by Zane Grey
Then he swung out his rifle and waved for the driver to stop. But he did not stop. Kurt heard a scream. He saw a white face. He saw the driver swing his hand across that white face, dashing it back.
“Halt!” yelled Kurt, at the top of his lungs.
But the driver hunched down and put on the power. The red car leaped. As it flashed by Kurt recognized Nash and Anderson’s daughter. She looked terrified. Kurt dared not shoot, for fear of hitting the girl. Nash swerved, took the narrow space left him, smashing the right front wheel of Kurt’s car, and got by.
Kurt stepped aside and took a quick shot at the tire of Nash’s left hind wheel. He missed. His heart sank and he was like ice as he risked another. The little high-power bullet struck and blew the tire off the wheel. Nash’s car lurched, skidded into the bank not thirty yards away.
With a bound Kurt started for it, and he was there when Nash had twisted out of his seat and over the door.
“Far enough! Don’t move!” ordered Kurt, presenting the rifle.
Nash was ghastly white, with hunted eyes and open mouth, and his hands shook.
“Oh it’s — Kurt Dorn!” cried a broken voice.
Kurt saw the girl fumble with the door on her side, open it, and stagger out of his sight. Then she reappeared round the car. Bareheaded, disheveled, white as chalk, with burning eyes and bleeding lips, she gazed at Kurt as if to make sure of her deliverance.
“Miss Anderson — if he’s harmed you—” broke out Kurt, hoarsely.
“Oh!… Don’t kill him!… He hasn’t touched me,” she replied, wildly.
“But your lips are bleeding.”
“Are they?” She put a trembling hand to them. “He — he struck me.… That’s nothing… But you — you have saved me — from God only knows what!”
“I have! From him?” demanded Kurt. “What is he?”
“He’s a German!” returned Lenore, and red burned out of the white of her cheeks. “Secret agent — I.W.W.!… Plotter against my father’s life!… Oh, he knocked father off the car — dragged him!… He ran the car away — with me — forced me back — he struck me!… Oh, if I were a man!”
Nash responded with a passion that made his face drip with sweat and distort into savage fury of defeat and hate.
“You two-faced cat!” he hissed. “You made love to me! You fooled me! You let me—”
“Shut up!” thundered Kurt. “You German dog! I can’t murder you, because I’m American. Do you get that? But I’ll beat you within an inch of your life!”
As Kurt bent over to lay down the rifle, Nash darted a hand into the seat for weapon of some kind. But Kurt, in a rush, knocked him over the front guard. Nash howled. He scrambled up with bloody mouth. Kurt was on him again.
“Take that!” cried Kurt, low and hard, as he swung his arm. The big fist that had grasped so many plow-handles took Nash full on that bloody mouth and laid him flat. “Come on, German! Get out of the trench!”
Like a dog Nash thrashed and crawled, scraping his hands in the dirt, to jump up and fling a rock that Kurt ducked by a narrow margin. Nash followed it, swinging wildly, beating at his adversary.
Passion long contained burst in Kurt. He tasted the salt of his own blood where he had bitten his lips. Nash showed as in a red haze. Kurt had to get his hands on this German, and when he did it liberated a strange and terrible joy in him. No weapon would have sufficed. Hardly aware of Nash’s blows, Kurt tore at him, swung and choked him, bore him down on the bank, and there beat him into a sodden, bloody-faced heap.
Only then did a cry of distress, seemingly from far off, pierce Kurt’s ears. Miss Anderson was pulling at him with frantic hands.
“Oh, don’t kill him! Please don’t kill him!” she was crying. “Kurt! — for my sake, don’t kill him!”
That last poignant appeal brought Kurt to his senses. He let go of Nash. He allowed the girl to lead him back. Panting hard, he tried to draw a deep, full breath.
“Oh, he doesn’t move!” whispered Lenore, with wide eyes on Nash.
“Miss Anderson — he’s not — even insensible,” panted Kurt. “But he’s licked — good and hard.”
The girl leaned against the side of the car, with a hand buried in her heaving breast. She was recovering. The gray shade left her face. Her eyes, still wide and dark and beginning to glow with softer emotions, were upon Kurt.
