hell.

Suddenly Kurt's slow pacing along the road was halted, as was the trend
of his thought. He was not sure he had heard a sound. But he quivered
all over. The night was far advanced now; the wind was almost still; the
wheat was smooth and dark as the bosom of a resting sea. Kurt listened.
He imagined he heard, far away, the faint roar of an automobile. But it
might have been a train on the railroad. Sometimes on still nights he
caught sounds like that.

Then a swish in the wheat, a soft thud, very low, unmistakably came to
Kurt's ear. He listened, turning his ear to the wind. Presently he heard
it again--a sound relating both to wheat and earth. In a hot flash he
divined that some one had thrown fairly heavy bodies into the
wheat-fields. Phosphorus cakes! Kurt held his breath while he peered
down the gloomy road, his heart pounding, his hands gripping the rifle.
And when he descried a dim form stealthily coming toward him he yelled,
"Halt!"

Instantly the form wavered, moved swiftly, with quick pad of footfalls.
Kurt shot once--twice--three times--and aimed as best he could to hit.
The form either fell or went on out of sight in the gloom. Kurt answered
the excited shouts of his men, calling them to come across to him. Then
he went cautiously down the road, peering on the ground for a dark form.
But he failed to find it, and presently had to admit that in the dark
his aim had been poor. Bill came out to relieve Kurt, and together they
went up and down the road for a mile without any glimpse of a skulking
form. It was almost daylight when Kurt went home to get a few hours'
sleep.

CHAPTER XII

Next day was one of the rare, blistering-hot days with a furnace wind
that roared over the wheat-fields. The sky was steely and the sun like
copper. It was a day which would bring the wheat to a head.

At breakfast Jerry reported that fresh auto tracks had been made on the
road during the night; and that dust and wheat all around the great
field showed a fresh tramping.

Kurt believed a deliberate and particular attempt had been made to
insure the destruction of the Dorn wheat-field. And he ordered all hands
out to search for the dangerous little cakes of phosphorus.

It was difficult to find them. The wheat was almost as high as a man's
head and very thick. To force a way through it without tramping it down
took care and time. Besides, the soil was soft, and the agents who had
perpetrated this vile scheme had p