Early one morning in March Bob picked Noah Ezekiel Foster up at a lunch counter where the hill billy was just finishing his fourth waffle. "Want you to go out and look at two or three leases with me," said Rogeen as they got into the small car. Bob had not lost his job with Crill over the Chandler loan. He was still lending the old gentleman's money and doing it without Mrs. Barnett's approval. But the widow had, he felt sure, done the moist, self-sacrificing, nagging stunt so persistently that her uncle had compromised by advancing much more money to Reedy Jenkins than safety justified. Crill had never mentioned the matter, but Bob knew Jenkins had got money from somewhere, and there certainly was no one else in the valley that would have lent it to him. For Reedy had managed to pick his cotton and gin it at the new gin on the Mexican side, where the bales were still stacked in the yards. "Why do you suppose," asked Bob as they drove south past the Mexican gin, "Jenkins has left his cotton over on this side all winter?" Bob had formulated his own suspicions but wanted to learn what Noah Ezekiel thought, for Noah picked up a lot of shrewd information. "Shucks," said Noah, "it's so plain that a way-farin' man though a cotton grower can see. He's kept it over there because he owes about three hundred thousand dollars on the American side, and as quick as he takes it across the line there'll be about as many fellows pullin' at every bale as there are ahold of them overall pants you see advertised." "But cotton is selling now; it was six cents yesterday," remarked Bob. "At that he ought to have enough to pay his debts." Noah Ezekiel snorted: "Reedy isn't livin' to pay his debts. He ain't hankerin' for receipts; what he wants is currency. His creditors on the American side are layin' low, because they can't do anything else. Reedy put one over on 'em when he built this gin. He can hold his cotton over here for high prices, and let them that he owes on the American side go somewhere and whistle in a rain barrel to keep from gettin' dry. "As my dad used to say, 'The children of this world can give the children of light four aces and still take the jack pot with a pair of deuces.'" Bob knew Noah was right. He had watched Jenkins pretty closely all winter. Reedy had endeavoured to convince all his creditors, and succeeded in convincing some, that he had not brought the cotton across the line because there was no market yet for it. "It is costing us nothing to leave it over there, so why bring it across and have to pay storage and also lose the interest on the $25,000 Mexican export duty which we must pay when it is removed?" "Noah," remarked Bob, as the little car bumped across the bridge over the irrigation ditch, "I'm taking you out to see a Chinaman's lease. He has three hundred acres ready to plant and wants to borrow money to raise the crop. If you like the field and I like the Chinaman, I'm going to make the loan."