“You — you were the one to come,” she murmured. “I prayed. I was terribly frightened. Ruenke was taking me — to the I.W.W. camp, up in the hills.”
“Ruenke?” queried Kurt.
“Yes, that’s his German name.”
Kurt awoke to the exigencies of the situation. Searching in the car, he found a leather belt. With this he securely bound Ruenke’s hands behind his back, then rolled him down into the road.
“My first German prisoner,” said Kurt, half seriously. “Now, Miss Anderson, we must be doing things. We don’t want to meet a lot of I.W.W.’s out here. My car is out of commission. I hope yours is not broken.”
Kurt got into the car and found, to his satisfaction, that it was not damaged so far as running-gear was concerned. After changing the ruined tire he backed down the road and turned to stop near where Ruenke lay. Opening the rear door, Kurt picked him up as if he had been a sack of wheat and threw him into the car. Next he secured the rifle that had been such a burden and had served him so well in the end.
“Get in, Miss Anderson,” he said, “and show me where to drive you home.”
She got in beside him, making a grimace as she saw Ruenke lying behind her. Kurt started and ran slowly by the damaged car.
“He knocked a wheel off. I’ll have to send back.”
“Oh, I thought it was all over when we hit!” said the girl.
Kurt experienced a relaxation that was weakening. He could hardly hold the wheel and his mood became one of exaltation.
“Father suspected this Ruenke,” went on Lenore. “But he wanted to find out things from him. And I — I undertook — to twist Mr. Germany round my finger. I made a mess of it.… He lied. I didn’t make love to him. But I listened to his love-making, and arrogant German love-making it was! I’m afraid I made eyes at him and let him believe I was smitten.… Oh, and all for nothing! I’m ashamed… But he lied!”
Her confidence, at once pathetic and humorous and contemptuous, augmented Kurt’s Homeric mood. He understood that she would not even let him, for a moment, have a wrong impression of her.
“It must have been hard,” agreed Kurt. “Didn’t you find out anything at all?”
“Not much,” she replied. Then she put a hand on his sleeve. “Your knuckles are all bloody.”
“So they are. I got that punching our German friend.”
“Oh, how you did beat him!” she cried. “I had to look. My ire was up, too!… It wasn’t very womanly — of me — that I gloried in the sight.”
“But you cried out — you pulled me away!” exclaimed Kurt.
“That was because I was afraid you’d kill him,” she replied.
Kurt swerved his glance, for an instant, to her face. It was at once flushed and pale, with the deep blue of downcast eyes shadowy through her long lashes, exceedingly sweet and beautiful to Kurt’s sight. He bent his glance again to the road ahead. Miss Anderson felt kindly and gratefully toward him, as was, of course, natural. But she was somehow different from what she had seemed upon the other occasions he had seen her. Kurt’s heart was full to bursting.
“I might have killed him,” he said. “I’m glad — you stopped me. That — that frenzy of mine seemed to be the breaking of a dam. I have been dammed up within. Something had to break. I’ve been unhappy for a long time.”
“I saw that. What about?” she replied.
“The war, and what it’s done to father. We’re estranged. I hate everything German. I loved the farm. My chance in life is gone. The wheat debt — the worry about the I.W.W. — and that’s not all.”
Again she put a gentle hand on his slee
ve and left it there for a moment. The touch thrilled all through Kurt.
“I’m sorry. Your position is sad. But maybe it is not utterly hopeless. You — you’ll come back after the war.”
“I don’t know that I want to come back,” he said. “For then — it’d be just as bad — worse.… Miss Anderson, it won’t hurt to tell you the truth.… A year ago — that first time I saw you — I fell in love with you. I think — when I’m away — over in France — I’d like to feel that you know. It can’t hurt you. And it’ll be sweet to me.… I fought against the — the madness. But fate was against me.… I saw you again.… And it was all over with me!”
He paused, catching his breath. She was perfectly quiet. He looked on down the winding road. There were dust-clouds in the distance.
