“Fine!...  He wrote it to me.  I laughed.  I swelled with pride.  It sent my blood racing.  It filled me with fight....  Then I sneaked up here to cry.”

“Ah-huh!” exclaimed Anderson, with a loud sigh.  Then for a moment of silence the end of his cigar alternately paled and glowed.  “Lenore, did you get any—­any kind of a hunch from Jim’s letter?”

“I don’t exactly understand what you mean,” replied Lenore.

“Did somethin’—­strange an’ different come to you?” queried Anderson, haltingly, as if words were difficult to express what he meant.

“Why, yes—­I had many strange feelings.”

“Jim’s letter was just like he talks.  But to me it said somethin’ he never meant an’ didn’t know....  Jim will never come back!”

“Yes, dad—­I divined just that,” whispered Lenore.

“Strange about that,” mused Anderson, with a pull on his cigar.

And then followed a silence.  Lenore felt how long ago her father had made his sacrifice.  There did not seem to be any need for more words about Jim.  But there seemed a bigness in the bond of understanding between her and her father.  A cause united them, and they were sustained by unfaltering courage.  The great thing was the divine spark in the boy who could not have been held back.  Lenore gazed out into the darkening shadows.  The night was very still, except for the hum of insects, and the cool air felt sweet on her face.  The shadows, the silence, the sleeping atmosphere hovering over “Many Waters,” seemed charged with a quality of present sadness, of the inexplicable great world moving to its fate.

“Lenore, you haven’t been around much lately,” resumed Anderson.  “Sure you’re missed.  An’ Jake swears a lot more than usual.”

“Father, you told me to stay at home,” she replied.

“So I did.  An’ I reckon it’s just as well.  But when did you ever before mind me?”

“Why, I always obey you,” replied Lenore, with her low laugh.

“Ah-huh!  Not so I’d notice it....  Lenore, have you seen the big clouds of smoke driftin’ over ‘Many Waters’ these last few days?”

“Yes.  And I’ve smelled smoke, too....  From forest fire, is it not?”

“There’s fire in some of the timber, but the wind’s wrong for us to get smoke from the foot-hills.”

“Then where does the smoke come from?” queried Lenore, quickly.

“Some of the Bend wheat country’s been burned over.”

“Burned!  You mean the wheat?”

“Sure.”

“Oh!  What part of the Bend?”

“I reckon it’s what you called young Dorn’s desert of wheat.”

“Oh, what a pity!...  Have you had word?”

“Nothin’ but rumors yet.  But I’m fearin’ the worst an’ I’m sorry for our young friend.”

A sharp pain shot through Lenore’s breast, leaving behind an ache.

“It will ruin him!” she whispered.