw,
+bitter triumph. She bit her lips and clenched her fists, to restrain the
+impulse to rush madly around the room, to scream out her fear and hate.
+With forcing her thought, with hard return to old well-learned
+arguments, there came back the nobler emotions. But when she took up the
+letter again, with trembling hands, her heart fluttered high and sick,
+and she saw the words through blurred eyes.
+
+    ...I'll give the letter to an ensign, who has promised to mail it
+    the moment he gets back to New York.
+
+    Lenore, your letter telling me about Jim was held up in the mail.
+    But thank goodness, I got it in time. I'd already been transferred,
+    and expected orders any day to go on board the transport, where I am
+    writing now. I'd have written you, or at least telegraphed you,
+    yesterday, after seeing Jim, if I had not expected to see him again
+    to-day. But this morning we were marched on board and I cannot even
+    get this letter off to you.
+
+    Lenore, your brother is a very sick boy. I lost some hours finding
+    him. They did not want to let me see him. But I implored--said that
+    I was engaged to his sister--and finally I got in. The nurse was
+    very sympathetic. But I didn't care for the doctors in charge. They
+    seemed hard, hurried, brusque. But they have their troubles. The
+    hospital was a long barracks, and it was full of cripples.
+
+    The nurse took me into a small, bare room, too damp and cold for a
+    sick man, and I said so. She just looked at me.
+
+    Jim looks like you more than any other of the Andersons. I
+    recognized that at the same moment I saw how very sick he was. They
+    had told me outside that he had a bad case of pneumonia. He was
+    awake, perfectly conscious, and he stared at me with eyes that set
+    my heart going.
+
+    "Hello, Jim!" I said, and offered my hand, as I sat down on the bed.
+    He was too weak to shake hands.
+
+    "Who're you?" he asked. He couldn't speak very well. When I told him
+    my name and that I was his sister's fiance his face changed so he
+    did not look like the same person. It was beautiful. Oh, it showed
+    how homesick he was! Then I talked a blue streak about you, about
+    the girls, about "Many Waters"--how I lost my wheat, and everything.
+    He was intensely interested, and when I got through he whispered
+    that he guessed Lenore had picked a "winner." What do you think of
+    that? He was curious about me, and asked me questions till the nurse
+    made him stop. I was never so glad about anything as I was about the
+    happiness it evidently gave him to meet me and hear from home. I
+    promised to come next day if we did not sail. Then he showed what I
+    must call despair. He must have been passionately eager to get to
+    France. The nurse dragged me out. Jim called weakly after me:
+    "Good-by, Kurt. Stick some Germans for me!" I'll never forget his
+    tone nor his look.... Lenore, he doesn't expect to get over to
+    France.
+
+    I questioned the nurse, and she shook her head doubtfully. She
+    looked sad. She said Jim had been the lion of his regiment. I
+    questioned a doctor, and he was annoyed. He put me off with a sharp
+    statement that Jim was not in danger. But I think he is. I hope and
+    pray he recovers.
+
+    _Thursday_.
+
+    We sailed yesterday. It was a wonderful experience, leaving Hoboken.
+    Our transport and the dock looked as if they had a huge swarm of
+    yellow bees hanging over everything. The bees were soldiers. The
+    most profound emotion I ever had--except the one when you told me
+    you loved me--came over me as the big boat swung free of the
+    dock--of the good old U.S., of home. I wanted to jump off and swim
+    through the eddying green water to the piles and hide in them till
+    the boat had gone. As we backed out, pulled up tugs, and got started
+    down the river, my thrills increased, until we passed the Statue of
+    Liberty--and then I couldn't tell how I felt. One thing, I could not
+    see very well.... I gazed beyond the colossal statue that France
+    gave to the U.S.--'way across the water and the ships and the docks
+    toward the West that I was leaving. Feeling like mine then only
+    comes once to a man in his life. First I seemed to see all the vast
+    space, the farms, valleys, woods, deserts, rivers, and mountains
+    between me and my golden wheat-hills. Then I saw my home, and it was
+    as if I had a magnificent photograph before my very eyes. A sudden
+    rush of tears blinded me. Such a storm of sweetness, regret, memory!
+    Then at last you--_you_ as you stood before me last, the very
+    loveliest girl in all the world. My heart almost burst, and in the
+    wild, sick pain of the moment I had a strange, comforting flash of
+    thought that a man who could leave you must be impelled by something
+    great in store for him. I feel that. I told you once. To laugh at
+    death! That is what I shall do. But perhaps that is not the great
+    experience which will come to me.
+
+    I saw the sun set in the sea, 'way back toward the western horizon,
+    where the thin, dark line that was land disappeared in the red glow.
+    The wind blows hard. The water is rough, dark gray, and cold. I like
+    the taste of the spray. Our boat rolls heavily and many boys are
+    already sick. I do not imagine the motion will affect me. It is
+    stuffy below-deck. I'll spend what time I can above, where I can see
+    and feel. It was dark just now when I came below. And as I looked
+    out into the windy darkness and strife I was struck by the
+    strangeness of the sea and how it seemed to be like my soul. For a
+    long time I have been looking into my soul, and I find such
+    ceaseless strife, such dark, unlit depths, such chaos. These
+    thoughts and emotions, always with me, keep me from getting close to
+    my comrades. No, not me, but it keeps them away from me. I think
+    they regard me strangely. They all talk of submarines. They are
+    afraid. Some will lose sleep at night. But I never think of a
+    submarine when I gaze out over the tumbling black waters. What I
+    think of, what I am going after, what I need seems far, far away.
+    Always! I am no closer now than when I was at your home. So it has
+    not to do with distance. And Lenore, maybe it has not to do with
+    trenches or Germans.
+
+    _Wednesday_.
+
+    It grows harder to get a chance to write and harder for me to
+    express myself. When I could write I have to work or am on duty;
+    when I have a little leisure I am somehow clamped. This old chugging
+    boat beats the waves hour after hour, all day and all night. I can
+    feel the vibration when I'm asleep. Many things happen that would
+    interest you, just the duty and play of the soldiers, for that
+    matter, and the stories I hear going from lip to lip, and the
+    accidents. Oh! so much happens. But all these rush out of my mind
+    the moment I sit down to write. There is something at work in me as
+    vast and heaving as the ocean.
+
+    At first I had a fear, a dislike of the ocean. But that is gone. It
+    is indescribable to stand on the open deck at night as we are
+    driving on and on and on--to look up at the grand, silent stars,
+    that know, that understand, yet are somehow merciless--to look out
+    across the starlit, moving sea. Its ceaseless movement at first
+    distressed me; now I feel that it is perpetually moving to try to
+    become still. To seek a level! To find itself! To quiet down to
+    peace! But that will never be. And I think if the ocean is not like
+    the human heart, then what is it like?
+
+    This voyage will be good for me. The hard, incessant objective life,
+    the physical life of a soldier, somehow comes to a halt on board
+    ship. And every hour now is immeasurable for me. Whatever the
+    mystery of life, of death, of what drives me, of why I cannot help
+    fight the demon in me, of this thing called war--the certainty is
+    that these dark, strange nights on the sea have given me a hope and
+    faith that the truth is not utterly unattainable.
+
+    _Sunday._
+
+    We're in the danger zone now, with destroyers around us and a
+    cruiser ahead. I am all eyes and ears. I lose sleep at night from
+    thinking so hard. The ship doctor stopped me the other day--studied
+    my face. Then he said: "You're too intense. You think too hard....
+    Are you afraid?" And I laughed in his face. "Absolutely no!" I told
+    him. "Then forget--and mix with the boys. Play--cut up--fight--do
+    anything but _think!_" That doctor is a good chap, but he doesn't
+    figure Kurt Dorn if he imagines the Germans can kill me by making me
+    think.
+
+    We're nearing France now, and the very air is charged. An aeroplane
+    came out to meet us--welcome us, I guess, and it flew low. The
+    soldiers went wild. I never had such a thrill. That air game would
+    just suit me, if I were fitted for it. But I'm no mechanic. Besides,
+    I'm too big and heavy. My place will be in the front line with a
+    bayonet. Strange how a bayonet fascinates me!
+
+    They say we can't write home anything about the war. I'll write you
+    something, whenever I can. Don't be unhappy if you do not hear
+    often--or if my letters cease to come. My heart and my mind are full
+    of you. Whatever comes to me--the training over here--the going to
+    the trenches--the fighting--I shall be safe if only I can remember
+    you.
+
+    With love,
+
+    Kurt.
+
+Lenore carried that letter in her bosom when she went out to walk in the
+fields, to go over the old ground she and Kurt had trod hand in hand.
+From the stone seat above the brook she watched the sunset. All was
+still except the murmur of the running water, and somehow she could not
+long bear that. As the light began to shade on the slopes, she faced
+them, feeling, as always, a strength come to her from their familiar
+lines. Twilight found her high above the ranch, and absolutely alone.
+She would have this lonely hour, and then, all her mind and energy must
+go to what she knew was imperative duty. She would work to the limit of
+her endurance.
+
+It was an autumn twilight, with a cool wind, gray sky, and sad, barren
+slopes. The fertile valley seemed half obscured in melancholy haze, and
+over toward the dim hills beyond night had already fallen. No stars, no
+moon, no afterglow of sunset illumined the grayness that in this hour
+seemed prophetic of Lenore's future.
+
+"'Safe!' he said. 'I shall be safe if only I can remember you,'" she
+whispered to herself, wonderingly. "What did he mean?"
+
+Pondering the thought, she divined it had to do with Dorn's singular
+spiritual mood. He had gone to lend his body as so much physical brawn,
+so much weight, to a concerted movement of men, but his mind was apart
+from a harmony with that. Lenore felt that whatever had been the
+sacrifice made by Kurt Dorn, it had been passed with his decision to go
+to war. What she prayed for then was something of his spirit.
+
+Slowly, in the gathering darkness, she descended the long slope. The
+approaching night seemed sad, with autumn song of insects. All about her
+breathed faith, from the black hills above, the gray slopes below, from
+the shadowy void, from the murmuring of insect life in the grass. The
+rugged fallow ground under her feet seemed to her to be a symbol of
+faith--faith that winter would come and pass--the spring sun and rain
+would burst the seeds of wheat--and another summer would see the golden
+fields of waving grain. If she did not live to see them, they would be
+there just the same; and so life and nature had faith in its promise.
+That strange whisper was to Lenore the whisper of God.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Through the pale obscurity of a French night, cool, raw, moist, with a
+hint of spring in its freshness, a line of soldiers plodded along the
+lonely, melancholy lanes. Wan starlight showed in the rifts between the
+clouds. Neither dark nor light, the midnight hour had its unreality in
+this line of marching men; and its reality in the dim, vague hedges, its
+spectral posts, its barren fields.
+
+Rain had ceased to fall, but a fine, cold, penetrating mist filled the
+air. The ground was muddy in places, slippery in others; and here and
+there it held pools of water ankle-deep. The stride of the marching men
+appeared short and dragging, without swing or rhythm. It was weary, yet
+full of the latent power of youth, of unused vitality. Stern, clean-cut,
+youthful faces were set northward, unchanging in the shadowy, pale
+gleams of the night. These faces lifted intensely whenever a strange,
+muffled, deep-toned roar rolled out of the murky north. The night looked
+stormy, but that rumble was not thunder. Fifty miles northward, beyond
+that black and mysterious horizon, great guns were booming war.
+
+Sometimes, as the breeze failed, the night was silent except for the
+slow, sloppy tramp of the marching soldiers. Then the low voices were
+hushed. When the wind freshened again it brought at intervals those
+deep, significant detonations which, as the hours passed, seemed to grow
+heavier and more thunderous.
+
+At length a faint gray light appeared along the eastern sky, and
+gradually grew stronger. The dawn of another day was close at hand. It
+broke as if reluctantly, cold and gray and sunless.
+
+The detachment of United States troops halted for camp outside of the
+French village of A----.
+
+Kurt Dorn was at mess with his squad.
+
+The months in France had flown away on wings of training and absorbing
+and waiting. Dorn had changed incalculably. But all he realized of it
+was that he weighed one hundred and ninety pounds and that he seemed to
+have lived a hundred swift lives. All that he saw and felt became part
+of him. His comrades had been won to him as friends by virtue of his
+ever-ready helping hand, by his devotion to training, by his
+close-lipped acceptance of all the toils and knocks and pains common to
+the making of a soldier. The squad lived together as one large family of
+brothers. Dorn's comrades had at first tormented him with his German
+name; they had made fun of his abstraction and his letter-writing; they
+had misunderstood his aloofness. But the ridicule died away, and now, in
+the presaged nature of events, his comrades, all governed by the
+physical life of the soldier, took him for a man.
+
+Perhaps it might have been chance, or it might have been true of all the
+American squads, but the fact was that Dorn's squad was a strangely
+assorted set of young men. Perhaps that might have been Dorn's
+conviction from coming to live long with them. They were a part of the
+New York Division of the --th, all supposed to be New York men. As a
+matter of fact, this was not true. Dorn was a native of Washington.
+Sanborn was a thick-set, sturdy fellow with the clear brown tan and
+clear brown eyes of the Californian. Brewer was from South Carolina, a
+lean, lanky Southerner, with deep-set dark eyes. Dixon hailed from
+Massachusetts, from a fighting family, and from Harvard, where he had
+been a noted athlete. He was a big, lithe, handsome boy, red-faced and
+curly-haired. Purcell was a New-Yorker, of rich family, highly
+connected, and his easy, clean, fine ways, with the elegance of his
+person, his blond distinction, made him stand out from his khaki-clad
+comrades, though he was clad identically with them. Rogers claimed the
+Bronx to be his home and he was proud of it. He was little, almost
+undersized, but a knot of muscle, a keen-faced youth with Irish blood in
+him. These particular soldiers of the squad were closest to Dorn.
+
+Corporal Bob Owens came swinging in to throw his sombrero down.
+
+"What's the orders, Bob?" some one inquired.
+
+"We're going to rest here," he replied.
+
+The news was taken impatiently by several and agreeably by the majority.
+They were all travel-stained and worn. Dorn did not comment on the news,
+but the fact was that he hated the French villages. They were so old, so
+dirty, so obsolete, so different from what he had been accustomed to.
+But he loved the pastoral French countryside, so calm and picturesque.
+He reflected that soon he would see the devastation wrought by the Huns.
+
+"Any news from the front?" asked Dixon.
+
+"I should smile," replied the corporal, grimly.
+
+"Well, open up, you clam!"
+
+Owens thereupon told swiftly and forcibly what he had heard. More
+advance of the Germans--it was familiar news. But somehow it was taken
+differently here within sound of the guns. Dorn studied his comrades,
+wondering if their sensations were similar to his. He expressed nothing
+of what he felt, but all the others had something to say. Hard, cool,
+fiery, violent speech that differed as those who uttered it differed,
+yet its predominant note rang fight.
+
+"Just heard a funny story," said Owens, presently.
+
+"Spring it," somebody replied.
+
+"This comes from Berlin, so they say. According to rumor, the Kaiser and
+the Crown Prince seldom talk to each other. They happened to meet the
+other day. And the Crown Prince said: 'Say, pop, what got us into this
+war?'
+
+"The Emperor replied, 'My son, I was deluded.'
+
+"'Oh, sire, impossible!' exclaimed the Prince. 'How could it be?'
+
+"'Well, some years ago I was visited by a grinning son-of-a-gun from New
+York--no other than the great T.R. I took him around. He was most
+interested in my troops. After he had inspected them, and particularly
+the Imperial Guard, he slapped me on the back and shouted, "Bill, you
+could lick the world!" ... And, my son, I fell for it!'"
+
+This story fetched a roar from every soldier present except Dorn. An
+absence of mirth in him had been noted before.
+
+"Dorn, can't you laugh!" protested Dixon.
+
+"Sure I can--when I hear something funny," replied Dorn.
+
+His comrades gazed hopelessly at him.
+
+"My Lawd! boy, thet was shore funny," drawled Brewer with his lazy
+Southern manner.
+
+"Kurt, you're not human," said Owens, sadly. "That's why they call you
+Demon Dorn."
+
+All the boys in the squad had nicknames. In Dorn's case several had been
+applied by irrepressible comrades before one stuck. The first one
+received a poor reception from Kurt. The second happened to be a great
+blunder for the soldier who invented it. He was not in Dorn's squad, but
+he knew Dorn pretty well, and in a moment of deviltry he had coined for
+Dorn the name "Kaiser Dorn." Dorn's reaction to this appellation was
+discomfiting and painful for the soldier. As he lay flat on the ground,
+where Dorn had knocked him, he had struggled with a natural rage,
+quickly to overcome it. He showed the right kind of spirit. He got up.
+"Dorn, I apologize. I was only in fun. But some fun is about as funny as
+death." On the way out he suggested a more felicitous name--Demon Dorn.
+Somehow the boys took to that. It fitted many of Dorn's violent actions
+in training, especially the way he made a bayonet charge. Dorn objected
+strenuously. But the name stuck. No comrade or soldier ever again made a
+hint of Dorn's German name or blood.
+
+"Fellows, if a funny story can't make Dorn laugh, he's absolutely a dead
+one," said Owens.
+
+"Spring a new one, quick," spoke up some one. "Gee! it's great to
+laugh.... Why, I've not heard from home for a month!"
+
+"Dorn, will you beat it so I can spring this one?" queried Owens.
+
+"Sure," replied Dorn, amiably, as he started away. "I suppose you think
+me one of these I-dare-you-to-make-me-laugh sort of chaps."
+
+"Forget her, Dorn--come out of it!" chirped up Rogers.
+
+To Dorn's regret, he believed that he failed his comrades in one way,
+and he was always trying to make up for it. Part of the training of a
+soldier was the ever-present need and duty of cheerfulness. Every member
+of the squad had his secret, his own personal memory, his inner
+consciousness that he strove to keep hidden. Long ago Dorn had divined
+that this or that comrade was looking toward the bright side, or
+pretending there was one. They all played their parts. Like men they
+faced this incomprehensible duty, this tremendous separation, this dark
+and looming future, as if it was only hard work that must be done in
+good spirit. But Dorn, despite all his will, was mostly silent, aloof,
+brooding, locked up in his eternal strife of mind and soul. He could not
+help it. Notwithstanding all he saw and divined of the sacrifice and
+pain of his comrades, he knew that his ordeal was infinitely harder. It
+was natural that they hoped for the best. He had no hope.
+
+"Boys," said Owens, "there's a squad of Blue Devils camped over here in
+an old barn. Just back from the front. Some one said there wasn't a man
+in it who hadn't had a dozen wounds, and some twice that many. We must
+see that bunch. Bravest soldiers of the whole war! They've been through
+the three years--at Verdun--on the Marne--and now this awful Flanders
+drive. It's up to us to see them."
