with
darkly troubled face from the presence of his father. At the end of a
stormy scene he had promised his father that he would abandon his desire
to enlist in the army.

Kurt Dorn walked away from the gray old clapboard house, out to the
fence, where he leaned on the gate. He could see for miles in every
direction, and to the southward, away on a long yellow slope, rose a
stream of dust from a motor-car.

"Must be Anderson--coming to dun father," muttered young Dorn.

This was the day, he remembered, when the wealthy rancher of Ruxton was
to look over old Chris Dorn's wheat-fields. Dorn owed thirty-thousand
dollars and interest for years, mostly to Anderson. Kurt hated the debt
and resented the visit, but he could not help acknowledging that the
rancher had been lenient and kind. Long since Kurt had sorrowfully
realized that his father was illiterate, hard, grasping, and growing
worse with the burden of years.

"If we had rain now--or soon--that section of Bluestem would square
father," soliloquized young Dorn, as with keen eyes he surveyed a vast
field of wheat, short, smooth, yellowing in the sun. But the cloudless
sky, the haze of heat rather betokened a continued drought.

There were reasons, indeed, for Dorn to wear a dark and troubled face as
he watched the motor-car speed along ahead of its stream of dust, pass
out of sight under the hill, and soon reappear, to turn off the main
road and come toward the house. It was a big, closed car, covered with
dust. The driver stopped it at the gate and got out.

"Is this Chris Dorn's farm?" he asked.

"Yes," replied Kurt.

Whereupon the door of the car opened and out stepped a short, broad man
in a long linen coat.

"Come out, Lenore, an' shake off the dust," he said, and he assisted a
young woman to step out. She also wore a long linen coat, and a veil
besides. The man removed his coat and threw it into the car. Then he
took off his sombrero to beat the dust off of that.

"Phew! The Golden Valley never seen dust like this in a million
years!... I'm chokin' for water. An' listen to the car. She's boilin'!"

Then, as he stepped toward Kurt, the rancher showed himself to be a
well-preserved man of perhaps fifty-five, of powerful form beginning to
sag in the broad shoulders, his face bronzed by long exposure to wind
and sun. He had keen gray eyes, and their look was that of a man used to
dealing with his kind and well disposed toward them.

"Hello! Are you you