The Desert Fiddler Part 14

"Yes," Bob nodded. "I wondered if you had."

"Reckon I have," remarked Crill, dryly. "I'm puttin' up the money for it."

"You are?" Bob was surprised. This upset his suspicions in regard to that gin.

"Yes; don't you think it's a good investment?" The old gentleman's keen blue eyes looked searchingly from under the s.h.a.ggy brows at Rogeen.

"Lots of cotton raised over there," Bob answered, noncommittally. "And the Mexicans really ought to have a gin on their side of the line."

The old gentleman cleared his throat as though about to say something else; and then changed his mind and sat frowning in silence so long Bob wondered why he had sent for him.

"Lots of cotton raisers 'll go broke this fall." Crill broke the silence abruptly.

"Already are," replied Bob.

"Know what it means." The old gentleman jerked his head up and down.

"Hauled my last bale of five-cent cotton to the store many a time, and begged 'em to let the rest of my bill run another year. That was before I ran the store myself; and then struck oil on a patch of Texas land. Haven't got as much money as folks think but too much to let lie around idle. Think this valley is a good place to invest, don't you?"

Again the searching blue eyes peered at the young man.

"I certainly do," answered Bob with conviction. "The soil is bottomless; it will grow anything and grow it all the year."

"If it gets water," added the old gentleman.

"Of course--but we had plenty of water this year. And," went on Bob, "this war is not going to smash the cotton market forever. It's going to smash most of us who have no money to hold on with. But next spring or next summer or a year after, sooner or later, prices will begin to climb. The war will decrease production more than it will consumption.

The war demands will send the price of wool up, and when wool goes up it pulls cotton along with it. Cotton will go to twenty cents, maybe more."

"That sounds like sense." The old gentleman nodded slowly. "And it is the fellow that is a year ahead that gets rich on the rise; and the fellow a year behind that gets busted on the drop in prices."

"There are going to be some fortunes made in raising cotton over there," Bob nodded toward the Mexican line, "in the next four years that will sound like an Arabian Nights' tale of farming.

"I figured it out this summer. That land is all for lease; it is level, it is rich. They get water cheaper than we do on this side; and I can get Chinese help, which is the best field labour in the world, for sixty-five cents to a dollar a day. I was planning before this smash came to plant six hundred acres of cotton next year."

"That's what I wanted to see you about," said Crill. "Want to lend some money over there, and you are the fellow to do it. Want to lend it to fellows you can trust on their honour without any mortgages.

Guess mortgages over there aren't much account anyway.

"Want to keep the cotton industry up here in the valley. May want to start a cotton mill myself. Anyway," he added, belligerently, "a lot of 'em are about to lose their cotton crops; and this is a good time to stick 'em for a stiff rate of interest. Charge 'em 10 per cent--and half the cotton seed. I'm no philanthropist."

Bob smiled discreetly at the fierceness. That was the usual rate for loans on the Mexican side. And it was very reasonable considering the risk.

"Want to hire you," said the old man, "to lend money on cotton--and collect it. What you want a month?"

"I'll do it for $150 a month," answered Bob, "if it does not interfere with my own cotton growing next spring."

"We can fix that," agreed the old man.

"I think," replied Bob, "the best loans and the greatest help would be just now on the cotton already baled and at the compress. Most of the growers have debts for leases and water and supplies and borrowed money against their cotton, and cannot sell it at any price. Unless they do sell or can borrow on it by January first, these debts will take the cotton. If you would lend them six cents a pound on their compress receipts that would put most of them in the clear, and enable them to hold on a few months for a possible rise in price."

"That's your business." The old gentleman got up briskly. "I'll put $25,000 to your credit in the morning at the International Bank. It's your job to lend it. When it's gone, let me know."

"Oh, by the way," Bob's heart had been beating excitedly through all this arrangement, but he had hesitated to ask what was on his mind.

"Do you mind if--if I lend myself five cents a pound on 180 bales?"

The old man turned and glared at him fiercely.

"Do you reckon I'd trust you to lend to others if I didn't trust you myself? Make the loans, then explain the paper afterward."

Next morning Bob bought a second-hand automobile for two hundred and fifty dollars and gave his note for it. It was not much of an automobile, but it was of the sort that always comes home.

Rogeen headed straight south, and in less than an hour stopped at the Chandler ranch.

Imogene was under the shade of the arrow-weed roof, reading a magazine.

Rogeen felt a quick thrill as he saw her flush slightly as she came out to meet him.

"What means the gasolene chariot?" she asked. "Prosperity or mere recklessness?"

"Merely hopefulness," he answered. "I brought a paper for you. Sign on the dotted line." He handed her a promissory note, due in six months, for $4,500.

"What is this?" She had been living so long on a few dollars at a time that the figures sounded startling.

"I've got a loan on your cotton," replied Bob with huge satisfaction.

"And you can have it as soon as you and your father have signed the note."

"Good heavens!" The blood had left her face. "You are not joking, are you? Why, man alive, that means that we live! It will give us $1,400 above the debts."

Bob felt a choking in his throat. The pluckiness of the girl! And that he could bring her relief! "Yes, and I'm going to take you back to town, where you can pay off the debts and get your money."

The exuberant gayety that broke over the girl's spirits as they returned to town moved Bob deeply. What a long, hard pull she and her father had had; no wonder the unexpected relief sent her spirits on the rebound.

"Thank the Lord," he said, fervently, to himself, "for that sharp old man with bushy eyebrows!"

As they drove up to the International Bank where Bob had asked the compress company to send all the bills against the Chandler cotton, another machine was just driving away and a woman was entering the bank.

"By the great horn spoon," Bob exclaimed aloud, "that is Mrs. Barnett."

"Who is Mrs. Barnett?" Imogene Chandler asked archly. "Some special friend of yours?"

"Hardly," Bob replied, remembering that Miss Chandler knew neither Jim Crill nor his niece.

"And the man who was driving away," said Imogene, "was Reedy Jenkins."

"It was?" Bob turned quickly. "Are you sure? I was watching the woman and did not notice the machine."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A mutual discovery--they both cared.]

As they entered the bank Mrs. Barnett, dressed in a very girlish travelling suit, was standing by the check counter as though waiting.

At sight of Bob she nodded and smiled reservedly.

"Oh, Mr. Rogeen," she arched her brows and called to him as he started to the cas.h.i.+er's window with Imogene Chandler.