It is a good thing the wind does not blow from the same direction all the time. Things would never grow straight if it did. And if one emotion persists too long the human mind becomes even worse twisted than a tree. For that reason, if we are normal, buoyance and depression, ecstasy and pain follow each other as regularly as ripples on a stream. It is good they do, but it is hard to believe it when we are down in the trough of the wave.
As Bob started away with the promise of Jim Crill to lend him the money for the Red Butte Ranch, his blood was pumping faster than the running engine of his car. But directly enthusiasm began to slow down.
Suppose he lost—what an appalling debt for a man working at a hundred and fifty a month! It never figured in Bob's calculation to settle his debts in red ink. And there were chances to lose. The lawyer was waiting for him at the hotel when he returned.
"I saw Jenkins," he reported. "Says they paid $20,000 for the Red Butte lease last spring. Half of it for bonus on the lease, and half for the equipment. He claims the mules and equipment are easily worth $10,000; and he offers to sell lease and all for that, but won't consider a dollar less. I heard on the street this evening that a Chinaman had offered them $7,500. I have an option on it until eleven o'clock in the morning at $10,000."
"Thanks, T. J." Bob was figuring in his mind the basis of this price. "I'll let you know before that time." He went up to his room to think it out. He could hardly see any chance for loss, yet of course there was. If this was such a sure thing, why had not some of the more experienced cotton growers in the valley jumped at it? But Bob dismissed that line of reasoning with a positive jerk of his head. That was a weak man's reason—the excuse of failures, sheep philosophy. Every day of the year some new man came into a community and picked up a profitable opportunity that other people had stumbled over for years.
The lease was certainly a bargain; the land was in excellent condition, and there would be no difficulty about labour with plenty of Chinese and Mexicans. The price of cotton could scarcely go lower. Bob had no fear of that. Then what were the dangers? The chance of a water shortage was remote. There had been little trouble about water. Of course bad farming could spoil a crop; but Lou Wing was an expert cotton grower, and you could trust a Chinaman's vigilance. With Lou as a partner he could be sure the crop would receive proper attention.
"It seems good!" Bob walked out of his room on to the balcony that ran the length of the hotel and stood overlooking the twinkling lights of the town. Calexico was getting to be quite a little city, and the string of lights were flung out for half a mile to the east and north. Across the line the high-arched sign of the Red Owl already winked alluringly.
He looked at his watch. It was only a quarter past eight. He turned back to his room, took his violin from the battered trunk, went to the garage, and in fifteen minutes was chugging south between the rows of cottonwood and willows that stood dim guardians in the night against the desert.
Imogene Chandler heard the machine coming. She put on her new spring coat and came out into the yard. The night was a little cool, and that new coat was the first article of wearing apparel she had bought for herself in three years.
"I'm glad you brought your fiddle again," she said as Bob came into the yard. She was bare-headed, and her hair showed loose and wavy in the starlight. "I've felt rather lilty all day." She snapped her fingers and danced round in a circle. "Just a little hippety-hoppety," she laughed, dropping down upon the bench. "Sit down and play to us—me and this wonderful night."
"I want to talk first." He laid the fiddle across his knees. In spite of the spell of the desert, figures were still running through his head.
"How like a man!" she said, mockingly. "And is it about yourself?"
"Of course," he replied, soberly. "You don't think I'd waste gasolene to come down here to talk about any other man, do you?"
"Before you begin on that absorbing subject," she bantered, "tell me, will our cotton now sell for enough to pay Mr. Crill that note?"
"Yes, but you are not going to sell it. He has extended the note another six months. Cotton is going up this fall."
"Isn't that great!" she exclaimed. "Here we have money enough for another crop, and can speculate on last year's cotton by holding for higher prices. Why, man, if it should go to ten cents we'd clear $3,000 on that cotton above what we already have."
"Yes, and if it goes to twelve, you'll have $4,500 to the good."
He sat still for a moment, gripping the neck of his fiddle with his fingers as though choking it into waiting.
"Well?" she prompted.
"I've got a chance for something big." He got up and walked, holding the fiddle by the neck, swinging it back and forth. "If I put it through, it will be a fortune; but if I fail I'll be in debt world without end—mortgaged all the rest of my life!"
