The Desert of Wheat

e rose to the Blue Mountains, whence flowed down the innumerable brooks

chards 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,

ll 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

there were many who were rich. Prosperous little towns dotted the valley floor; an

gations, and a neighbor rancher. They had left Spokane early and had endured almost insupportable dust and heat. A welcome change began as they

e. Dust there still was, but it seemed a different kind and smelled of apple-orchards and alfalfa-fields. Here were hard, smooth roads, and Anders

ive, Hall, who was to go disguised into the districts overrun by t

aling. 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 pro

ld fields sloping up from it and the green squares of alfalfa and orchards below, it appeared a lan

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 ac

of wooded slope, clustered barns, sheds, corrals, granaries, engine and mac

in the big courtyard, the pound of hoofs on the barn floor, the shrill whistle of a stallion that saw and rec

er, was among those who

nce made note of the driver

he said, as he uncovered bundles i

eagerly. A note of ended strai

derson to a raw-boned, gaunt-faced f

e, as he received bundle after bundle until he was loa

the other men aside, he turned toward the green, shady hi

ered them. As he straightened up he looked searchingly at the cowboy. Jake's yellow-gray eyes

ss," he drawled, "but

the place?" qu

him because I seen he didn't take no luggage, an' thet

his pard-th

een more'n one new f

om any of the boys

Blue Spring. Thet means they've moved on down to the edge of the timber an'

kly. His early dealings with outlaw rustlers had not l

valley on this side. Then we hear there's more on the other... Boss, i

" ejaculated the

' lately they're most

begin cutt

ll you got back. It'll be barley an' oats fer a fe

Adams h

, but Adams says, an' so do I, thet some of them are men who fi

ance if we're goin' to harvest

ckon,

ts from Ru

ou'd better git your supp

aid nothin'

Come on now, boss. Miss Lenore s

your boss?

t I ain't disobey

n 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 fo

" cried Kathleen, and she deserted h

!" echo

her's return, was not proof against the

cozy living-room. Mrs. Anderson's very first word

ews of

lied Anderson,

one another then-Lenore, a budding woman; Rose, a budding girl; and

, father?"

rd from him?" re

he reached Spokane. But then he hardly k

mother an' girls, Jim was gone when I got to Spokane. All I heard was th

an aviator," said Leno

engines. He has a knack for machinery. An' nerve

ispered the boy's mo

n, cheerfully. "We've got to take our chance on Jim. There's on

to supper being put on the table at once. The younger girls beg

the waiting cowboy. "Wait till af

awled Jake, "an' if he wants wo

ed," replied Anderson, as Jake s

s happen in Spokane?

ded a bomb in that camp. Then I had conferences with a good many different men. Fact is they ran me pretty hard. Couldn't ha

see the G

end country. He's right, too. We're old Westerners here. We can

ne American," sai

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

e well of the young man,"

e was gazing out of the window, away across the wheat-fields and the range. Anderson watched her a moment,

start, as if the ques

think so,"

at'll be a hard ride.... Guess I'

Rose gleefully squabbled over the bundles, Len

ence of some young people from a neighboring village. She

ek. 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

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

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 ena

had felt for an American boy in a difficult position, because she had oft

, 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

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

he whispered, incredulously, as she

only remembered him-a big handsome boy with

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

ble and mysterious, seemed like the change in the knowledge of herself. Once she had flattered herself that she was an i

isting in the army. And to that old prayer, which her mother had prayed before her, she added an appeal of h

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

dulled the poignancy of her f