+
+News like this thrilled Dorn. During all the months he had been in
+France the deeds and valor of these German-named Blue Devils had come to
+him, here and there and everywhere. Dorn remembered all he heard, and
+believed it, too, though some of the charges and some of the burdens
+attributed to these famed soldiers seemed unbelievable. His opportunity
+had now come. With the moving up to the front he would meet reality; and
+all within him, the keen, strange eagerness, the curiosity that
+perplexed, the unintelligible longing, the heat and burn of passion,
+quickened and intensified.
+
+Not until late in the afternoon, however, did off duty present an
+opportunity for him to go into the village. It looked the same as the
+other villages he had visited, and the inhabitants, old men, old women
+and children, all had the somber eyes, the strained, hungry faces, the
+oppressed look he had become accustomed to see. But sad as were these
+inhabitants of a village near the front, there was never in any one of
+them any absence of welcome to the Americans. Indeed, in most people he
+met there was a quick flashing of intense joy and gratitude. The
+Americans had come across the sea to fight beside the French. That was
+the import, tremendous and beautiful.
+
+Dorn met Dixon and Rogers on the main street of the little village. They
+had been to see the Blue Devils.
+
+"Better stay away from them," advised Dixon, dubiously.
+
+"No!... Why?" ejaculated Dorn.
+
+Dixon shook his head. "Greatest bunch I ever looked at. But I think they
+resented our presence. Pat and I were talking about them. It's strange,
+Dorn, but I believe these Blue Devils that have saved France and
+England, and perhaps America, too, don't like our being here."
+
+"Impossible!" replied Dorn.
+
+"Go and see for yourself," put in Rogers. "I believe we all ought to
+look them over."
+
+Thoughtfully Dorn strode on in the direction indicated, and presently he
+arrived at the end of the village, where in an old orchard he found a
+low, rambling, dilapidated barn, before which clusters of soldiers in
+blue lounged around smoking fires. As he drew closer he saw that most of
+them seemed fixed in gloomy abstraction. A few were employed at some
+task of hand, and several bent over the pots on fires. Dorn's sweeping
+gaze took in the whole scene, and his first quick, strange impression
+was that these soldiers resembled ghouls who had lived in dark holes of
+mud.
+
+Kurt meant to make the most of his opportunity. To him, in his peculiar
+need, this meeting would be of greater significance than all else that
+had happened to him in France. The nearest soldier sat on a flattened
+pile of straw around which the ground was muddy. At first glance Kurt
+took him to be an African, so dark were face and eyes. No one heeded
+Kurt's approach. The moment was poignant to Kurt. He spoke French fairly
+well, so that it was emotion rather than lack of fluency which made his
+utterance somewhat unintelligible. The soldier raised his head. His face
+seemed a black flash--his eyes piercingly black, staring, deep, full of
+terrible shadow. They did not appear to see in Kurt the man, but only
+the trim, clean United States army uniform. Kurt repeated his address,
+this time more clearly.
+
+The Frenchman replied gruffly, and bent again over the faded worn coat
+he was scraping with a knife. Then Kurt noticed two things--the man's
+great, hollow, spare frame and the torn shirt, stained many colors, one
+of which was dark red. His hands resembled both those of a mason, with
+the horny callous inside, and those of a salt-water fisherman, with
+bludgy fingers and barked knuckles that never healed.
+
+Dorn had to choose his words slowly, because of unfamiliarity with
+French, but he was deliberate, too, because he wanted to say the right
+thing. His eagerness made the Frenchman glance up again. But while Dorn
+talked of the long waits, the long marches, the arrival at this place,
+the satisfaction at nearing the front, his listener gave no sign that he
+heard. But he did hear, and so did several of his comrades.
+
+"We're coming strong," he went on, his voice thrilling. "A million of us
+this year! We're untrained. We'll have to split up among English and
+French troops and learn how from you. But we've come--and we'll fight!"
+
+Then the Frenchman put on his coat. That showed him to be an officer. He
+wore medals. The dark glance he then flashed over Dorn was different
+from his first. It gave Dorn both a twinge of shame and a thrill of
+pride. It took in Dorn's characteristic Teutonic blond features, and
+likewise an officer's swift appreciation of an extraordinarily splendid
+physique.
+
+"You've German blood," he said.
+
+"Yes. But I'm American," replied Dorn, simply, and he met that
+soul-searching black gaze with all his intense and fearless spirit. Dorn
+felt that never in his life had he been subjected to such a test of his
+manhood, of his truth.
+
+"My name's Huon," said the officer, and he extended one of the huge
+deformed hands.
+
+"Mine's Dorn," replied Kurt, meeting that hand with his own.
+
+Whereupon the Frenchman spoke rapidly to the comrade nearest him, so
+rapidly that all Kurt could make of what he said was that here was an
+American soldier with a new idea. They drew closer, and it became
+manifest that the interesting idea was Kurt's news about the American
+army. It was news here, and carefully pondered by these Frenchmen, as
+slowly one by one they questioned him. They doubted, but Dorn convinced
+them. They seemed to like his talk and his looks. Dorn's quick faculties
+grasped the simplicity of these soldiers. After three terrible years of
+unprecedented warfare, during which they had performed the impossible,
+they did not want a fresh army to come along and steal their glory by
+administering a final blow to a tottering enemy. Gazing into those
+strange, seared faces, beginning to see behind the iron mask, Dorn
+learned the one thing a soldier lives, fights, and dies for--glory.
+
+Kurt Dorn was soon made welcome. He was made to exhaust his knowledge of
+French. He was studied by eyes that had gleamed in the face of death.
+His hand was wrung by hands that had dealt death. How terribly he felt
+that! And presently, when his excitement and emotion had subsided to the
+extent that he could really see what he looked at, then came the reward
+of reality, with all its incalculable meaning expressed to him in the
+gleaming bayonets, in the worn accoutrements, in the greatcoats like
+clapboards of mud, in the hands that were claws, in the feet that
+hobbled, in the strange, wonderful significance of bodily presence,
+standing there as proof of valor, of man's limitless endurance. In the
+faces, ah! there Dorn read the history that made him shudder and lifted
+him beyond himself. For there in those still, dark faces, of boys grown
+old in three years, shone the terror of war and the spirit that had
+resisted it.
+
+Dorn, in his intensity, in the over-emotion of his self-centered
+passion, so terribly driven to prove to himself something vague yet
+all-powerful, illusive yet imperious, divined what these Blue Devil
+soldiers had been through. His mind was more than telepathic. Almost it
+seemed that souls were bared to him. These soldiers, quiet, intent, made
+up a grim group of men. They seemed slow, thoughtful, plodding, wrapped
+and steeped in calm. But Dorn penetrated all this, and established the
+relation between it and the nameless and dreadful significance of their
+weapons and medals and uniforms and stripes, and the magnificent
+vitality that was now all but spent.
+
+Dorn might have resembled a curious, adventure-loving boy, to judge from
+his handling of rifles and the way he slipped a strong hand along the
+gleaming bayonet-blades. But he was more than the curious youth: he had
+begun to grasp a strange, intangible something for which he had no name.
+Something that must be attainable for him! Something that, for an hour
+or a moment, would make him a fighter not to be slighted by these
+supermen!
+
+Whatever his youth or his impelling spirit of manhood, the fact was that
+he inspired many of these veterans of the bloody years to Homeric
+narratives of the siege of Verdun, of the retreat toward Paris, of the
+victory of the Marne, and lastly of the Kaiser's battle, this last and
+most awful offensive of the resourceful and frightful foe.
+
+Brunelle told how he was the last survivor of a squad at Verdun who had
+been ordered to hold a breach made in a front stone wall along the out
+posts. How they had faced a bombardment of heavy guns--a whistling,
+shrieking, thundering roar, pierced by the higher explosion of a
+bursting shell--smoke and sulphur and gas--the crumbling of walls and
+downward fling of shrapnel. How the lives of soldiers were as lives of
+gnats hurled by wind and burned by flame. Death had a manifold and
+horrible diversity. A soldier's head, with ghastly face and conscious
+eyes, momentarily poised in the air while the body rode away invisibly
+with an exploding shell! He told of men blown up, shot through and
+riddled and brained and disemboweled, while their comrades, grim and
+unalterable, standing in a stream of blood, lived through the rain of
+shells, the smashing of walls, lived to fight like madmen the detachment
+following the bombardment, and to kill them every one.
+
+Mathie told of the great retreat--how men who had fought for days, who
+were unbeaten and unafraid, had obeyed an order they hated and could not
+understand, and had marched day and night, day and night, eating as they
+toiled on, sleeping while they marched, on and on, bloody-footed,
+desperate, and terrible, filled with burning thirst and the agony of
+ceaseless motion, on with dragging legs and laboring breasts and
+red-hazed eyes, on and onward, unquenchable, with the spirit of France.
+
+Sergeant Delorme spoke of the sudden fierce about-face at the Marne, of
+the irresistible onslaught of men whose homes had been invaded, whose
+children had been murdered, whose women had been enslaved, of a ruthless
+fighting, swift and deadly, and lastly of a bayonet charge by his own
+division, running down upon superior numbers, engaging them in
+hand-to-hand conflict, malignant and fatal, routing them over a field of
+blood and death.
+
+"Monsieur Dorn, do you know the French use of a bayonet?" asked Delorme.
+
+"No," replied Dorn.
+
+"_Allons!_ I will show you," he said, taking up two rifles and handing
+one to Dorn. "Come. It is so--and so--a trick. The boches can't face
+cold steel.... Ah, monsieur, you have the supple wrists of a juggler!
+You have the arms of a giant! You have the eyes of a duelist! You will
+be one grand spitter of German pigs!"
+
+Dorn felt the blanching of his face, the tingling of his nerves, the
+tightening of his muscles. A cold and terrible meaning laid hold of him
+even in the instant when he trembled before this flaming-eyed French
+veteran who complimented him while he instructed. How easily, Dorn
+thought, could this soldier slip the bright bayonet over his guard and
+pierce him from breast to back! How horrible the proximity of that
+sinister blade, with its glint, its turn, its edge, so potently
+expressive of its history! Even as Dorn crossed bayonets with this
+inspired Frenchman he heard a soldier comrade say that Delorme had let
+daylight through fourteen boches in that memorable victory of the Marne.
+
+"You are very big and strong and quick, monsieur," said the officer
+Huon, simply. "In bayonet-work you will be a killer of boches."
+
+In their talk and practice and help, in their intent to encourage the
+young American soldier, these Blue Devils one and all dealt in frank and
+inevitable terms of death. That was their meaning in life. It was
+immeasurably horrible for Dorn, because it seemed a realization of his
+imagined visions. He felt like a child among old savages of a war tribe.
+Yet he was fascinated by this close-up suggestion of man to man in
+battle, of German to American, of materialist to idealist, and beyond
+all control was the bursting surge of his blood. The exercises he had
+gone through, the trick he had acquired, somehow had strange power to
+liberate his emotion.
+
+The officer Huon spoke English, and upon his words Dorn hung spellbound.
+
+"You Americans have the fine dash, the nerve. You will perform wonders.
+But you don't realize what this war is. You will perish of sheer
+curiosity to see or eagerness to fight. But these are the least of the
+horrors of this war.
+
+"Actual fighting is to me a relief, a forgetfulness, an excitement, and
+is so with many of my comrades. We have survived wounds, starvation,
+shell-shock, poison gas and fire, the diseases of war, the awful toil of
+the trenches. And each and every one of us who has served long bears in
+his mind the particular horror that haunts him. I have known veterans to
+go mad at the screaming of shells. I have seen good soldiers stand upon
+a trench, inviting the fire that would end suspense. For a man who hopes
+to escape alive this war is indeed the ninth circle of hell.
+
+"My own particular horrors are mud, water, and cold. I have lived in
+dark, cold mud-holes so long that my mind concerning them is not right.
+I know it the moment I come out to rest. Rest! Do you know that we
+cannot rest? The comfort of this dirty old barn, of these fires, of this
+bare ground is so great that we cannot rest, we cannot sleep, we cannot
+do anything. When I think of the past winter I do not remember injury
+and agony for myself, or the maimed and mangled bodies of my comrades. I
+remember only the horrible cold, the endless ages of waiting, the
+hopeless misery of the dugouts, foul, black rat-holes that we had to
+crawl into through sticky mud and filthy water. Mud, water, and cold,
+with the stench of the dead clogging your nostrils! That to me is
+war!... _Les Miserables!_ You Americans will never know that, thank God.
+For it could not be endured by men who did not belong to this soil.
+After all, the filthy water is half blood and the mud is part of the
+dead of our people."
+
+Huon talked on and on, with the eloquence of a Frenchman who relieves
+himself of a burden. He told of trenches dug in a swamp, lived in and
+fought in, and then used for the graves of the dead, trenches that had
+to be lived in again months afterward. The rotting dead were everywhere.
+When they were covered the rain would come to wash away the earth,
+exposing them again. That was the strange refrain of this soldier's
+moody lament--the rain that fell, the mud that forever held him rooted
+fast in the tracks of his despair. He told of night and storm, of a
+weary squad of men, lying flat, trying to dig in under cover of rain and
+darkness, of the hell of cannonade over and around them. He told of
+hours that blasted men's souls, of death that was a blessing, of escape
+that was torture beyond the endurance of humans. Crowning that night of
+horrors piled on horrors, when he had seen a dozen men buried alive in
+mud lifted by a monster shell, when he had seen a refuge deep
+underground opened and devastated by a like projectile, came a
+cloud-burst that flooded the trenches and the fields, drowning soldiers
+whose injuries and mud-laden garments impeded their movements, and
+rendering escape for the others an infernal labor and a hideous
+wretchedness, unutterable and insupportable.
+
+Round the camp-fires the Blue Devils stood or lay, trying to rest. But
+the habit of the trenches was upon them. Dorn gazed at each and every
+soldier, so like in strange resemblance, so different in physical
+characteristics; and the sad, profound, and terrifying knowledge came to
+him of what they must have in their minds. He realized that all he
+needed was to suffer and fight and live through some little part of the
+war they had endured and then some truth would burst upon him. It was
+there in the restless steps, in the prone forms, in the sunken, glaring
+eyes. What soldiers, what men, what giants! Three and a half years of
+unnamable and indescribable fury of action and strife of thought! Not
+dead, nor stolid like oxen, were these soldiers of France. They had a
+simplicity that seemed appalling. We have given all; we have stood in
+the way, borne the brunt, saved you--this was flung at Dorn, not out of
+their thought, but from their presence. The fact that they were there
+was enough. He needed only to find these bravest of brave warriors real,
+alive, throbbing men.
+
+Dorn lingered there, loath to leave. The great lesson of his life held
+vague connection in some way with this squad of French privates. But he
+could not pierce the veil. This meeting came as a climax to four months
+of momentous meetings with the best and the riffraff of many nations.
+Dorn had studied, talked, listened, and learned. He who had as yet given
+nothing, fought no enemy, saved no comrade or refugee or child in all
+this whirlpool of battling millions, felt a profound sense of his
+littleness, his ignorance. He who had imagined himself unfortunate had
+been blind, sick, self-centered. Here were soldiers to whom comfort and
+rest were the sweetest blessings upon the earth, and they could not
+grasp them. No more could they grasp them than could the gaping
+civilians and the distinguished travelers grasp what these grand hulks
+of veteran soldiers had done. Once a group of civilians halted near the
+soldiers. An officer was their escort. He tried to hurry them on, but
+failed. Delorme edged away into the gloomy, damp barn rather than meet
+such visitors. Some of his comrades followed suit. Ferier, the
+incomparable of the Blue Devils, the wearer of all the French medals and
+the bearer of twenty-five wounds received in battle--he sneaked away,
+afraid and humble and sullen, to hide himself from the curious. That
+action of Ferier's was a revelation to Dorn. He felt a sting of shame.
+There were two classes of people in relation to this war--those who went
+to fight and those who stayed behind. What had Delorme or Mathie or
+Ferier to do with the world of selfish, comfortable, well-fed men? Dorn
+heard a million voices of France crying out the bitter truth--that if
+these war-bowed veterans ever returned alive to their homes it would be
+with hopes and hearts and faiths burned out, with hands forever lost to
+their old use, with bodies that the war had robbed.
+
+Dorn bade his new-made friends adieu, and in the darkening twilight he
+hurried toward his own camp.
+
+"If I could go back home now, honorably and well, I would never do it,"
+he muttered. "I couldn't bear to live knowing what I know now--unless I
+had laughed at this death, and risked it--and dealt it!"
+
+He was full of gladness, of exultation, in contemplation of the
+wonderful gift the hours had brought him. More than any men of history
+or present, he honored these soldiers the Germans feared. Like an
+Indian, Dorn respected brawn, courage, fortitude, silence, aloofness.
+
+"There was a divinity in those soldiers," he soliloquized. "I felt it in
+their complete ignorance of their greatness. Yet they had pride,
+jealousy. Oh, the mystery of it all!... When my day comes I'll last one
+short and terrible hour. I would never make a soldier like one of them.
+No American could. They are Frenchmen whose homes have been despoiled."
+
+In the tent of his comrades that night Dorn reverted from old habit, and
+with a passionate eloquence he told all he had seen and heard, and much
+that he had felt. His influence on these young men, long established,
+but subtle and unconscious, became in that hour a tangible fact. He
+stirred them. He felt them thoughtful and sad, and yet more unflinching,
+stronger and keener for the inevitable day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+The monstrous possibility that had consumed Kurt Dorn for many months at
+last became an event--he had arrived on the battle-front in France.
+
+All afternoon the company of United States troops had marched from far
+back of the line, resting, as darkness came on, at a camp of reserves,
+and then going on. Artillery fire had been desultory during this march;
+the big guns that had rolled their thunder miles and miles were now
+silent. But an immense activity and a horde of soldiers back of the
+lines brought strange leaden oppression to Kurt Dorn's heart.
+
+The last slow travel of his squad over dark, barren space and through
+deep, narrow, winding lanes in the ground had been a nightmare ending to
+the long journey. France had not yet become clear to him; he was a
+stranger in a strange land; in spite of his tremendous interest and
+excitement, all seemed abstract matters of his feeling, the plague of
+himself made actuality the substance of dreams. That last day, the
+cumulation of months of training and travel, had been one in which he
+had observed, heard, talked and felt in a nervous and fevered
+excitement. But now he imagined he could not remember any of it. His
+poignant experience with the Blue Devils had been a reality he could
+never forget, but now this blackness of subterranean cavern, this damp,
+sickening odor of earth, this presence of men, the strange, muffled
+sounds--all these were unreal. How had he come here? His mind labored
+with a burden strangely like that on his chest. A different, utterly
+unfamiliar emotion seemed rising over him. Maybe that was because he was
+very tired and very sleepy. Sometime that night he must go on duty. He
+ought to sleep. It was impossible. He could not close his eyes. An
+effort to attend to what he was actually doing disclosed the fact that
+he was listening with all his strength. For what? He could not answer
+then. He heard the distant, muffled sounds, and low voices nearer, and
+thuds and footfalls. His comrades were near him; he heard their
+breathing; he felt their presence. They were strained and intense; like
+him, they were locked up in their own prison of emotions.
