Imogene arose. She knew this big-hearted, rough hill billy must be tired. She went over and laid her hand lightly on his shoulder and said with a solemn tightening of the throat--"Noah, you are the salt of the earth--and I'd rather have you for a friend than a diamond king." Noah arose, emotion always made him uncomfortable, and shuffled off to his tent without a word. But he turned at the entrance to the tent, and looked back. The girl sat quite still, her face turned up toward the stars. "Well," said Noah to himself, "she's got me all right." On the fourteenth of June Bob Rogeen and Noah Ezekiel Foster rode through the Red Butte Ranch. The fields lay before them checkered off into squares by the irrigation ditches, level as a table. The long rows of cotton were five to ten inches high, and of a dark green colour. The stand on most of the fields was almost perfect. One Chinaman with a span of mules cultivated fifty acres. "Lou Wing is a great farmer," continued Bob, enthusiastically. "He is doing the work for 45 per cent. of the crop. I pay the water and the rent; and of course I have to advance him the money to feed and pay his hands. He has twenty partners with a separate camp for each; and each partner has four Chinamen working for him. That is system, Noah. It certainly looks like riches, doesn't it?" "All flesh is grass," Noah sighed lugubriously, "except some that's weeds." "Cotton is going up every day," said Bob. "It was nine cents and a fraction yesterday." "That means," remarked Noah Ezekiel, "Reedy Jenkins could sell them eight thousand bales he's got stacked up on this side and pay all his debts and have twenty thousand over." "But Reedy is not paying his debts." "Not yet," said Noah; "he is borrowin' more money." "Is that so?" Bob was sharply interested. He had not feared Reedy much while he was out of funds. "When did you hear that?" "Saturday night," replied Noah. "You can gather a whole lot more information round the Red Owl than you can moss." "I wonder what he is going to do with it?" Bob's mind was still on Reedy Jenkins. "He's done done with it," answered Noah. "He's bought the Dillenbeck irrigation system." Instantly all exuberant desire to shout went from Bob's throat and a chill ran along his veins. In a twinkling the heat of the friendly sun upon those wide green fields with their fingered network of a hundred water ditches became a threat and a menace. After all, by what a narrow thread does security hang!