"And what will happen till the ditches are digged?"
"There's alfalfa to be raised on all these abandoned fields."
"And what's to become of us?" said Orr. "I can see where you folks can git a holt and come out even; but what's going to become of us? Are we to move off the earth and let you stay here?"
Every one listened for Wallace's answer. Even the boy in the doorway, returning with Wallace's bag, stood half scared at the foot of the stairs, not daring to go forward.
"Why not stay and take pot luck with us?" said Wallace, coolly. "We bought the mortgages cheap, and we'll sell them cheap. We'll sell water rights cheap also. And you will make better colonists than any we could import—cheaper, too. It's for our interests as well as yours to make a deal with you and to make one that will be satisfactory. Isn't it?"
Orr's hand dropped to his side, he shuffled his feet, his eyes turned from Wallace to seek the captain. "I hadn't figured it out you was going to make any such proposition," said the captain.
"Perhaps you thought we intended to chuck you all out in the cold and hog everything. We are neither such pigs nor such fools. You fellows can help us more than anybody else. Here is Johnny. Now, let's come to business; but first, Johnny, get some glasses. We'll all drink to the new deal."
And afterwards they told with chuckles how even the captain, who was an original Prohibitionist before he became a Populist, touched his lips to the glass that was passed over the big map.
"All you folks here need is hope," said the cheerful young Iowan; "you have plenty of pluck and plenty of sense and oodles of experience; and we stand ready to put in the capital. Now, what do you say; does it go?"
After an hour of talk over the maps, he repeated the question, and the captain himself led the chorus, "It goes. We'll all stand by you!"