+
+Always heretofore, on nights that he lay sleepless, Dorn had thought of
+the two things dearest on earth to him--Lenore Anderson and the golden
+wheat-hills of his home. This night he called up Lenore's image. It hung
+there in the blackness, a dim, pale phantom of her sweet face, her
+beautiful eyes, her sad lips, and then it vanished. Not at all could he
+call up a vision of his beloved wheat-fields. So the suspicion that
+something was wrong with his mind became a certainty. It angered him,
+quickened his sensitiveness, even while he despaired. He ground his
+teeth and clenched his fists and swore to realize his presence there,
+and to rise to the occasion as had been his vaunted ambition.
+
+Suddenly he felt something slimy and hairy against his wrist--then a
+stinging bite. A rat! A trench rat that lived on flesh! He flung his arm
+violently and beat upon the soft earth. The incident of surprise and
+disgust helped Dorn at least in one way. His mind had been set upon a
+strange and supreme condition of his being there, of an emotion about to
+overcome him. The bite of a rat, drawing blood, made a literal fact of
+his being a soldier, in a dugout at the front waiting in the blackness
+for his call to go on guard. This incident proved to Dorn his
+limitations, and that he was too terribly concerned with his feelings
+ever to last long as a soldier. But he could not help himself. His
+pulse, his heart, his brain, all seemed to beat, beat, beat with a
+nameless passion.
+
+Was he losing his nerve--was he afraid? His denial did not reassure him.
+He understood that patriotism and passion were emotions, and that the
+realities of a soldier's life were not.
+
+Dorn forced himself to think of realities, hoping thus to get a grasp
+upon his vanishing courage. And memory helped him. Not so many days,
+weeks, months back he had been a different man. At Bordeaux, when his
+squad first set foot upon French soil! That was a splendid reality. How
+he had thrilled at the welcome of the French sailors!
+
+Then he thought of the strenuous round of army duties, of training
+tasks, of traveling in cold box-cars, of endless marches, of camps and
+villages, of drills and billets. Never to be forgotten was that morning,
+now seemingly long ago, when an officer had ordered the battalion to
+pack. "We are going to the front!" he announced. Magic words! What
+excitement, what whooping, what bragging and joy among the boys, what
+hurry and bustle and remarkable efficiency! That had been a reality of
+actual experience, but the meaning of it, the terrible significance, had
+been beyond the mind of any American.
+
+"I'm here--at the front--now," whispered Dorn to himself. "A few rods
+away are Germans!" ... Inconceivable--no reality at all! He went on with
+his swift account of things, with his mind ever sharpening, with that
+strange, mounting emotion flooding to the full, ready to burst its
+barriers. When he and his comrades had watched their transport trains
+move away--when they had stood waiting for their own trains--had the
+idea of actual conflict yet dawned upon them? Dorn had to answer No. He
+remembered that he had made few friends among the inhabitants of towns
+and villages where he had stayed. What leisure time he got had been
+given to a seeking out of sailors, soldiers, and men of all races, with
+whom he found himself in remarkable contact. The ends of the world
+brought together by one war! How could his memory ever hold all that had
+come to him? But it did. Passion liberated it. He saw now that his eye
+was a lens, his mind a sponge, his heart a gulf.
+
+Out of the hundreds of thousands of American troops in France, what
+honor it was to be in the chosen battalion to go to the front! Dorn
+lived only with his squad, but he felt the envy of the whole army. What
+luck! To be chosen from so many--to go out and see the game through
+quickly! He began to consider that differently now. The luck might be
+with the soldiers left behind. Always, underneath Dorn's perplexity and
+pondering, under his intelligence and spirit at their best, had been a
+something deeply personal, something of the internal of him, a selfish
+instinct. It was the nature of man--self-preservation.
+
+Like a tempest swept over Dorn the most significant ordeal and lesson of
+his experience in France--that wonderful reality when he met the Blue
+Devils and they took him in. However long he lived, his life must
+necessarily be transformed from contact with those great men.
+
+The night march over the unending roads, through the gloom and the
+spectral starlight, with the dull rumblings of cannon shocking his
+heart--that Dorn lived over, finding strangely a minutest detail of
+observation and a singular veracity of feeling fixed in his memory.
+
+Afternoon of that very day, at the reserve camp somewhere back there,
+had brought an officer's address to the soldiers, a strong and emphatic
+appeal as well as order--to obey, to do one's duty, to take no chances,
+to be eternally vigilant, to believe that every man had advantage on his
+side, even in war, if he were not a fool or a daredevil. Dorn had
+absorbed the speech, remembered every word, but it all seemed futile
+now. Then had come the impressive inspection of equipment, a careful
+examination of gas-masks, rifles, knapsacks. After that the order to
+march!
+
+Dorn imagined that he had remembered little, but he had remembered all.
+Perhaps the sense of strange unreality was only the twist in his mind.
+Yet he did not know where he was--what part of France--how far north or
+south on the front line--in what sector. Could not that account for the
+sense of feeling lost?
+
+Nevertheless, he was there at the end of all this incomprehensible
+journey. He became possessed by an irresistible desire to hurry. Once
+more Dorn attempted to control the far-flinging of his thoughts--to come
+down to earth. The earth was there under his hand, soft, sticky, moldy,
+smelling vilely. He dug his fingers into it, until the feel of something
+like a bone made him jerk them out. Perhaps he had felt a stone. A tiny,
+creeping, chilly shudder went up his back. Then he remembered, he felt,
+he saw his little attic room, in the old home back among the wheat-hills
+of the Northwest. Six thousand miles away! He would never see that room
+again. What unaccountable vagary of memory had ever recalled it to him?
+It faded out of his mind.
+
+Some of his comrades whispered; now and then one rolled over; none
+snored, for none of them slept. Dorn felt more aloof from them than
+ever. How isolated each one was, locked in his own trouble! Every one of
+them, like himself, had a lonely soul. Perhaps they were facing it. He
+could not conceive of a careless, thoughtless, emotionless attitude
+toward this first night in the front-line trench.
+
+Dorn gradually grew more acutely sensitive to the many faint, rustling,
+whispering sounds in and near the dugout.
+
+A soldier came stooping into the opaque square of the dugout door. His
+rifle, striking the framework, gave out a metallic clink. This fellow
+expelled a sudden heavy breath as if throwing off an oppression.
+
+"Is that you, Sanborn?" This whisper Dorn recognized as Dixon's. It was
+full of suppressed excitement.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Guess it's my turn next. How--how does it go?"
+
+Sanborn's laugh had an odd little quaver. "Why, so far as I know, I
+guess it's all right. Damn queer, though. I wish we'd got here in
+daytime.... But maybe that wouldn't help."
+
+"Humph!... Pretty quiet out there?"
+
+"So Bob says, but what's he know--more than us? I heard guns up the
+line, and rifle-fire not so far off."
+
+"Can you see any--"
+
+"Not a damn thing--yet everything," interrupted Sanborn, enigmatically.
+
+"Dixon!" called Owens, low and quickly, from the darkness.
+
+Dixon did not reply. His sudden hard breathing, the brushing of his
+garments against the door, then swift, soft steps dying away attested to
+the fact of his going.
+
+Dorn tried to compose himself to rest, if not to sleep. He heard Sanborn
+sit down, and then apparently stay very still for some time. All of a
+sudden he whispered to himself. Dorn distinguished the word "hell."
+
+"What's ailin' you, pard?" drawled Brewer.
+
+Sanborn growled under his breath, and when some one else in the dugout
+quizzed him curiously he burst out: "I'll bet you galoots the state of
+California against a dill pickle that when your turn comes you'll be
+sick in your gizzards!"
+
+"We'll take our medicine," came in the soft, quiet voice of Purcell.
+
+No more was said. The men all pretended to fall asleep, each ashamed to
+let his comrade think he was concerned.
+
+A short, dull, heavy rumble seemed to burst the outer stillness. For a
+moment the dugout was silent as a tomb. No one breathed. Then came a jar
+of the earth, a creaking of shaken timbers. Some one gasped
+involuntarily. Another whispered:
+
+"By God! the real thing!"
+
+Dorn wondered how far away that jarring shell had alighted. Not so far!
+It was the first he had ever heard explode near him. Roaring of cannon,
+exploding of shell--this had been a source of every-day talk among his
+comrades. But the jar, the tremble of the earth, had a dreadful
+significance. Another rumble, another jar, not so heavy or so near this
+time, and then a few sharply connected reports, clamped Dorn as in a
+cold vise. Machine-gun shots! Many thousand machine-gun shots had he
+heard, but none with the life and the spite and the spang of these. Did
+he imagine the difference? Cold as he felt, he began to sweat, and
+continually, as he wiped the palms of his hands, they grew wet again. A
+queer sensation of light-headedness and weakness seemed to possess him.
+The roots of his will-power seemed numb. Nevertheless, all the more
+revolving and all-embracing seemed his mind.
+
+The officer in his speech a few hours back had said the sector to which
+the battalion had been assigned was alive. By this he meant that active
+bombardment, machine-gun fire, hand-grenade throwing, and gas-shelling,
+or attack in force might come any time, and certainly must come as soon
+as the Germans suspected the presence of an American force opposite
+them.
+
+That was the stunning reality to Dorn--the actual existence of the Huns
+a few rods distant. But realization of them had not brought him to the
+verge of panic. He would not flinch at confronting the whole German
+army. Nor did he imagine he put a great price upon his life. Nor did he
+have any abnormal dread of pain. Nor had the well-remembered teachings
+of the Bible troubled his spirit. Was he going to be a coward because of
+some incalculable thing in him or force operating against him? Already
+he sat there, shivering and sweating, with the load on his breast
+growing laborsome, with all his sensorial being absolutely at keenest
+edge.
+
+Rapid footfalls halted his heart-beats. They came from above, outside
+the dugout, from the trench.
+
+"Dorn, come out!" called the corporal.
+
+Dorn's response was instant. But he was as blind as if he had no eyes,
+and he had to feel his way to climb out. The indistinct, blurred form of
+the corporal seemed half merged in the pale gloom of the trench. A cool
+wind whipped at Dorn's hot face. Surcharged with emotion, the nature of
+which he feared, Dorn followed the corporal, stumbling and sliding over
+the wet boards, knocking bits of earth from the walls, feeling a sick
+icy gripe in his bowels. Some strange light flared up--died away.
+Another rumble, distinct, heavy, and vibrating! To his left somewhere
+the earth received a shock. Dorn felt a wave of air that was not wind.
+
+The corporal led the way past motionless men peering out over the top of
+the wall, and on to a widening, where an abutment of filled bags loomed
+up darkly. Here the corporal cautiously climbed up breaks in the wall
+and stooped behind the fortification. Dorn followed. His legs did not
+feel natural. Something was lost out of them. Then he saw the little
+figure of Rogers beside him. Dorn's turn meant Rogers's relief. How pale
+against the night appeared the face of Rogers! As he peered under his
+helmet at Dorn a low whining passed in the air overhead. Rogers started
+slightly. A thump sounded out there, interrupting the corporal, who had
+begun to speak. He repeated his order to Dorn, bending a little to peer
+into his face. Dorn tried to open his lips to say he did not understand,
+but his lips were mute. Then the corporal led Rogers away.
+
+That moment alone, out in the open, with the strange, windy pall of
+night--all-enveloping, with the flares, like sheet-lightning, along the
+horizon, with a rumble here and a roar there, with whistling fiends
+riding the blackness above, with a series of popping, impelling reports
+seemingly close in front--that drove home to Kurt Dorn a cruel and
+present and unescapable reality.
+
+At that instant, like bitter fate, shot up a rocket, or a star-flare of
+calcium light, bursting to expose all underneath in pitiless radiance.
+With a gasp that was a sob, Dorn shrank flat against the wall, staring
+into the fading circle, feeling a creep of paralysis. He must be seen.
+He expected the sharp, biting series of a machine-gun or the bursting of
+a bomb. But nothing happened, except that the flare died away. It had
+come from behind his own lines. Control of his muscles had almost
+returned when a heavy boom came from the German side. Miles away,
+perhaps, but close! That boom meant a great shell speeding on its
+hideous mission. It would pass over him. He listened. The wind came from
+that side. It was cold; it smelled of burned powder; it carried sounds
+he was beginning to appreciate--shots, rumbles, spats, and thuds,
+whistles of varying degree, all isolated sounds. Then he caught a
+strange, low moaning. It rose. It was coming fast. It became an
+o-o-o-O-O-O! Nearer and nearer! It took on a singing whistle. It was
+passing--no--falling!... A mighty blow was delivered to the earth--a
+jar--a splitting shock to windy darkness; a wave of heavy air was flung
+afar--and then came the soft, heavy thumping of falling earth.
+
+That shell had exploded close to the place where Dorn stood. It
+terrified him. It reduced him to a palpitating, stricken wretch, utterly
+unable to cope with the terror. It was not what he had expected. What
+were words, anyhow? By words alone he had understood this shell thing.
+Death was only a word, too. But to be blown to atoms! It came every
+moment to some poor devil; it might come to him. But that was not
+fighting. Somewhere off in the blackness a huge iron monster belched
+this hell out upon defenseless men. Revolting and inconceivable truth!
+
+It was Dorn's ordeal that his mentality robbed this hour of novelty and
+of adventure, that while his natural, physical fear incited panic and
+nausea and a horrible, convulsive internal retching, his highly
+organized, exquisitely sensitive mind, more like a woman's in its
+capacity for emotion, must suffer through imagining the infinite agonies
+that he might really escape. Every shell then must blow him to bits;
+every agony of every soldier must be his.
+
+But he knew what his duty was, and as soon as he could move he began to
+edge along the short beat. Once at the end he drew a deep and shuddering
+breath, and, fighting all his involuntary instincts, he peered over the
+top. An invisible thing whipped close over his head. It did not whistle;
+it cut. Out in front of him was only thick, pale gloom, with spectral
+forms, leading away to the horizon, where flares, like sheet-lightning
+of a summer night's storm, ran along showing smoke and bold, ragged
+outlines. Then he went to the other end to peer over there. His eyes
+were keen, and through long years of habit at home, going about at night
+without light, he could see distinctly where ordinary sight would meet
+only a blank wall. The flat ground immediately before him was bare of
+living or moving objects. That was his duty as sentinel here--to make
+sure of no surprise patrol from the enemy lines. It helped Dorn to
+realize that he could accomplish this duty even though he was in a
+torment.
+
+That space before him was empty, but it was charged with current. Wind,
+shadow, gloom, smoke, electricity, death, spirit--whatever that current
+was, Dorn felt it. He was more afraid of that than the occasional
+bullets which zipped across. Sometimes shots from his own squad rang out
+up and down the line. Off somewhat to the north a machine-gun on the
+Allies' side spoke now and then spitefully. Way back a big gun boomed.
+Dorn listened to the whine of shells from his own side with a far
+different sense than that with which he heard shells whine from the
+enemy. How natural and yet how unreasonable! Shells from the other side
+came over to destroy him; shells from his side went back to save him.
+But both were shot to kill! Was he, the unknown and shrinking novice of
+a soldier, any better than an unknown and shrinking soldier far across
+there in the darkness? What was equality? But these were Germans! That
+thing so often said--so beaten into his brain--did not convince out here
+in the face of death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Four o'clock! With the gray light came a gradually increasing number of
+shells. Most of them struck far back. A few, to right and left, dropped
+near the front line. The dawn broke--such a dawn as he never dreamed
+of--smoky and raw, with thunder spreading to a circle all around the
+horizon.
+
+He was relieved. On his way in he passed Purcell at the nearest post.
+The elegant New-Yorker bore himself with outward calm. But in the gray
+dawn he looked haggard and drawn. Older! That flashed through Dorn's
+mind. A single night had contained years, more than years. Others of the
+squad had subtly changed. Dixon gave him a penetrating look, as if he
+wore a mask, under which was a face of betrayal, of contrast to that
+soldier bearing, of youth that was gone forever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+The squad of men to which Dorn belonged had to be on the lookout
+continually for an attack that was inevitable. The Germans were feeling
+out the line, probably to verify spy news of the United States troops
+taking over a sector. They had not, however, made sure of this fact.
+
+The gas-shells came over regularly, making life for the men a kind of
+suffocation most of the time. And the great shells that blew enormous
+holes in front and in back of their position never allowed a relaxation
+from strain. Drawn and haggard grew the faces that had been so clean-cut
+and brown and fresh.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One evening at mess, when the sector appeared quiet enough to permit of
+rest, Rogers was talking to some comrades before the door of the dugout.
+
+"It sure got my goat, that little promenade of ours last night over into
+No Man's Land," he said. "We had orders to slip out and halt a German
+patrol that was supposed to be stealing over to our line. We crawled on
+our bellies, looking and listening every minute. If that isn't the
+limit! My heart was in my mouth. I couldn't breathe. And for the first
+moments, if I'd run into a Hun, I'd had no more strength than a rabbit.
+But all seemed clear. It was not a bright night--sort of opaque and
+gloomy--shadows everywhere. There wasn't any patrol coming. But Corporal
+Owens thought he heard men farther on working with wire. We crawled some
+more. And we must have got pretty close to the enemy lines--in fact, we
+had--when up shot one of those damned calcium flares. We all burrowed
+into the ground. I was paralyzed. It got as light as noon--strange
+greenish-white flare. It magnified. Flat as I lay, I saw the German
+embankments not fifty yards away. I made sure we were goners. Slowly the
+light burned out. Then that machine-gun you all heard began to rattle.
+Something queer about the way every shot of a machine-gun bites the air.
+We heard the bullets, low down, right over us. Say, boys, I'd almost
+rather be hit and have it done with!... We began to crawl back. I wanted
+to run. We all wanted to. But Owens is a nervy guy and he kept
+whispering. Another machine-gun cut loose, and bullets rained over us.
+Like hail they hit somewhere ahead, scattering the gravel. We'd almost
+reached our line when Smith jumped up and ran. He said afterward that he
+just couldn't help himself. The suspense was awful. I know. I've been a
+clerk in a bank! Get that? And there I was under a hail of Hun lead,
+without being able to understand why, or feel that any time had passed
+since giving up my job to go to war. Queer how I saw my old desk!...
+Well, that's how Smith got his. I heard the bullets spat him, sort of
+thick and soft.... Ugh!... Owens and I dragged him along, and finally
+into the trench. He had a bullet through his shoulder and leg. Guess
+he'll live, all right.... Boys, take this from me. Nobody can _tell_ you
+what a machine-gun is like. A rifle, now, is not so much. You get shot
+at, and you know the man must reload and aim. That takes time. But a
+machine-gun! Whew! It's a comb--a fine-toothed comb--and you're the
+louse it's after! You hear that steady rattle, and then you hear bullets
+everywhere. Think of a man against a machine-gun! It's not a square
+deal."
+
+Dixon was one of the listeners. He laughed.
+
+"Rogers, I'd like to have been with you. Next time I'll volunteer. You
+had action--a run for your money. That's what I enlisted for. Standing
+still--doing nothing but wait--that drives me half mad. My years of
+football have made action necessary. Otherwise I go stale in mind and
+body.... Last night, before you went on that scouting trip, I had been
+on duty two hours. Near midnight. The shelling had died down. All became
+quiet. No flares--no flashes anywhere. There was a luminous kind of glow
+in the sky--moonlight through thin clouds. I had to listen and watch.
