As the sun, like a burnished lid to some hotter caldron, slid down
behind the yellow sandhills that rimmed the desert, Imogene Chandler
felt as though she must scream. She would have made some wild outcry
of relief if it had not been for her father, who still sat in the
doorway of the shack, as he had all day, gray and bent like a dusty,
wilted mullein stalk.
It had been a terrible day--the hottest of the summer. And for a week
now the irrigation ditches had been dry. To-day the cotton leaves had
wilted; and the girl had looked away from the fields all afternoon. It
tortured her to see those rich green plants choking for water.
The sun gone, and a little relief from the heat, she began to prepare
supper.
[Illustration: "Shut off the water? Why all the cotton in the valley
will be withered in a day."]
As she stirred flour for biscuits, Imogene was blaming herself for ever
bringing her father here. But it had looked so like the great
opportunity to escape from the fetters of dry rot and poverty. So near
were they to success, with the rising prices this crop would make them
a small fortune--five thousand, perhaps seven or eight thousand dollars
clear--if only it had water. But to see it burn day by day, and all
because of the greed of Reedy Jenkins! She had sent her father with
the tribute of sixteen hundred dollars to Jenkins, but he had refused
it. He could not turn on the water for so small a ranch. She knew he
was trying to force Bob Rogeen through her to submit to the robbery.
Imogene and her father were dully eating their supper when Bob's
machine stopped at the ranch. But the moment the light from the
swinging lantern over the table fell on his face, she knew it was
hopeless, and her mind leaped from her own trouble to his.
"It all comes down to this"--they had not discussed the fight until the
little professor had gone to bed--"my backing must mean more to the
Mexican officials than Reedy Jenkins'. If I could only get Washington
to give the consul power to act, then we could apply pressure.
But"--he shrugged his shoulders fatalistically and looked moodily up at
the glittering stars--"you see how hopeless that is."
She gave a jump that almost scared him, and grabbed his arm. Her face
was so close to his he could see the excitement in her eyes even
through the dusk.
"I can help; it can be done!"
She was electrically alive now. "Daddy was a classmate of the
President's and was an instructor under him before we came West. He
thinks a lot of daddy, but daddy would never use his friendship with
the President to get a job. He's got to use it now--for you--for all
of us! Write a personal telegram to the President--the sort that will
get immediate action--and I'll make daddy sign it."
Bob was fairly white with excitement, and his hand shook as they sat
down at the board table under the lantern and carefully composed that
telegram. This was their one last hope, and it must get action.
"There, that will do it," Imogene nodded sagely. They were sitting
side by side, their heads close together, studying the final draft of
the appeal. The night wind blew a strand of her hair against his face,
and for a moment he forgot the desert, forgot the fight, forgot the
telegram, and saw only her. Then he shook himself free from the spell.
He must save the girl and himself before he dared speak.
Imogene roused up her father, and had him sign the message. And an
hour later by a combination of bribes, threats, and pleadings Bob got a
sleepy operator to reopen the telegraph office and speed the message to
Washington.
At five o'clock the next day the reply came. Bob signed for it, and
his fingers shook as he tore it open.
DEAR THEO:
State Department instructing consul by wire to take any action
necessary to protect American ranchers.
W.
By eleven o'clock that night he got a message from the consul; and
thirty minutes later Bob was speeding toward Tia Juana, a hundred and
fifty miles west, to see the Mexican governor.