into the
night.... My father had grown furious, maddened at the discovery of how
he had been betrayed by Glidden. You remember the--the plot, in which
some way my father was involved. He would not believe the I.W.W. meant
to burn _his_ wheat. And when the fires broke out he worked like a
mad-man.... It killed him!... I was not with him when he died. But
Jerry, our foreman was.... And my father's last words were, 'Tell my son
I was wrong.'... Thank God he sent me that message! I think in that he
confessed the iniquity of the Germans.... Well, my neighbor, Olsen,
managed the harvest. He sure rushed it. I'd have given a good deal for
you and Miss Anderson to have seen all those big combines at work on one
field. It was great. We harvested over thirty-eight thousand bushels and
got all the wheat safely to the elevators at the station.... And that
night the I.W.W. burned the elevators!"

Anderson's face turned purple. He appeared about to explode. There was a
deep rumbling within his throat that Lenore knew to be profanity
restrained on account of her presence. As for her own feelings, they
were a strange mixture of sadness for Dorn and pride in her father's
fury, and something unutterably sweet in the revelation about to be made
to this unfortunate boy. But she could not speak a word just then, and
it appeared that her father was in the same state.

Evidently the telling of his story had relieved Dorn. The strain relaxed
in his white face and it lost a little of its stern fixity. He got up
and, opening his bag, he took out some papers.

"Mr. Anderson, I'd like to settle all this right now," he said. "I want
it off my mind."

"Go ahead, son, an' settle," replied Anderson, thickly. He heaved a big
sigh and then sat down, fumbling for a match to light his cigar. When he
got it lighted he drew in a big breath and with it manifestly a great
draught of consoling smoke.

"I want to make over the--the land--in fact, all the property--to
you--to settle mortgage and interest," went on Dorn, earnestly, and then
paused.

"All right. I expected that," returned Anderson, as he emitted a cloud
of smoke.

"The only thing is--" here Dorn hesitated, evidently with difficult
speech--"the property is worth more than the debt."

"Sure. I know," said Anderson, encouragingly.

"I promised our neighbors big money to harvest our wheat. You remember
you told me to offer it. Well, they left their own wheat and barley
fields to burn, and t