Walking back and forth before her in the starlight he told Imogene Chandler of the big opportunity—of the rare combination of circumstances which made it possible for him, without property or backing, to borrow one hundred thousand dollars for a crop; and marshalled his reasons for belief in its success. "The water might fail," she suggested, when he had finished and sat down again with the fiddle across his knee.
"Yes, it might," he admitted.
"The Chinamen might get into trouble among themselves or with the Mexicans and leave you at a critical time."
"Possibly."
"The duty might be raised on cotton," she added.
"Yes," he confessed.
"But," she continued, "there is one thing much more likely than any of these—a thing fairly certain. Reedy Jenkins will fight you in every way he can invent. First he'll fight to get your money; and then he'll fight you just for hate."
"I have thought of that," Bob again got up, moved by the agitation of doubt. If it were his own money to be risked he would not hesitate a moment—but one hundred thousand dollars of another man's money and his own reputation!
"For these reasons," continued Imogene Chandler, "I advise you to go into it—andyou'llwin.
"Now play to me."
Imogene Chandler had spoken most confidently to Bob of his success. But after he was gone she began to be pestered by uneasy doubts—which is the way of a woman.
She and her father had been compelled to operate on small capital. They had figured, or rather Imogene had, dollar at a time. This new venture of Rogeen's rather appalled her. A hundred thousand of borrowed money! It was almost unthinkable. Anywhere else but in this land of surprises such a proposition would seem entirely fantastic.
With so much involved any disastrous turn would leave him hopelessly in debt. And besides—her thoughts took a more uneasy turn—she felt it was going to put him in danger. Reedy Jenkins and his Mexican associates would be very bitter over Bob's getting the Red Butte—and they might do anything.
The next evening, when Noah Ezekiel came over, Imogene had not gone to her shack.
"Sit down, Noah," she said, "I want to talk to you."
"That's what my maw used to say when I'd been swimmin' on Sunday," observed the hill billy as he let his lank form down on the bench.
Imogene laughed. "Well, I'm not going to scold you for breaking the Sabbath or getting your feet wet, or forgetting to shut the gate. What I want, Noah, is to get your opinion."
"It's funny about opinions," remarked Noah impersonally to the stars. "Somebody is always gettin' your opinion just to see how big a fool you are, and how smart they are."
"Noah Ezekiel Foster," the girl spoke reprovingly. "You know better than that. You know I want your opinion because I think you know more about cotton than I do."
"All right," said Noah, meekly. "Lead on. I got more opinions in my head than Ben Davis' sheep used to have cockle burs in their wool."
"What do you think of the Red Butte Ranch?"
"It's a blamed fine ranch."
"Do you think Mr. Rogeen will make money on it?" She tried to sound disinterested.
"That reminds me," replied Noah, "of Sam Scott. Sam went to Dixion and started a pool hall under Ike Golberg's clothing store. After Sam got it all fixed up with nice green-topped tables and white balls, and places to spit between shots, he got me down there to look it over.
"'How does she look?' says Sam.
"'She looks all right,' I said.
"'I'm going to get rich,' declares Sam.
"'That all depends' I says, 'on one thing.'
"'What's that?' says Sam.
"'On whuther there is more money comes down them stairs than goes up.'"
Noah twisted his shoulders and again looked up impersonally at the stars.
"You see makin' money is mighty simple. All you got to do is take in more than you pay out. But the dickens of it is, losin' it is just as simple—and a durned sight easier."
Imogene was smiling into the dusk, but her thoughts were on serious matters.
"Well, which do you think Mr. Rogeen will do?"
Noah twisted his shoulders again, and shuffled his feet on the ground.
"I always hate to give a plumb out opinion—because it nearly always ruins your reputation as a prophet. But Bob ain't nobody's fool. And he's white from his heels to his eyeballs—everything except his liver."
Imogene laughed, but felt a swelling in the throat. That tribute from the hill bill meant more than the verdict of a court.
"The only trouble is," Noah was speaking a little uneasily himself, "Reedy Jenkins is a skunk and he's got some pizen rats gnawing for him. There ain't nothin' they won't do—except what they are afraid to. Bob's got 'em so they don't tie their goats around his shack any more. But they are going to do him dirt, sure as a tadpole makes a toad.
