Cresswell, are among the biggest with your fifty thousand acres. Ten
banks control these eight thousand people--one of these is the Jefferson
National of Montgomery, of which you are a silent director."

Colonel Cresswell started; this man evidently had inside information.
Did he know of the mortgage, too?

"Don't be alarmed. I'm safe," Taylor assured him. "Now, then, if we can
get the banks, wholesale merchants, and biggest planters into line we
can control the cotton crop."

"But," objected Harry Cresswell, "while the banks and the large
merchants may be possibilities, 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.