And those of her, even the painful ones, gave birth to a comfort that he knew must abide with him henceforth on lonely labors such as this, perhaps in the lonelier watches of a soldier's duty.

She had been curious, aloof, then sympathetic; she had studied his face; she had been an eloquent-eyed listener to his discourse on wheat.

But she had not guessed his secret.

Not until her last look--strange, deep, potent--had he guessed that secret himself.
So, with mind both busy and absent, Kurt Dorn harrowed the fallow ground abandoned by his men; and when the day was done, with the sun setting hot and coppery beyond the dim, dark ranges, he guided the tired horses homeward and plodded back of them, weary and spent.
He was to learn from Morgan, at the stables, that the old man had discharged both Andrew and Jansen.

And Jansen, liberating some newly assimilated poison, had threatened revenge.