“Did anything serious happen in Spokane?” she asked anxiously.

“No.  But Spokane men are alive to serious trouble ahead,” replied her father.  “I spoke to the Chamber of Commerce—­sure exploded a bomb in that camp.  Then I had conferences with a good many different men.  Fact is they ran me pretty hard.  Couldn’t have slept much, anyhow, in that heat.  Lass, this is the place to live!...  I’d rather die here than live in Spokane, in summer.”

“Did you see the Governor?”

“Yes, an’ he wasn’t as anxious about the Golden Valley as the Bend country.  He’s right, too.  We’re old Westerners here.  We can handle trouble.  But they’re not Americans up there in the Bend.”

“Father, we met one American,” said Lenore, dreamily.

“By George! we did!...  An’ that reminds me.  There was a government official from Washington, come out to Spokane to investigate conditions.  I forget his name.  He asked to meet me an’ he was curious about the Bend—­its loyalty to the U.S.  I told him all I knew an’ what I thought.  An’ then he said he was goin’ to motor through that wheat-belt an’ talk to what Americans he could find, an’ impress upon them that they could do as much as soldiers to win the war.  Wheat—­bread—­that’s our great gun in this war, Lenore!...  I knew this, but I was made pretty blamed sober by that government man.  I told him by all means to go to Palmer an’ to have a talk with young Dorn.  I sure gave that boy a good word.  Poor lad!  He’s true blue.  An’ to think of him with that old German devil.  Old Dorn has always had a hard name.  An’ this war has brought out the German cussedness.”

“Father, I’m glad you spoke well of the young man,” said Lenore, still dreamily.

“Hum!  You never told me what you thought,” replied her father, with a quick glance of inquiry at her.  Lenore was gazing out of the window, away across the wheat-fields and the range.  Anderson watched her a moment, and then resumed:  “If I can get away I’m goin’ to drive up to see Dorn again pretty soon.  Do you want to go?”

Lenore gave a little start, as if the question had surprised her.

“I—­I hardly think so,” she replied.

“It’s just as well,” he said.  “That’ll be a hard ride....  Guess I’ll clean up a little for supper.”

Anderson left the room, and, while Kathleen and Rose gleefully squabbled over the bundles, Lenore continued to gaze dreamily out of the window.

* * * * *

That night Lenore went early to her room, despite the presence of some young people from a neighboring village.  She locked her door and sat in the dark beside her open window.

An early moon silvered the long slopes of wheat and made the alfalfa squares seem black.  A cool, faint, sweet breeze fanned her cheek.  She could smell the fragrance of apples, of new-mown hay, and she could hear the low murmur of running water.  A hound bayed off somewhere in the fields.  There was no other sound.  It was a quiet, beautiful, pastoral scene.  But somehow it did not comfort Lenore.