Free the Desert Of Wheat (2001) by Zane Grey Page A

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 loaded. Lenore knew all the workmen except one. Silas Warner, an old, gray-headed farmer, had been with her father as long as she could remember.
    "Whar you goin', lass?" he called, as he halted to wipe his red face with a huge bandana. "It's too hot to run the way you're a-doin'."
    "Oh, Silas, it's a grand morning!" she replied.
    "Why, so 'tis! Pitchin' hay hyar made me think it was hot," he said, as she tripped on. "Now, lass, don't go up to the wheat-fields."
    But Lenore heard heedlessly, and she ran on till she came to the uncut alfalfa, which impeded her progress. A wonderful space of green and purple stretched away before her, and into it she waded. It came up to her knees, rich, thick, soft, and redolent of blossom and ripeness. Hard tramping it soon got to be. She grew hot and breathless, and her legs ached from the force expended in making progress through the tangled hay. At last she was almost across the field, far from the cutters, and here she flung herself, to roll and lie flat and gaze up through the deep azure of sky, wonderingly, as if to penetrate its secret. And then she hid her face in the fragrant thickness that seemed to force a whisper from her.
    "I wonder--how will I feel--when I