"Now, again," continued John Taylor. "There are a million cotton farms in the South, half run by colored people and half by whites. Leave the colored out of account as long as they are disfranchised. The half million white farms are owned or controlled by five thousand wholesale merchants and three thousand big landowners, of whom you, Colonel 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.
"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?"