felt her father's eyes
upon her; but she had no wish to hide the tumult of her heart. The
moment made her a woman. Where was the fulfilment of those vague,
stingingly sweet dreamy fancies of love? Where was her maiden reserve,
that she so boldly recognized an unsolicited passion? Her eyes met
Dorn's steadily, and she felt some vital and compelling spirit pass from
her to him. She saw him struggle with what he could not understand. It
was his glance that wavered and fell, his hand that trembled, his breast
that heaved. She loved him. There had been no beginning. Always he had
lived in her dreams. And like her brother he was going to kill and to be
killed.
Then Lenore gazed away across the wheat-fields. The shadows came waving
toward her. A stronger breeze fanned her cheeks. The heavens were
darkening and low thunder rolled along the battlements of the great
clouds.
"Say, Kurt, what do you make of this?" asked Anderson. Lenore, turning,
saw her father hold out the little gray cake that Jake had found in the
wheat-field.
Young Dorn seized it quickly, felt and smelled and bit it.
"Where'd you get this?" he asked, with excitement.
Anderson related the circumstance of its discovery.
"It's a preparation, mostly phosphorus," replied Dorn. "When the
moisture evaporates it will ignite--set fire to any dry substance....
That is a trick of the I.W.W. to burn the wheat-fields."
"By all that's ----!" swore Anderson, with his jaw bulging. "Jake an' I
knew it meant bad. But we didn't know what."
"I've been expecting tricks of all kinds," said Dorn. "I have four men
watching the section."
"Good! Say, that car turned off to the right back here some miles....
But, worse luck, the I.W.W.'s can work at night."
"We'll watch at night, too," replied Dorn.
Lenore was conscious of anger encroaching upon the melancholy splendor
of her emotions, and the change was bitter.
"When the rain comes, won't it counteract the ignition of that
phosphorus?" she asked, eagerly, for she knew that rain would come.
"Only for the time being. It 'll be just as dry this time to-morrow as
it is now."
"Then the wheat's goin' to burn," declared Anderson, grimly. "If that
trick has been worked all over this country you're goin' to have worse
'n a prairie fire. The job on hand is to save this one section that has
a fortune tied up in it."
"Mr. Anderson, that job looks almost hopeless, in the light of this
phosphorus trick. What on eart
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