"Reedy Jenkins has got hold of a lot of money somewhere again; and he's set out to bush Bob, and get away with the pile. I don't know just how he's aimin' to do it; but Reedy don't never have any regrets over what happens to the other fellow if it makes money for him."
The hill billy's words made Imogene more uneasy than before. And yet looking at the lank, droll fellow sitting there in the starlight, she again smiled, and sighed.
"Well, I'm mighty glad Mr. Rogeen has you for a friend," she said aloud.
"A friend," observed Noah, "is sorter like a gun—expensive in town but comfortin' in the country.
"But really I ain't no good, Miss Chandler. As I used to say to my dad, 'if the Lord made me, he must have done it sort of absent mindedly, for he ain't never found no place for me.'"
Imogene arose. She knew this big-hearted, rough hill billy must be tired. She went over and laid her hand lightly on his shoulder and said with a solemn tightening of the throat—"Noah, you are the salt of the earth—and I'd rather have you for a friend than a diamond king."
Noah arose, emotion always made him uncomfortable, and shuffled off to his tent without a word.
But he turned at the entrance to the tent, and looked back. The girl sat quite still, her face turned up toward the stars.
"Well," said Noah to himself, "she's got me all right."
On the fourteenth of June Bob Rogeen and Noah Ezekiel Foster rode through the Red Butte Ranch.
The fields lay before them checkered off into squares by the irrigation ditches, level as a table. The long rows of cotton were five to ten inches high, and of a dark green colour. The stand on most of the fields was almost perfect. One Chinaman with a span of mules cultivated fifty acres.
"Lou Wing is a great farmer," continued Bob, enthusiastically. "He is doing the work for 45 per cent. of the crop. I pay the water and the rent; and of course I have to advance him the money to feed and pay his hands. He has twenty partners with a separate camp for each; and each partner has four Chinamen working for him. That is system, Noah. It certainly looks like riches, doesn't it?"
"All flesh is grass," Noah sighed lugubriously, "except some that's weeds."
"Cotton is going up every day," said Bob. "It was nine cents and a fraction yesterday."
"That means," remarked Noah Ezekiel, "Reedy Jenkins could sell them eight thousand bales he's got stacked up on this side and pay all his debts and have twenty thousand over."
"But Reedy is not paying his debts."
"Not yet," said Noah; "he is borrowin' more money."
"Is that so?" Bob was sharply interested. He had not feared Reedy much while he was out of funds. "When did you hear that?"
"Saturday night," replied Noah. "You can gather a whole lot more information round the Red Owl than you can moss."
"I wonder what he is going to do with it?" Bob's mind was still on Reedy Jenkins.
"He's done done with it," answered Noah. "He's bought the Dillenbeck irrigation system."
Instantly all exuberant desire to shout went from Bob's throat and a chill ran along his veins. In a twinkling the heat of the friendly sun upon those wide green fields with their fingered network of a hundred water ditches became a threat and a menace. After all, by what a narrow thread does security hang!
Bob walked as one on a precipice during the following weeks. Never was a man more torn between hope and fear. On the one hand, the cotton grew amazingly. Fed by the nourishment stored in that soil which had lain dormant for thousands of years, watered by the full sluices from the Colorado River and warmed like a hotbed by the floods of sunshine day after day, the stalks climbed and climbed and branched until they looked more like green bushes than frail plants. Bob rode the fields all day long, even when the thermometer crept up to 127 in the shade, and a skillet left in the sun would fry bacon and eggs perfectly done in seven minutes. Often he continued to ride until far into the night, watching the chopping of the weeds, watching the men in the fields, and most of all watching the watering. Yes, the crop was advancing with a promise almost staggering in its richness. It looked now as though some of these fields would go to a bale and a half an acre. And slowly but surely the price of cotton had climbed since March, a quarter of a cent one day, a half the next, a jump of a whole cent one Friday; and now on the second day of August it touched 10.37. With a bale to the acre at that price Bob could add $30,000 to his estimated expense and still clear a hundred thousand dollars on this crop. When he thought of it as he rode along the water ditches in the early evening, he grew fairly dizzy with hope. But then on the other side: the unformed menace—Reedy Jenkins owned the water system!
