ent, as if to reflect. Then, impressively:

"Hitherto, Miss Eustis, you have had the very button on Fortune's
cap," he told her. "Suppose, however, that fickle goddess chose to
whisk herself off bodily, and left you--_you_, mind you! to face the
ugly realities of poverty, and poverty under a cloud?" And while she
stared at him blankly, he asked: "What do you know of your father's
affairs?"

As a matter of fact she knew very little. But something in the deadly
pleasantness of his voice, something in his eyes, startled her.

"What do you mean, Mr. Hunter?"

"Ah, now we get down to bedrock: your father's affairs," he said evenly.
"Your father, Miss Eustis, is a very remarkable man, a man with one
idea. In other words, a fanatic. Only a fanatic could accomplish what
Eustis has accomplished. His one idea is the very sound old idea that
people should remain on the land. He starts in to show his people how to
do it successfully. Once started, the work grows like Jonah's gourd. He
becomes a sort of rural white hope. So far, so good. But reclamation
work, experimenting, blooded stock, up-to-the-minute machinery,
labor-saving devices, chemicals, high-priced experts, labor itself, all
that calls for money, plenty of money. Your father's work grew to its
monumental proportions because he'd gotten other men interested in
it--all sorts and conditions of men, but chiefly--and here's at once his
strength and weakness--farmers, planters, small-town merchants and
bankers. They backed him with everything they had--and they haven't
lost--yet.

"However, there are such things as bad seasons, labor troubles,
boll-weevil, canker, floods, war. He lost ship-loads of cotton. He
lost heavily on rice. Remember those last floods? In some of his
places they wiped the work of years clean off the map. He had to begin
all over, and he had to do it on borrowed money; which in lean and
losing years is expensive. Floods may come and crops may go, but
interest on borrowed money goes on forever. He mortgaged all he could
mortgage, risked everything he could risk, took every chance--and now
everything is at stake with him.

"Do you realize what it would mean if Eustis went under? A smash to
shake the state! Consider, too, the effect of failure upon the man
himself! He can't fail, though--_if Mr. Inglesby chooses to lend a
hand_. Now do you begin to comprehend?"

In spite of her distrust, he impressed her profoundly. He did not
over-estimate her fath