The Desert of Wheat Part 42

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 pa.s.sion 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 h.e.l.l 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 G.o.d, 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 pa.s.sion.

"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 pa.s.sion. "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 h.e.l.l."

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."