The fear had taken tangible shape when he got his water bill for June. But there was no raise in price. Again yesterday, the bill for July came, and still no raise in price.
It was ten o'clock that night when he got into Calexico and went to the hotel.
As the clerk gave him the key to his room, he also handed him a letter, saying:
"A special delivery that came for you an hour ago; I signed for it."
Bob's fingers shook slightly as he took it. Glancing swiftly at the corner of the envelope he read:
Reedy Jenkins, the first night of August, sat in his office, the windows open, the door open, the neck of his soft shirt open, and his low shoes kicked off. But his plump, pink face was freshly shaven and massaged and he wore two-dollar silk socks. Even in dishabille Reedy had an air of ready money.
There had been dark days last fall when he had been so closely cornered by his creditors that it took many a writhe and a wriggle to get through. Nobody but himself, unless it was the dour Tom Barton, knew how overwhelmingly he was bankrupt.
But Reedy had kept up an affable front to all his creditors and a ready explanation. "We are all broke, everybody in same boat. Why sweat over it? Of course I've got some cotton across the line; we'll just leave it there and save the duty until it'll sell. Then I'll pay out."
He kept up this reassurance until cotton began to sell, and then he postponed:
"Wait; we are all easier now. Got enough so I can cash in any day and have plenty to pay all bills. But just wait until it goes a little higher."
And when it had gone to eight cents, eight and a half, and at last nine, his creditors had ceased to worry him. Now that Reedy could sell out any day and liquidate, and still be worth a hundred thousand or more, there was no hurry to collect. Nobody wants to push a man who can pay his debts any hour. Some of them even began to lend him more money. He had borrowed $25,000 as a first payment on the $200,000 for the Dillenbeck water system.
To-night Reedy had a list of figures before him again. Cotton had touched 9.76 to-day. Things were coming to a head. It was time to act.
Reedy had one set of figures in which 8,000 bales were multiplied by fifty and a fraction. It added $474,000. There was a column of smaller sums, the largest of which was, Revenue $28,000. These smaller sums were totalled and subtracted from $474,000, leaving $365,000—a sum over which Reedy moistened his lips. Then he multiplied 15,000 acres by something and set that sum also under the $365,000 and added again. The total made him roll his pencil between his two plump hands.
Madrigal, the Mexican Jew, entered with a jaunty gesture, and took a chair and lighted a cigarette.
"When did you get back from Guaymas?" Reedy leaned back, lighted a match on the bottom of his chair and touched it to a plump cigar.
"Yesterday, Señor Reedy." There was always a mixture of aggressiveness and mocking freshness in Madrigal's tone and air.
"See Bondeberg?"
The Mexican nodded.
"Everything all right?"
"Si, si." Madrigal sometimes was American and sometimes Mexican.
"I've had a dickens of a time getting trucks," said Reedy, speaking in a low, casual tone. "But I got 'em—twenty. Be unloaded to-morrow or the next day. I've arranged to take care of the duty. They are to be sold, you understand, with an actual bill of sale to each of the twenty Mexican chauffeurs you have employed."
Madrigal nodded lightly as though all of this was primer work for him.
"Have everything ready by the tenth. I think I can close up this water deal by that time."
As the Mexican left, Reedy reached for his telephone and called El Centro.
"Mrs. Barnett?" Soft oiliness oozed from his voice. "This is Reedy. What are you doing this evening? Nothing? How would you like a little spin out to the foot of the mountains to get a cool breath and watch the moon rise?—All right. I'll be along in about thirty minutes. By, by." The words sounded almost like kisses.
"Mrs. Barnett"—Reedy slowed down the machine as they drove off across the desert toward the foothills—"I owe everything to you."
The widow, all in white now—very light, cool white—felt a little shivery thrill of pride go over her. She half simpered and tried to sound deprecating.
"Oh, you merely flatter me." She was rolling a small dainty handkerchief in her palms.
"No, indeed!" responded Reedy, roundly. "No one can estimate the influence of a good woman on a man's life."
