The Desert of Wheat. Zane Grey

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СКАЧАТЬ Lenore felt there was really nothing to blush for; still, she could scarcely tell her father that upon awakening this morning she had found her mind made up—that only by going to the Bend country could she determine the true state of her feelings. She simply dared not accuse herself of being in unusually radiant spirits because she was going to undertake a long, hard ride into a barren, desert country.

      The grave and thoughtful mood of last night had gone with her slumbers. Often Lenore had found problems decided for her while she slept. On this fresh, sweet summer morning, with the sun bright and warm, presaging a hot and glorious day, Lenore wanted to run with the winds, to wade through the alfalfa, to watch with strange and renewed pleasure the waves of shadow as they went over the wheat. All her life she had known and loved the fields of waving gold. But they had never been to her what they had become overnight. Perhaps this was because it had been said that the issue of the great war, the salvation of the world, and its happiness, its hope, depended upon the millions of broad acres of golden grain. Bread was the staff of life. Lenore felt that she was changing and growing. If anything should happen to her brother Jim she would be heiress to thousands of acres of wheat. A pang shot through her heart. She had to drive the cold thought away. And she must learn—must know the bigness of this question. The women of the country would be called upon to help, to do their share.

      She ran down through the grove and across the bridge, coming abruptly upon Nash, her father's driver. He had the car out.

      "Good morning," he said, with a smile, doffing his cap.

      Lenore returned his greeting and asked if her father intended to go anywhere.

      "No. I'm taking telegrams to Huntington."

      "Telegrams? What's the matter with the 'phone?" she queried.

      "Wire was cut yesterday."

      "By I.W.W. men?"

      "So your father says. I don't know."

      "Something ought to be done to those men," said Lenore, severely.

      Nash was a dark-browed, heavy-jawed young man, with light eyes and hair. He appeared to be intelligent and had some breeding, but his manner when alone with Lenore—he had driven her to town several times—was not the same as when her father was present. Lenore had not bothered her mind about it. But to-day the look in his eyes was offensive to her.

      "Between you and me, Lenore, I've sympathy for those poor devils," he said.

      Lenore drew back rather haughtily at this familiar use of her first name. "It doesn't concern me," she said, coldly and turned away.

      "Won't you ride along with me? I'm driving around for the mail," he called after her.

      "No," returned Lenore, shortly, and hurried on out of earshot. The impertinence of the fellow!

      "Mawnin', Miss Lenore!" drawled a cheery voice. The voice and the jingle of spurs behind her told Lenore of the presence of the best liked of all her father's men.

      "Good morning, Jake! Where's my dad?"

      "Wal, he's with Adams, an' I wouldn't be Adams for no money," replied the cowboy.

      "Neither would I," laughed Lenore.

      "Reckon you ain't ridin' this mawnin'. You sure look powerful fine, Miss Lenore, but you can't ride in thet dress."

      "Jake, nothing but an aeroplane would satisfy me to-day."

      "Want to fly, hey? Wal, excuse me from them birds. I seen one, an' thet's enough for me. … An', changin' the subject, Miss Lenore, beggin' your pardon—you ain't ridin' in the car much these days."

      "No, Jake, I'm not," she replied, and looked at the cowboy. She would have trusted Jake as she would her brother Jim. And now he looked earnest.

      "Wal, I'm sure glad. I heerd Nash call an' ask you to go with him. I seen his eyes when he said it. … Sure I know you'd never look at the likes of him. But I want to tell you—he ain't no good. I've been watchin' him. Your dad's orders. He's mixed up with the I.W.W.'s. But thet ain't what I mean. It's—He's—I—"

      "Thank you, Jake," replied Lenore, as the cowboy floundered. "I appreciate your thought of me. But you needn't worry."

      "I was worryin' a little," he said. "You see, I know men better 'n your dad, an' I reckon this Nash would do anythin'."

      "What's father keeping him for?"

      "Wal, Anderson wants to find out a lot about thet I.W.W., an' he ain't above takin' risks to do it, either."

      The stable-boys and men Lenore passed all had an eager good morning for her. She often boasted to her father that she could run "Many Waters" as well as he. Sometimes there were difficulties that Lenore had no little part in smoothing over. The barns and corrals were familiar places to her, and she insisted upon petting every horse, in some instances to Jake's manifest concern.

      "Some of them bosses are bad," he insisted.

      "To be sure they are—when wicked cowboys cuff and kick them," replied Lenore, laughingly.

      "Wal, if I'm wicked, I'm a-goin' to war," said Jake, reflectively. "Them Germans bother me."

      "But, Jake, you don't come in the draft age, do you?"

      "Jest how old do you think I am?"

      "Sometimes about fourteen, Jake."

      "Much obliged. Wal, the fact is I'm over age, but I'll gamble I can pack a gun an' shoot as straight an' eat as much as any young feller."

      "I'll bet so, too, Jake. But I hope you won't go. We absolutely could not run this ranch without you."

      "Sure I knew thet. Wal then, I reckon I'll hang around till you're married, Miss Lenore," he drawled.

      Again the scarlet mantled Lenore's cheeks.

      "Good. We'll have many harvests then, Jake, and many rides," she replied.

      "Aw, I don't know—" he began.

      But Lenore ran away so that she could hear no more.

      "What's the matter with me that people—that Jake should—?" she began, and ended with a hand on each soft, hot cheek. There was something different about her, that seemed certain. And if her eyes were as bright as the day, with its deep blue and white clouds and shining green and golden fields, then any one might think what he liked and have proof for his tormenting.

      "But married! I? Not much. Do I want a husband getting shot?"

      The path Lenore trod so lightly led along a great peach and apple orchard where the trees were set far apart and the soil was cultivated, so that not a weed nor a blade of grass showed. The fragrance of fruit in the air, however, did not come from this orchard, for the trees were young and the reddening fruit rare. Down the wide aisles she saw the thick and abundant green of the older orchards.

      At length Lenore reached the alfalfa-fields, and here among the mounds of newly cut hay that smelled so fresh and sweet she wanted to roll, and she had to run. Two great wagons with four horses each were being СКАЧАТЬ