The Desert of Wheat | Page 9

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