g a
five-thousand-acre ranch without capital was merely a pipe dream; but
still, if Benson was losing money and wanted to get loose from his
lease--it might be possible.

Reedy Jenkins' office was upstairs and on a back street. It had an
outside stairway, one of those affairs that cling to an outer brick
wall and end in a little iron platform. The only sign on the door was:

REEDY JENKINS,
Cotton.

It did not explain whether Mr. Jenkins raised cotton, bought it, sold
it, ginned it, or merely thought about it. The office was so located
that in a morally crusading town, where caution was necessary, it would
have suggested nocturnal poker. But as it was not necessary for a
poker game in Calexico to be so modestly retiring, Reedy's choice of an
office must be attributed solely to his love of quiet and unostentation.

As Bob turned up the side street, two people were coming down the iron
stairway--one a dry, thin man who looked as though he might be the
relict of some dead language, wearing a stiff hat and a black alpaca
coat; the other, a girl of more than medium height, who took the narrow
steps with a sort of spring without even touching the iron rail with
her hand, and her eyes were looking out across the town.

"I beg your pardon," Bob met them at the foot of the stairs, "but can
you tell me if Mr. Jenkins is in?"

It was the girl who turned to answer, and at one look Bob saw she was
more than interesting--soft light hair, inquisitive eyes, an intuitive
mouth--nothing dry or attenuated about her.

"Yes," she replied, with a slight twist of the mouth, "Mr. Jenkins is
in. Have you a lease to sell?"

"No."

"Then go on up," she said, and turned across the street following the
spindle-legged man who was unhitching two horses.

"Blooming sunflowers!" exclaimed Bob, his heart taking a quick twist as
she walked away, "as sure as I'm a foot high, that's the girl who stood
in the doorway that night."

As Bob entered the office Jenkins sat tipped back in a swivel chair,
his left arm resting on his desk, the right free as though it had been
gesturing. Reedy had rather large eyes, a plump, smooth face that was
two shades redder than pink and one shade pinker than red. He always
looked as though he had just shaved, and a long wisp of very black hair
dangled diagonally across the corner of his forehead, such as one often
sees on the storm-tossed head of an impassioned orator who is talking
for the audien