raps are beyond me. I'm no mechanic."

"Dad, I don't like the looks of your harvest-hands," whispered Lenore.

"Wal, this is a sample of the lot I hired. No society for you, my lass!"

"I'm going to stay now," she replied.

Dorn appeared to be raising a racket somewhere out of sight under or
inside the huge harvester. Rattling and rasping sounds, creaks and
cracks, attested to his strong and impatiently seeking hands.

Presently he appeared. His white shirt had been soiled by dust and
grease. There was chaff in his fair hair. In one grimy hand he held a
large monkey-wrench. What struck Lenore most was the piercing intensity
of his gaze as he fixed it upon her father.

"Anderson, I knew right where to find it," he said, in a sharp, hard
voice. "This monkey-wrench was thrown upon the platform, carried to the
elevator into the thresher.... Your machine is torn to pieces
inside--out of commission!"

"Ah-huh!" exclaimed Anderson, as if the truth was a great relief.

"Where'd that monkey-wrench come from?" asked the foreman, aghast. "It's
not ours. I don't buy that kind."

Anderson made a slight, significant motion to the cowboys. They lined up
beside him, and, like him, they looked dangerous.

"Come here, Kurt," he said, and then, putting Lenore before him, he
moved a few steps aside, out of earshot of the shifty-footed
harvest-hands. "Say, you called the turn right off, didn't you?"

"Anderson, I've had a hard experience, all in one harvest-time," replied
Dorn. "I'll bet you I can find out who threw this wrench into your
harvester."

"I don't doubt you, my lad. But how?"

"It had to be thrown by one of these men near the machine. That
harvester hasn't run twenty feet from where the trick was done.... Let
these men face me. I'll find the guilty one."

"Wait till we get Lenore out of the way," replied Anderson

"Boss, me an' Bill can answer fer thet outfit as it stands, an' no risks
fer nobody," put in Jake, coolly.

Anderson's reply was cut short by a loud explosion. It frightened
Lenore. She imagined one of the steam-engines had blown up.

"That thresher's on fire," shouted Dorn, pointing toward a big machine
that was attached by an endless driving belt to an engine.

The workmen, uttering yells and exclamations, ran toward the scene of
the new accident, leaving Anderson, his daughter, and the foreman
behind. Smoke was pouring out of the big harvester. The harvest-hands
ran wildly around, shouting and c