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.