The Desert Fiddler Part 13

"Yes, I remember it," said the hill billy, plucking an extra large boll of lint. "I've tried to forget it, but somehow those things sort of stick in a fellow's mind."

In August the great war had broke in Europe.

Ships were rushing with war supplies, blockades declared, factories shut down. The American stock exchanges had closed to save a panic.

Buying and selling almost ceased. Money scuttled to the cover of safety vaults, and the price of cotton had dropped and dropped until finally it ceased to sell at all.

"It is going to bankrupt almost every grower in the valley," remarked Bob. "I'm certainly sorry for the Chandlers. They're up against it hard."

"As the poet says," Noah Ezekiel drew down the corners of his mouth, pulling a long face, "ain't life real?"

Bob laughed in spite of troubles. "Noah, I believe you'd joke at your own funeral."

"Why shouldn't I?" said Noah. "You joked with your undertaker's receipt." He grinned at the recollection of that event. "You sure broke that yellow dog Jenkins from suckin' eggs--temporarily."

"But ain't he stuck with his leases though. If I had as much money as he owes, I could fix these gamblers at the Red Owl so they wouldn't have to work any for the rest of their natural lives."

"Noah," Bob turned to his faithful foreman, "I want you to stick until we put this thing through. I'll see you don't lose a dollar."

"Don't you worry about me sticking," said Noah Ezekiel. "I never quit a man as long as he owes me anything."

The loyalty of the hill billy touched Rogeen, but as is the way of men, he covered it up with a brusque tone.

"You get the sacks ready. I'm going in to town and raise the money somehow to pick this cotton. I'll pick it if I never get a dollar out of it--can't bear to see a crop like that go to waste."

The cotton-gin people were in a desperate panic, but Bob went after them hard:

"Now see here, that war in Europe is not going to end the world; and as long as the world stands there will be a demand for cotton. This flurry will pa.s.s, and there's sure to be a big jump in the market for cotton seed. The war will increase the demand for oils of all kinds.

"That cotton has got to be picked, and you'll have to furnish the money. When it is ginned you can certainly borrow five cents a pound on it. That will pay for the water and the lease, the picking and the ginning--and the duty, too.

"Now you get the money for me to pick my field and Chandler's field.

They owe only $600 on the crop; so you'll be even safer there than with me. We'll leave the cotton with you as security. And then after you have borrowed all you can on it, I'll give you my personal note for all the balance I owe, and see you get every dollar of it, if I have to work it out during the next three years at twenty dollars a week."

It was that promise that turned the scales. No man of discernment could look at Rogeen and doubt either his pluck or his honesty.

Two days later forty Chinamen, more eager for jobs now than ever, were picking cotton at the Chandler and Rogeen ranches--twenty at each place.

Tom Barton went up the outside stairway thumping each iron step viciously. Six months of gloomy forebodings had terminated even more disastrously than he had feared. He found Reedy Jenkins rumpled and unshaven, laboriously figuring at his desk.

Reedy looked up with a sly-dog sort of smile. There were little rims of red round his eyes, but it was plain he had something new to spring on his creditor.

"I'm not figuring debts"--Jenkins reached in the drawer and got out a cigar and lighted it--"but profits."

"Yes," said Barton, murderously, "that is what you are always figuring on. Debts don't mean anything to you, because you aren't worth a d.a.m.n.

But debts count with me. You owe me $40,000 on this bright idea of yours, and your leases aren't worth a tadpole in Tahoe."

"Easy, easy!" Reedy waved his hand as though getting ready to make a speech. "Perhaps I have temporarily lost my credit; but with a requisite amount of cash, a man can always get it back--or do without it.

"I admit this d.a.m.n war has swamped me. I admit on the face of the returns I am snowed under--bankrupt to the tune of over $200,000. But nevertheless and notwithstanding I am going to get away with some coin."

"Well, I hope you don't get away with mine," growled Barton.

A laundry driver entered the door with a bill in his hand. Reedy grew a little redder and waved at the man angrily.

"Don't bother me with that now; don't you see I'm busy?"

"So am I," said the driver, aggressively, "and this is the third call."

"Leave it," said Jenkins, angrily, "and I'll have my secretary send you a check for it."

The driver threw it on Reedy's desk and left sullenly. Barton caught the figures on the unpaid bill--seventy-eight cents.

"I admit," Barton spoke sarcastically as he started for the door, "that your credit is gone. But if you don't dig up that forty thousand, you'll be as sorry you ever borrowed it as I am that I lent it."

The last of November Bob went down to the Chandler ranch to give an account of the cotton picking.

"You have 150 bales at the compress. I put up the compress receipts for the debts," said Bob to Imogene. "There is $3,123 against your cotton. I could not borrow another dollar on it."

"You have done so much for us already," the girl said, feelingly. "And we'll get along some way. If cotton would only begin to sell, we would have a little fortune."

"I have 180 bales," said Bob, "but I owe something over $4,000 on it.

I am going up to Calexico and get a job until spring." He hesitated a moment, looking at the girl thoughtfully. The summer and hard work and constant worry had left her thin and with a look of anxiety in her eyes.

"Hadn't you also better move to town?"

She laughed at that. "Why, dear sir, what do you suppose we should live on in town? Out here we have no rent and can at least raise some vegetables. No, we'll stick it out until we see whether this war is merely a flurry or a deluge."

For a week Bob hunted a job in Calexico. His need for funds was acute.

He had managed to get enough on his cotton to pay all his labour bills but had not kept a dollar for himself.

Tuesday evening he had gone up to his room at the hotel, a court room with one window and broken plaster and a chipped water pitcher. There was no job in sight. Everything was at a standstill, and the cotton market looked absolutely hopeless. His note for the $4,000 fell due January first. If he could not sell the cotton by that time, his creditors would take it over; and besides, he was held for any amount of the debt above what the cotton would bring at a forced sale.

He was bluer than he had been since he lost that first good job nine years ago. He went to the battered old trunk, opened the lid, and lifted the fiddle; stood with it in his hands a moment, put it against his shoulder and raised the bow. He was thinking of her, the girl left alone down there on the ranch--still fighting it out with the desert, the Mexicans, and the trailing calamities of this World War. He dropped the bow, he could not play. And just as he was returning the fiddle to his trunk there was a knock followed by the opening of the door. A chambermaid's head pushed in.

"There's a man down in the office wants to see you," announced the girl.

"Who is it?" asked Bob.

"Dunno--old fellow with eyebrows like a hair brush--and a long linen duster."

"I'll be right down," said Bob.

Jim Crill was sitting in a corner of the hotel office when Rogeen came down; and he motioned to Bob to take the chair beside him.

"Notice a cotton gin being built across the line?" the old gentleman asked, crossing his legs and thrusting his hands into his trousers pockets.