own, backs to the straw,
eating a substantial lunch. Kurt was angry and did not care. His
appearance, however, did not faze the strangers. One of them, an
American, was a man of about thirty years, clean-shaven, square-jawed,
with light, steely, secretive gray eyes, and a look of intelligence and
assurance that did not harmonize with his motley garb. His companion was
a foreigner, small of stature, with eyes like a ferret and deep pits in
his sallow face.

"Do you know you're trespassing?" demanded Kurt.

"You grudge us a little shade, eh, even to eat a bite?" said the
American. He wrapped a paper round his lunch and leisurely rose, to
fasten penetrating eyes upon the young man. "That's what I heard about
you rich farmers of the Bend."

"What business have you coming here?" queried Kurt, with sharp heat.
"You sneak out of sight of the farmers. You trespass to get at our men
and with a lot of lies and guff you make them discontented with their
jobs. I'll fire these men just for listening to you."

"Mister Dorn, we want you to fire them. That's my business out here,"
replied the American.

"Who are you, anyway?"

"That's my business, too."

Kurt passed from hot to cold. He could not miss the antagonism of this
man, a bold and menacing attitude.

"My foreman says your name's Glidden," went on Kurt, cooler this time,
"and that you're talking I.W.W. as if you were one of its leaders; that
you don't want a job; that you've got a wad of money; that you coax,
then threaten; that you've intimidated three of our hands."

"Your Jerry's a marked man," said Glidden, shortly.

"You impudent scoundrel!" exclaimed Kurt. "Now you listen to this.
You're the first I.W.W. man I've met. You look and talk like an
American. But if you are American you're a traitor. We've a war to
fight! War with a powerful country! Germany! And you come spreading
discontent in the wheat-fields,... when wheat means life!... Get out of
here before I--"

"We'll mark you, too, Mister Dorn, and your wheat-fields," snapped
Glidden.

With one swift lunge Kurt knocked the man flat and then leaped to stand
over him, watching for a move to draw a weapon. The little foreigner
slunk back out of reach.

"I'll start a little marking myself," grimly said Kurt. "Get up!"

Slowly Glidden moved from elbow to knees, and then to his feet. His
cheek was puffing out and his nose was bleeding. The light-gray eyes
were lurid.

"That's for your I.W.W.!" declared