"I'm so glad"—the shivery thrill got to her throat—"if I've really helped you—Reedy." It was the first time she had used his given name, although he had often urged it.
"You know," he continued, "in spite of the great opportunities for wealth here, I do not believe that I could have endured this valley if it had not been for you. You can't imagine what it means to a man, after the disagreeable hurly-burly of the day's business, to know there is a pure, sweet, womanly woman waiting for him on the porch."
Mrs. Barnett gulped, filled with emotion. "I do believe," she almost gushed, "men like the shy, womanly woman who keeps her place best after all."
"They certainly do!"
"I don't see," mused Mrs. Barnett, "how a man reallycouldcare for a woman who becomes so—so—well, rough and sunburned, and coarsened by sordid work—like that Chandler woman, for instance. I mean, I don't see how anygoodman could care for that sort."
"Nor I," said Reedy, emphatically. He steered with one hand, and got both of her hands in the other.
"This year is going to be a great one for me. Cotton is already over ten cents. I'll need only $25,000 more, and then I can clean up a fortune for all of us."
Mrs. Barnett, still thrilling to that hand pressure, moved a little uneasily.
"Uncle Jim has been right hard to manage for the last two times. He was real ugly about that last $40,000. I had to remind him how much my poor mother did for him and how little he had done for us before he would listen to me."
No wonder the widow quaked within her at the honour of being elected to do it all over again. It was not because she hesitated to attempt it for so noble a man; but for the moment she was desperate for a way to go at it. She had used in the last effort every "womanly" device known to conservative tradition for separating a man from his money. But she hesitated only a moment. A watery heart and a dry eye never won a fat loan. Undoubtedly her womanly intuition—or Providence—would show her a way.
"I'll do my best, Mr. Jenkins"—she lapsed into the formal again—"to get the loan for you. But Uncle is getting right obstinate."
"That's all right, little girl," he patted her hands. "I trust you to do it, you could move the heart of Gibraltar. And as I've promised you all the time, when I close up these deals I'm going to give you personally $25,000 of the profits in appreciation of your assistance. And that is not all"—he squeezed both the widow's hands a moment, then released them as if by terrific resolution—"but more of that later. We must close up this prosaic business first."
The next morning at ten o'clock Jim Crill stamped up the outside stairway, stamped through the open door and threw a check for $25,000 on Reedy's desk.
"That's the last," the old gentleman snapped with finality. "And I want to begin to see some payments mighty quick."
Reedy smiled as the old gentleman stamped back down the stairs, proud of his own ability as a "worker." And he was not without admiration for Mrs. Barnett's ability in that line. It would be interesting to know how she had done it so quickly.
"If the old man knew," Reedy picked up the check and grinned at the crabbed signature, "what this is going for, he'd drop dead with apoplexy at the foot of the stairs."
He reached for the telephone and called the freight agent:
"Are those motor trucks in yet? Good! We'll have them unloaded at once."
There are two ways to make a lot of money perfectly honestly: One is to produce much at a time when the product legitimately has such a high value that it shows a good profit. The other is to plan, invent, or organize so as to help a great many men save a little more, or earn a little more, and share the little with each of the many benefited. And there are two ways to get money wrongfully: One is by criminal dishonesty—taking under some of the multiple forms of theft what does not at all belong to one. The other is by moral dishonesty—forcing or aggravating acute needs, and taking an unfair advantage of them, blackmailing a man by his critical wants.
Reedy Jenkins had merely intended to be the latter. He had not planned to produce anything, nor yet to help other men produce, but to farm other men's needs—get hold of something so necessary for their success that it would force tribute from them. He planned to hold a hammer over the weakest link in others' financial deals and threaten to break it unless they paid him double for the hammer.
Reedy indorsed Jim Crill's check, and stuck it in his vest pocket. He liked to go into a bank and carelessly pull $25,000 checks out of his vest pocket. Then he took from a drawer twenty letters already typed, signed them, and put them into envelopes addressed to the ranchers who bought water of the Dillenbeck Water Co.
"Now"—Reedy moistened his lips and nodded his head—"we are all set."