“I’m afraid I grew bitter and moody,” he went on. “But the last forty-eight hours have changed me forever… I found that my poor old dad had been won over by these unscrupulous German agents of the I.W.W. But I saved his name.… I’ve got the money he took for the wheat we may never harvest. But if we do harvest I can pay all our debt.… Then I learned of a plot to ruin your father — to kill him!… I was on my way to ‘Many Waters.’ I can warn him.… Last of all I have saved you.”
The little hand dropped away from his coat sleeve. A soft, half-smothered cry escaped her. It seemed to him she was about to weep in her exceeding pity.
“Miss Anderson, I — I’d rather not have — you pity me.”
“Mr. Dorn, I certainly don’t pity you,” she replied, with an unexpected, strange tone. It was full. It seemed to ring in his ears.
“I know there never was and never could be any hope for me. I — I—”
“Oh, you know that!” murmured the soft, strange voice.
But Kurt could not trust his ears and he had to make haste to terminate the confession into which his folly and emotion had betrayed him. He scarcely heard her words.
“Yes.… I told you why I wanted you to know.… And now forget that — and when I’m gone — if you think of me ever, let it be about how much better it made me — to have all this good luck — to help your father and to save you!”
The dust-cloud down the road came from a string of automobiles, flying along at express speed. Kurt saw them with relief.
“Here come the cars on your trail,” he called out. “Your father will be in one of them.”
Kurt opened the door of the car and stepped down. He could not help his importance or his pride. Anderson, who came running between two cars that had stopped abreast, was coatless and hatless, covered with dust, pale and fire-eyed.
“Mr. Anderson, your daughter is safe — unharmed,” Kurt assured him.
“My girl!” cried the father, huskily, and hurried to where she leaned out of her seat.
“All right, dad,” she cried, as she embraced him. “Only a little shaky yet.”
It was affecting for Dorn to see that meeting, and through it to share something of its meaning. Anderson’s thick neck swelled and colored, and his utterance was unintelligible. His daughter loosened her arm from round him and turned her face toward Kurt. Then he imagined he saw two blue stars, sweetly, strangely shining upon him.
“Father, it was our friend from the Bend,” she said. “He happened along.”
Anderson suddenly changed to the cool, smiling man Kurt remembered.
“Howdy, Kurt?” he said, and crushed Kurt’s hand. “What’d you do to him?”
Kurt made a motion toward the back of the car. Then Anderson looked over the seats. With that he opened the door and in one powerful haul he drew Ruenke sliding out into the road. Ruenke’s bruised and bloody face was uppermost, a rather gruesome sight. Anderson glared down upon him, while men from the other cars crowded around. Ruenke’s eyes resembled those of a cornered rat. Anderson’s jaw bulged, his big hands clenched.
“Bill, you throw this fellow in your car and land him in jail. I’ll make a charge against him,” said the rancher.
“Mr. Anderson, I can save some valuable time,” interposed Kurt. “I’ve got to return a car I broke down. And there’s my wheat. Will you have one of these men drive me back?”
“Sure. But won’t you come home with us?” said Anderson.
“I’d like to. But I must get home,” replied Kurt. “Please let me speak a few words for your ear alone.” He drew Anderson aside and briefly told about the eighty thousand dollars; threw back his coat to show the bulging pockets. Then he asked Anderson’s advice.
“I’d deposit the money an’ wire the Spokane miller,” returned the rancher. “I know him. He’ll leave the money in the bank till your wheat is safe. Go to the national bank in Kilo. Mention my name.”
Then Kurt told Anderson of the plot against his fortunes and his life.
“Neuman! I.W.W.! German intrigue!” growled the rancher. “All in the same class!… Dorn, I’m forewarned, an’ that’s forearmed. I’ll beat this outfit at their own game.”
They returned to Anderson’s car. Kurt reached inside for his rifle.
“Aren’t you going home with us?” asked the girl.
“Why, Miss Anderson, I — I’m sorry. I — I’d love to see ‘Many Waters,’” floundered Kurt. “But I can’t go now. There’s no need. I must hurry back to — to my troubles.”
“I wanted to tell you something — at home,” she returned, shyly.
“Tell me now,” said Kurt.
