Strangely, now and then a thought of Lenore Anderson entered his mind and made sudden havoc. It tended to retard action. He trembled and thrilled with a realization that every hour brought closer the meeting he could not avoid. And he discovered that it was whenever this memory recurred that he had to leave off his present task and rush to another. Only thus could he forget her. The late afternoon found him feeding sheaves of wheat to one of the steam-threshers. He stood high upon a platform and pitched sheaves from the wagons upon the sliding track of the ponderous, rattling threshing-machine. The engine stood off fifty yards or more, connected by an endless driving-belt to the thresher. Here indeed were whistle and roar and whir, and the shout of laborers, and the smell of smoke, sweat, dust, and wheat. Kurt had arms of steel. If they tired he never knew it. He toiled, and he watched the long spout of chaff and straw as it streamed from the thresher to lift, magically, a glistening, ever-growing stack. And he felt, as a last and cumulative change, his physical effort, and the physical adjuncts of the scene, pass into something spiritual, into his heart and his memory. The end of that harvest-time came as a surprise to Kurt. Obsessed with his own emotions, he had actually helped to cut the wheat and harvest it; he had seen it go swath by swath, he had watched the huge wagons lumber away and the huge straw-stacks rise without realizing that the hours of this wonderful harvest were numbered. Sight of Olsen coming in from across the field, and the sudden cessation of roar and action, made Kurt aware of the end. It seemed a calamity. But Olsen was smiling through his dust-caked face. About him were relaxation, an air of finality, and a subtle pride. "We're through," he said. "She tallies thirty-eight thousand, seven hundred an' forty-one bushels. It's too bad the old man couldn't live to hear that." Olsen gripped Kurt's hand and wrung it. "Boy, I reckon you ought to take that a little cheerfuller," he went on. "But--well it's been a hard time.... The men are leavin' now. In two hours the last wagons will unload at the railroad. The wheat will all be in the warehouse. An' our worry's ended." "I--I hope so," responded Kurt. He seemed overcome with the passionate longing to show his gratitude to Olsen. But the words would not flow. "I--I don't know how to thank you.... All my life--" "We beat the I.W.W.," interposed the farmer, heartily. "An' now what'll you do, Dorn?" "Why, I'll hustle to Kilo, get my money, send you a check for yourself and men, pay off the debt to Anderson, and then--" But Kurt did not conclude his speech. His last words were thought-provoking. "It's turned out well," said Olsen, with satisfaction, and, shaking hands again with Kurt, he strode back to his horses.