harrow hundreds of miles, that he could stand the strain, that he loved
both the physical sense and the spiritual meaning of the toil.

Driving west, he faced a wind laden with dust as dry as powder. At every
sheeted cloud, whipping back from the hoofs of the horses and the steel
spikes of the harrow, he had to bat his eyes to keep from being blinded.
The smell of dust clogged his nostrils. As soon as he began to sweat
under the hot sun the dust caked on his face, itching, stinging,
burning. There was dust between his teeth.

Driving back east was a relief. The wind whipped the dust away from him.
And he could catch the fragrance of the newly turned soil. How brown and
clean and earthy it looked! Where the harrow had cut and ridged, the
soil did not look thirsty and parched. But that which was unharrowed
cried out for rain. No cloud in the hot sky, except the yellow clouds of
dust!

On that trip east across the field, which faced the road, Dorn saw
pedestrians in twos and threes passing by. Once he was hailed, but made
no answer. He would not have been surprised to see a crowd, yet
travelers were scarce in that region. The sight of these men, some of
them carrying bags and satchels, was disturbing to the young farmer.
Where were they going? All appeared outward bound toward the river. They
came, of course, from the little towns, the railroads, the cities. At
this season, with harvest-time near at hand, it had been in former years
no unusual sight to see strings of laborers passing by. But this year
they came earlier, and in greater numbers.

With the wind in his face, however, Dorn saw nothing but the horses and
the brown line ahead, and half the time they were wholly obscured in
yellow dust. He began thinking about Lenore Anderson, just pondering
that strange, steady look of a girl's eyes; and then he did not mind the
dust or heat or distance. Never could he be cheated of his thoughts. And
those of her, even the painful ones, gave birth to a comfort that he
knew must abide with him henceforth on lonely labors such as this,
perhaps in the lonelier watches of a soldier's duty. She had been
curious, aloof, then sympathetic; she had studied his face; she had been
an eloquent-eyed listener to his discourse on wheat. But she had not
guessed his secret. Not until her last look--strange, deep, potent--had
he guessed that secret himself.

So, with mind both busy and absent, Kurt Dorn harrowed the fallow ground
abandoned b