"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."