Bob tore the letter open with one rip, and read it with his back to the desk:
DEAR SIR:We regret to say that dredging and other immediate repairs on our canal make a rather heavy assessment imperative. The work must be done at once, and the company's funds are entirely exhausted. Your assessment is $10 an acre; and this must be paid before we can serve you with any more water.Very truly,DILLENBECK WATER Co.,Per R. Jenkins, Pres. & Mgr.
Ten dollars an acre! Fifty thousand dollars! Bob walked slowly out of the hotel. There was no use to go up to his room. No sleep to-night.
Jenkins' plot was clear now. He had merely been waiting for the most critical time. The next two waterings were the most vital of the whole season. The little squares that form the boll were taking shape. If the cotton did not get water at this time the bolls would fall off instead of setting.
Bob walked down the street, on through to the Mexican section of town, thinking. He must do something, but what?
It was a sweltering night and people were mostly outdoors. Under the vines in front of a small Mexican house a man played a guitar and a woman hummed an accompaniment. Across the street a little Holiness Mission was holding prayer meeting, and through the open windows an organ and twenty voices wailed out a religious tune.
Bob turned and walked back rapidly, and crossed the Mexican line. At the Red Owl he might hear something.
It was so hot that even the gamblers were listless to-night. The only stir of excitement was round one roulette wheel. Bob started toward the group, and saw the centre of it was Reedy Jenkins with his hat tipped back, shirt open at the throat, sleeves rolled to elbows, playing stacks of silver dollars on the "thirty."
Bob leaned against one of the idle tables and talked with the game keeper, a pleasant, friendly young chap.
"Wonder what the Mexicans are going to do with so many motor trucks?" the gamester asked casually.
"Motor trucks?" Bob repeated.
"Yes, they unloaded a whole string of them over here to-day. One of the boys said he counted twenty."
As Bob left the gambling hall Reedy was still playing the roulette wheel at twenty dollars a throw.
Rogeen got his car and started south. He would see for himself if there was any basis for Jenkins' claim that immediate work must be done on the water system. It was late and there were no lights at any of the little ranch shacks over the fields.
Chandler's place was dark like the rest. They were sleeping. Their notice would not come until to-morrow or next day. He would not wake them. Anyway to-night he had forgotten his fiddle, but he grimly remembered his gun.
He drove through the Red Butte Ranch without stopping. He could scarcely bear even to look to the right or left at those long rich rows of dark green cotton.
Turning off the main road south toward the Dillenbeck canal, something unusual stirred in Bob's consciousness. At first he could not think what was the matter; but directly he got it—the car was running differently. This road across a patch of the desert was usually so bumpy one had to hold himself down. To-night the car ran smoothly. The road had been worked—was being worked now—for a quarter of a mile ahead he heard an engine and made out some sort of road-dragging outfit.
The simplest way in the world to make a road across a sandy desert, or to work one that has been used, is to take two telephone poles, fasten them the same distance apart as automobile wheels, hitch on an engine, and drag them lengthwise along the road. This not only grinds down the uneven bumps but packs the sand into a smooth, firm bed for the machine's wheels.
That was what they were doing here. Bob stayed back and watched. He did not want to overtake them. The road-breaking outfit crossed the canal directly and headed south by east off into the desert. Bob stopped his machine on the plank bridge, and watched them pull away into the night. Then he gave a long, speculative whistle.
"I wonder," he said, "what philanthropist is abroad in the land at one o'clock in the morning?"
Rogeen left his machine and followed on foot along the bank of the canal for two miles. The water was flowing freely. There was no sign of immediate need for dredging. Some of the small ranches were getting water to-night. He was glad of that. The Red Butte had finished watering its five-thousand-acre crop a week ago. It would be three days before they would need to begin again.
He went back to his machine and drove clear up to the intake from the Valley Irrigation Company's canal. The water was running smoothly all the way. The ditches seemed open, and in fair shape. Some work was needed of course every day; but there was no call for any quick, expensive repairs.
"Make it plain to the Chandler girl that this is her last chance to sell before I ruin her crop.""Make it plain to the Chandler girl that this is her last chanceto sell before I ruin her crop."
"Make it plain to the Chandler girl that this is her last chance to sell before I ruin her crop.""Make it plain to the Chandler girl that this is her last chanceto sell before I ruin her crop."
