There were two machines cutting on the barley slope, one drawn by eight horses, and the other by twelve.  When Lenore had crossed the oat-field she discovered a number of strange men lounging in the scant shade of a line of low trees that separated the fields.  Here she saw Adams, the foreman; and he espied her at the same moment.  He had been sitting down, talking to the men.  At once he rose to come toward Lenore.

“Is your father with you?” he asked.

“No; he’s too slow for me,” replied Lenore.  “Who are these men?”

“They’re strangers looking for jobs.”

“I.W.W. men?” queried Lenore, in lower voice.

“Surely must be,” he replied.  Adams was not a young, not a robust man, and he seemed to carry a burden of worry.  “Your father said he would come right out.”

“I hope he doesn’t,” said Lenore, bluntly.  “Father has a way with him, you know.”

“Yes, I know.  And it’s the way we’re needing here in the Valley,” replied the foreman, significantly.

“Is that the new harvester-thresher father just bought?” asked Lenore, pointing to the huge machine, shining and creeping behind the twelve horses.

“Yes, that’s the McCormack and it’s a dandy,” returned Adams.  “With machines like that we can get along without the I.W.W.”

“I want a ride on it,” declared Lenore, and she ran along to meet the harvester.  She waved her hand to the driver, Bill Jones, another old hand, long employed by her father.  Bill hauled back on the many-branched reins, and when the horses stopped the clattering, whirring roar of the machine also ceased.

“Howdy, miss!  Reckon this ’s a regular I.W.W. hold-up.”

“Worse than that, Bill,” gaily replied Lenore as she mounted the platform where another man sat on a bag of barley.  Lenore did not recognize him.  He looked rugged and honest, and beamed upon her.

“Watch out fer yer dress,” he said, pointing with grimy hand to the dusty wheels and braces so near her.

“Let me drive, Bill?” she asked.

“Wal, now, I wisht I could,” he replied, dryly.  “You sure can drive, miss.  But drivin’ ain’t all this here job.”

“What can’t I do?  I’ll bet you—­”

“I never seen a girl that could throw anythin’ straight.  Did you?”

“Well, not so very.  I forgot how you drove the horses....  Go ahead.  Don’t let me delay the harvest.”

Bill called sonorously to his twelve horses, and as they bent and strained and began to bob their heads, the clattering roar filled the air.  Also a cloud of dust and thin, flying streams of chaff enveloped Lenore.  The high stalks of barley, in wide sheets, fell before the cutter upon an apron, to be carried by feeders into the body of the machine.  The straw, denuded of its grain, came out at the rear, to be dropped, while the grain streamed out of a tube on the side next to Lenore, to fall into an open sack.  It made a short shift of harvesting.