CHAPTER XXVGARRY BALKS
The major was ready to see Garry Knapp at nine o’clock the next morning. He was suffering one of his engagements with the enemy rheumatism, and there really was a strong reason for his having put off this interview until the shy Westerner had become somewhat settled at The Cedars as a guest.
Dorothy took Garry up to the major’s room after breakfast, and they found him well-wrapped in a rug, sitting in his sun parlor which overlooked the lawns of The Cedars.
The young man from the West could not help being impressed by the fact that he was the guest of a family that was well supplied with this world’s goods—one that was used to luxury as well as comfort. Is it strange that the most impressive point to him was the fact that he had no right to eventhinkof trying to win Dorothy Dale?
When he had awakened that morning and looked over the luxurious furnishings of his chamber and the bathroom and dressing room connected with it, he had told himself:
“Garford Knapp, you are in wrong! This is no place for a cowpuncher from the Western plains. What little tad of money you can sell your ranch for won’t put you in any such class as these folk belong to.
“And as for thinking of that girl—Great Scot! I’d make a fine figure asking any girl used to such luxury as this to come out and share a shack in Desert City or thereabout, while I punched cattle, or went to keeping store, or tried to match my wits in real estate with the sharks that exploit land out there.
“Forget it, Garford!” he advised himself, grimly. “If you can make an honest deal with this old major, make it and then clear out. This is no place for you.”
He had, therefore, braced himself for the interview. The major, eyeing him keenly as he walked down the long room beside Dorothy, made his own judgment—as he always did—instantly. When Dorothy had gone he said frankly to the young man:
“Mr. Knapp, I’m glad to see you. I have heard so much about you that I feel you and I are already friends.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Garry, quietly, eyeing the major with as much interest as the latter eyed him.
“When my daughter was talking one day aboutyou and the land you had in the market adjoining the Hardin tract it struck me that perhaps it would be a good thing to buy,” went on the major, briskly. “So I set our lawyers on your trail.”
“So Miss Dorothy tells me, sir,” the young man said.
“Now, they know all about the offer made you by those sharpers, Stiffbold & Lightly. They advised me to risk a thousand dollar option on your ranch and I telegraphed them to make you the offer.”
“And you may believe I was struck all of a heap, sir,” said the young man, still eyeing the major closely. “I’ll tell you something: You’ve got me guessing.”
“How’s that?” asked the amused Major Dale.
“Why, people don’t come around and hand me a thousand dollars every day—and just on a gamble.”
“Sure I am gambling?” responded the major.
“I’m not sure of anything,” admitted Garry Knapp. “But it looks like that. I accepted the certified check—I have it with me. I don’t know but I’d better hand it back to you, Major, for I think you have been misinformed about the real value of the ranch. The price per acre your lawyers offer is away above the market.”
“Hey!” exclaimed Major Dale. “You call yourself a business man?”
“Not much of one, I suppose,” said Garry. “I’ll sell you my ranch quick enough at a fair price. But this looks as if you were doing me a favor. I think you have been influenced.”
“Eh?” stammered the astounded old gentleman.
“By your daughter,” said Garry, quietly. “I’m conceited enough to think it is because of Miss Dale that you make me the offer you do.”
“Any crime in that?” demanded the major.
“No crime exactly,” rejoined Garry with one of his rare smiles, “unless I take advantage of it. But I’m not the sort of fellow, Major Dale, who can willingly accept more than I can give value for. Your offer for my ranch is beyond reason.”
“Would you have thought so if another man—somebody instead of my daughter’s father——” and his eyes twinkled as he said it, “had made you the offer?”
Garry Knapp was silent and showed confusion. The major went on with some grimness of expression:
“But if your conscience troubles you and you wish to call the deal off, now is your chance to return the check.”
Instantly Garry pulled his wallet from his pocket and produced the folded green slip, good for a thousand dollars at the Desert City Trust Company.
“There you are, sir,” he said quietly, and laid the paper upon the arm of the major’s chair.
The old gentleman picked it up, identified it, and slowly tore the check into strips, eyeing the young man meanwhile.
“Then,” he said, calmly, “thatphase of the matter is closed. But you still wish to sell your ranch?”
“I do, Major Dale. But I can’t accept what anybody out there would tell you was a price out of all reason.”
“Except my lawyers,” suggested the major.
“Well——”
“Young man, you have done a very foolish thing,” said Major Dale. “A ridiculous thing, perhaps. Unless you are shrewder than you seem. My lawyers have had your land thoroughly cruised. You have the best wheat land, in embryo, anywhere in the Desert City region.”
Garry started and stared at him for a minute without speaking. Then he sighed and shrugged his shoulders.
“That may be, sir. Perhaps youdoknow more about the intrinsic value of my ranch than I do myself. But I know it would cost a mint of money to develop that old rundown place into wheat soil.”
“Humph! and if you had this—er—mintof money, what would you do?”
“Do? I’d develop it myself!” cried the young man, startled into enthusiastic speech. “I know there is a fortune there.Youare making big profits on the Hardin place already, I understand. Cattle have gone out; but wheat has come to stay. Oh, I know all about that! But what’s the use?”
“Have you tried to raise money for the development of your land?” asked the major quietly.
“I’ve talked to some bankers, yes. Nothing doing. The machinery and fertilizer cost at the first would be prohibitive. A couple of crop failures would wipe out everything, and the banks don’t want land on their hands. As for the money-lenders—well, Major Dale, you can imagine what sort of holdtheydemand when they deal with a person in my situation.”
“And you would rather have what seems to you a fair price for your land and get it off your hands?”
“I’ll accept a fair price—yes. But I can’t accept any favors,” said the young man, his face gloomy enough but as stubborn as ever.
“I see,” said the major. “Then what will you do with the money you get?”
“Try to get into some business that will make me more,” and Garry looked up again with a sudden smile.
“Raising wheat does not attract you, then?”
“It’s the biggest prospect in that section. Iknow it has cattle raising and even mining backed clear across the board. But it’s no game for a little man with little capital.”
“Then why not get into it?” asked Major Dale, still speaking quietly. “You seem enthusiastic. Enthusiasm and youth—why, my boy, they will carry a fellow far!”
Garry looked at him in a rather puzzled way. “But don’t I tell you, Major Dale, that the banks will not let me have money?”
“I’ll let you have the money—and at a fair interest,” said Major Dale.
Garry smiled slowly and put out his hand. The major quickly took it and his countenance began to brighten. But what Garry said caused the old gentleman’s expression to become suddenly doleful:
“I can’t accept your offer, sir. I know that it is a favor—a favor that is suggested by Miss Dorothy. If it were not for her, you would never have thought of sending for me or making either of these more than kind propositions you have made.
“I shall have to say no—and thank you.”