+But I couldn't keep back my thoughts. There I was, a soldier, facing No
+Man's Land, across whose dark space were the Huns we have come to regard
+as devils in brutality, yet less than men.... And I thought of home. No
+man knows what home really is until he stands that lonely midnight
+guard. A shipwrecked sailor appreciates the comforts he once had; a
+desert wanderer, lost and starving, remembers the food he once wasted; a
+volunteer soldier, facing death in the darkness, thinks of his home! It
+is a hell of a feeling!... And, thinking of home, I remembered my girl.
+I've been gone four months--have been at the front seven days (or is it
+seven years?) and last night in the darkness she came to me. Oh yes! she
+was there! She seemed reproachful, as she was when she coaxed me not to
+enlist. My girl was not one of the kind who sends her lover to war and
+swears she will die an old maid unless he returns. Mine begged me to
+stay home, or at least wait for the draft. But I wasn't built that way.
+I enlisted. And last night I felt the bitterness of a soldier's fate.
+All this beautiful stuff is bunk!... My girl is a peach. She had many
+admirers, two in particular that made me run my best down the stretch.
+One is club-footed. He couldn't fight. The other is all yellow. Him she
+liked best. He had her fooled, the damned slacker.... I wish I could
+believe I'd get safe back home, with a few Huns to my credit--the Croix
+de Guerre--and an officer's uniform. That would be great. How I could
+show up those fellows!... But I'll get killed--as sure as God made
+little apples I'll get killed--and she will marry one of the men who
+would not fight!"
+
+It was about the middle of a clear morning, still cold, but the sun was
+shining. Guns were speaking intermittently. Those soldiers who were off
+duty had their gas-masks in their hands. All were gazing intently
+upward.
+
+Dorn sat a little apart from them. He, too, looked skyward, and he was
+so absorbed that he did not hear the occasional rumble of a distant gun.
+He was watching the airmen at work--the most wonderful and famous
+feature of the war. It absolutely enthralled Dorn. As a boy he had loved
+to watch the soaring of the golden eagles, and once he had seen a great
+wide-winged condor, swooping along a mountain-crest. How he had envied
+them the freedom of the heights--the loneliness of the unscalable
+crags--the companionship of the clouds! Here he gazed and marveled at
+the man-eagles of the air.
+
+German planes had ventured over the lines, flying high, and English
+planes had swept up to intercept them. One was rising then not far away,
+climbing fast, like a fish-hawk with prey in its claws. Its color, its
+framework, its propeller, and its aviator showed distinctly against the
+sky. The buzzing, high-pitched drone of its motor floated down.
+
+The other aeroplanes, far above, had lost their semblance to mechanical
+man-driven machines. They were now the eagles of the air. They were
+rising, circling, diving in maneuvers that Dorn knew meant pursuit. But
+he could not understand these movements. To him the air-battle looked as
+it must have looked to an Indian. Birds of prey in combat! Dorn recalled
+verses he had learned as a boy, written by a poet who sang of future
+wars in the air. What he prophesied had come true. Was there not a sage
+now who could pierce the veil of the future and sing of such a thing as
+sacred human life? Dorn had his doubts. Poets and dreamers appeared not
+to be the men who could halt materialism. Strangely then, as Dorn gazed
+bitterly up at these fierce fliers who fought in the heavens, he
+remembered the story of the three wise men and of Bethlehem. Was it only
+a story? Where on this sunny spring morning was Christ, and the love of
+man for man?
+
+At that moment one of the forward aeroplanes, which was drifting back
+over the enemy lines, lost its singular grace of slow, sweeping
+movement. It poised in the air. It changed shape. It pitched as if from
+wave to wave of wind. A faint puff of smoke showed. Tiny specks, visible
+to Dorn's powerful eyes, seemed to detach themselves and fall, to be
+followed by the plane itself in sheer downward descent.
+
+Dorn leaped to his feet. What a thrilling and terrible sight! His
+comrades stood bareheaded, red faces uplifted, open-mouthed and wild
+with excitement, not daring to disobey orders and yell at the top of
+their lungs. Dorn felt, strong above the softened wonder and thought of
+a moment back, a tingling, pulsating wave of gushing blood go over him.
+Like his comrades, he began to wave his arms and stamp and bite his
+tongue.
+
+Swiftly the doomed plane swept down out of sight. Gone! At that instant
+something which had seemed like a bird must have become a broken mass.
+The other planes drifted eastward.
+
+Dorn gasped, and broke the spell on him. He was hot and wet with sweat,
+quivering with a frenzy. How many thousand soldiers of the Allies had
+seen that downward flight of the boche? Dorn pitied the destroyed
+airman, hated himself, and had all the fury of savage joy that had been
+in his comrades.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dorn, relieved from guard and firing-post, rushed back to the dugout. He
+needed the dark of that dungeon. He crawled in and, searching out the
+remotest, blackest corner, hidden from all human eyes, and especially
+his own, he lay there clammy and wet all over, with an icy, sickening
+rend, like a wound, in the pit of his stomach. He shut his eyes, but
+that did not shut out what he saw. "_So help me God!_" he whispered to
+himself.... Six endless months had gone to the preparation of a deed
+that had taken one second! That transformed him! His life on earth, his
+spirit in the beyond, could never be now what they might have been. And
+he sobbed through grinding teeth as he felt the disintegrating,
+agonizing, irremediable forces at work on body, mind, and soul.
+
+He had blown out the brains of his first German.
+
+Fires of hell, in two long lines, bordering a barren, ghastly, hazy
+strip of land, burst forth from the earth. From holes where men hid
+poured thunder of guns and stream of smoke and screeching of iron. That
+worthless strip of land, barring deadly foes, shook as with repeated
+earthquakes. Huge spouts of black and yellow earth lifted,
+fountain-like, to the dull, heavy bursts of shells. Pound and jar,
+whistle and whine, long, broken rumble, and the rattling concatenation
+of quick shots like metallic cries, exploding hail-storm of iron in the
+air, a desert over which thousands of puffs of smoke shot up and swelled
+and drifted, the sliding crash far away, the sibilant hiss swift
+overhead. Boom! Weeeee--eeeeooooo! from the east. Boom!
+Weeeee--eeeeooooo! from the west.
+
+At sunset there was no let-up. The night was all the more hideous. Along
+the horizon flashed up the hot sheets of lightning that were not of a
+summer storm. Angry, lurid, red, these upflung blazes and flames
+illumined the murky sky, showing in the fitful and flickering intervals
+wagons driving toward the front, and patrols of soldiers running toward
+some point, and great upheavals of earth spread high.
+
+This heavy cannonading died away in the middle of the night until an
+hour before dawn, when it began again with redoubled fury and lasted
+until daybreak.
+
+Dawn came reluctantly, Dorn thought. He was glad. It meant a charge.
+Another night of that hellish shrieking and bursting of shells would
+kill his mind, if not his body. He stood on guard at a fighting-post.
+Corporal Owens lay at his feet, wounded slightly. He would not retire.
+As the cannons ceased he went to sleep. Rogers stood close on one side,
+Dixon on the other. The squad had lived through that awful night.
+Soldiers were bringing food and drink to them. All appeared grimly gay.
+
+Dorn was not gay. But he knew this was the day he would laugh in the
+teeth of death. A slumbrous, slow heat burned deep in him, like a
+covered fire, fierce and hot at heart, awaiting the wind. Watching
+there, he did not voluntarily move a muscle, yet all his body twitched
+like that of the trained athlete, strained to leap into the great race
+of his life.
+
+An officer came hurrying through. The talking hushed. Men on guard,
+backs to the trench, never moved their eyes from the forbidden land in
+front. The officer spoke. Look for a charge! Reserves were close behind.
+He gave his orders and passed on.
+
+Then an Allied gun opened up with a boom. The shell moaned on over. Dorn
+saw where it burst, sending smoke and earth aloft. That must have been a
+signal for a bombardment of the enemy all along this sector, for big and
+little guns began to thunder and crack.
+
+The spectacle before Dorn's hard, keen eyes was one that he thought
+wonderful. Far across No Man's Land, which sloped somewhat at that point
+in the plain, he saw movement of troops and guns. His eyes were
+telescopic. Over there the ground appeared grassy in places, with green
+ridges rising, and patches of brush and straggling trees standing out
+clearly. Faint, gray-colored squads of soldiers passed in sight with
+helmets flashing in the sun; guns were being hauled forward; mounted
+horsemen dashed here and there, vanishing and reappearing; and all
+through that wide area of color and action shot up live black spouts of
+earth crowned in white smoke that hung in the air after the earth fell
+back. They were beautiful, these shell-bursts. Round balls of white
+smoke magically appeared in the air, to spread and drift; long, yellow
+columns or streaks rose here, and there leaped up a fan-shaped, dirty
+cloud, savage and sinister; sometimes several shells burst close
+together, dashing the upflung sheets of earth together and blending
+their smoke; at intervals a huge, creamy-yellow explosion, like a
+geyser, rose aloft to spread and mushroom, then to detach itself from
+the heavier body it had upheaved, and float away, white and graceful, on
+the wind.
+
+Sinister beauty! Dorn soon lost sight of that. There came a gnawing at
+his vitals. The far scene of action could not hold his gaze. That dark,
+uneven, hummocky break in the earth, which was a goodly number of rods
+distant, yet now seemed close, drew a startling attention. Dorn felt his
+eyes widen and pop. Spots and dots, shiny, illusive, bobbed along that
+break, behind the mounds, beyond the farther banks. A yell as from one
+lusty throat ran along the line of which Dorn's squad held the center.
+Dorn's sight had a piercing intensity. All was hard under his grip--his
+rifle, the boards and bags against which he leaned. Corporal Owens rose
+beside him, bareheaded, to call low and fiercely to his men.
+
+The gray dots and shiny spots leaped up magically and appallingly into
+men. German soldiers! Boches! Huns on a charge! They were many, but wide
+apart. They charged, running low.
+
+Machine-gun rattle, rifle-fire, and strangled shouts blended along the
+line. From the charging Huns seemed to come a sound that was neither
+battle-cry nor yell nor chant, yet all of them together. The gray
+advancing line thinned at points opposite the machine-guns, but it was
+coming fast.
+
+Dorn cursed his hard, fumbling hands, which seemed so eager and fierce
+that they stiffened. They burned, too, from their grip on the hot rifle.
+Shot after shot he fired, missing. He could not hit a field full of
+Huns. He dropped shells, fumbled with them at the breech, loaded wildly,
+aimed at random, pulled convulsively. His brain was on fire. He had no
+anger, no fear, only a great and futile eagerness. Yell and crack filled
+his ears. The gray, stolid, unalterable Huns must be driven back. Dorn
+loaded, crushed his rifle steady, pointed low at a great gray bulk, and
+fired. That Hun pitched down out of the gray advancing line. The sight
+almost overcame Dorn. Dizzy, with blurred eyes, he leaned over his gun.
+His abdomen and breast heaved, and he strangled over his gorge. Almost
+he fainted. But violence beside him somehow, great heaps of dust and
+gravel flung over him, hoarse, wild yells in his ears, roused him. The
+boches were on the line! He leaped up. Through the dust he saw charging
+gray forms, thick and heavy. They plunged, as if actuated by one will.
+Bulky blond men, ashen of face, with eyes of blue fire and brutal mouths
+set grim--Huns!
+
+Up out of the shallow trench sprang comrades on each side of Dorn. No
+rats to be cornered in a hole! Dorn seemed drawn by powerful hauling
+chains. He did not need to climb! Four big Germans appeared
+simultaneously upon the embankment of bags. They were shooting. One
+swung aloft an arm and closed fist. He yelled like a demon. He was a
+bomb-thrower. On the instant a bullet hit Dorn, tearing at the side of
+his head, stinging excruciatingly, knocking him down, flooding his face
+with blood. The shock, like a weight, held him down, but he was not
+dazed. A body, khaki-clad, rolled down beside him, convulsively flopped
+against him. He bounded erect, his ears filled with a hoarse and
+clicking din, his heart strangely lifting in his breast.
+
+Only one German now stood upon the embankment of bags and he was the
+threatening bomb-thrower. The others were down--gray forms wrestling
+with brown. Dixon was lunging at the bomb-thrower, and, reaching him
+with the bayonet, ran him through the belly. He toppled over with an
+awful cry and fell hard on the other side of the wall of loaded bags.
+The bomb exploded. In the streaky burst Dixon seemed to charge in
+bulk--to be flung aside like a leaf by a gale.
+
+Little Rogers had engaged an enemy who towered over him. They feinted,
+swung, and cracked their guns together, then locked bayonets. Another
+German striding from behind stabbed Rogers in the back. He writhed off
+the bloody bayonet, falling toward Dorn, showing a white face that
+changed as he fell, with quiver of torture and dying eyes.
+
+That dormant inhibited self of Dorn suddenly was no more. Fast as a
+flash he was upon the murdering Hun. Bayonet and rifle-barrel lunged
+through him, and so terrible was the thrust that the German was thrown
+back as if at a blow from a battering-ram. Dorn whirled the bloody
+bayonet, and it crashed to the ground the rifle of the other German.
+Dorn saw not the visage of the foe--only the thick-set body, and this he
+ripped open in one mighty slash. The German's life spilled out horribly.
+
+Dorn leaped over the bloody mass. Owens lay next, wide-eyed, alive, but
+stricken. Purcell fought with clubbed rifle, backing away from several
+foes. Brewer was being beaten down. Gray forms closing in! Dorn saw
+leveled small guns,, flashes of red, the impact of lead striking him.
+But he heard no shots. The roar in his ears was the filling of a gulf.
+Out of that gulf pierced his laugh. Gray forms--guns--bullets--
+bayonets--death--he laughed at them. His moment had come. Here
+he would pay. His immense and terrible joy bridged the ages
+between the past and this moment when he leaped light and swift,
+like a huge cat, upon them. They fired and they hit, but Dorn sprang on,
+tigerishly, with his loud and nameless laugh. Bayonets thrust at him
+were straws. These enemies gave way, appalled. With sweep and lunge he
+killed one and split a second's skull before the first had fallen. A
+third he lifted and upset and gored, like a bull, in one single stroke.
+The fourth and last of that group, screaming his terror and fury, ran in
+close to get beyond that sweeping blade. He fired as he ran. Dorn
+tripped him heavily, and he had scarcely struck the ground when that
+steel transfixed his bulging throat.
+
+Brewer was down, but Purcell had been reinforced. Soldiers in brown came
+on the run, shooting, yelling, brandishing. They closed in on the
+Germans, and Dorn ran into that melee to make one thrust at each gray
+form he encountered.
+
+Shriller yells along the line--American yells--the enemy there had given
+ground! Dorn heard. He saw the gray line waver. He saw reserves running
+to aid his squad. The Germans would be beaten back. There was whirling
+blackness in his head through which he seemed to see. The laugh broke
+hoarse and harsh from his throat. Dust and blood choked him.
+
+Another gray form blocked his leaping way. Dorn saw only low down, the
+gray arms reaching with bright, unstained blade. His own bloody bayonet
+clashed against it, locked, and felt the helplessness of the arms that
+wielded it. An instant of pause--a heaving, breathless instinct of
+impending exhaustion--a moment when the petrific mace of primitive man
+stayed at the return of the human--then with bloody foam on his lips
+Dorn spent his madness.
+
+A supple twist--the French trick--and Dorn's powerful lunge, with all
+his ponderous weight, drove his bayonet through the enemy's lungs.
+
+"_Ka--ma--rod!_" came the strange, strangling cry.
+
+A weight sagged down on Dorn's rifle. He did not pull out the bayonet,
+but as it lowered with the burden of the body his eyes, fixed at one
+height, suddenly had brought into their range the face of his foe.
+
+A boy--dying on his bayonet! Then came a resurrection of Kurt Dorn's
+soul. He looked at what must be his last deed as a soldier. His mind
+halted. He saw only the ghastly face, the eyes in which he expected to
+see hate, but saw only love of life, suddenly reborn, suddenly surprised
+at death.
+
+"God save you, German! I'd give my life for yours!"
+
+Too late! Dorn watched the youth's last clutching of empty fingers, the
+last look of consciousness at his conqueror, the last quiver. The youth
+died and slid back off the rigid bayonet. War of men!
+
+A heavy thud sounded to the left of Dorn. A bursting flash hid the face
+of his German victim. A terrific wind, sharp and hard as nails, lifted
+Dorn into roaring blackness....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+"Many Waters" shone white and green under the bright May sunshine. Seen
+from the height of slope, the winding brooks looked like silver bands
+across a vast belt of rainy green and purple that bordered the broad
+river in the bottom-lands. A summer haze filled the air, and hints of
+gold on the waving wheat slopes presaged an early and bountiful harvest.
+
+It was warm up there on the slope where Lenore Anderson watched and
+brooded. The breeze brought fragrant smell of fresh-cut alfalfa and the
+rustling song of the wheat. The stately house gleamed white down on the
+terraced green knoll; horses and cattle grazed in the pasture; workmen
+moved like snails in the brown gardens; a motor-car crept along the road
+far below, with its trail of rising dust.
+
+Two miles of soft green wheat-slope lay between Lenore and her home. She
+had needed the loneliness and silence and memory of a place she had not
+visited for many months. Winter had passed. Summer had come with its
+birds and flowers. The wheat-fields were again waving, beautiful,
+luxuriant. But life was not as it had been for Lenore Anderson.
+
+Kurt Dorn, private, mortally wounded!--So had read the brief and
+terrible line in a Spokane newspaper, publishing an Associated Press
+despatch of Pershing's casualty-list. No more! That had been the only
+news of Kurt Dorn for a long time. A month had dragged by, of doubt, of
+hope, of slow despairing.
+
+Up to the time of that fatal announcement Lenore had scarcely noted the
+fleeting of the days. With all her spirit and energy she had thrown
+herself into the organizing of the women of the valley to work for the
+interests of the war. She had made herself a leader who spared no
+effort, no sacrifice, no expense in what she considered her duty.
+Conservation of food, intensive farm production, knitting for soldiers,
+Liberty Loans and Red Cross--these she had studied and mastered, to the
+end that the women of the great valley had accomplished work which won
+national honor. It had been excitement, joy, and a strange fulfilment
+for her. But after the shock caused by the fatal news about Dorn she had
+lost interest, though she had worked on harder than ever.
+
+Just a night ago her father had gazed at her and then told her to come
+to his office. She did so. And there he said: "You're workin' too hard.
+You've got to quit."
+
+"Oh no, dad. I'm only tired to-night," she had replied. "Let me go on.
+I've planned so--"
+
+"No!" he said, banging his desk. "You'll run yourself down."
+
+"But, father, these are war-times. Could I do less--could I think of--"
+
+"You've done wonders. You've been the life of this work. Some one else
+can carry it on now. You'd kill yourself. An' this war has cost the
+Andersons enough."
