Bob stood thinking for a moment.
"Ah Sing," he said, decisively, "how would you like to have a partner? Suppose I go in with you; furnish the money and look after the buying and selling, tend to the business end; you raise the cotton. Me pay all the expenses, including wages, for you; and then divide the profits?"
The Chinaman's face lost its stoic endurance and lighted with relief.
"I likee him vellee much!" He put out his hand. "Me and you partners, heh?"
"Yes," Bob gripped the hand, "we are partners."
CHAPTER XVIII
Nothing Bob Rogeen had overheard about Reedy Jenkins and his schemes had so intensified his anger as this treatment of the patient, defenceless Ah Sing.
"A Chinaman has the system," remarked Noah Ezekiel as they drove away. "He'll lease a ranch, then take in half a dozen partners and put a partner in charge of each section of the field. Raisin' cotton is all-fired particular work, especially with borrowed water—there are as many ways to ruin it as there are to spoil a pancake. And a partner isn't so apt to go to sleep at the ditch."
"That is why I went into partnership with Ah Sing," said Bob. "I have never seen much money made in farming anywhere unless a man who had an interest in the crop was on the job."