"I saw her a-eying me, out of the corner of her eye, and looking at him, and then looking at the girl, and looking at herself, and on the way home to-night I'm damned if I didn't have to put off asking her another six months." He sighed and continued, "And the first thing I know the drummer or the preacher'll get her." He chewed for a minute in peace and chuckled, "Well--Bob, I suppose you'll be next ?" He did not wait for an answer, but spoke up quickly, "Well, Bob, good night--good night," and hurried to his shop.
The next day the people that blackened Main Street in Sycamore Ridge talked of two things--the bank failure and the new Golden Belt Wheat Company.

Barclay enlisted Colonel Culpepper, and promised him two dollars for every hundred-acre option to lease that he secured at three dollars an acre--the cash on the lease to be paid March first.
Barclay's plan was to organize a stock company and to sell his stock in the East for enough to raise eight dollars an acre for every acre he secured, and to use the five dollars for making the crop.

He believed that with a good wheat crop the next year he could make money and buy as much land as he needed.

But that year of the panic John capitalized the hardship of his people, and made terms for them, which they could not refuse.

He literally sold them their own want.