She gave him such a glance as he had never received in his life. Kurt felt himself as wax before those blue eyes. She wanted to thank him. That would be sweet, but would only make his ordeal harder. He steeled himself.
“You won’t come?” she asked, and her smile was wistful.
“No — thank you ever so much.”
“Will you come to see me before you — you go to war?”
“I’ll try.”
“But you must promise. You’ve done so much for me and my father.… I — I want you to come to see me — at my home.”
“Then I’ll come,” he replied.
Anderson clambered into the car beside his daughter and laid his big hands on the wheel.
“Sure he’ll come, or we’ll go after him,” he declared, heartily. “So long, son.”
CHAPTER XI
LATE IN THE forenoon of the next day Kurt Dorn reached home. A hot harvest wind breathed off the wheat-fields. It swelled his heart to see the change in the color of that section of Bluestem — the gold had a tinge of rich, ripe brown.
Kurt’s father awaited him, a haggard, gloomy-faced man, unkempt and hollow-eyed.
“Was it you who robbed me?” he shouted hoarsely.
“Yes,” replied Kurt. He had caught the eager hope and fear in the old man’s tone. Kurt expected that confession would bring on his father’s terrible fury, a mood to dread. But old Dorn showed immense relief. He sat down in his relaxation from what must have been intense strain. Kurt saw a weariness, a shade, in the gray lined face that had never been there before.
“What did you do with the money?” asked the old man.
“I banked it in Kilo,” replied Kurt. “Then I wired your miller in Spokane.… So you’re safe if we can harvest the wheat.”
Old Dorn nodded thoughtfully. There had come a subtle change in him. Presently he asked Kurt if men had been hired for the harvest.
“No. I’ve not seen any I would trust,” replied Kurt, and then he briefly outlined Anderson’s plan to insure a quick and safe harvesting of the grain. Old Dorn objected to this on account of the expense. Kurt argued with him and patiently tried to show him the imperative need of it. Dorn, apparently, was not to be won over; however, he was remarkably mild in comparison with what Kurt had expected.
“Father, do you realize now that the men you were dealing with at Wheatly are dishonest? I mean with you. They would betray you.”
Old Dorn had no answer for this. Evidently he had sustained some kind of shock that he was not willing to admit.
“Look here, father,” w
ent on Kurt, in slow earnestness. He spoke in English, because nothing would make him break his word and ever again speak a word of German. And his father was not quick to comprehend English. “Can’t you see that the I.W.W. mean to cripple us wheat farmers this harvest?”
“No,” replied old Dorn, stubbornly.
“But they do. They don’t want work. If they accept work it is for a chance to do damage. All this I.W.W. talk about more wages and shorter hours is deceit. They make a bold face of discontent. That is all a lie. The I.W.W. is out to ruin the great wheat-fields and the great lumber forests of the Northwest.”
“I do not believe that,” declared his father, stoutly. “What for?”
Kurt meant to be careful of that subject.
“No matter what for. It does not make any difference what it’s for. We’ve got to meet it to save our wheat.… Now won’t you believe me? Won’t you let me manage the harvest?”
“I will not believe,” replied old Dorn, stubbornly. “Not about my wheat. I know they mean to destroy. They are against rich men like Anderson. But not me or my wheat!”
“There is where you are wrong. I’ll prove it in a very few days. But in that time I can prepare for them and outwit them. Will you let me?”
“Go ahead,” replied old Dorn, gruffly.
It was a concession that Kurt was amazed and delighted to gain. And he set about at once to act upon it. He changed his clothes and satisfied his hunger; then, saddling his horse, he started out to visit his farmer neighbors.
The day bade fair to be rich in experience. Jerry, the foreman, was patrolling his long beat up and down the highway. Jerry carried a shot-gun and looked like a sentry. The men under him were on the other side of the section of wheat, and the ground was so rolling that they could not be seen from the highway. Jerry was unmistakably glad and relieved to see Kurt.
“Some goin’s-on,” he declared, with a grin. “Since you left there’s been one hundred and sixteen I.W.W. tramps along this here road.”
“Have you had any trouble?” inquired Kurt.