"I'm sure glad Jim didn't wait for the draft," replied the father. "Well, mother an' girls, Jim was gone when I got to Spokane. All I heard was that he was well when he left for Frisco an' strong for the aviation corps." "Then he means to--to be an aviator," said Lenore, with quivering lips. "Sure, if he can get in. An' he's wise. Jim knows engines. He has a knack for machinery. An' nerve! No boy ever had more. He'll make a crack flier." "But--the danger!" whispered the boy's mother, with a shudder. "I reckon there'll be a little danger, mother," replied Anderson, cheerfully. "We've got to take our chance on Jim. There's one sure bet. If he had stayed home he'd been fightin' I.W.W.'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.