The Quest of the Silver Fleece Part 20

Colonel Cresswell started; this man evidently had inside information.

Did he know of the mortgage, too?

"Don't be alarmed. I'm safe," Taylor a.s.sured him. "Now, then, if we can get the banks, wholesale merchants, and biggest planters into line we can control the cotton crop."

"But," objected Harry Cresswell, "while the banks and the large merchants may be possibilities, do you know what it means to try to get planters into line?"

"Yes, I do. And what I don't know you and your father do. Colonel Cresswell is president of the Farmers' League. That's the reason I'm here. Your success last year made you indispensable to our plans."

"Our success?" laughed Colonel Cresswell, ruefully, thinking of the fifty thousand dollars lost and the mortgage to cover it.

"Yes, sir--success! You didn't know it; we were too careful to allow that; and I say frankly you wouldn't know it now if we weren't convinced you were too far involved and the League too discouraged to repeat the dose."

"Now, look here, sir," began Colonel Cresswell, flushing and drawing himself erect.

"There, there, Colonel Cresswell, don't misunderstand me. I'm a plain man. I'm playing a big game--a tremendous one. I need you, and I know you need me. I find out about you, and my sources of knowledge are wide and unerring. But the knowledge is safe, sir; it's buried. Last year when you people curtailed cotton acreage and warehoused a big chunk of the crop you gave the mill men the scare of their lives. We had a hasty conference and the result was that the bottom fell out of your credit."

Colonel Cresswell grew pale. There was a disquieting, relentless element in this unimpa.s.sioned man's tone.

"You failed," pursued John Taylor, "because you couldn't get the banks and the big merchants behind you. We've got 'em behind us--with big chunks of stock and a signed iron-clad agreement. You can wheel the planters into line--will you do it?" John Taylor bent forward tense but cool and steel-like. Harry Cresswell laid his hand on his father's arm and said quietly:

"And where do we come in?"

"That's business," affirmed John Taylor. "You and two hundred and fifty of the biggest planters come in on the ground-floor of the two-billion-dollar All-Cotton combine. It can easily mean two million to you in five years."

"And the other planters?"

"They come in for high-priced cotton until we get our grip."

"And then?"

The quiet question seemed to invoke a vision for John Taylor; the gray eyes took on the faraway look of a seer; the thin, bloodless lips formed a smile in which there was nothing pleasant.

"They keep their mouths shut or we squeeze 'em and buy the land. We propose to own the cotton belt of the South."

Colonel Cresswell started indignantly from his seat.

"Do you think--by G.o.d, sir!--that I'd betray Southern gentlemen to--"

But Harry's hand and impa.s.sive manner restrained him; he cooled as suddenly as he had flared up.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Taylor," he concluded; "we'll consider this matter carefully. You'll spend the night, of course."

"Can't possibly--must catch that next train back."

"But we must talk further," the Colonel insisted. "And then, there's your sister."

"By Jove! Forgot all about Mary." John Taylor after a little desultory talk, followed his host up-stairs.

The next afternoon John Taylor was sitting beside Helen Cresswell on the porch which overlooked the terrace, and was, on the whole, thinking less of cotton than he had for several years. To be sure, he was talking cotton; but he was doing it mechanically and from long habit, and was really thinking how charming a girl Helen Cresswell was. She fascinated him. For his sister Taylor had a feeling of superiority that was almost contempt. The idea of a woman trying to understand and argue about things men knew! He admired the dashing and handsome Miss Easterly, but she scared him and made him angrily awkward. This girl, on the other hand, just lounged and listened with an amused smile, or asked the most child-like questions. She required him to wait on her quite as a matter of course--to adjust her pillows, hand her the bon-bons, and hunt for her lost fan. Mr. Taylor, who had not waited on anybody since his mother died, and not much before, found a quite inexplicable pleasure in these little domesticities. Several times he took out his watch and frowned; yet he managed to stay with her quite happily.

On her part Miss Cresswell was vastly amused. Her acquaintance with men was not wide, but it was thorough so far as her own cla.s.s was concerned.

They were all well-dressed and leisurely, fairly good looking, and they said the same words and did the same things in the same way. They paid her compliments which she did not believe, and they did not expect her to believe. They were charmingly deferential in the matter of dropped handkerchiefs, but tyrannical of opinion. They were thoughtful about candy and flowers, but thoughtless about feelings and income. Altogether they were delightful, but cloying. This man was startlingly different; ungainly and always in a desperate, unaccountable hurry. He knew no pretty speeches, he certainly did not measure up to her standard of breeding, and yet somehow he was a gentleman. All this was new to Helen Cresswell, and she liked it.

Meanwhile the men above-stairs lingered in the Colonel's office--the older one perturbed and sputtering, the younger insistent and imperturbable.

"The fact is, father," he was saying, "as you yourself have said, one bad crop of cotton would almost ruin us."

"But the prospects are good."

"What are prospects in March? No, father, this is the situation--three good crops in succession will wipe off our indebtedness and leave us facing only low prices and a scarcity of n.i.g.g.e.rs; on the other hand--"

The father interrupted impatiently.

"Yes, on the other hand, if we plunge deeper in debt and betray our friends we may come out millionaires or--paupers."

"Precisely," said Harry Cresswell, calmly. "Now, our plan is to take no chances; I propose going North and looking into this matter thoroughly.

If he represents money and has money, and if the trust has really got the grip he says it has, why, it's a case of crush or get crushed, and we'll have to join them on their own terms. If he's bluffing, or the thing looks weak, we'll wait."

It all ended as matters usually did end, in Harry's having his way. He came downstairs, expecting, indeed, rather hoping, to find Taylor impatiently striding to and fro, watch in hand; but here he was, ungainly, it might be, but quite docile, drawing the picture of a power-loom for Miss Cresswell, who seemed really interested. Harry silently surveyed them from the door, and his face lighted with a new thought.

Taylor, espying him, leapt to his feet and hauled out his watch.

"Well--I--" he began lamely.

"No, you weren't either," interrupted Harry, with a laugh that was unmistakably cordial and friendly. "You had quite forgotten what you were waiting for--isn't that so, Sis?"

Helen regarded her brother through her veiling lashes: what meant this sudden a.s.sumption of warmth and amiability?

"No, indeed; he was raging with impatience," she returned.

"Why, Miss Cresswell, I--I--" John Taylor forsook social amenities and pulled himself together. "Well," shortly, "now for that talk--ready?"

And quite forgetting Miss Cresswell, he bolted into the parlor.

"The decision we have come to is this," said Harry Cresswell. "We are in debt, as you know."

"Forty-nine thousand, seven hundred and forty-two dollars and twelve cents," responded Taylor; "in three notes, due in twelve, twenty-four, and thirty-six months, interest at eight per cent, held by--"

The Colonel snorted his amazement, and Harry Cresswell cut in:

"Yes," he calmly admitted; "and with good crops for three years we'd be all right; good crops even for two years would leave us fairly well off."

"You mean it would relieve you of the present stringency and put you face to face with the falling price of cotton and rising wages," was John Taylor's dry addendum.

"Rising price of cotton, you mean," Harry corrected.

"Oh, temporarily," John Taylor admitted.

"Precisely, and thus postpone the decision."

"No, Mr. Cresswell. I'm offering to let you in on the ground floor--_now_--not next year, or year after."