Casey snorted: "Sure, and in about three months I'll have a colt to show you—then you'll sing another tune! And wait till I get some half-breed pigs—instead of the hollow-backed scrawny things we've got now—then you'll admit that Casey was the boy!"
Casey was more or less of a character in the Gulf. His words flew so fast they overran each other in effort to keep abreast of his racing ideas. Thoroughly respected for his sterling character, he was made the target of much good-natured hilarity because of his constant hobby-riding and the rushing speech that made him almost incoherent. His mares and boar had cost him money that could better have gone into plantation improvements.
The conversation, drifting fitfully, touched upon a new stripping machine which Lindsey had purchased in Manila: he was bringing it down in the hold of the Francesca.
"I watched them load it," he declared. "I took no chances in being shy a necessary bolt or belt. I'll have it set up in a couple of weeks and if it works as well in the field as it did in the agent's warehouse—no more labor troubles for me—no more hemp rotting in the ground for lack of strippers!"
Cochran was mildly pessimistic. He had seen too many other heralded inventions which worked well experimentally but failed in the hemp fields. Of course Casey was hopeful—it was his nature.
Sears broke his long silence: "Labor troubles, labor shortage! Hell!—there's plenty of labor in the Gulf—if only the Government wasn't always hornin' in on us!"
Terry knew the remark was aimed at him but refrained from comment. Sears mistook his silence.
"But no meddlin' government is goin' to interfere with me! I'm goin' to run my own place from now on—and get my labor where I please—and how I please!"
As this elicited no response from the patient officer he continued despite Lindsey's distressed signals. Emboldened, he turned directly to Terry.
"I suppose," he snarled, "that you were sent down to be the little fairy god-father to the Bogobos—to protect the poor heathen from the awful planters who want to make them work. No?"