The Desert of Wheat Part 33

"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!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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. G.o.d 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 wors.h.i.+ped 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 Was.h.i.+ngton? 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.

"La.s.s, 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 h.e.l.l. 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 la.s.s!... Here's the biggest ranch in Was.h.i.+ngton 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 pa.s.sed out of hearing she lay p.r.o.ne 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 pa.s.sion, and all they involved, rus.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sing 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, pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sing 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?"