"If the old man knew," Reedy picked up the check and grinned at the crabbed signature, "what this is going for, he'd drop dead with apoplexy at the foot of the stairs."

He reached for the telephone and called the freight agent:

"Are those motor trucks in yet? Good! We'll have them unloaded at once."

There are two ways to make a lot of money perfectly honestly: One is to produce much at a time when the product legitimately has such a high value that it shows a good profit. The other is to plan, invent, or organize so as to help a great many men save a little more, or earn a little more, and share the little with each of the many benefited. And there are two ways to get money wrongfully: One is by criminal dishonesty--taking under some of the multiple forms of theft what does not at all belong to one. The other is by moral dishonesty--forcing or aggravating acute needs, and taking an unfair advantage of them, blackmailing a man by his critical wants.

Reedy Jenkins had merely intended to be the latter. He had not planned to produce anything, nor yet to help other men produce, but to farm other men's needs--get hold of something so necessary for their success that it would force tribute from them. He planned to hold a hammer over the weakest link in others' financial deals and threaten to break it unless they paid him double for the hammer.

Reedy indorsed Jim Crill's check, and stuck it in his vest pocket. He liked to go into a bank and carelessly pull $25,000 checks out of his vest pocket. Then he took from a drawer twenty letters already typed, signed them, and put them into envelopes addressed to the ranchers who bought water of the Dillenbeck Water Co.

"Now"--Reedy moistened his lips and nodded his head--"we are all set."

CHAPTER XXIII

Bob tore the letter open with one rip, and read it with his back to the desk:

DEAR SIR:

We regret to say that dredging and other immediate repairs on our ca.n.a.l make a rather heavy a.s.sessment imperative. The work must be done at once, and the company's funds are entirely exhausted. Your a.s.sessment is $10 an acre; and this must be paid before we can serve you with any more water.

Very truly, DILLENBECK WATER Co., Per R. Jenkins, Pres. & Mgr.

Ten dollars an acre! Fifty thousand dollars! Bob walked slowly out of the hotel. There was no use to go up to his room. No sleep to-night.

Jenkins' plot was clear now. He had merely been waiting for the most critical time. The next two waterings were the most vital of the whole season. The little squares that form the boll were taking shape. If the cotton did not get water at this time the bolls would fall off instead of setting.

Bob walked down the street, on through to the Mexican section of town, thinking. He must do something, but what?

It was a sweltering night and people were mostly outdoors. Under the vines in front of a small Mexican house a man played a guitar and a woman hummed an accompaniment. Across the street a little Holiness Mission was holding prayer meeting, and through the open windows an organ and twenty voices wailed out a religious tune.

Bob turned and walked back rapidly, and crossed the Mexican line. At the Red Owl he might hear something.

It was so hot that even the gamblers were listless to-night. The only stir of excitement was round one roulette wheel. Bob started toward the group, and saw the centre of it was Reedy Jenkins with his hat tipped back, shirt open at the throat, sleeves rolled to elbows, playing stacks of silver dollars on the "thirty."

Bob leaned against one of the idle tables and talked with the game keeper, a pleasant, friendly young chap.

"Wonder what the Mexicans are going to do with so many motor trucks?"

the gamester asked casually.

"Motor trucks?" Bob repeated.

"Yes, they unloaded a whole string of them over here to-day. One of the boys said he counted twenty."

As Bob left the gambling hall Reedy was still playing the roulette wheel at twenty dollars a throw.

Rogeen got his car and started south. He would see for himself if there was any basis for Jenkins' claim that immediate work must be done on the water system. It was late and there were no lights at any of the little ranch shacks over the fields.

Chandler's place was dark like the rest. They were sleeping. Their notice would not come until to-morrow or next day. He would not wake them. Anyway to-night he had forgotten his fiddle, but he grimly remembered his gun.

He drove through the Red b.u.t.te Ranch without stopping. He could scarcely bear even to look to the right or left at those long rich rows of dark green cotton.

Turning off the main road south toward the Dillenbeck ca.n.a.l, something unusual stirred in Bob's consciousness. At first he could not think what was the matter; but directly he got it--the car was running differently. This road across a patch of the desert was usually so b.u.mpy one had to hold himself down. To-night the car ran smoothly.

The road had been worked--was being worked now--for a quarter of a mile ahead he heard an engine and made out some sort of road-dragging outfit.

The simplest way in the world to make a road across a sandy desert, or to work one that has been used, is to take two telephone poles, fasten them the same distance apart as automobile wheels, hitch on an engine, and drag them lengthwise along the road. This not only grinds down the uneven b.u.mps but packs the sand into a smooth, firm bed for the machine's wheels.

That was what they were doing here. Bob stayed back and watched. He did not want to overtake them. The road-breaking outfit crossed the ca.n.a.l directly and headed south by east off into the desert. Bob stopped his machine on the plank bridge, and watched them pull away into the night. Then he gave a long, speculative whistle.

"I wonder," he said, "what philanthropist is abroad in the land at one o'clock in the morning?"

Rogeen left his machine and followed on foot along the bank of the ca.n.a.l for two miles. The water was flowing freely. There was no sign of immediate need for dredging. Some of the small ranches were getting water to-night. He was glad of that. The Red b.u.t.te had finished watering its five-thousand-acre crop a week ago. It would be three days before they would need to begin again.

He went back to his machine and drove clear up to the intake from the Valley Irrigation Company's ca.n.a.l. The water was running smoothly all the way. The ditches seemed open, and in fair shape. Some work was needed of course every day; but there was no call for any quick, expensive repairs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Make it plain to the Chandler girl that this is her last chance to sell before I ruin her crop."]

No, Jenkins' call for money was purely for himself and not the water system. The whole thing was robbery. But how could it be prevented?

Injunctions by American courts did not extend over here, and Reedy undoubtedly had an understanding with the Mexican authorities.

There was nothing for it, thought Bob, but to choose one of two evils: Be robbed of $50,000, or lose five thousand acres of cotton. He set his teeth and started the little car plugging back across the sand toward the American line.

CHAPTER XXIV

A little after daylight Bob was in El Centro. Jim Crill, always an early riser, was on the porch reading the morning paper.

"Come and have breakfast with me," Bob called from the machine. "Got some things to talk over."

He handed Crill the letter from the water company. Not a muscle in the old gentleman's face changed as he read, but two spots of red showed at the points of his sharp cheekbones.

"If it was your own money in that crop, what would you do?" asked Jim Crill, shortly.

"I'd fight him to h.e.l.l and back." Bob's eyes smoldered.

"Then fight him to h.e.l.l and back," said the old man, shortly. "And if you don't get back, I'll put up a tombstone for you.

"I've believed all along," said Jim Crill, "that Reedy Jenkins is a rascal. But," he lifted his left eyebrow significantly, "womenfolks don't always see things as we do. Anyway, my trust was in cotton--it is honest--and sooner or later I'll get his cotton. He's got to bring it across the line to sell it.

"I've taken up all the other liens on that cotton," Crill continued, "so there'll be no conflicting claims. I've got $215,000 against those eight thousand bales."