+
+"Should we count the cost?" she asked.
+
+Anderson had sworn. "No, we shouldn't. But I'm not goin' to lose my
+girl. Do you get that hunch?... I've bought bonds by the bushel. I've
+given thousands to your relief societies. I gave up my son Jim--an' that
+cost us mother.... I'm raisin' a million bushels of wheat this year that
+the government can have. An' I'm starvin' to death because I don't get
+what I used to eat.... Then this last blow--Dorn!--that fine young
+wheat-man, the best--Aw! Lenore..."
+
+"But, dad, is--isn't there any--any hope?"
+
+Anderson was silent.
+
+"Dad," she had pleaded, "if he were really dead--buried--oh! wouldn't I
+feel it?"
+
+"You've overworked yourself. Now you've got to rest," her father had
+replied, huskily.
+
+"But, dad ..."
+
+"I said no.... I've a heap of pride in what you've done. An' I sure
+think you're the best Anderson of the lot. That's all. Now kiss me an'
+go to bed."
+
+That explained how Lenore came to be alone, high up' on the vast
+wheat-slope, watching and feeling, with no more work to do. The slow
+climb there had proved to her how much she needed rest. But work even
+under strain or pain would have been preferable to endless hours to
+think, to remember, to fight despair.
+
+Mortally wounded! She whispered the tragic phrase. When? Where? How had
+her lover been mortally wounded? That meant death. But no other word had
+come and no spiritual realization of death abided in her soul. It seemed
+impossible for Lenore to accept things as her father and friends did.
+Nevertheless, equally impossible was it not to be influenced by their
+practical minds. Because of her nervousness, of her overstrain, she had
+lost a good deal of her mental poise; and she divined that the only help
+for that was certainty of Dorn's fate. She could bear the shock if only
+she could know positively. And leaning her face in her hands, with the
+warm wind blowing her hair and bringing the rustle of the wheat, she
+prayed for divination.
+
+No answer! Absolutely no mystic consciousness of death--of an end to her
+love here on earth! Instead of that breathed a strong physical presence
+of life all about her, in the swelling, waving slopes of wheat, in the
+beautiful butterflies, in the singing birds low down and the soaring
+eagles high above--life beating and surging in her heart, her veins,
+unquenchable and indomitable. It gave the lie to her morbidness. But it
+seemed only a physical state. How could she find any tangible hold on
+realities?
+
+She lifted her face to the lonely sky, and her hands pressed to her
+breast where the deep ache throbbed heavily.
+
+"It's not that I can't give him up," she whispered, as if impelled to
+speak. "I _can_. I _have_ given him up. It's this torture of suspense.
+Oh, not to _know!_... But if that newspaper had claimed him one of the
+killed, I'd not believe."
+
+So Lenore trusted more to the mystic whisper of her woman's soul than to
+all the unproven outward things. Still trust as she might, the voice of
+the world dinned in her ears, and between the two she was on the rack.
+Loss of Jim--loss of her mother--what unfilled gulfs in her heart! She
+was one who loved only few, but these deeply. To-day when they were gone
+was different from yesterday when they were here--different because
+memory recalled actual words, deeds, kisses of loved ones whose life was
+ended. Utterly futile was it for Lenore to try to think of Dorn in that
+way. She saw his stalwart form down through the summer haze, coming with
+his springy stride through the wheat. Yet--the words--mortally wounded!
+They had burned into her thought so that when she closed her eyes she
+saw them, darkly red, against the blindness of sight. Pain was a
+sluggish stream with source high in her breast, and it moved with her
+unquickened blood. If Dorn were really dead, what would become of her?
+Selfish question for a girl whose lover had died for his country! She
+would work, she would be worthy of him, she would never pine, she would
+live to remember. But, ah! the difference to her! Never for her who had
+so loved the open, the silken rustle of the wheat and the waving
+shadows, the green-and-gold slopes, the birds of the air and the beasts
+of the field, the voice of child and the sweetness of life--never again
+would these be the same to her, if Dorn were gone forever.
+
+That ache in her heart had communicated itself to all her being. It
+filled her mind and her body. Tears stung her eyes, and again they were
+dry when tears would have soothed. Just as any other girl she wept, and
+then she burned with fever. A longing she had only faintly known, a
+physical thing which she had resisted, had become real, insistent,
+beating. Through love and loss she was to be denied a heritage common to
+all women. A weariness dragged at her. Noble spirit was not a natural
+thing. It must be intelligence seeing the higher. But to be human was to
+love life, to hate death, to faint under loss, to throb and pant with
+heavy sighs, to lie sleepless in the long dark night, to shrink with
+unutterable sadness at the wan light of dawn, to follow duty with a
+laggard sense, to feel the slow ebb of vitality and not to care, to
+suffer with a breaking heart.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sunset hour reminded Lenore that she must not linger there on the slope.
+So, following the grass-grown lane between the sections of wheat, she
+wended a reluctant way homeward. Twilight was falling when she reached
+the yard. The cooling air was full of a fragrance of flowers freshly
+watered. Kathleen appeared on the path, evidently waiting for her. The
+girl was growing tall. Lenore remembered with a pang that her full mind
+had left little time for her to be a mother to this sister. Kathleen
+came running, excited and wide-eyed.
+
+"Lenore, I thought you'd never come," she said. "I know something. Only
+dad told me not to tell you."
+
+"Then don't," replied Lenore, with a little start.
+
+"But I'd never keep it," burst out Kathleen, breathlessly. "Dad's going
+to New York."
+
+Lenore's heart contracted. She did not know how she felt. Somehow it was
+momentous news.
+
+"New York! What for?" she asked.
+
+"He says it's about wheat. But he can't fool me. He told me not to
+mention it to you."
+
+The girl was keen. She wanted to prepare Lenore, yet did not mean to
+confide her own suppositions. Lenore checked a rush of curiosity. They
+went into the house. Lenore hurried to change her outing clothes and
+boots and then went down to supper. Rose sat at table, but her father
+had not yet come in. Lenore called him. He answered, and presently came
+tramping into the dining-room, blustering and cheerful. Not for many
+months had Lenore given her father such close scrutiny as she did then.
+He was not natural, and he baffled her. A fleeting, vague hope that she
+had denied lodgment in her mind seemed to have indeed been wild and
+unfounded. But the very fact that her father was for once unfathomable
+made this situation remarkable. All through the meal Lenore trembled,
+and she had to force herself to eat.
+
+"Lenore, I'd like to see you," said her father, at last, as he laid down
+his napkin and rose. Almost he convinced her then that nothing was amiss
+or different, and he would have done so if he had not been too clever,
+too natural. She rose to follow, catching Kathleen's whisper:
+
+"Don't let him put it over on you, now!"
+
+Anderson lighted a big cigar, as always after supper, but to Lenore's
+delicate sensitiveness he seemed to be too long about it.
+
+"Lenore, I'm takin' a run to New York--leave to-night at eight--an' I
+want you to sort of manage while I'm gone. Here's some jobs I want the
+men to do--all noted down here--an' you'll answer letters, 'phone calls,
+an' all that. Not much work, you know, but you'll have to hang around.
+Somethin' important might turn up."
+
+"Yes, dad. I'll be glad to," she replied. "Why--why this sudden trip?"
+
+Anderson turned away a little and ran his hand over the papers on his
+desk. Did she only imagine that his hand shook a little?
+
+"Wheat deals, I reckon--mostly," he said. "An' mebbe I'll run over to
+Washington."
+
+He turned then, puffing at his cigar, and calmly met her direct gaze. If
+there were really more than he claimed in his going, he certainly did
+not intend to tell her. Lenore tried to still her mounting emotion.
+These days she seemed all imagination. Then she turned away her face.
+
+"Will you try to find out if Kurt Dorn died of his wound--and all about
+him?" she asked, steadily, but very low.
+
+"Lenore, I sure will!" he exclaimed, with explosive emphasis. No doubt
+the sincerity of that reply was an immense relief to Anderson. "Once in
+New York, I can pull wires, if need be. I absolutely promise you I'll
+find out--what--all you want to know."
+
+Lenore bade him good-by and went to her room, where calmness deserted
+her for a while. Upon recovering, she found that the time set for her
+father's departure had passed. Strangely, then the oppression that had
+weighed upon her so heavily eased and lifted. The moment seemed one
+beyond her understanding. She attributed her relief, however, to the
+fact that her father would soon end her suspense in regard to Kurt Dorn.
+
+In the succeeding days Lenore regained her old strength and buoyancy,
+and something of a control over the despondency which at times had made
+life misery.
+
+A golden day of sunlight and azure blue of sky ushered in the month of
+June. "Many Waters" was a world of verdant green. Lenore had all she
+could do to keep from flying to the slopes. But as every day now brought
+nearer the possibility of word from her father, she stayed at home. The
+next morning about nine o'clock, while she was at her father's desk, the
+telephone-bell rang. It did that many times every morning, but this ring
+seemed to electrify Lenore. She answered the call hurriedly.
+
+"Hello, Lenore, my girl! How are you?" came rolling on the wire.
+
+"Dad! Dad! Is it--you?" cried Lenore, wildly.
+
+"Sure is. Just got here. Are you an' the girls O.K.?"
+
+"We're well--fine. Oh, dad ..."
+
+"You needn't send the car. I'll hire one."
+
+"Yes--yes--but, dad--Oh, tell me ..."
+
+"Wait! I'll be there in five minutes."
+
+She heard him slam up the receiver, and she leaned there, palpitating,
+with the queer, vacant sounds of the telephone filling her ear.
+
+"Five minutes!" Lenore whispered. In five more minutes she would know.
+They seemed an eternity. Suddenly a flood of emotion and thought
+threatened to overwhelm her. Leaving the office, she hurried forth to
+find her sisters, and not until she had looked everywhere did she
+remember that they were visiting a girl friend. After this her motions
+seemed ceaseless; she could not stand or sit still, and she was
+continually going to the porch to look down the shady lane. At last a
+car appeared, coming fast. Then she ran indoors quite aimlessly and out
+again. But when she recognized her father all her outward fears and
+tremblings vanished. The broad, brown flash of his face was reality. He
+got out of the car lightly for so heavy a man, and, taking his valise,
+he dismissed the chauffeur. His smile was one of gladness, and his
+greeting a hearty roar.
+
+Lenore met him at the porch steps, seeing in him, feeling as she
+embraced him, that he radiated a strange triumph and finality.
+
+"Say, girl, you look somethin' like your old self," he said, holding her
+by the shoulders. "Fine! But you're a woman now.... Where are the kids?"
+
+"They're away," replied Lenore.
+
+"How you stare!" laughed Anderson, as with arm round her he led her in.
+"Anythin' queer about your dad's handsome mug?"
+
+His jocular tone did not hide his deep earnestness. Never had Lenore
+felt him so forceful. His ruggedness seemed to steady her nerves that
+again began to fly. Anderson took her into his office, closed the door,
+threw down his valise.
+
+"Great to be home!" he exploded, with heavy breath.
+
+Lenore felt her face blanch; and that intense quiver within her suddenly
+stilled.
+
+"Tell me--quick!" she whispered.
+
+He faced her with flashing eyes, and all about him changed. "You're an
+Anderson! You can stand shock?"
+
+"Any--any shock but suspense."
+
+"I lied about the wheat deal--about my trip to New York. I got news of
+Dorn. I was afraid to tell you."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Dorn is alive," went on Anderson.
+
+Lenore's hands went out in mute eloquence.
+
+"He was all shot up. He can't live," hurried Anderson, hoarsely. "But
+he's alive--he'll live to see you."
+
+"Oh! I knew, I _knew!_" whispered Lenore clasping her hands. "Oh, thank
+God!"
+
+"Lenore, steady now. You're gettin' shaky. Brace there, my girl!...
+Dorn's alive. I've brought him home. He's here."
+
+"_Here!_" screamed Lenore.
+
+"Yes. They'll have him here in half an hour."
+
+Lenore fell into her father's arms, blind and deaf to all outward
+things. The light of day failed. But her consciousness did not fade.
+Before it seemed a glorious radiance that was the truth lost for the
+moment, blindly groping, in whirling darkness. When she did feel herself
+again it was as a weak, dizzy, palpitating child, unable to stand. Her
+father, in alarm, and probable anger with himself, was coaxing and
+swearing in one breath. Then suddenly the joy that had shocked Lenore
+almost into collapse forced out the weakness with amazing strength. She
+blazed. She radiated. She burst into utterance too swift to understand.
+
+"Hold on there, girl!" interrupted Anderson. "You've got the bit in your
+teeth.... Listen, will you? Let me talk. Well--well, there now.... Sure,
+it's all right, Lenore. You made me break it sudden-like.... Listen.
+There's all summer to talk. Just now you want to get a few details. Get
+'em straight.... Dorn is on the way here. They put his stretcher--we've
+been packin' him on one--into a motor-truck. There's a nurse come with
+me--a man nurse. We'd better put Dorn in mother's room. That's the
+biggest an' airiest. You hurry an' open up the windows an' fix the
+bed.... An' don't go out of your head with joy. It's sure more 'n we
+ever hoped for to see him alive, to get him home. But he's done for,
+poor boy! He can't live.... An' he's in such shape that I don't want you
+to see him when they fetch him in. Savvy, girl! You'll stay in your room
+till we call you. An' now rustle."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lenore paced and crouched and lay in her room, waiting, listening with
+an intensity that hurt. When a slow procession of men, low-voiced and
+soft-footed, carried Kurt Dorn into the house and up-stairs Lenore
+trembled with a storm of emotion. All her former agitation, love, agony,
+and suspense, compared to what she felt then, was as nothing. Not the
+joy of his being alive, not the terror of his expected death, had so
+charged her heart as did this awful curiosity to see him, to realize
+him.
+
+At last a step--a knock--her father's voice: "Lenore--come!"
+
+Her ordeal of waiting was over. All else she could withstand. That
+moment ended her weakness. Her blood leaped with the irresistable,
+revivifying current of her spirit. Unlocking the door, Lenore stepped
+out. Her father stood there with traces of extreme worry fading from his
+tired face. At sight of her they totally vanished.
+
+"Good! You've got nerve. You can see him now alone. He's unconscious.
+But he's not been greatly weakened by the trip. His vitality is
+wonderful. He comes to once in a while. Sometimes he's rational. Mostly,
+though, he's out of his head. An' his left arm is gone."
+
+Anderson said all this rapidly and low while they walked down the hall
+toward the end room which had not been used since Mrs. Anderson's death.
+The door was ajar. Lenore smelled strong, pungent odors of antiseptics.
+
+Anderson knocked softly.
+
+"Come out, you men, an' let my girl see him," he called.
+
+Doctor Lowell, the village practitioner Lenore had known for years,
+tiptoed out, important and excited.
+
+"Lenore, it's to bad," he said, kindly, and he shook his head.
+
+Another man glided out with the movements of a woman. He was not young.
+His aspect was pale, serious.
+
+"Lenore, this is Mr. Jarvis, the nurse.... Now--go in, an' don't forget
+what I said."
+
+She closed the door and leaned back against it, conscious of the supreme
+moment of her life. Dorn's face, strange yet easily recognizable,
+appeared against the white background of the bed. That moment was
+supreme because it showed him there alive, justifying the spiritual
+faith which had persisted in her soul. If she had ever, in moments of
+distraction, doubted God, she could never doubt again.
+
+The large room had been bright, with white curtains softly blowing
+inward from the open windows. As she crept forward, not sure on her
+feet, all seemed to blur, so that when she leaned over the still face to
+kiss it she could not see clearly. Her lips quivered with that kiss and
+with her sob of thankfulness.
+
+"My soldier!"
+
+She prayed then, with her head beside his on the pillow, and through
+that prayer and the strange stillness of her lover she received a subtle
+shock. Sweet it was to touch him as she bent with eyes hidden. Terrible
+it would be to look--to see how the war had wrecked him. She tried to
+linger there, all tremulous, all gratitude, all woman and mother. But an
+incalculable force lifted her up from her knees.
+
+"Ah!" she gasped, as she saw him with cleared sight. A knife-blade was
+at her heart. Kurt Dorn lay before her gaze--a man, and not the boy she
+had sacrificed to war--a man by a larger frame, and by older features,
+and by a change difficult to grasp.
+
+These features seemed a mask, transparent, unable to hide a beautiful,
+sad, stern, and ruthless face beneath, which in turn slowly gave to her
+startled gaze sloping lines of pain and shades of gloom, and the pale,
+set muscles of forced manhood, and the faint hectic flush of fever and
+disorder and derangement. A livid, angry scar, smooth, yet scarcely
+healed, ran from his left temple back as far as she could see. That
+established his identity as a wounded soldier brought home from the war.
+Otherwise to Lenore his face might have been that of an immortal
+suddenly doomed with the curse of humanity, dying in agony. She had
+expected to see Dorn bronzed, haggard, gaunt, starved, bearded and
+rough-skinned, bruised and battered, blinded and mutilated, with gray in
+his fair hair. But she found none of these. Her throbbing heart sickened
+and froze at the nameless history recorded in his face. Was it beyond
+her to understand what had been his bitter experience? Would she never
+suffer his ordeal? Never! That was certain. An insupportable sadness
+pervaded her soul. It was not his life she thought of, but the youth,
+the nobility, the splendor of him that war had destroyed. No intuition,
+no divination, no power so penetrating as a woman's love! By that
+piercing light she saw the transformed man. He knew. He had found out
+all of physical life. His hate had gone with his blood. Deeds--deeds of
+terror had left their imprint upon his brow, in the shadows under his
+eyes, that resembled blank walls potent with invisible meaning. Lenore
+shuddered through all her soul as she read the merciless record of the
+murder he had dealt, of the strong and passionate duty that had driven
+him, of the eternal remorse. But she did not see or feel that he had
+found God; and, stricken as he seemed, she could not believe he was near
+to death.
+
+This last confounding thought held her transfixed and thrilling, gazing
+down at Dorn, until her father entered to break the spell and lead her
+away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+It was night. Lenore should have been asleep, but she sat up in the dark
+by the window. Underneath on the porch, her father, with his men as
+audience, talked like a torrent. And Lenore, hearing what otherwise
+would never have gotten to her ears, found listening irresistible. Slow,
+dragging footsteps and the clinking of spurs attested to the approach of
+cowboys.
+
+"Howdy, boys! Sit down an' be partic'lar quiet. Here's some smokes. I'm
+wound up an' gotta go off or bust," Anderson said, "Well, as I was
+sayin', we folks don't know there's a war, from all outward sign here in
+the Northwest. But in that New York town I just come from--God Almighty!
