The Desert of Wheat by Zane Grey (best books to read now .TXT) 📗

were bloody and it was impossible to tell whether from injury to them or not. But his left forearm was badly cut.

"The gun cut me.… And he bit me, too," said Dorn. "I'm sorry you were there.… What a beastly spectacle for you!"

"Never mind me," she murmured. "I'm all right now!… But, oh!—"

She broke off eloquently.

"Was it you who had the cowboys pull me off him? Jake said, as he broke me loose, 'For Miss Lenore's sake!'"

"It was dad who sent them. But I begged him to."

"That was Glidden, the I.W.W. agitator and German agent.… He—just the same as murdered my father.… He burned my wheat—lost my all!"

"Yes, I—I know, Kurt," whispered Lenore.

"I meant to kill him!"

"That was easy to tell.… Oh, thank God, you did not!… Come, don't let us stop." She could not face the piercing, gloomy eyes that went through her.

"Why should you care?.… Some one will have to kill Glidden."

"Oh, do not talk so," she implored. "Surely, now you're glad you did not?"

"I don't understand myself. But I'm certainly sorry you were there.… There's a beast in men—in me!… I had a gun in my pocket. But do you think I'd have used it?… I wanted to feel his flesh tear, his bones break, his blood spurt—"

"Kurt!"

"Yes!… That was the Hun in me!" he declared, in sudden bitter passion.

"Oh, my friend, do not talk so!" she cried. "You make me—Oh, there is no Hun in you!"

"Yes, that's what ails me!"

"There is not!" she flashed back, roused to passion. "You had been made desperate. You acted as any wronged man! You fought. He tried to kill you. I saw the gun. No one could blame you.… I had my own reason for begging dad to keep you from killing him—a selfish woman's reason!… But I tell you I was so furious—so wrought up—that if it had been any man but you—he should have killed him!"

"Lenore, you're beyond my understanding," replied Dorn, with emotion. "But I thank you—for excusing me—for standing up for me."

"It was nothing.…Oh, how you bleed!.… Doesn't that hurt?"

"I've no pain—no feeling at all—except a sort of dying down in me of what must have been hell."

They reached the house and went in. No one was there, which fact relieved Lenore.

"I'm glad mother and the girls won't see you," she said, hurriedly. "Go up to your room. I'll bring bandages."

He complied without any comment. Lenore searched for what she needed to treat a wound and ran up-stairs. Dorn was sitting on a chair in his room, holding his arm, from which blood dripped to the floor. He smiled at her.

"You would be a pretty Red Cross nurse," he said.

Lenore placed a bowl of water on the floor and, kneeling beside Dorn, took his arm and began to bathe it. He winced. The blood covered her fingers.

"My blood on your hands!" he exclaimed, morbidly. "German blood!"

"Kurt, you're out of your head," retorted Lenore, hotly. "If you dare to say that again I'll—" She broke off.

"What will you do?"

Lenore faltered. What would she do? A revelation must come, sooner or later, and the strain had begun to wear upon her. She was stirred to her depths, and instincts there were leaping. No sweet, gentle, kindly sympathy would avail with this tragic youth. He must be carried by storm. Something of the violence he had shown with Glidden seemed necessary to make him forget himself. All his whole soul must be set in one direction. He could not see that she loved him, when she had looked it, acted it, almost spoken it. His blindness was not to be endured.

"Kurt Dorn, don't dare to—to say that again!"

She ceased bathing his arm, and looked up at him suddenly quite pale.

"I apologize. I am only bitter," he said. "Don't mind what I say.… It's so good of you—to do this."

Then in silence Lenore dressed his wound, and if her heart did beat unwontedly, her fingers were steady and deft. He thanked her, with moody eyes seeing far beyond her.

"When I lie—over there—with—"

"If you go!" she interrupted. He was indeed hopeless. "I advise you to rest a little."

"I'd like to know what becomes of Glidden," he said.

"So should I. That worries me."

"Weren't there a lot of cowboys with guns?"

"So many that there's no need for you to go out—and start another fight."

"I did start it, didn't I?"

"You surely did," She left him then, turning in the doorway to ask him please to be quiet and let the day go by without seeking those excited men again. He smiled, but he did not promise.

For Lenore the time dragged between dread and suspense. From her window she saw a motley crowd pass down the lane to the main road. No harvesters were working. At the noon meal only her mother and the girls were present. Word had come that the I.W.W. men were being driven from "Many Waters." Mrs. Anderson worried, and Lenore's sisters for once were quiet. All afternoon the house was lifeless. No one came or left. Lenore listened to every little sound. It relieved her that Dorn had remained in his room. Her hope was that the threatened trouble had been averted, but something told her that the worst was yet to come.

It was nearly supper-time when she heard the men returning. They came in a body, noisy and loitering, as if reluctant to break away from one another. She heard the horses tramp into the barns and the loud voices of drivers.

When she went down-stairs she encountered her father. He looked impressive, triumphant! His effort at evasion did not deceive Lenore. But she realized at once that in this instance she could not get