The Desert of Wheat | Page 4

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.