+what goin's-on! Boys, I never knew before how grand it was to be
+American. New York's got the people, the money, an' it's the outgoin'
+an' incomin' place of all pertainin' to this war. The Liberty Loan drive
+was on. The streets were crowded. Bands an' parades, grand-opera stars
+singin' on the corners, famous actors sellin' bonds, flags an' ribbons
+an' banners everywhere, an' every third man you bumped into wearin' some
+kind of uniform! An' the women were runnin' wild, like a stampede of
+two-year-olds.... I rode down Fifth Avenue on one of them high-topped
+buses with seats on. Talk about your old stage-coach--why, these 'buses
+had 'em beat a mile! I've rode some in my day, but this was the ride of
+my life. I couldn't hear myself think. Music at full blast, roar of
+traffic, voices like whisperin' without end, flash of red an' white an'
+blue, shine of a thousand automobiles down that wonderful street that's
+like a canon! An' up overhead a huge cigar-shaped balloon, an' then an
+airplane sailin' swift an' buzzin' like a bee. Them was the first
+air-ships I ever seen. No wonder--Jim wanted to--"
+
+Anderson's voice broke a little at this juncture and he paused. All was
+still except the murmur of the running water and the song of the
+insects. Presently Anderson cleared his throat and resumed:
+
+    "I saw five hundred Australian soldiers just arrived in New York by
+    way of Panama. Lean, wiry boys like Arizona cowboys. Looked good to
+    me! You ought to have heard the cheerin'. Roar an' roar, everywhere
+    they marched along. I saw United States sailors, marines, soldiers,
+    airmen, English officers, an' Scotch soldiers. Them last sure got my
+    eye. Funny plaid skirts they wore--an' they had bare legs. Three I
+    saw walked lame. An' all had medals. Some one said the Germans
+    called these Scotch 'Ladies from hell.' ... When I heard that I had
+    to ask questions, an' I learned these queer-lookin'
+    half-women-dressed fellows were simply hell with cold steel. An'
+    after I heard that I looked again an' wondered why I hadn't seen it.
+    I ought to know men!... Then I saw the outfit of Blue Devil
+    Frenchmen that was sent over to help stimulate the Liberty Loan. An'
+    when I seen them I took off my hat. I've knowed a heap of tough men
+    an' bad men an' handy men an' fightin' men in my day, but I reckoned
+    I never seen the like of the Blue Devils. I can't tell you why,
+    boys. Blue Devils is another German name for a regiment of French
+    soldiers. They had it on the Scotch-men. Any Western man, just to
+    look at them, would think of Wild Bill an' Billy the Kid an'
+    Geronimo an' Custer, an' see that mebbe the whole four mixed in one
+    might have made a Blue Devil.
+
+    "My young friend Dorn, that's dyin' up-stairs, now--he had a name
+    given him. 'Pears that this war-time is like the old days when we
+    used to hit on right pert names for everybody.... Demon Dorn they
+    called him, an' he got that handle before he ever reached France.
+    The boys of his outfit gave it to him because of the way he run wild
+    with a bayonet. I don't want my girl Lenore ever to know that.
+
+    "A soldier named Owens told me a lot. He was the corporal of Dorn's
+    outfit, a sort of foreman, I reckon. Anyway, he saw Dorn every day
+    of the months they were in the service, an' the shell that done Dorn
+    made a cripple of Owens. This fellow Owens said Dorn had not got so
+    close to his bunk-mates until they reached France. Then he begun to
+    have influence over them. Owens didn't know how he did it--in fact,
+    never knew it at all until the outfit got to the front, somewhere in
+    northern France, in the first line. They were days in the first
+    line, close up to the Germans, watchin' an' sneakin' all the time,
+    shootin' an' dodgin', but they never had but one real fight.
+
+    "That was when one mornin' the Germans came pilin' over on a charge,
+    far outnumberin' our boys. Then it happened. Lord! I wish I could
+    remember how Owens told that scrap! Boys, you never heard about a
+    real scrap. It takes war like this to make men fighters.... Listen,
+    now, an' I'll tell you some of the things that come off durin' this
+    German charge. I'll tell them just as they come to mind. There was a
+    boy named Griggs who ran the German barrage--an' that's a
+    gantlet--seven times to fetch ammunition to his pards. Another boy,
+    on the same errand, was twice blown off the road by explodin'
+    shells, an' then went back. Owens told of two of his company who
+    rushed a bunch of Germans, killed eight of them, an' captured their
+    machine-gun. Before that German charge a big shell came over an'
+    kicked up a hill of mud. Next day the Americans found their sentinel
+    buried in mud, dead at his post, with his bayonet presented.
+
+    "Owens was shot just as he jumped up with his pards to meet the
+    chargin' Germans. He fell an' dragged himself against a wall of
+    bags, where he lay watchin' the fight. An' it so happened that he
+    faced Dorn's squad, which was attacked by three times their number.
+    He saw Dorn shot--go down, an' thought he was done--but no! Dorn
+    came up with one side of his face all blood. Dixon, a college
+    football man, rushed a German who was about to throw a bomb. Dixon
+    got him, an' got the bomb, too, when it went off. Little Rogers, an
+    Irish boy, mixed it with three Germans, an' killed one before he was
+    bayoneted in the back. Then Dorn, like the demon they'd named him,
+    went on the stampede. He had a different way with a bayonet, so
+    Owens claimed. An' Dorn was heavy, powerful, an' fast. He lifted an'
+    slung those two Germans, one after another, quick as that!--like
+    you'd toss a couple of wheat sheafs with your pitchfork, an' he sent
+    them rollin', with blood squirtin' all over. An' then four more
+    Germans were shootin' at him. Right into their teeth Dorn
+    run--laughin' wild an' terrible, Owens said, an' the Germans
+    couldn't stop that flashin' bayonet. Dorn ripped them all open, an'
+    before they'd stopped floppin' he was on the bunch that'd killed
+    Brewer an' were makin' it hard for his other pards.... Whew!--Owens
+    told it all as if it'd took lots of time, but that fight was like
+    lightnin' an' I can't remember how it was. Only Demon Dorn laid out
+    nine Germans before they retreated. _Nine!_ Owens seen him do it,
+    like a mad bull loose. Then the shell came over that put Dorn out,
+    an' Owens, too.
+
+    "Well, Dorn had a mangled arm, an' many wounds. They amputated his
+    arm in France, patched him up, an' sent him back to New York with a
+    lot of other wounded soldiers. They expected him to die long ago.
+    But he hangs on. He's full of lead now. What a hell of a lot of
+    killin' some men take!... My boy Jim would have been like that!
+
+    "So there, boys, you have a little bit of American fightin' come
+    home to you, straight an' true. I say that's what the Germans have
+    roused. Well, it was a bad day for them when they figgered
+    everythin' on paper, had it all cut an' dried, but failed to see the
+    spirit of men!"
+
+Lenore tore herself away from the window so that she could not hear any
+more, and in the darkness of her room she began to pace to and fro,
+beginning to undress for bed, shaking in some kind of a frenzy, scarcely
+knowing what she was about, until sundry knocks from furniture and the
+falling over a chair awakened her to the fact that she was in a tumult.
+
+"What--_am_ I--doing!" she panted, in bewilderment, reaching out in the
+dark to turn on the light.
+
+Like awakening from a nightmare, she saw the bright light flash up. It
+changed her feeling. Who was this person whose image stood reflected in
+the mirror? Lenore's recognition of herself almost stunned her. What had
+happened? She saw that her hair fell wildly over her bare shoulders; her
+face shone white, with red spots in her cheeks; her eyes seemed balls of
+fire; her lips had a passionate, savage curl; her breast, bare and
+heaving, showed a throbbing, tumultuous heart. And as she realized how
+she looked, it struck her that she felt an inexplicable passion. She
+felt intense as steel, hot as fire, quivering with the pulsation of
+rapid blood, a victim to irrepressible thrills that rushed over her from
+the very soles of her feet to the roots of her hair. Something glorious,
+terrible, and furious possessed her. When she understood what it was she
+turned out the light and fell upon the bed, where, as the storm slowly
+subsided, she thought and wondered and sorrowed, and whispered to
+herself.
+
+The tale of Dorn's tragedy had stirred to the depths the primitive,
+hidden, and unplumbed in the unknown nature of her. Just now she had
+looked at herself, at her two selves--the white-skinned and fair-haired
+girl that civilization had produced--and the blazing, panting, savage
+woman of the bygone ages. She could not escape from either. The story of
+Demon Dorn's terrible fight had retrograded her, for the moment, to the
+female of the species, more savage and dangerous than the male. No use
+to lie! She had gloried in his prowess. He was her man, gone out with
+club, to beat down the brutes that would steal her from him.
+
+"Alas! What are we? What am I?" she whispered. "Do I know myself? What
+could I not have done a moment ago?"
+
+She had that primitive thing in her, and, though she shuddered to
+realize it, she had no regret. Life was life. That Dorn had laid low so
+many enemies was grand to her, and righteous, since these enemies were
+as cavemen come for prey. Even now the terrible thrills chased over her.
+Demon Dorn! What a man! She had known just what he would do--and how his
+spiritual life would go under. The woman of her gloried in his fight and
+the soul of her sickened at its significance. No hope for any man or any
+woman except in God!
+
+These men, these boys, like her father and Jake, like Dorn and his
+comrades--how simple, natural, inevitable, elemental they were! They
+loved a fight. They might hate it, too, but they loved it most. Life of
+men was all strife, and the greatness in them came out in war. War
+searched out the best and the worst in men. What were wounds, blood,
+mangled flesh, agony, and death to men--to those who went out for
+liberation of something unproven in themselves? Life was only a breath.
+The secret must lie in the beyond, for men could not act that way for
+nothing. Some hidden purpose through the ages!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Anderson had summoned a great physician, a specialist of world renown.
+Lenore, of course, had not been present when the learned doctor examined
+Kurt Dorn, but she was in her father's study when the report was made.
+To Lenore this little man seemed all intellect, all science, all
+electric current.
+
+He stated that Dorn had upward of twenty-five wounds, some of them
+serious, most trivial, and all of them combined not necessarily fatal.
+Many soldiers with worse wounds had totally recovered. Dorn's vitality
+and strength had been so remarkable that great loss of blood and almost
+complete lack of nourishment had not brought about the present grave
+condition.
+
+"He will die, and that is best for him," said the specialist. "His case
+is not extraordinary. I saw many like it in France during the first year
+of war when I was there. But I will say that he must have been both
+physically and mentally above the average before he went to fight. My
+examination extended through periods of his unconsciousness and
+aberration. Once, for a little time, he came to, apparently sane. The
+nurse said he had noticed several periods of this rationality during the
+last forty-eight hours. But these, and the prolonged vitality, do not
+offer any hope.
+
+"An emotion of exceeding intensity and duration has produced lesions in
+the kinetic organs. Some passion has immeasurably activated his brain,
+destroying brain cells which might not be replaced. If he happened to
+live he might be permanently impaired. He might be neurasthenic,
+melancholic, insane at times, or even grow permanently so.... It is very
+sad. He appears to have been a fine young man. But he will die, and that
+really is best for him."
+
+Thus the man of science summed up the biological case of Kurt Dorn. When
+he had gone Anderson wore the distressed look of one who must abandon
+his last hope. He did not understand, though he was forced to believe.
+He swore characteristically at the luck, and then at the great
+specialist.
+
+"I've known Indian medicine-men who could give that doctor cards an'
+spades," he exploded, with gruff finality.
+
+Lenore understood her father perfectly and imagined she understood the
+celebrated scientist. The former was just human and the latter was
+simply knowledge. Neither had that which caused her to go out alone into
+the dark night and look up beyond the slow-rising slope to the stars.
+These men, particularly the scientist, lacked something. He possessed
+all the wonderful knowledge of body and brain, of the metabolism and
+chemistry of the organs, but he knew nothing of the source of life.
+Lenore accorded science its place in progress, but she hated its
+elimination of the soul. Stronger than ever, strength to endure and to
+trust pervaded her spirit. The dark night encompassing her, the vast,
+lonely heave of wheat-slope, the dim sky with its steady stars--these
+were voices as well as tangible things of the universe, and she was in
+mysterious harmony with them. "Lift thine eyes to the hills from whence
+cometh thy help!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The day following the specialist's visit Dorn surprised the family
+doctor, the nurse, Anderson, and all except Lenore by awakening to a
+spell of consciousness which seemed to lift, for the time at least, the
+shadow of death.
+
+Kathleen was the first to burst in upon Lenore with the wonderful news.
+Lenore could only gasp her intense eagerness and sit trembling, hands
+over her heart, while the child babbled.
+
+"I listened, and I peeped in," was Kathleen's reiterated statement.
+"Kurt was awake. He spoke, too, but very soft. Say, he knows he's at
+'Many Waters.' I heard him say, 'Lenore'.... Oh, I'm so happy,
+Lenore--that before he dies he'll know you--talk to you."
+
+"Hush, child!" whispered Lenore. "Kurt's not going to die."
+
+"But they all say so. That funny little doctor yesterday--he made me
+tired--but he said so. I heard him as dad put him into the car."
+
+"Yes, Kathie, I heard him, too, but I do not believe," replied Lenore,
+dreamily.
+
+"Kurt doesn't look so--so sick," went on Kathleen. "Only--only I don't
+know what--different, I guess. I'm crazy to go in--to see him. Lenore,
+will they ever let me?"
+
+Their father's abrupt entrance interrupted the conversation. He was
+pale, forceful, as when issues were at stake but were undecided.
+
+"Kathie, go out," he said.
+
+Lenore rose to face him.
+
+"My girl--Dorn's come to--an' he's asked for you. I was for lettin' him
+see you. But Lowell an' Jarvis say no--not yet.... Now he might die any
+minute. Seems to me he ought to see you. It's right. An' if you say
+so--"
+
+"Yes," replied Lenore.
+
+"By Heaven! He shall see you, then," said Anderson, breathing hard. "I'm
+justified even--even if it..." He did not finish his significant speech,
+but left her abruptly.
+
+Presently Lenore was summoned. When she left her room she was in the
+throes of uncontrolled agitation, and all down the long hallway she
+fought herself. At the half-open door she paused to lean against the
+wall. There she had the will to still her nerves, to acquire serenity;
+and she prayed for wisdom to make her presence and her words of infinite
+good to Dorn in this crisis.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She was not aware of when she moved--how she ever got to Dorn's bedside.
+But seemingly detached from her real self, serene, with emotions locked,
+she was there looking down upon him.
+
+"Lenore!" he said, with far-off voice that just reached her. Gladness
+shone from his shadowy eyes.
+
+"Welcome home--my soldier boy!" she replied. Then she bent to kiss his
+cheek and to lay hers beside it.
+
+"I never--hoped--to see you--again," he went on.
+
+"Oh, but I knew!" murmured Lenore, lifting her head. His right hand,
+brown, bare, and rough, lay outside the coverlet upon his breast. It was
+weakly reaching for her. Lenore took it in both hers, while she gazed
+steadily down into his eyes. She seemed to see then how he was comparing
+the image he had limned upon his memory with her face.
+
+"Changed--you're older--more beautiful--yet the same," he said. "It
+seems--long ago."
+
+"Yes, long ago. Indeed I am older. But--all's well that ends well. You
+are back."
+
+"Lenore, haven't you--been told--I can't live?"
+
+"Yes, but it's untrue," she replied, and felt that she might have been
+life itself speaking.
+
+"Dear, something's gone--from me. Something vital gone--with the shell
+that--took my arm."
+
+_"No!"_ she smiled down upon him. All the conviction of her soul and
+faith she projected into that single word and serene smile--all that was
+love and woman in her opposing death. A subtle, indefinable change came
+over Dorn.
+
+"Lenore--I paid--for my father," he whispered. "I killed Huns!... I
+spilled the--blood in me--I hated!... But all was wrong--wrong!"
+
+"Yes, but you could not help that," she said, piercingly. "Blame can
+never rest upon you. You were only an--American soldier.... Oh, I know!
+You were magnificent.... But your duty that way is done. A higher duty
+awaits you."
+
+His eyes questioned sadly and wonderingly.
+
+"You must be the great sower of wheat."
+
+"Sower of wheat?" he whispered, and a light quickened in that
+questioning gaze.
+
+"There will be starving millions after this war. Wheat is the staff of
+life. You _must_ get well.... Listen!"
+
+She hesitated, and sank to her knees beside the bed. "Kurt, the day
+you're able to sit up I'll marry you. Then I'll take you home--to your
+wheat-hills."
+
+For a second Lenore saw him transformed with her spirit, her faith, her
+love, and it was that for which she had prayed. She had carried him
+beyond the hopelessness, beyond incredulity. Some guidance had divinely
+prompted her. And when his mute rapture suddenly vanished, when he lost
+consciousness and a pale gloom and shade fell upon his face, she had no
+fear.
+
+In her own room she unleashed the strange bonds on her feelings and
+suffered their recurrent surge and strife, until relief and calmness
+returned to her. Then came a flashing uplift of soul, a great and
+beautiful exaltation. Lenore felt that she had been gifted with
+incalculable power. She had pierced Dorn's fatalistic consciousness with
+the truth and glory of possible life, as opposed to the dark and evil
+morbidity of war. She saw for herself the wonderful and terrible stairs
+of sand which women had been climbing all the ages, and must climb on to
+the heights of solid rock, of equality, of salvation for the human race.
+She saw woman, the primitive, the female of the species, but she saw her
+also as the mother of the species, made to save as well as perpetuate,
+learning from the agony of child-birth and child-care the meaning of Him
+who said, "Thou shalt not kill!" Tremendous would be the final
+resistance of woman to the brutality of man. Women were to be the
+saviors of humanity. It seemed so simple and natural that it could not
+be otherwise. Lenore realized, with a singular conception of the
+splendor of its truth, that when most women had found themselves, their
+mission in life, as she had found hers, then would come an end to
+violence, to greed, to hate, to war, to the black and hideous
+imperfection of mankind.
+
+With all her intellect and passion Lenore opposed the theory of the
+scientist and biologists. If they proved that strife and fight were
+necessary to the development of man, that without violence and bloodshed
+and endless contention the race would deteriorate, then she would say
+that it would be better to deteriorate and to die. Women all would
+declare against that, and in fact would never believe. She would never
+believe with her heart, but if her intellect was forced to recognize
+certain theories, then she must find a way to reconcile life to the
+inscrutable designs of nature. The theory that continual strife was the
+very life of plants, birds, beasts, and men seemed verified by every
+reaction of the present; but if these things were fixed materialistic
+rules of the existence of animated forms upon the earth, what then was
+God, what was the driving force in Kurt Dorn that made war-duty some
+kind of murder which overthrew his mind, what was the love in her heart
+of all living things, and the nameless sublime faith in her soul?
+
+"If we poor creatures _must_ fight," said Lenore, and she meant this for
+a prayer, "let the women fight eternally against violence, and let the
+men forever fight their destructive instincts!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From that hour the condition of Kurt Dorn changed for the better. Doctor
+Lowell admitted that Lenore had been the one medicine which might defeat
+the death that all except she had believed inevitable.
+
+Lenore was permitted to see him a few minutes every day, for which
+fleeting interval she must endure the endless hours. But she discovered
+that only when he was rational and free from pain would they let her go
+in. What Dorn's condition was all the rest of the time she could not
+guess. But she began to get inklings that it was very bad.
