The Desert Fiddler Part 10

"Won't need him!" Bob exclaimed. "With a hundred and sixty acres of cotton to irrigate and keep chopped out?"

"I can do a lot of the irrigating"--the girl spoke a little evasively--"and daddy can manage the rest."

He knew this was another case of exhausted funds.

"Can't you borrow any more?"

She laughed a frank confession.

"You guessed it. We haven't money to pay him. I've borrowed six hundred on the crop, and can't get another dollar."

He sat silent for several minutes looking off toward the cotton fields that would cry for water to-morrow in their fight against the eternal desert that brooded over this valley, thinking of her pluck. It made him ashamed of any wavering thought that ever scouted through his own mind.

He stood up. "And are you going to see it through?"

Alone beside the field as the moon rose she had wavered in doubt; but the answer came now with perfect a.s.surance.

"Most surely."

"So am I," he said. "Good-night."

But before he turned she put out her hand to touch his violin--her fingers touched his hand instead.

"Please--just once more," she asked.

He laughed whimsically as he sat down on the box and drew the bow.

"I'm proud of the human race," he said, "that fights for bread and still looks at the stars."

He began to play: he did not know what. It might have been something he had heard; but anyway to-night it was his and hers, the song of the rose that fought the desert all day for its life and then blossomed with fragrance in the night.

At the sound of the violin a man sitting on the edge of the ca.n.a.l by the cottonwood trees stirred sharply. There was a guitar across his knee. He had been waiting for the sound of voices to cease; and now the accursed fiddle was playing again. He spat vindictively into the stream.

"d.a.m.n the Americano!"

CHAPTER XII

Bob saw as he turned into the Bungalow Court at El Centro a youngish woman in white sitting on the second porch. In spite of the absence of the weeds he recognized her as the widow who had come down the street that other morning to meet Jim Crill. This, then, was Crill's place.

Evidently the twelve months of bereavement had elapsed, and Mrs.

Barnett, having done her full duty, felt that the ghost of her departed could no longer have any just complaints if she wore a little white of her own.

Bob had come to see Crill. Since that evening with Imogene Chandler he had worried a good deal about their being without money. He had tried to get the ginning company that had advanced his own funds to make them a loan. But everybody had grown wary and quit lending across the line.

Bob as a last resort had come up to see if Crill could be induced to help.

"Good morning." Rogeen lifted his straw hat as he stood on the first step of the porch, and smiled. "Is Mr. Crill at home?"

"No." Mrs. Barnett had nodded rather stiffly in response to his greeting, and lifted her eyes questioningly. She was waiting for someone else, and hence felt no cordiality for this stranger, whom she dimly seemed to remember.

"When will he be in?" The young man was obviously disappointed, and he really was good to look at.

"I don't know exactly." Mrs. Barnett relented slightly, having glanced down the road to be sure another machine was not coming. "But as I attend to much of his business, perhaps if you will tell me what it is you want I can arrange it for you. Won't you come up and have a chair?"

Bob accepted the invitation, not that he intended to mention his business to her, but he had a notion that Jim Crill was due to arrive about lunch time.

"Are you from the East?" That was Mrs. Barnett's idea of tactful flattery. She asked it of all callers.

"Yes."

"What part, may I ask?"

"All parts," he smiled, "east of here and west of the Mississippi."

"It is so different here," Mrs. Barnett lifted her brows and raised her eyes as though she were singing "The Lost Chord," "from what I am used to."

"Yes," a.s.sented Bob, "it is different from what I am used to. That is why I like it."

"Oh, do you?" Shocked disappointment in her tone implied that it was too bad he was not a kindred spirit. "I find everything so crude; and such loose standards here." A regretful shake of the head. "The women especially"--she thought of her tact again--"seem to have forgotten all the formalities and nice conventions of good society--if they ever knew. I suppose most of them were hired girls and clerks before they were married."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Reedy Jenkins makes a proposition to Imogene.]

Bob made no comment. He did not know much about "nice formalities,"

but it had struck him that the women of Imperial Valley were uncommonly good, friendly human beings, and he had seen a number of college diplomas scattered round the valley.

"I heard of a woman recently," Mrs. Barnett went on, "who in the East was in college circles; now she's living in a hut. Think of it, a hut over on the other side among the Chinese and Mexicans! The only woman there, and practically alone. It seems perfectly incredible! I don't see how any decent woman could do a thing like that. Why, I'd rather work in somebody's kitchen. There, at least, one could be respectable."

Bob got up.

"I guess I'll not wait longer for Mr. Crill," he said, and he went down the steps, walking with rapid aversion. If Jim Crill left his business to this female, he didn't want any of his money for the Chandlers.

The ginning company had agreed to lend Bob up to $1,500 on the crop, advancing it along as he needed it. He was renting his teams, and had bought very little machinery, so he had managed to use less than his estimate. On his way back to the ranch he stopped at the company's office in Calexico, and drew two hundred dollars more on the loan.

A few days later Rogeen, watching his opportunity, saw Chandler riding alone toward town, and went out to the road and stopped him. After some roundabout conversation Bob remarked:

"By the way, a friend of mine has a little money he wants to lend to cotton growers at 10 per cent. Do you suppose you would be able to use a couple of hundreds of it?"

"Ahem!" The ex-professor ran a bony hand over a lean chin. "It is extremely probable, young man, extremely probable. I am very much inclined to think that I can--that is, provided he would esteem my personal signature to a promissory note sufficient guarantee for the payment of the indebtedness."

"That will be entirely sufficient." Bob smiled rea.s.suringly, and pretended to write out--it was already prepared--a note. Chandler signed, and Bob gave him two hundred dollars in currency.

The next evening when Bob returned from the field he found a sealed envelope on the little board table in his shack. It contained $100 in currency and a note which read:

You can't afford this loan; but we need the money so darned bad I'm going to split it with you. I like the fiddle better than any musical instrument that is made.

I. C.