ies, do you know what it means to try to get
planters into line?"

"Yes, I do. And what I don't know you and your father do. Colonel
Cresswell is president of the Farmers' League. That's the reason I'm
here. Your success last year made you indispensable to our plans."

"Our success?" laughed Colonel Cresswell, ruefully, thinking of the
fifty thousand dollars lost and the mortgage to cover it.

"Yes, sir--success! You didn't know it; we were too careful to allow
that; and I say frankly you wouldn't know it now if we weren't convinced
you were too far involved and the League too discouraged to repeat the
dose."

"Now, look here, sir," began Colonel Cresswell, flushing and drawing
himself erect.

"There, there, Colonel Cresswell, don't misunderstand me. I'm a plain
man. I'm playing a big game--a tremendous one. I need you, and I know
you need me. I find out about you, and my sources of knowledge are wide
and unerring. But the knowledge is safe, sir; it's buried. Last year
when you people curtailed cotton acreage and warehoused a big chunk of
the crop you gave the mill men the scare of their lives. We had a hasty
conference and the result was that the bottom fell out of your credit."

Colonel Cresswell grew pale. There was a disquieting, relentless element
in this unimpassioned man's tone.

"You failed," pursued John Taylor, "because you couldn't get the banks
and the big merchants behind you. We've got 'em behind us--with big
chunks of stock and a signed iron-clad agreement. You can wheel the
planters into line--will you do it?" John Taylor bent forward tense but
cool and steel-like. Harry Cresswell laid his hand on his father's arm
and said quietly:

"And where do we come in?"

"That's business," affirmed John Taylor. "You and two hundred and fifty
of the biggest planters come in on the ground-floor of the
two-billion-dollar All-Cotton combine. It can easily mean two million
to you in five years."

"And the other planters?"

"They come in for high-priced cotton until we get our grip."

"And then?"

The quiet question seemed to invoke a vision for John Taylor; the gray
eyes took on the faraway look of a seer; the thin, bloodless lips formed
a smile in which there was nothing pleasant.

"They keep their mouths shut or we squeeze 'em and buy the land. We
propose to own the cotton belt of the South."

Colonel Cresswell started indignantly from his seat.

"Do you think--by God, sir!--that I'd betray Southe