+
+"Dad, I'm going to insist on staying with Kurt as--as long as I want,"
+asserted Lenore, when she had made up her mind.
+
+This worried Anderson, and he appeared at a loss for words.
+
+"I told Kurt I'd marry him the very day he could sit up," continued
+Lenore.
+
+"By George! that accounts," exclaimed her father. "He's been tryin' to
+sit up, an' we've had hell with him."
+
+"Dad, he will get well. And all the sooner if I can be with him more. He
+loves me. I feel I'm the only thing that counteracts--the--the madness
+in his mind--the death in his soul."
+
+Anderson made one of his violent gestures. "I believe you. That hits me
+with a bang. It takes a woman!... Lenore, what's your idea?"
+
+"I want to--to marry him," murmured Lenore. "To nurse him--to take him
+home to his wheat-fields."
+
+"You shall have your way," replied Anderson, beginning to pace the
+floor. "It can't do any harm. It might save him. An' anyway, you'll be
+his wife--if only for ... By George! we'll do it. You never gave me a
+wrong hunch in your life ... but, girl, it'll be hard for you to see him
+when--when he has the spells."
+
+"Spells!" echoed Lenore.
+
+"Yes. You've been told that he raves. But you didn't know how. Why, it
+gets even my nerve! It fascinated me, but once was enough. I couldn't
+stand to see his face when his Huns come back to him."
+
+"His Huns!" ejaculated Lenore, shuddering. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Those Huns he killed come back to him. He fights them. You see him go
+through strange motions, an' it's as if his left arm wasn't gone. He
+used his right arm--an' the motions he makes are the ones he made when
+he killed the Huns with his bayonet. It's terrible to watch him--the
+look on his face!.... I heard at the hospital in New York that in France
+they photographed him when he had one of the spells.... I'd hate to have
+you see him then. But maybe after Doctor Lowell explains it, you'll
+understand."
+
+"Poor boy! How terrible for him to live it all over! But when he gets
+well--when he has his wheat-hills and me to fill his mind--those spells
+will fade."
+
+"Maybe--maybe. I hope so. Lord knows it's all beyond me. But you're
+goin' to have your way."
+
+Doctor Lowell explained to Lenore that Dorn, like all mentally deranged
+soldiers, dreamed when he was asleep, and raved when he was out of his
+mind, of only one thing--the foe. In his nightmares Dorn had to be held
+forcibly. The doctor said that the remarkable and hopeful indication
+about Dorn's condition was a gradual daily gain in strength and a
+decline in the duration and violence of his bad spells.
+
+This assurance made Lenore happy. She began to relieve the worn-out
+nurse during the day, and she prepared herself for the first ordeal of
+actual experience of Dorn's peculiar madness. But Dorn watched her many
+hours and would not or could not sleep while she was there; and the
+tenth day of his stay at "Many Waters" passed without her seeing what
+she dreaded. Meanwhile he grew perceptibly better.
+
+The afternoon came when Anderson brought a minister. Then a few moments
+sufficed to make Lenore Dorn's wife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+The remarkable happened. Scarcely had the minister left when Kurt Dorn's
+smiling wonder and happiness sustained a break, as sharp and cold and
+terrible as if nature had transformed him from man to beast.
+
+His face became like that of a gorilla. Struggling up, he swept his
+right arm over and outward with singular twisting energy. A
+bayonet-thrust! And for him his left arm was still intact! A savage,
+unintelligible battle-cry, yet unmistakably German, escaped his lips.
+
+Lenore stood one instant petrified. Her father, grinding his teeth,
+attempted to lead her away. But as Dorn was about to pitch off the bed,
+Lenore, with piercing cry, ran to catch him and force him back. There
+she held him, subdued his struggles, and kept calling with that
+intensity of power and spirit which must have penetrated even his
+delirium. Whatever influence she exerted, it quieted him, changed his
+savage face, until he relaxed and lay back passive and pale. It was
+possible to tell exactly when his reason returned, for it showed in the
+gaze he fixed upon Lenore.
+
+"I had--one--of my fits!" he said, huskily.
+
+"Oh--I don't know what it was," replied Lenore, with quavering voice.
+Her strength began to leave her now. Her arms that had held him so
+firmly began to slip away.
+
+"Son, you had a bad spell," interposed Anderson, with his heavy
+breathing. "First one she's seen."
+
+"Lenore, I laid out my Huns again," said Dorn, with a tragic smile.
+"Lately I could tell when--they were coming back."
+
+"Did you know just now?" queried Lenore.
+
+"I think so. I wasn't really out of my head. I've known when I did that.
+It's a strange feeling--thought--memory ... and action drives it away.
+Then I seem always to _want_ to--kill my Huns all over again."
+
+Lenore gazed at him with mournful and passionate tenderness. "Do you
+remember that we were just married?" she asked.
+
+"My wife!" he whispered.
+
+"Husband!... I knew you were coming home to me.... I knew you would not
+die.... I know you will get well."
+
+"I begin to feel that, too. Then--maybe the black spells will go away."
+
+"They must or--or you'll lose me," faltered Lenore. "If you go on
+killing your Huns over and over--it'll be I who will die."
+
+She carried with her to her room a haunting sense of Dorn's reception of
+her last speech. Some tremendous impression it made on him, but whether
+of fear of domination or resolve, or all combined, she could not tell.
+She had weakened in mention of the return of his phantoms. But neither
+Dorn nor her father ever guessed that, once in her room, she collapsed
+from sheer feminine horror at the prospect of seeing Dorn change from a
+man to a gorilla, and to repeat the savage orgy of remurdering his Huns.
+That was too much for Lenore. She who had been invincible in faith, who
+could stand any tests of endurance and pain, was not proof against a
+spectacle of Dorn's strange counterfeit presentment of the actual and
+terrible killing he had performed with a bayonet.
+
+For days after that she was under a strain which she realized would
+break her if it was not relieved. It appeared to be solely her fear of
+Dorn's derangement. She was with him almost all the daylight hours,
+attending him, watching him sleep, talking a little to him now and then,
+seeing with joy his gradual improvement, feeling each day the slow
+lifting of the shadow over him, and yet every minute of every hour she
+waited in dread for the return of Dorn's madness. It did not come. If it
+recurred at night she never was told. Then after a week a more
+pronounced change for the better in Dorn's condition marked a lessening
+of the strain upon Lenore. A little later it was deemed safe to dismiss
+the nurse. Lenore dreaded the first night vigil. She lay upon a couch in
+Dorn's room and never closed her eyes. But he slept, and his slumber
+appeared sound at times, and then restless, given over to dreams. He
+talked incoherently, and moaned; and once appeared to be drifting into a
+nightmare, when Lenore awakened him. Next day he sat up and said he was
+hungry. Thereafter Lenore began to lose her dread.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, son, let's talk wheat," said Anderson, cheerily, one beautiful
+June morning, as he entered Dorn's room.
+
+"Wheat!" sighed Dorn, with a pathetic glance at his empty sleeve. "How
+can I even do a man's work again in the fields?"
+
+Lenore smiled bravely at him. "You will sow more wheat than ever, and
+harvest more, too."
+
+"I should smile," corroborated Anderson.
+
+"But how? I've only one arm," said Dorn.
+
+"Kurt, you hug me better with that one arm than you ever did with two
+arms." replied Lenore, in sublime assurance.
+
+"Son, you lose that argument," roared Anderson. "Me an' Lenore stand
+pat. You'll sow more an' better wheat than ever--than any other man in
+the Northwest. Get my hunch?... Well, I'll tell you later.... Now see
+here, let me declare myself about you. I seen it worries you more an'
+more, now you're gettin' well. You miss that good arm, an' you feel the
+pain of bullets that still lodge somewhere's in you, an' you think
+you'll be a cripple always. Look things in the face square. Sure,
+compared to what you once was, you'll be a cripple. But Kurt Dorn
+weighin' one hundred an' ninety let loose on a bunch of Huns was some
+man! My Gawd!... Forget that, an' forget that you'll never chop a cord
+of wood again in a day. Look at facts like me an' Lenore. We gave you
+up. An' here you're with us, comin' along fine, an' you'll be able to do
+hard work some day, if you're crazy about it. Just think how good that
+is for Lenore, an' me, too.... Now listen to this." Anderson unfolded a
+newspaper and began to read:
+
+    "Continued improvement, with favorable weather conditions, in the
+    winter-wheat states and encouraging messages from the Northwest
+    warrant an increase of crop estimates made two weeks ago and based
+    mainly upon the government's report. In all probability the yield
+    from winter fields will slightly exceed 600,000,000 bushels.
+    Increase of acreage in the spring states in unexpectedly large. For
+    example, Minnesota's Food Administrator says the addition in his
+    state is 40 per cent, instead of the early estimate of 20 per cent.
+    Throughout the spring area the plants have a good start and are in
+    excellent condition. It may be that the yield will rise to
+    300,000,000 bushels, making a total of about 900,000,000. From such
+    a crop 280,000,000 could be exported in normal times, and by
+    conservation the surplus can easily be enlarged to 350,000,000 or
+    even 400,000,000. In Canada also estimates of acreage increase have
+    been too low. It was said that the addition in Alberta was 20 per
+    cent., but recent reports make it 40 per cent. Canada may harvest a
+    crop of 300,000,000 bushels, or nearly 70,000,000 more than last
+    year's. Our allies in Europe can safely rely upon the shipment of
+    500,000,000 bushels from the United States and Canada.
+
+    "After the coming harvest there will be an ample supply of wheat for
+    the foes of Germany at ports which can easily be reached. In
+    addition, the large surplus stocks in Australia and Argentina will
+    be available when ships can be spared for such service. And the
+    ships are coming from the builders. For more than a year to come
+    there will be wheat enough for our war partners, the Belgians, and
+    the northern European neutral countries with which we have trade
+    agreements."
+
+Lenore eagerly watched her husband's face in pleasurable anticipation,
+yet with some anxiety. Wheat had been a subject little touched upon and
+the war had never been mentioned.
+
+"Great!" he exclaimed, with a glow in his cheeks. "I've been wanting to
+ask.... Wheat for the Allies and neutrals--for more than a year!...
+Anderson, the United States will feed and save the world!"
+
+"I reckon. Son, we're sendin' thousands of soldiers a day now--ships are
+buildin' fast--aeroplanes comin' like a swarm of bees--money for the
+government to burn--an' every American gettin' mad.... Dorn, the Germans
+don't know they're ruined!... What do you say?"
+
+Dorn looked very strange. "Lenore, help me stand up," he asked, with
+strong tremor in his voice.
+
+"Oh, Kurt, you're not able yet," appealed Lenore.
+
+"Help me. I want _you_ to do it."
+
+Lenore complied, wondering and frightened, yet fascinated, too. She
+helped him off the bed and steadied him on his feet. Then she felt him
+release himself so he stood free.
+
+"What do I say? Anderson I say this. I killed Germans who had grown up
+with a training and a passion for war. I've been a farmer. I did not
+want to fight. Duty and hate forced me. The Germans I met fell before
+me. I was shell-shot, shocked, gassed, and bayoneted. I took twenty-five
+wounds, and then it was a shell that downed me. I saw my comrades kill
+and kill before they fell. That is American. Our enemies are driven,
+blinded, stolid, brutal, obsessed, and desperate. They are German. They
+lack--not strength nor efficiency nor courage--but soul."
+
+White and spent, Dorn then leaned upon Lenore and got back upon his bed.
+His passion had thrilled her. Anderson responded with an excitement he
+plainly endeavored to conceal.
+
+"I get your hunch," he said. "If I needed any assurance, you've given it
+to me. To hell with the Germans! Let's don't talk about them any
+more.... An' to come back to our job. Wheat! Son, I've plans that 'll
+raise your hair. We'll harvest a bumper crop at 'Many Waters' in July.
+An' we'll sow two thousand acres of winter wheat. So much for 'Many
+Waters.'--I got mad this summer. I blowed myself. I bought about all the
+farms around yours up in the Bend country. Big harvest of spring wheat
+comin'. You'll superintend that harvest, an' I'll look after ours
+here.... An' you'll sow ten thousand acres of fallow on your own rich
+hills--this fall. Do you get that? Ten thousand acres?"
+
+"Anderson!" gasped Dorn.
+
+"Yes, Anderson," mimicked the rancher. "My blood's up. But I'd never
+have felt so good about it if you hadn't come back. The land's not all
+paid for, but it's ours. We'll meet our notes. I've been up there twice
+this spring. You'd never know a few hills had burned over last harvest.
+Olsen, an' your other neighbors, or most of them, will work the land on
+half-shares. You'll be boss. An' sure you'll be well for fall sowin'.
+That'll make you the biggest sower of wheat in the Northwest."
+
+"My sower of wheat!" murmured Lenore, seeing his rapt face through
+tears.
+
+"Dreams are coming true," he said, softly. "Lenore, just after I saw you
+the second time--and fell so in love with you--I had vain dreams of you.
+But even my wildest never pictured you as the wife of a wheat farmer. I
+never dreamed you loved wheat."
+
+"But, ah, I do!" replied Lenore. "Why, when I was born dad bought 'Many
+Waters' and sowed the slopes in wheat. I remember how he used to take me
+up to the fields all green or golden. I've grown up with wheat. I'd
+never want to live anywhere away from it. Oh, you must listen to me some
+day while I tell you what _I_ know--about the history and romance of
+wheat."
+
+"Begin," said Dorn, with a light of pride and love and wonder in his
+gaze.
+
+"Leave that for some other time," interposed Anderson. "Son, would it
+surprise you if I'd tell you that I've switched a little in my ideas
+about the I.W.W.?"
+
+"No," replied Dorn.
+
+"Well, things happen. What made me think hard was the way that
+government man got results from the I.W.W. in the lumber country. You
+see, the government had to have an immense amount of timber for ships,
+an' spruce for aeroplanes. Had to have it quick. An' all the lumbermen
+an' loggers were I.W.W.--or most of them. Anyhow, all the strikin'
+lumbermen last summer belonged to the I.W.W. These fellows believed that
+under the capitalistic order of labor the workers an' their employers
+had nothin' in common, an' the government was hand an' glove with
+capital. Now this government official went up there an' convinced the
+I.W.W. that the best interest of the two were identical. An' he got the
+work out of them, an' the government got the lumber. He dealt with them
+fairly. Those who were on the level he paid high an' considered their
+wants. Those who were crooked he punished accordin' to their offense.
+An' the innocent didn't have to suffer with the guilty.
+
+"That deal showed me how many of the I.W.W. could be handled. An' we've
+got to reckon with the I.W.W. Most all the farm-hands in the country
+belong to it. This summer I'll give the square harvesters what they
+want, an' that's a big come-down for me. But I won't stand any
+monkey-bizness from sore-headed disorganizers. If men want to work they
+shall have work at big pay. You will follow out this plan up in the Bend
+country. We'll meet this labor union half-way. After the war there may
+come trouble between labor an capital. It begins to seem plain to me
+that men who work hard ought to share somethin' of the profits. If that
+doesn't settle the trouble, then we'll know we're up against an outfit
+with socialist an' anarchist leaders. Time enough then to resort to
+measures I regret we practised last summer."
+
+"Anderson, you're fine--you're as big as the hills!" burst out Dorn.
+"But you know there was bad blood here last summer. Did you ever get
+proof that German money backed the I.W.W. to strike and embarrass our
+government?"
+
+"No. But I believe so, or else the I.W.W. leaders took advantage of a
+critical time. I'm bound to say that now thousands of I.W.W. laborers
+are loyal to the United States, and that made me switch."
+
+"I'll deal with them the same way," responded Dorn, with fervor.
+
+Then Lenore interrupted their discussion, and, pleading that Dorn was
+quite worn out from excitement and exertion, she got her father to leave
+the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following several days Lenore devoted to the happy and busy task of
+packing what she wanted to take to Dorn's home. She had set the date,
+but had reserved the pleasure of telling him. Anderson had agreed to her
+plan and decided to accompany them.
+
+"I'll take the girls," he said. "It'll be a fine ride for them. We'll
+stay in the village overnight an' come back home next day.... Lenore, it
+strikes me sudden-like, your leavin'.... What will become of me?"
+
+All at once he showed the ravages of pain and loss that the last year
+had added to his life of struggle. Lenore embraced him and felt her
+heart full.
+
+"Dad, I'm not leaving you," she protested. "He'll get well up
+there--find his balance sooner among those desert wheat-hills. We will
+divide our time between the two places. Remember, you can run up there
+any day. Your interests are there now. Dad, don't think of it as
+separation. Kurt has come into our family--and we're just going to be
+away some of the time."
+
+Thus she won back a smile to the worn face.
+
+"We've all got a weak spot," he said, musingly. "Mine is here--an' it's
+a fear of growin' old an' bein' left alone. That's selfish. But I've
+lived, an' I reckon I've no more to ask for."
+
+Lenore could not help being sad in the midst of her increasing
+happiness. Joy to some brought to others only gloom! Life was sunshine
+and storm--youth and age.
+
+This morning she found Kathleen entertaining Dorn. This was the second
+time the child had been permitted to see him, and the immense novelty
+had not yet worn off. Kathleen was a hero-worshiper. If she had been
+devoted to Dorn before his absence, she now manifested symptoms of
+complete idolatry. Lenore had forbidden her to question Dorn about
+anything in regard to the war. Kathleen never broke her promises, but it
+was plain that Dorn had read the mute, anguished wonder and flame in her
+eyes when they rested upon his empty sleeve, and evidently had told her
+things. Kathleen was white, wide-eyed, and beautiful then, with all a
+child's imagination stirred.
+
+"I've been telling Kathie how I lost my arm," explained Dorn.
+
+"I hate Germans! I hate war!" cried Kathleen, passionately.
+
+"My dear, hate them always," said Dorn.
+
+When Kathleen had gone Lenore asked Dorn if he thought it was right to
+tell the child always to hate Germans.
+
+"Right!" exclaimed Dorn, with a queer laugh. Every day now he showed
+signs of stronger personality. "Lenore, what I went through has confused
+my sense of right and wrong. Some day perhaps it will all come clear.
+But, Lenore, all my life, if I live to be ninety, I shall hate Germans."
+
+"Oh, Kurt, it's too soon for you to--to be less narrow, less
+passionate," replied Lenore, with hesitation. "I understand. The day
+will come when you'll not condemn a people because of a form of
+government--of military class."
+
+"It will never come," asserted Dorn, positively. "Lenore, people in our
+country do not understand. They are too far away from realities. But I
+was six months in France. I've seen the ruined villages, thousands of
+refugees--and I've met the Huns at the front. I _know_ I've seen the
+realities. In regard to this war I can only feel. You've got to go over
+there and see for yourself before you realize. You _can_ understand
+this--that but for you and your power over me I'd be a worn-out,
+emotionally _burnt_ out man. But through you I seem to be reborn. Still,
+I shall hate Germans all my life, and in the after-life, what ever that
+may be. I could give you a thousand reasons. One ought to suffice.
