"That's not my government. The more it's embarrassed the better it will suit me." In the stress of the moment Kurt had forgotten his father's bitter and unchangeable hatred. "But you're--you're stupid," he hissed, passionately. "That government has protected you for fifty years." Old Dorn growled into his beard. His huge ox-eyes rolled. Kurt realized then finally how implacable and hopeless he was--how utterly German. Then Kurt importuned him to return the eighty thousand dollars to the bank until he was sure the wheat was harvested and hauled to the railroad. "My wheat won't burn," was old Dorn's stubborn reply. "Well, then, give me Anderson's thirty thousand. I'll take it to him at once. Our debt will be paid. We'll have it off our minds." "No hurry about that," replied his father. "But there is hurry," returned Kurt, in a hot whisper. "Anderson came to see you to-day. He wants his money." "Neuman holds the small end of that debt. I'll pay him. Anderson can wait." Kurt felt no amaze. He expected anything. But he could scarcely contain his fury. How this old man, his father, whom he had loved--how he had responded to the influences that must destroy him! "Anderson shall not wait," declared Kurt. "I've got some say in this matter. I've worked like a dog in those wheat-fields. I've a right to demand Anderson's money. He needs it. He has a tremendous harvest on his hands." Old Dorn shook his huge head in somber and gloomy thought. His broad face, his deep eyes, seemed to mask and to hide. It was an expression Kurt had seldom seen there, but had always hated. It seemed so old to Kurt, that alien look, something not born of his time. "Anderson is a capitalist," said Chris Dorn, deep in his beard. "He seeks control of farmers and wheat in the Northwest. Ranch after ranch he's gained by taking up and foreclosing mortgages. He's against labor. He grinds down the poor. He cheated Neuman out of a hundred thousand bushels of wheat. He bought up my debt. He meant to ruin me. He--" "You're talking I.W.W. rot," whispered Kurt, shaking with the effort to subdue his feelings. "Anderson is fine, big, square--a developer of the Northwest. Not an enemy! He's our friend. Oh! if only you had an American's eyes, just for a minute!... Father, I want that money for Anderson." "My son, I run my own business," replied Dorn, sullenly, with a pale fire in his opaque eyes. "You're a wild boy, unfaithful to your blood. You've fallen in love with an American girl.... Anderson says he needs money!"... With hard, gloomy face the old man shook his head. "He thinks he'll harvest!" Again that strange shake of finality. "I know what I know.... I keep my money.... We'll have other rule.... I keep my money." Kurt had vibrated to those most significant words and he stared speechless at his father. "Go home. Get ready for harvest," suddenly ordered old Dorn, as if he had just awakened to the fact of Kurt's disobedience in lingering here.