No, Jenkins' call for money was purely for himself and not the water system. The whole thing was robbery. But how could it be prevented? Injunctions by American courts did not extend over here, and Reedy undoubtedly had an understanding with the Mexican authorities.
There was nothing for it, thought Bob, but to choose one of two evils: Be robbed of $50,000, or lose five thousand acres of cotton. He set his teeth and started the little car plugging back across the sand toward the American line.
A little after daylight Bob was in El Centro. Jim Crill, always an early riser, was on the porch reading the morning paper.
"Come and have breakfast with me," Bob called from the machine. "Got some things to talk over."
He handed Crill the letter from the water company. Not a muscle in the old gentleman's face changed as he read, but two spots of red showed at the points of his sharp cheekbones.
"If it was your own money in that crop, what would you do?" asked Jim Crill, shortly.
"I'd fight him to hell and back." Bob's eyes smoldered.
"Then fight him to hell and back," said the old man, shortly. "And if you don't get back, I'll put up a tombstone for you.
"I've believed all along," said Jim Crill, "that Reedy Jenkins is a rascal. But," he lifted his left eyebrow significantly, "womenfolks don't always see things as we do. Anyway, my trust was in cotton—it is honest—and sooner or later I'll get his cotton. He's got to bring it across the line to sell it.
"I've taken up all the other liens on that cotton," Crill continued, "so there'll be no conflicting claims. I've got $215,000 against those eight thousand bales."
He took a bill book from his hip pocket, and removed some papers.
"I was coming over to see you this morning. Been called away. Trouble in our Texas oil field. Main gusher stopped. May be a pauper instead of a millionaire. Would have got out of this damned heat before now if I hadn't wanted to keep an eye on Jenkins.
"Now I'm going to turn these bills over to you for collection. Get $215,000 with 10 per cent. interest, and half his cotton seed."
Bob's eyes were straight ahead on the road as he drove back to Calexico; his hands held the wheel with a steady grip, but his mind was neither on the road nor on the machine.
"Well," he smiled to himself, grimly, "at any rate, I'm accumulating a good deal of business to transact with Reedy Jenkins. I suppose first move is a personal interview with him."
Bob stopped the machine in the side street and went up the outside stairway of the red brick building, with purpose in his steps. But the door of the office was closed, a notice tacked on it. Bob stepped forward and read it eagerly:
"Mr. Jenkins' office is temporarily removed to the main building of the Mexican Cotton Ginning Co."
"And so," said Bob as he went down the stairs, "Reedy has moved across the line." That was puzzling, and not at all reassuring.
Rogeen did not go to the cotton gin to see Reedy. He wanted first to find out what the move meant. For two days he was on the road eighteen hours a day, most of the time on the Mexican side, gathering up the threads of Jenkins' plot. The other ranchers by this time had all received their notices, and there was murder in some of their eyes. But most of them were Americans, the rest Chinamen, and neither wanted any trouble on that side.
"Jenkins has a stand-in, damn him," said Black Ben, one of the ranchers. "I'd like to plug him, but I don't want to get into a Mexican jail."
The second evening he met Noah Ezekiel at the entrance of the Red Owl. Bob had instructed Noah and Lou Wing to continue the work in the cotton fields exactly as though nothing impended.
"I was just lookin' for you," said Noah a little sheepishly.
"All right," responded Bob. "You've found me. What is on your mind?"
"Let us go a little apart from these sons of Belial," said Noah, sauntering past the Owl into the shadows.
"I picked up a fellow down by the Red Butte today," began Noah, "that had been on one of these here walkin' tours—the kind you take when your money gives out. After he'd stuffed himself with pottage and Chinese greens, and fried bacon, and a few other things round the camp, he got right talkative. He says they've broke a good road through the sand straight from Red Butte to the head of the Gulf of California. And that there is a little ship down there from Guaymas lying round waiting for something to happen."
"Noah"—Bob gripped Ezekiel's arm—"I've been working on that very theory. Your news clinches it. Reedy is never going to take that cotton across the American line. He is planning to shoot it down across that eighty-five miles of desert to the Gulf on motor trucks, ship it to Guaymas, and sell it there to an exporter. He is not even going to pay poor old Ah Sing for picking it; and as a final get-away stake he is trying to hold us up for $150,000 on the water. He has moved across the line for safety, and never intends to move back."
