"No," answered the implement dealer, "it belongs to the Dan Ryan tract. Dan is one of the very few Americans who has a real title to land on the Mexican side. When Benson leased it two years ago it was merely sand hummocks and mesquite, like the rest of the desert. Spent a lot of money levelling it and getting it ready to water. He lives at Los Angeles, and is one of those fellows who try to farm with money instead of brains and elbow grease. Lost a lot on last year's crop, and now he wants to get rid of his lease."
Bob had been thinking of that ranch most of the time since he fixed the tractor. He loved the soil, and surely a man could get real returns from a field like that.
"I wonder," he remarked without meeting his employer's eyes, "if he would sublease it?"
"Don't know," replied Dayton; "Reedy Jenkins is trying to buy the lease."
"Then," thought Bob as his employer went into the store, "Jenkins ought to offer a market for farm machinery. I'll go up and see him."
On his way to Jenkins' office Bob's mind was busy with his own personal problems. He had been struggling with his ambitions a long time and never could quite figure why he did not get on faster. He had thought a great deal the last few days about Jim Crill, the old man with bushy eyebrows—and oil wells. Two or three things the gruff old chap had said stuck in Bob's mind. He had begun to wonder if it was not just as easy for a fellow to make a bad investment of his brains and muscles as it was with his money. "That's it," he said almost aloud at a definite conclusion; "I haven't been making a good investment of myself. I wonder if I could sublease that Red Butte Ranch?"
The more he thought of it, the more anxious he was to get hold of something he could manage himself. Of course, the idea of farming a five-thousand-acre ranch without capital was merely a pipe dream; but still, if Benson was losing money and wanted to get loose from his lease—it might be possible.
Reedy Jenkins' office was upstairs and on a back street. It had an outside stairway, one of those affairs that cling to an outer brick wall and end in a little iron platform. The only sign on the door was:
REEDY JENKINS,
Cotton.
It did not explain whether Mr. Jenkins raised cotton, bought it, sold it, ginned it, or merely thought about it. The office was so located that in a morally crusading town, where caution was necessary, it would have suggested nocturnal poker. But as it was not necessary for a poker game in Calexico to be so modestly retiring, Reedy's choice of an office must be attributed solely to his love of quiet and unostentation.