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 care for this job. I'm
done."

"What's the idea?" There was a little sneer in Jenkin