Returning to the shack she was still bareheaded. She loved the feel of the sun, and the few freckles it brought only added a piquancy to her face. "I wonder if he"--she meant Rogeen--"will make it go this year. I hope he has a good crop. It makes one feel that maybe after all things are as they ought to be when a man like he succeeds. Wonder what his plans are?" Then as she sat down in the shade and began a little very necessary mending: "I do wish he'd come over--and tell me some more about cotton crops--and himself." CHAPTER XX It is a good thing the wind does not blow from the same direction all the time. Things would never grow straight if it did. And if one emotion persists too long the human mind becomes even worse twisted than a tree. For that reason, if we are normal, buoyance and depression, ecstasy and pain follow each other as regularly as ripples on a stream. It is good they do, but it is hard to believe it when we are down in the trough of the wave. As Bob started away with the promise of Jim Crill to lend him the money for the Red Butte Ranch, his blood was pumping faster than the running engine of his car. But directly enthusiasm began to slow down. Suppose he lost--what an appalling debt for a man working at a hundred and fifty a month! It never figured in Bob's calculation to settle his debts in red ink. And there were chances to lose. The lawyer was waiting for him at the hotel when he returned. "I saw Jenkins," he reported. "Says they paid $20,000 for the Red Butte lease last spring. Half of it for bonus on the lease, and half for the equipment. He claims the mules and equipment are easily worth $10,000; and he offers to sell lease and all for that, but won't consider a dollar less. I heard on the street this evening that a Chinaman had offered them $7,500. I have an option on it until eleven o'clock in the morning at $10,000." "Thanks, T. J." Bob was figuring in his mind the basis of this price. "I'll let you know before that time." He went up to his room to think it out. He could hardly see any chance for loss, yet of course there was. If this was such a sure thing, why had not some of the more experienced cotton growers in the valley jumped at it? But Bob dismissed that line of reasoning with a positive jerk of his head. That was a weak man's reason--the excuse of failures, sheep philosophy. Every day of the year some new man came into a community and picked up a profitable opportunity that other people had stumbled over for years.