lear
$3,000 on that cotton above what we already have."

"Yes, and if it goes to twelve, you'll have $4,500 to the good."

He sat still for a moment, gripping the neck of his fiddle with his
fingers as though choking it into waiting.

"Well?" she prompted.

"I've got a chance for something big." He got up and walked, holding
the fiddle by the neck, swinging it back and forth. "If I put it
through, it will be a fortune; but if I fail I'll be in debt world
without end--mortgaged all the rest of my life!"

Walking back and forth before her in the starlight he told Imogene
Chandler of the big opportunity--of the rare combination of
circumstances which made it possible for him, without property or
backing, to borrow one hundred thousand dollars for a crop; and
marshalled his reasons for belief in its success. "The water might
fail," she suggested, when he had finished and sat down again with the
fiddle across his knee.

"Yes, it might," he admitted.

"The Chinamen might get into trouble among themselves or with the
Mexicans and leave you at a critical time."

"Possibly."

"The duty might be raised on cotton," she added.

"Yes," he confessed.

"But," she continued, "there is one thing much more likely than any of
these--a thing fairly certain. Reedy Jenkins will fight you in every
way he can invent. First he'll fight to get your money; and then he'll
fight you just for hate."

"I have thought of that," Bob again got up, moved by the agitation of
doubt. If it were his own money to be risked he would not hesitate a
moment--but one hundred thousand dollars of another man's money and his
own reputation!

"For these reasons," continued Imogene Chandler, "I advise you to go
into it--and _you'll_ win.

"Now play to me."

CHAPTER XXI

Imogene Chandler had spoken most confidently to Bob of his success.
But after he was gone she began to be pestered by uneasy doubts--which
is the way of a woman.

She and her father had been compelled to operate on small capital.
They had figured, or rather Imogene had, dollar at a time. This new
venture of Rogeen's rather appalled her. A hundred thousand of
borrowed money! It was almost unthinkable. Anywhere else but in this
land of surprises such a proposition would seem entirely fantastic.

With so much involved any disastrous turn would leave him hopelessly in
debt. And besides--her thoughts took a more uneasy turn--she felt it
was going to put him in dange