.'s!"

That trying moment passed. Mrs. Anderson said that she would see to
supper being put on the table at once. The younger girls began untying
the bundles. Lenore studied her father's face a moment.

"Jake, you run along," she said to the waiting cowboy. "Wait till after
supper before you worry father."

"I'll do thet, Miss Lenore," drawled Jake, "an' if he wants worryin'
he'll hev to look me up."

"Lass, I'm only tired, not worried," replied Anderson, as Jake shuffled
out with jingling spurs.

"Did anything serious happen in Spokane?" she asked anxiously.

"No. But Spokane men are alive to serious trouble ahead," replied her
father. "I spoke to the Chamber of Commerce--sure exploded a bomb in
that camp. Then I had conferences with a good many different men. Fact
is they ran me pretty hard. Couldn't have slept much, anyhow, in that
heat. Lass, this is the place to live!... I'd rather die here than live
in Spokane, in summer."

"Did you see the Governor?"

"Yes, an' he wasn't as anxious about the Golden Valley as the Bend
country. He's right, too. We're old Westerners here. We can handle
trouble. But they're not Americans up there in the Bend."

"Father, we met one American," said Lenore, dreamily.

"By George! we did!... An' that reminds me. There was a government
official from Washington, come out to Spokane to investigate conditions.
I forget his name. He asked to meet me an' he was curious about the
Bend--its loyalty to the U.S. I told him all I knew an' what I thought.
An' then he said he was goin' to motor through that wheat-belt an' talk
to what Americans he could find, an' impress upon them that they could
do as much as soldiers to win the war. Wheat--bread--that's our great
gun in this war, Lenore!... I knew this, but I was made pretty blamed
sober by that government man. I told him by all means to go to Palmer
an' to have a talk with young Dorn. I sure gave that boy a good word.
Poor lad! He's true blue. An' to think of him with that old German
devil. Old Dorn has always had a hard name. An' this war has brought out
the German cussedness."

"Father, I'm glad you spoke well of the young man," said Lenore, still
dreamily.

"Hum! You never told me what you thought," replied her father, with a
quick glance of inquiry at her. Lenore was gazing out of the window,
away across the wheat-fields and the range. Anderson watched her a
moment, and then resumed: "If I can get away I'm goin' to drive up to