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:
DILLENBECK WATER CO.