+You've read, of course, about the regiment of Frenchmen called Blue
+Devils. I met some of them--got friendly with them. They are
+great--beyond words to tell! One of them told me that when his regiment
+drove the Huns out of his own village he had found his mother
+disemboweled, his wife violated and murdered, his sister left a maimed
+thing to become the mother of a Hun, his daughter carried off, and his
+little son crippled for life! ... These are cold facts. As long as I
+live I will never forget the face of that Frenchman when he told me. Had
+he cause to hate the Huns? Have I?... I saw all that in the faces of
+those Huns who would have killed me if they could."
+
+Lenore covered her face with her hands. "Oh--horrible! ... Is there
+nothing--no hope--only...?" She faltered and broke down.
+
+"Lenore, because there's hate does not prove there's nothing left....
+Listen. The last fight I had was with a boy. I didn't know it when we
+met. I was rushing, head down, bayonet low. I saw only his body, his
+blade that clashed with mine. To me his weapon felt like a toy in the
+hands of a child. I swept it aside--and lunged. He screamed '_Kamarad_!'
+before the blade reached him. Too late! I ran him through. Then I
+looked. A boy of nineteen! He never ought to have been forced to meet
+me. It was murder. I saw him die on my bayonet. I saw him slide off it
+and stretch out.... I did not hate _him_ then. I'd have given my life
+for his. I hated what he represented.... That moment was the end of me
+as a soldier. If I had not been in range of the exploding shell that
+downed me I would have dropped my rifle and have stood strengthless
+before the next Hun.... So you see, though I killed them, and though I
+hate now, there's something--something strange and inexplicable."
+
+"That something is the divine in you. It is God!... Oh, believe it, my
+husband!" cried Lenore.
+
+Dorn somberly shook his head. "God! I did not find God out there. I
+cannot see God's hand in this infernal war."
+
+"But _I_ can. What called you so resistlessly? What made you go?"
+
+"You know. The debt I thought I ought to pay. And duty to my country."
+
+"Then when the debt was paid, the duty fulfilled--when you stood
+stricken at sight of that poor boy dying on your bayonet--what happened
+in your soul?"
+
+"I don't know. But I saw the wrong of war. The wrong to him--the wrong
+to me! I thought of no one else. Certainly not of God!"
+
+"If you had stayed your bayonet--if you had spared that boy, as you
+would have done had you seen or heard him in time--what would that have
+been?"
+
+"Pity, maybe, or scorn to slay a weaker foe."
+
+"No, no, no--I can't accept that," replied Lenore, passionately. "Can
+you see beyond the physical?"
+
+"I see only that men will fight and that war will come again. Out there
+I learned the nature of men."
+
+"If there's divinity in you there's divinity in every man. That will
+oppose war--end it eventually. Men are not taught right. Education and
+religion will bring peace on earth, good-will to man."
+
+"No, they will not. They never have done so. We have educated men and
+religious men. Yet war comes despite them. The truth is that life is a
+fight. Civilization is only skin-deep. Underneath man is still a savage.
+He is a savage still because he wants the same he had to have when he
+lived in primitive state. War isn't necessary to show how every man
+fights for food, clothing, shelter. To-day it's called competition in
+business. Look at your father. He has fought and beaten men like Neuman.
+Look at the wheat farmers in my country. Look at the I.W.W. They all
+fight. Look at the children. They fight even at their games. Their play
+is a make-believe battle or escaping or funeral or capture. It must be
+then that some kind of strife was implanted in the first humans and that
+it is necessary to life."
+
+"Survival of the fittest!" exclaimed Lenore, in earnest bitterness.
+"Kurt, we have changed. You are facing realities and I am facing the
+infinite. You represent the physical, and I the spiritual. We must grow
+into harmony with each other. We can't ever hope to learn the
+unattainable truth of life. There is something beyond us--something
+infinite which I believe is God. My soul finds it in you.... The first
+effects of the war upon you have been trouble, sacrifice, pain, and
+horror. You have come out of it impaired physically and with mind still
+clouded. These will pass, and therefore I beg of you don't grow fixed in
+absolute acceptance of the facts of evolution and materialism. They
+cannot be denied, I grant. I see that they are realities. But also I see
+beyond them. There is some great purpose running through the ages. In
+our day the Germans have risen, and in the eyes of most of the world
+their brutal force tends to halt civilization and kill idealism. But
+that's only apparent--only temporary. We shall come out of this dark
+time better, finer, wiser. The history of the world is a proof of a slow
+growth and perfection. It will never be attained. But is not the growth
+a beautiful and divine thing? Does it now oppose a hopeless prospect?...
+Life is inscrutable. When I think--only think without faith--all seems
+so futile. The poet says we are here as on a darkling plain, swept by
+confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by
+night.... Trust me, my husband! There is something in woman--the
+instinct of creation--the mother--that feels what cannot be expressed.
+It is the hope of the world."
+
+"The mother!" burst out Dorn. "I think of that--in you.... Suppose I
+have a son, and war comes in his day. Suppose he is killed, as I killed
+that poor boy!... How, then, could I reconcile that with this, this
+something you feel so beautifully? This strange sense of God! This faith
+in a great purpose of the ages!"
+
+Lenore trembled in the exquisite pain of the faith which she prayed was
+beginning to illumine Dorn's dark and tragic soul.
+
+"If we are blessed with a son--and if he must go to war--to kill and be
+killed--you will reconcile that with God because our son shall have been
+taught what you should have been taught--what must be taught to all the
+sons of the future."
+
+"What will--that be?" queried Dorn.
+
+"The meaning of life--the truth of immortality," replied Lenore. "We
+live on--we improve. That is enough for faith."
+
+"How will that prevent war?"
+
+"It will prevent it--in the years to come. Mothers will take good care
+that children from babyhood shall learn the _consequences_ of fight--of
+war. Boys will learn that if the meaning of war to them is the wonder of
+charge and thunder of cannon and medals of distinction, to their mothers
+the meaning is loss and agony. They will learn the terrible difference
+between your fury and eagerness to lunge with bayonet and your horror of
+achievement when the disemboweled victims lie before you. The glory of a
+statue to the great general means countless and nameless graves of
+forgotten soldiers. The joy of the conquering army contrasts terribly
+with the pain and poverty and unquenchable hate of the conquered."
+
+"I see what you mean," rejoined Dorn. "Such teaching of children would
+change the men of the future. It would mean peace for the generations to
+come. But as for my boy--it would make him a poor soldier. He would not
+be a fighter. He would fall easy victim to the son of the father who had
+not taught this beautiful meaning of life and terror of war. I'd want my
+son to be a man."
+
+"That teaching--would make him--all the more a man," said Lenore,
+beginning to feel faint.
+
+"But not in the sense of muscle, strength, courage, endurance. I'd
+rather there never was peace than have my son inferior to another
+man's."
+
+"My hope for the future is that _all_ men will come to teach their sons
+the wrong of violence."
+
+"Lenore, never will that day come," replied Dorn.
+
+She saw in him the inevitableness of the masculine attitude; the
+difference between man and woman; the preponderance of blood and energy
+over the higher motives. She felt a weak little woman arrayed against
+the whole of mankind. But she could not despair. Unquenchable as the sun
+was this fire within her.
+
+"But it _might_ come?" she insisted, gently, but with inflexible spirit.
+
+"Yes, it might--if men change!"
+
+"You have changed."
+
+"Yes. I don't know myself."
+
+"If we do have a boy, will you let me teach him what I think is right?"
+Lenore went on, softly.
+
+"Lenore! As if I would not!" he exclaimed. "I try to see your way, but
+just because I can't I'll never oppose you. Teach _me_ if you can!"
+
+She kissed him and knelt beside his bed, grieved to see shadow return to
+his face, yet thrilling that the way seemed open for her to inspire. But
+she must never again choose to talk of war, of materialism, of anything
+calculated to make him look into darkness of his soul, to ponder over
+the impairment of his mind. She remembered the great specialist speaking
+of lesions of the organic system, of a loss of brain cells. Her
+inspiration must be love, charm, care--a healing and building process.
+She would give herself in all the unutterableness and immeasurableness
+of her woman's heart. She would order her life so that it would be a
+fulfilment of his education, of a heritage from his fathers, a passion
+born in him, a noble work through which surely he could be saved--the
+cultivation of wheat.
+
+"Do you love me?" she whispered.
+
+"Do I!... Nothing could ever change my love for you."
+
+"I am your wife, you know."
+
+The shadow left his face.
+
+"Are you? Really? Lenore Anderson..."
+
+"Lenore Dorn. It is a beautiful name now."
+
+"It does sound sweet. But you--my wife? Never will I believe!"
+
+"You will have to--very soon."
+
+"Why?" A light, warm and glad and marveling, shone in his eyes. Indeed,
+Lenore felt then a break in the strange aloofness of him--in his
+impersonal, gentle acceptance of her relation to him.
+
+"To-morrow I'm going to take you home to your wheat-hills."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+Lenore told her conception of the history and the romance of wheat to
+Dorn at this critical time when it was necessary to give a trenchant
+call to hope and future.
+
+In the beginning man's struggle was for life and the mainstay of life
+was food. Perhaps the original discoverer of wheat was a meat-eating
+savage who, in roaming the forests and fields, forced by starvation to
+eat bark and plant and berry, came upon a stalk of grain that chewed
+with strange satisfaction. Perhaps through that accident he became a
+sower of wheat.
+
+Who actually were the first sowers of wheat would never be known. They
+were older than any history, and must have been among the earliest of
+the human race.
+
+The development of grain produced wheat, and wheat was ground into
+flour, and flour was baked into bread, and bread had for untold
+centuries been the sustenance and the staff of life.
+
+Centuries ago an old Chaldean priest tried to ascertain if wheat had
+ever grown wild. That question never was settled. It was universally
+believed, however, that wheat had to have the cultivation of man.
+Nevertheless, the origin of the plant must have been analogous to that
+of other plants. Wheat-growers must necessarily have been people who
+stayed long in one place. Wandering tribes could not till and sow the
+fields. The origin of wheat furnished a legendary theme for many races,
+and mythology contained tales of wheat-gods favoring chosen peoples.
+Ancient China raised wheat twenty-seven centuries before Christ; grains
+of wheat had been found in prehistoric ruins; the dwellers along the
+Nile were not blind to the fertility of the valley. In the days of the
+Pharaohs the old river annually inundated its low banks, enriching the
+soil of vast areas, where soon a green-and-gold ocean of wheat waved and
+shone under the hot Egyptian sun. The Arabs, on their weird beasts of
+burden, rode from the desert wastes down to the land of waters and of
+plenty. Rebekah, when she came to fill her earthen pitcher at the
+palm-shaded well, looked out with dusky, dreamy eyes across the golden
+grain toward the mysterious east. Moses, when he stood in the night,
+watching his flock on the starlit Arabian waste, felt borne to him on
+the desert wind a scent of wheat. The Bible said, "He maketh peace in
+thy borders and filleth thee with the finest of the wheat."
+
+Black-bread days of the Middle Ages, when crude grinding made impure
+flour, were the days of the oppressed peasant and the rich landowner,
+dark days of toil and poverty and war, of blight and drought and famine;
+when common man in his wretchedness and hunger cried out, "Bread or
+blood!"
+
+But with the spreading of wheat came the dawn of a higher civilization;
+and the story of wheat down to modern times showed the development of
+man. Wheat-fields of many lands, surrounding homes of prosperous
+farmers; fruitful toil of happy peoples; the miller and his humming
+mill!
+
+When wheat crossed the ocean to America it came to strange and wonderful
+fulfilment of its destiny. America, fresh, vast, and free, with its
+sturdy pioneers ever spreading the golden grain westward; with the
+advancing years when railroad lines kept pace with the indomitable
+wheat-sowers; with unprecedented harvests yielding records to each
+succeeding year; with boundless fields tilled and planted and harvested
+by machines that were mechanical wonders; with enormous flour-mills,
+humming and whirring, each grinding daily ten thousand barrels of flour,
+pouring like a white stream from the steel rolls, pure, clean, and
+sweet, the whitest and finest in the world!
+
+America, the new county, became in 1918 the salvation of starving
+Belgium, the mainstay of England, the hope of France! Wheat for the
+world! Wheat--that was to say food, strength, fighting life for the
+armies opposed to the black, hideous, medieval horde of Huns! America to
+succor and to save, to sacrifice and to sow, rising out of its peaceful
+slumber to a mighty wrath, magnificent and unquenchable, throwing its
+vast resources of soil, its endless streams of wheat, into the gulf of
+war! It was an exalted destiny for a people. Its truth was a blazing
+affront in the face of age-old autocracy. Fields and toil and grains of
+wheat, first and last, the salvation of mankind, the freedom and the
+food of the world!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Far up the slow-rising bulge of valley slope above the gleaming river
+two cars climbed leisurely and rolled on over the height into what
+seemed a bare and lonely land of green.
+
+It was a day in June, filled with a rich, thick, amber light, with a
+fragrant warm wind blowing out of the west.
+
+At a certain point on this road, where Anderson always felt compelled to
+halt, he stopped the car this day and awaited the other that contained
+Lenore and Dorn.
+
+Lenore's joy in the ride was reflected in her face. Dorn rested
+comfortably beside her, upon an improvised couch. As he lay half propped
+up by pillows he could see out across the treeless land that he knew.
+His eyes held a look of the returned soldier who had never expected to
+see his native land again. Lenore, sensitive to every phase of his
+feeling, watched him with her heart mounting high.
+
+Anderson got out of his car, followed by Kathleen, who looked glad and
+mischievous and pretty as a wild rose.
+
+"I just never can get by this place," explained the rancher, as he came
+and stood so that he could put a hand on Dorn's knee. "Look, son--an'
+Lenore, don't you miss this."
+
+"Never fear, dad," replied Lenore, "it was I who first told you to look
+here."
+
+"Terrible big and bare, but grand!" exclaimed Kathleen.
+
+Lenore looked first at Dorn's face as he gazed away across the length
+and breadth of land. Could that land mean as much to him as it did
+before he went to war? Infinitely more, she saw, and rejoiced. Her faith
+was coming home to her in verities. Then she thrilled at the wide
+prospect before her.
+
+It was a scene that she knew could not be duplicated in the world. Low,
+slow-sloping, billowy green hills, bare and smooth with square brown
+patches, stretched away to what seemed infinite distance. Valleys and
+hills, with less fallow ground than ever before, significant and
+striking: lost the meager details of clumps of trees and dots of houses
+in a green immensity. A million shadows out of the west came waving over
+the wheat. They were ripples of an ocean of grain. No dust-clouds, no
+bleached roads, no yellow hills to-day! June, and the desert found its
+analogy only in the sweep and reach! A thousand hills billowing away
+toward that blue haze of mountain range where rolled the Oregon. Acreage
+and mileage seemed insignificant. All was green--green, the fresh and
+hopeful color, strangely serene and sweet and endless under the azure
+sky. Beautiful and lonely hills they were, eloquent of toil, expressive
+with the brown squares in the green, the lowly homes of men, the long
+lines of roads running everywhither, overwhelmingly pregnant with
+meaning--wheat--wheat--wheat--nothing but wheat, a staggering visual
+manifestation of vital need, of noble promise.
+
+"That--that!" rolled out Anderson, waving his big hand, as if words were
+useless. "Only a corner of the great old U.S.!... What would the Germans
+say if they could look out over this?... What do _you_ say, Lenore?"
+
+"Beautiful!" she replied, softly. "Like the rainbow in the sky--God's
+promise of life!"
+
+"An', Kathie, what do _you_ say?" went on Anderson.
+
+"Some wheat-fields!" replied Kathleen, with an air of woman's wisdom.
+"Fetch on your young wheat-sowers, dad, and I'll pick out a husband."
+
+"An' _you_, son?" finished Anderson, as if wistfully, yet heartily
+playing his last card. He was remembering Jim--the wild but beloved
+son--the dead soldier. He was fearful for the crowning hope of his
+years.
+
+"As ye sow--so shall ye reap!" was Dorn's reply, strong and thrilling.
+And Lenore felt her father's strange, heart-satisfying content.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Twilight crept down around the old home on the hill.
+
+Dorn was alone, leaning at the window. He had just strength to lean
+there, with uplifted head. Lenore had left him alone, divining his wish.
+As she left him there came a sudden familiar happening in his brain,
+like a snap-back, and the contending tide of gray forms--the
+Huns--rushed upon him. He leaned there at the window, but just the same
+he awaited the shock on the ramparts of the trench. A ferocious and
+terrible storm of brain, that used to have its reaction in outward
+violence, now worked inside him, like a hot wind that drove his blood.
+During the spell he fought out his great fight--again for the thousandth
+time he rekilled his foes. That storm passed through him without an
+outward quiver.
+
+His Huns--charged again--bayoneted again--and he felt acute pain in the
+left arm that was gone. He felt the closing of the hand which was not
+there. His Huns lay in the shadow, stark and shapeless, with white faces
+upward--a line of dead foes, remorseless and abhorrent to him, forever
+damned by his ruthless spirit. He saw the boy slide off his bayonet,
+beyond recall, murdered by some evil of which Dorn had been the motion.
+Then the prone, gray forms vanished in the black gulf of Dorn's brain.
+
+"Lenore will never know--how my Huns come back to me," he whispered.
+
+Night with its trains of stars! Softly the darkness unfolded down over
+the dim hills, lonely, tranquil, sweet. A night-bird caroled. The song
+of insects, very faint and low, came to him like a still, sad music of
+humanity, from over the hills, far away, in the strife-ridden world. The
+world of men was there and life was incessant, monstrous, and
+inconceivable. This old home of his--the old house seemed full of
+well-remembered sounds of mouse and cricket and leaf against the roof
+and soft night wind at the eaves--sounds that brought his boyhood back,
+his bare feet on the stairs, his father's aloofness, his mother's love.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then clearly floated to him a slow sweeping rustle of the wheat.
+Breast-high it stood down there, outside his window, a moving body,
+higher than the gloom. That rustle was a voice of childhood, youth, and
+manhood, whispering to him, thrilling as never before. It was a growing
+rustle, different from that when the wheat had matured. It seemed to
+change and grow in volume, in meaning. The night wind bore it, but
+life--bursting life was behind it, and behind that seemed to come a
+driving and a mighty spirit. Beyond the growth of the wheat, beyond its
+life and perennial gift, was something measureless and obscure, infinite
+and universal. Suddenly Dorn saw that something as the breath and the
+blood and the spirit of wheat--and of man. Dust and to dust returned
+they might be, but this physical form was only the fleeting inscrutable
+moment on earth, springing up, giving birth to seed, dying out for that
+ever-increasing purpose which ran through the ages.
+
+A soft footfall sounded on the stairs. Lenore came. She leaned over him
+and the starlight fell upon her face, sweet, luminous, beautiful. In the
+sense of her compelling presence, in the tender touch of her hands, in
+the whisper of woman's love, Dorn felt uplifted high above the dark pale
+of the present with its war and pain and clouded mind to wheat--to the
+fertile fields of a golden age to come.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Desert of Wheat, by Zane Grey
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