"He won't need to," said Noah Ezekiel. "He is due to get away with about half a million. But what do we care?" Noah shook his head solemnly. "As my dad used to say, 'Virtue is its own reward.' That ought to comfort you, Brother Rogeen, when you are working out that $78,000 of debts at forty dollars a month."
Early next morning Bob went to the executive offices, and waited two hours for the arrival of the governor. Rogeen knew of course that Madrigal, the Mexican Jew, was engineering the Mexican end of the conspiracy; but he wanted to discover who the Mexican official was from whom they were securing protection.
Bob stated his business briefly, forcibly. He was one of the ranchers who got water from the Dillenbeck canal. The company was endeavouring to rob them. The ranchers wanted protection, and wanted water at once. The official was very courteous, solicitous, sympathetic. He would look into it immediately. Would Señor Rogeen call again tomorrow?
Señor Rogeen would most certainly call again tomorrow. When he left the office he went direct to Ah Sing's ranch.
"Ah Sing," said Bob, "I want you to turn over to me your $80,000 claim against Reedy Jenkins for picking his eight thousand bales of cotton, and give me power of attorney to collect it."
"Allee light, I give him."
The next morning when the Mexican official came down to the office at ten o'clock he assured Bob most regretfully that although impetuous and violent efforts had been made to right his wrongs, unfortunately so far they had found no law governing the case. The Dillenbeck Company was a private water company, owned by American citizens; the Mexican officials had no power to fix the rate.
Bob went direct to the Mexican cotton gin.
"Jenkins"—Bob sat down on the edge of the offered chair, his feet on the floor, his knees bent as though ready to spring up—"I need to begin watering the Red Butte to-day, but your man tells me he has orders to keep the gates shut."
Reedy nodded, his plump lips shut tight, an amused leer in the tail of his eye. "You got my notice, didn't you? No cash, no water. Either ten dollars an acre spot cash or no spot cotton."
"Jenkins"—Bob's fingers were clutching his own knees as though holding themselves off the rascal's throat—"that is the dirtiest steal I ever knew."
"That is not near what the water is really worth to you," said Reedy, nonchalantly. "It is only about 20 per cent. of what your crop will make—if it does not burn up."
The knots in Bob's arms flattened out, and his tone took on casualness again.
"Jenkins, I've got a couple of little bills against you that I'm authorized to collect. One on the American side is a trifle of $215,000 which you owe Mr. Crill; the other on this side is for $80,000 that you owe Ah Sing. Do you wish to take care of them now? Or shall I attach your cotton?"
Reedy's pink face and wide mouth took on a grin that fairly oozed amusement. "Attach my cotton, by all means."
Bob got up, hesitated a second, sat down again, and took out his check book. As his pen scratched for a moment, the grin on Reedy's face changed to one of victorious greed. Rogeen tore out the check and handed it to Reedy.
"There is $1,600. Turn water on the Chandler ranch. As for mine, you can be damned."
Reedy toyed idly with the check a moment, slowly tore it up, and threw it in the wastebasket.
"I'm sorry, but I can't get water to the Chandler ranch without the rest order it, too. Perhaps"—he again took on a leer—"if Miss Chandler should come in and see me personally, something might be arranged."
"Jenkins"—the coolest, most concentrated anger of his life was in Bob's tone—"I know your whole plot. You can't get away with it. You may ruin my cotton, probably will, but I'm going to smash you and sell the pieces to pay your debts."
Reedy got to his feet, and flushed hotly. The threat had gone home.
"There are six hundred Mexican soldiers and policemen that will answer my call. You won't make a move they don't see.
"Don't bank on any threat about the United States Government. Mexicans have been picking off Americans whenever they got ready for the last three years; and nothing ever happens. They aren't one bit scared of the American Government.
"Don't fool yourself, Rogeen; you are outclassed this time. I know what I'm doing, and I'm going to do it. If you don't want to rot in a Mexican jail or bleach on the sands somewhere, you'll walk softly and stay on the other side."