led the air, and hints of
gold on the waving wheat slopes presaged an early and bountiful harvest.

It was warm up there on the slope where Lenore Anderson watched and
brooded. The breeze brought fragrant smell of fresh-cut alfalfa and the
rustling song of the wheat. The stately house gleamed white down on the
terraced green knoll; horses and cattle grazed in the pasture; workmen
moved like snails in the brown gardens; a motor-car crept along the road
far below, with its trail of rising dust.

Two miles of soft green wheat-slope lay between Lenore and her home. She
had needed the loneliness and silence and memory of a place she had not
visited for many months. Winter had passed. Summer had come with its
birds and flowers. The wheat-fields were again waving, beautiful,
luxuriant. But life was not as it had been for Lenore Anderson.

Kurt Dorn, private, mortally wounded!--So had read the brief and
terrible line in a Spokane newspaper, publishing an Associated Press
despatch of Pershing's casualty-list. No more! That had been the only
news of Kurt Dorn for a long time. A month had dragged by, of doubt, of
hope, of slow despairing.

Up to the time of that fatal announcement Lenore had scarcely noted the
fleeting of the days. With all her spirit and energy she had thrown
herself into the organizing of the women of the valley to work for the
interests of the war. She had made herself a leader who spared no
effort, no sacrifice, no expense in what she considered her duty.
Conservation of food, intensive farm production, knitting for soldiers,
Liberty Loans and Red Cross--these she had studied and mastered, to the
end that the women of the great valley had accomplished work which won
national honor. It had been excitement, joy, and a strange fulfilment
for her. But after the shock caused by the fatal news about Dorn she had
lost interest, though she had worked on harder than ever.

Just a night ago her father had gazed at her and then told her to come
to his office. She did so. And there he said: "You're workin' too hard.
You've got to quit."

"Oh no, dad. I'm only tired to-night," she had replied. "Let me go on.
I've planned so--"

"No!" he said, banging his desk. "You'll run yourself down."

"But, father, these are war-times. Could I do less--could I think of--"

"You've done wonders. You've been the life of this work. Some one else
can carry it on now. You'd kill yourself. An' this war has cost the
Andersons enough