"I would make sure how wide the area of affection is before pulling up any wheat, Mr. Battick," said Hiram. "I'll bring the boys down here and we'll burn a wide enough area to surely put the louse out of business in this field. No use cutting off the dog's tail half an inch at a time." Battick understood this homely saying, and only groaned again. Hiram and the girls returned to the road, and Miss Pringle and Sister climbed into the buggy. Hiram walked beside the vehicle to the Pringle cottage, and remained there for supper. The change in Sister in the time since Hiram had last seen her seemed marvelous. Not having seen a picture of her in all that time, the surprise Hiram felt was even greater that it otherwise would have been. Sister positively had become a pretty girl. Battick came up to report after supper. He had found but that one place where the grain louse was at work. Hiram took Orrin and Jim Larry and one of the new men and went down with Battick to burn the affected wheat. He slashed into that corner with a scythe and cut out almost a quarter of an acre of the wheat. Meanwhile the other boys had been smearing oily sacks over the condemned patch, and when the fire was put to it even in its green state, the grain blazed up hotly. They forked what Hiram had cut down on to the fire and made sure of burning every spear of wheat that could possibly be affected. It was furthermore arranged that a night watch should be kept upon this end of the twenty acre wheat field. Hiram, as well as Yancey Battick, was confident that the pest had not come here by chance. An enemy that would try such a despicable trick once, might try to repeat it. "I tell you I have felt all along that we shall have to fight to get a decent harvest of this wheat," said Battick. "Then we'll fight!" returned Hiram grimly. "Go ahead, Mr. Battick, and get your gun and watch here until midnight. Then either Orrin or I will come down and relieve you. I don't mean to let our enemies beat us, no matter who they may be." The young farm manager had an interest in the success of this new wheat matched only by Yancey Battick's own. CHAPTER XXVII DAY DREAMS There was an uncertainty in the atmosphere of Sunnyside Farm and an expectancy of trouble in all their minds. What would happen next? Would the enemy strike again, having been thwarted in one attempt to destroy the new wheat? The fact that the soil had been well enriched and that the forcing effect of nitrate made the crop grow so fast was really the salvation of Yancey Battick's new grain. The pest could not work fast enough to overcome the rapidity of the wheat's growth.