went down the outside stairway he passed a Mexican going up—a Mexican with features that suggested some one of his immediate forefathers was probably a Hebrew. Rogeen recognized him—his name was Madrigal; and he remembered that someone had told him that the Mexican was in the secret service over the line, or rather that he was an unofficial bearer of official information from some shady Mexican officials to some shady American concerns.

When the Mexican entered the office, Reedy got up and closed the door. Then he took the map again from a drawer and opened it out on the desk.

"I'll get Benson's lease this week." Reedy put his pencil on the Red Butte Ranch. "And these," he pointed to smaller squares along the Dillenbeck Canal, "are the ones I have marked for early annexation. How many of them have you seen?"

"Thes, and thes, and thes." Madrigal pointed off three ranches.

"I've sent the new man down to see Chandler," said Reedy. "He's the sort that can win over that girl. I must have that ranch. It is one of the best of the small ranches."

"Si, si." Madrigal grinned, and smoothed up his black pompadoured hair. "Eet will be easy. I gave them big scare about the duty on cotton next fall."

"And then my friend who manages the Dillenbeck system gave them another about the price of water this summer," smiled Reedy. "But"—he frowned—"if the girl should continue obstinate, and they refuse to sell?"

"Then I'll attend to the señorita"—the Mexican put his hand on his heart and bowed gallantly—"the ladies are easy for Señor Madrigal."

"Yes," said Reedy, shutting his wide mouth determinedly, "and if he fails, I'll 'tend to Rogeen."

CHAPTER IV

It was a little after sundown when Bob rode up to the Chandler ranch. The girl was out under the cottonwood trees by the irrigation canal gathering up dry sticks for stove wood. He hitched his horse and went to her.

"Good evening," he said.

"Where is your fiddle?" There was a faint twist of amusement at the corner of her mouth.

"How did you know?"

"Guessed it," she replied, with a little lift of the eyebrows; and then stooped to pick up the armful of dry sticks she had gathered.

"Let me have them." He stepped forward to take the wood.

"Why should you?" she said, without offering to relinquish them. "I prefer to carry my own sticks—then I don't have to build fires for other people." He laughed, and followed her up the path toward the shack.

"Let us sit down here." She led the way to a homemade bench in the open. "Daddy has had a hard day and has gone to bed, and I don't want to disturb him. He's very tired and has been upset over this lease business."

That was an opening, but before he could take advantage of it she abruptly changed the conversation:

"But you haven't told me why you didn't bring your fiddle this time. I'd love to hear it on a night like this." Dusk was coming swiftly and the stars had begun to glimmer.

"Oh, I don't carry it round as a business," he answered. "Fact is, until the other night I had not played it but twice in eight years."

"Why?" She turned to him with curious interest.

"It hasn't usually brought me good luck."

"What happened the other two times?"

Jenkins and Lolita awed by Percy's fiddling.

He looked off at the very bright star in the west and smiled with whimsical ruefulness. "I love music—that is, what I call music. When I was in the Ozarks I fiddled a lot, but discovered it did not bring me what I wanted, so I went to work. I got a job in a bank at Oakville; was to begin work Monday. I was powerful proud of that job, and had got a new suit of clothes and went to town Saturday. That night there was a dance, and they asked me to play for it." He stopped to chuckle, but still a little regretfully. "My playing certainly made a hit. Sunday morning a preacher lambasted the dance, and called me the special messenger of the devil. My job was with a pillar of his church. I didn't go to work Monday morning. It's a queer world; that preacher was the father of Noah Ezekiel Foster, who is now working for Benson."

She was looking out at the west, smiling; the desert wind pushed the hair back from her forehead. "And the other time you played?"

"That was up at Blindon, Colorado." He showed some reluctance to go ahead.

"Yes?"

"An old doctor and his daughter came to the camp to invest. I overheard them in the next room at the boarding house, and knew a gang of sharks was selling them a fake mine. I tried to attract their attention through the partition by playing a fool popular song—'If you tell him yes; you are sure to cry, by and by.'"

"Did you make them understand?" She had locked her hands round her knees and leaned interestedly toward him.

"Yes—and also the gang. The camp made up money to pay the undertaker to bury me next day. I still have the receipt."

"You have had a lot of experience," she said with a touch of envy.

"More than the wisdom I have gathered justifies, I fear," he replied.

"Experiences are interesting," she observed. "I haven't had many, but I'm beginning. Daddy was professor of Sanskrit in a little one-horse denominational college back in the hog-feeding belt of the Middle West. Heavens!" she spoke with sudden fierceness, "can you imagine anything more useless than teaching Sanskrit? His salary was two hundred dollars a year less than the janitor's. I hated being poor; and I hated worse the dry rot of that little faculty circle. The deadly seriousness of their piffling, pedantic talk about fine-spun scholastic points that were not interesting nor useful a thousand years ago, and much less now that they are absolutely dead. I hated being prim and pretentious. I could not stand it any longer, and made Daddy resign and go somewhere to plant something. We came out here and I thought I saw a fortune in cotton.

"Daddy's worked like a galley slave getting this field in; he's done the work of two men. With one Chinaman's help part of the time he's got in a hundred and sixty acres of cotton. We've put through two hot summers here; and spent every dollar we got for our household goods and his life insurance. And now"—she was frowning in the dark—"we are warned to get out."

"Who warned you?" Bob asked quickly.

"A Mexican named Madrigal. He has been right friendly to us; and warned us last week that the Mexican Government is going to raise the duty on cotton so high this fall that it will take all the profit. He advises us to sell our lease for anything we can get."

"Have you had an offer?"

"Yes," she shrugged in the dusk and spoke with bitter weariness, "a sort of an offer. Mr. Jenkins offered us $500. Daddy wanted to take it, but I objected. I guess, though, it is better than nothing."

Bob stood up, his muscles fairly knotted. He understood in a flash why the Mexican Jew was going to Jenkins' office. They were stampeding the small ranchers out of the country, and virtually stealing their leases. The stars ran together in an angry blur. He felt a swelling of the throat. It was lucky he was miles away from Reedy Jenkins.

"Don't take it!" he said with vehemence.

Reedy Jenkins had just opened his office next morning and sat down at the desk to read his mail when Bob Rogeen walked in. Reedy looked up from a letter and asked greedily:

"Did you get it?"

"No." There was something ominous in Rogeen's tone.

"Couldn't you persuade them to sell?" Jenkins was openly vexed.

"I persuaded them not to." Bob's hands opened and shut as though they would like to get hold of something. "I don't