The machine, stirring a cloud of dust behind it, rattled down the road between fields of dry stubble. She was ignored in the back seat. Nichols had taken the situation out of her hands, and she did not trust him. However, she could not trust herself, in the midst of her uncertainties and ignorance.
Nichols talked too much and too enthusiastically. She was astounded by his blindness. To her it seemed obvious that his words were of little importance. It was what MacAdams said that mattered. He gave MacAdams no silences in which to speak, and he appeared oblivious to the fact that MacAdams, gazing contemplatively at the skyline, said nothing.
They drove beneath an elaborate plaster gateway into the tract. Seventy thousand acres of scorched dry grass lay before them, stretching unbroken to a misty level horizon. Over it was the great arch of a hot sky.
The machine carried them out into the waves of dry grass like the smallest of boats putting out into an ocean of aridity. When it stopped the sun poured its heat upon them and dust settled on perspiring hands and faces. Nichols unrolled a map and talked with galvanic enthusiasm. He talked incessantly and his phrases seemed worn threadbare by previous repetition. MacAdams said nothing, and Helen tried to devise a way to ask Nichols to stop talking.
His manner had dropped her outside of consideration, save as a woman for whom automobile-doors must be opened. She saw that he felt her presence as a handicap in this affair between men; he apologized for saying “damn,” and his apology conveyed resentment. He was losing her the sale, and she could not interfere. Her only hope of saving Bert rested on this sale. She controlled a rising desperation, and smiled at him.
They got out of the machine and waded through dusty grass, searching for surveyor’s posts. Nichols pointed out the luxuriant growth of wild hay, asked MacAdams what he thought of that, continued without a pause to pour facts and figures upon him, heedless that he received no reply. They got into the car again and Nichols, pulling a pad of blanks from his pocket, tried to make MacAdams buy a certain piece of land then and there. He attacked obliquely, as if expecting to trap MacAdams into signing his name, and MacAdams answered as warily. “Well, I have seen worse. And I have seen better.” He lighted his pipe and listened equably. He did not sign his name.
They drove further down the road and got out again. Helen caught Nichols’ sleeve, and though he shook his arm impatiently she held him until MacAdams had walked some distance away and picked up a lump of soil.
“Leave him to me, please,” she said.
“What do you know about the tract?”
“Just the same, I wish you’d give me a chance, please.”
“Do you want to sell him or don’t you? I know how to handle prospects.”
They spoke quickly. Already MacAdams was turning his head.
“He’s my prospect. And, by God! I’m going to sell him or lose him myself!” Her words shocked her like a thunderclap, but the shock steadied her. And Nichols’ overthrow was complete. He said hardly a word when they reached MacAdams.
Almost in silence they examined that piece of land. MacAdams walked to each of its corners; he looked at the map for some time; he asked questions that Nichols answered briefly. He pulled up clumps of grass and looked at the earth on their roots. At last he walked back to the machine and leaned against it, lighting his pipe leisurely and looking out across the tract. The silence was palpitant. When she saw that he did not mean to break it, Helen asked, “Shall we look at another piece?”
“No. I’ve seen enough.”
They got into the machine, and this time Nichols was alone on the front seat. They drove back toward the tract office. The sun was sinking, and a gray light lay over the empty fields. Helen felt herself part of it. She had lost, and nothing mattered any more. She had no more to lose. She kept up the hopeless effort, but the approaching end was like the thought of rest to a struggling man who is drowning.
“What do you think of it, Mr. MacAdams?”
“Well—I have seen worse.”
“Were you satisfied with the soil?”
“I wouldn’t say anything against it.”
“Would you like us to show you anything more of the water system?” What did she care about water systems!
“No.”
The machine stopped before the tract office. They got out.
“Your man’s no good. He’s a looker, not a buyer,” Nichols said to her in an aside.
“He has money and he wants land,” she answered wearily.
“We’ll have another go at him. But it’s no use.”
They went into the office. A smoky lamp stood on a desk littered with papers. MacAdams asked when the train left Ripley. Nichols told him that they had half an hour. They sat down, and Nichols, drawing his chair briskly to the desk, began.
“Now, Mr. MacAdams, in buying land you have to consider four things; land, water, climate, and markets. Our land—”
She could not go back to Coalinga with him. Probably there would be a warrant out for her arrest. Oh, Bert! She had done her best, her very best. There were five dollars left, MacAdams’s money. The whole thing was unreal. She was dreaming it.
Nichols was leading him up to the decision. MacAdams evaded it. Nichols began again. The blank form was out now and the fountain-pen ready.
“You like the piece, don’t you? You’re satisfied with it. You’ve found everything exactly as we represented it. It’s the best buy on the tract. Well, now we’ll just close it up.”
MacAdams put his hands in his pockets and gazed at the map on the wall. “I’m not saying it isn’t a good proposition.”
Nichols began again. Was forty acres more than MacAdams wanted to carry? MacAdams would not exactly say that. Would a change in the
