Part 16 (1/2)

”What has he got, and what does he want for it?”

Farwell told him.

”What is it worth, Sleeman?” And at his agent's appraisal, Carrol looked shocked and grieved. ”Why, good Lord! Farwell,” he said, ”he wants almost what his ranch is worth.”

”Funny that he should, isn't it?” sneered Farwell, who stood in no awe of Carrol. ”Well, and that's what I want him to get.”

”Can't do it,” said Carrol decisively. ”No money in it. Show me how I could make a profit.”

”Cut it up into little chunks and sell it to those marks back East,”

Farwell replied. ”I don't have to tell you your business. Make another Sentinel of it if you like.”

The reference was to the town site of Sentinel, a half section of prairie which had been bought for three thousand dollars and sold as town lots on paper at a couple of hundred thousand to confiding, distant investors. It was still prairie, and apt to remain so. Carrol had engineered the deal, and he would have blushed if he had not forgotten how. As it was, he smiled sourly.

”I wish I could. Is this McCrae a friend of yours?”

”Put it that way,” Farwell replied, frowning at the quizzical expression of Sleeman's eye. ”He doesn't want to sell, but I want him to have the chance of refusing real money. He may take it, or he may not. Anyway, I make it as a personal request.”

Carrol eyed him for a moment. He knew Farwell's reputation for uncompromising hostility to any one who thwarted his plans, accidentally or otherwise. Also Farwell was a good man. He was bound to rise. Some day, he, Carrol, might require his help and he kept a sharp eye on possibilities of that nature. So he said:

”It isn't business, but to oblige _you_, Farwell--all right, I'll take the chance that he won't accept. But it's sudden death, mind. No d.i.c.kering. He accepts, or he doesn't. If not, he'll get just dry-belt prices with the rest when they surrender.”

And so a few days afterward Farwell, armed with a check representing one hundred and fifty thousand dollars of lawful money, procured because he considered it likely to have a good moral effect, sought Talapus Ranch and Donald McCrae. And McCrae, as he feared, turned the offer down.

Farwell had calculated on producing the check at the proper psychological moment, in practically stampeding him. The trouble was that the psychological moment failed to arrive. McCrae showed no symptoms of vacillation. The issue was never in doubt.

”I told you before,” he said, ”I don't want to sell, and I won't sell.”

”It's a hundred and fifty thousand cold cash--your own value,” urged Farwell. ”At 6 per cent. it's nine thousand a year from now to eternity for you and your wife and children. If you refuse, the best you can hope for is dry-land prices. It's your only salvation, I tell you.”

”My word is pa.s.sed,” said McCrae. ”Even if it wasn't, I wouldn't be harried off the little bit of earth that's mine. It's good of you to take this trouble--I judge you had trouble--but it's not a bit of use.”

”Look here,” said Farwell. ”Will you talk it over with your family--your wife and daughter particularly? It's due to them.”

”I will not,” McCrae refused, with patriarchal scorn. ”_I_ am the family. I speak for all.”

”The old mule!” thought Farwell. Aloud he said: ”I want to tell you that in a few days you'll lose half your water. The rest will go when the dam is finished. This is final--the last offer, your last chance.

I've done every blessed thing I could for you. Right now is when you make or break yourself and your wife and children.”

”That's my affair,” said McCrae. ”I tell you no, and no.” He plucked the oblong paper from Farwell's unresisting fingers. ”A lot of money, aren't you?” he apostrophized it. ”More than I've ever seen before, or will see again, like enough.” Suddenly he tore the check in half, and again and again, cast the fragments in the air, and blew through them.

”And there goes your check, Mr. Farwell!”

”And there goes your ranch with it,” Farwell commented bitterly. ”One is worth just about as much as the other now.”

”I'm not so sure about that,” said McCrae.

”I'm sure enough for both of us,” Farwell responded.