The girl leaned against the side of the car, with a hand buried in her
heaving breast. She was recovering. The gray shade left her face. Her
eyes, still wide and dark and beginning to glow with softer emotions,
were upon Kurt.
"You--you were the one to come," she murmured. "I prayed. I was terribly
frightened. Ruenke was taking me--to the I.W.W. camp, up in the hills."
"Ruenke?" queried Kurt.
"Yes, that's his German name."
Kurt awoke to the exigencies of the situation. Searching in the car, he
found a leather belt. With this he securely bound Ruenke's hands behind
his back, then rolled him down into the road.
"My first German prisoner," said Kurt, half seriously. "Now, Miss
Anderson, we must be doing things. We don't want to meet a lot of
I.W.W.'s out here. My car is out of commission. I hope yours is not
broken."
Kurt got into the car and found, to his satisfaction, that it was not
damaged so far as running-gear was concerned. After changing the ruined
tire he backed down the road and turned to stop near where Ruenke lay.
Opening the rear door, Kurt picked him up as if he had been a sack of
wheat and threw him into the car. Next he secured the rifle that had
been such a burden and had served him so well in the end.
"Get in, Miss Anderson," he said, "and show me where to drive you home."
She got in beside him, making a grimace as she saw Ruenke lying behind
her. Kurt started and ran slowly by the damaged car.
"He knocked a wheel off. I'll have to send back."
"Oh, I thought it was all over when we hit!" said the girl.
Kurt experienced a relaxation that was weakening. He could hardly hold
the wheel and his mood became one of exaltation.
"Father suspected this Ruenke," went on Lenore. "But he wanted to find
out things from him. And I--I undertook--to twist Mr. Germany round my
finger. I made a mess of it.... He lied. I didn't make love to him. But
I listened to his love-making, and arrogant German love-making it was!
I'm afraid I made eyes at him and let him believe I was smitten.... Oh,
and all for nothing! I'm ashamed... But he lied!"
Her confidence, at once pathetic and humorous and contemptuous,
augmented Kurt's Homeric mood. He understood that she would not even let
him, for a moment, have a wrong impression of her.
"It must have been hard," agreed Kurt. "Didn't you find out anything at
all?"
"Not much," she replied. Then she put a hand on his sleeve. "Your
knuckles are all bloody."
"So they are. I got that punching our German friend."
"Oh, how you did beat him!" she cried. "I had to look. My ire was up,
too!... It wasn't very womanly--of me--that I gloried in the sight."
"But you cried out--you pulled me away!" exclaimed Kurt.
"That was because I was afraid you'd kill him," she replied.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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