"Yes," replied Kurt.
"There's been a regular procession of them fellers, the last week or so, walkin' through the country," replied Jerry. "To-day's the first time any of them got to me. But I've heerd talk. Sunday when I was in Palmer the air was full of rumors."
"Rumors of what?" queried Kurt.
"All kinds," answered Jerry, nonchalantly scratching his stubby beard. "There's an army of I.W.W.'s comin' in from eastward. Idaho an' Montana are gittin' a dose now. Short hours; double wages; join the union; sabotage, whatever thet is; capital an' labor fight; threats if you don't fall in line; an' Lord knows what all."
"What did those two fellows want of you?"
"Wanted us to join the I.W.W.," replied the laborer.
"Did they want a job?"
"Not as I heerd. Why, one of them had a wad of bills thet would choke a cow. He did most of the talkin'. The little feller with the beady eyes an' the pock-marks, he didn't say much. He's Austrian an' not long in this country. The big stiff—Glidden, he called himself—must be some shucks in thet I.W.W. He looked an' talked oily at first—very persuadin'; but when I says I wasn't goin' to join no union he got sassy an' bossy. They made me sore, so I told him to go to hell. Then he said the I.W.W. would run the whole Northwest this summer—wheat-fields, lumberin', fruit-harvestin', railroadin'—the whole kaboodle, an' thet any workman who wouldn't join would git his, all right."
"Well, Jerry, what do you think about this organization?" queried Kurt, anxiously.
"Not much. It ain't a square deal. I ain't got no belief in them. What I heerd of their threatenin' methods is like the way this Glidden talks. If I owned a farm I'd drive such fellers off with a whip. There's goin' to be bad doin's if they come driftin' strong into the Bend."
"Jerry, are you satisfied with your job?"
"Sure. I won't join the I.W.W. An' I'll talk ag'in' it. I reckon a few of us will hev to do all the harvestin'. An', considerin' thet, I'll take a dollar a day more on my wages."
"If father does not agree to that, I will," said Kurt. "Now how about the other men?"
"Wal, they all air leanin' toward promises of little work an' lots of pay," answered Jerry, with a laugh. "Morgan's on the fence about joinin'. But Andrew agreed. He's Dutch an' pig-headed. Jansen's only too glad to make trouble fer his boss. They're goin' to lay off the rest of to-day an' talk with Glidden. They all agreed to meet down by the culvert. An' thet's what they was arguin' with me fer—wanted me to come."
"Where's this man Glidden?" demanded Kurt. "I'll give him a piece of my mind."
"I reckon he's hangin' round the farm—out of sight somewhere."
"All right, Jerry. Now you go back to work. You'll never lose anything by sticking to us, I promise you that. Keep your eyes and ears open."
Kurt strode back to the house, and his entrance to the kitchen evidently interrupted a colloquy of some kind. The hired men were still at table. They looked down at their plates and said nothing. Kurt left the sitting-room door open, and, turning, he asked Martha if his father had been to dinner.
"No, an' what's more, when I called he takes to roarin' like a mad bull," replied the woman.
Kurt crossed the sitting-room to knock upon his father's door. The reply forthcoming did justify the old woman's comparison. It certainly caused the hired men to evacuate the kitchen with alacrity. Old Chris Dorn's roar at his son was a German roar, which did not soothe the young man's rising temper. Of late the father had taken altogether to speaking German. He had never spoken English well. And Kurt was rapidly approaching the point where he would not speak German. A deadlock was in sight, and Kurt grimly prepared to meet it. He pounded on the locked door.
"The men are going to lay off," he called.
"Who runs this farm?" was the thundered reply.
"The I.W.W. is going to run it if you sulk indoors as you have done lately," yelled Kurt. He thought that would fetch his father stamping out, but he had reckoned falsely. There was no further sound. Leaving the room in high dudgeon, Kurt hurried out to catch the hired men near at hand and to order them back to work. They trudged off surlily toward the barn.
Then Kurt went on to search for the I.W.W. men, and after looking up and down the road, and all around, he at length found them behind an old strawstack. They were comfortably sitting down, backs to the straw, eating a substantial lunch. Kurt was angry and did not care. His appearance, however, did not faze the strangers. One of them, an American, was a man of about thirty years, clean-shaven, square-jawed, with light, steely, secretive gray eyes, and a look of intelligence and assurance that did not harmonize with his motley garb. His companion was a foreigner, small of stature, with eyes like a ferret and deep pits in his sallow face.
"Do you know you're trespassing?" demanded Kurt.
"You grudge us a little shade, eh, even to eat a bite?" said the American. He wrapped a paper round his lunch and leisurely rose, to fasten penetrating eyes upon the young man. "That's what I heard about you rich farmers of the Bend."
"What business have you coming here?" queried Kurt, with sharp heat. "You sneak out of sight of the farmers. You trespass to get at our men and with a lot of lies and guff you make them discontented with their jobs. I'll fire these men just for listening to you."
"Mister Dorn, we want you to fire them. That's my business out here," replied the American.
"Who are you, anyway?"
"That's my business, too."
Kurt passed from hot to cold. He could not miss the antagonism of this man, a bold and menacing attitude.
"My foreman says your name's Glidden," went on Kurt, cooler this time, "and that you're talking I.W.W. as if you were one of its leaders; that you don't want a job; that you've got a wad of money; that you coax, then threaten; that you've intimidated three of our hands."
"Your Jerry's a marked man," said Glidden, shortly.
"You impudent scoundrel!" exclaimed Kurt. "Now you listen to this. You're the first I.W.W. man I've met. You look and talk like an American. But if you are American you're a traitor. We've a war to fight! War with a powerful country! Germany! And you come spreading discontent in the wheat-fields, … when wheat means life! … Get out of here before I—"
"We'll mark you, too, Mister Dorn, and your wheat-fields," snapped Glidden.
With one swift lunge Kurt knocked the man flat and then leaped to stand over him, watching for a move to draw a weapon. The little foreigner slunk back out of reach.
"I'll start a little marking myself," grimly said Kurt. "Get up!"
Slowly Glidden moved from elbow to knees, and then to his feet. His cheek was puffing out and his nose was bleeding. The light-gray eyes were lurid.
"That's for your I.W.W.!" declared Kurt. "The first rule of your I.W.W. is to abolish capital, hey?"
Kurt had not intended to say that. It slipped out in his fury. But the effect was striking. Glidden gave a violent start and his face turned white. Abruptly he hurried away. His companion shuffled after him. Kurt stared at them, thinking the while that if he had needed any proof of the crookedness of the I.W.W. he had seen it in Glidden's guilty face. The man had been suddenly frightened, and surprise, too, had been prominent in his countenance. Then Kurt remembered how Anderson had intimated that the secrets of the I.W.W. had been long hidden. Kurt, keen and quick in his sensibilities, divined that there was something powerful back of this Glidden's cunning and assurance. Could it be only the power of a new labor organization? That might well be great, but the idea did not convince Kurt. During a hurried and tremendous preparation by the government for war, any disorder such as menaced the country would be little short of a calamity. It might turn out a fatality. This so-called labor union intended to take advantage of a crisis to further its own ends. Yet even so, that fact