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NE morning early in July, as Alan was passing Pole Baker's cabin, on his
way to Darley, Pole's wife came out to the fence and stopped him. She
was a slender, ill-clad woman, who had once been pretty, and her face
still had a sort of wistful attractiveness that was appealing to one who
knew what she had been through since her marriage.
“Are you goin' to town, Mr. Alan?” she asked, nervously.
“Yes, Mrs. Baker,” Alan answered. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
She did not reply at once, but came through the little gate, which swung
on wooden hinges, and stood looking up at him, a thin, hesitating hand
on his bridle-rein.
“I'm afeerd some 'n' s happened to Pole,” she faltered. “He hain't been
home fer two whole days an' nights. It's about time fer 'im to spree
agin, an' I'm powerful afeerd he's in trouble. I 'lowed while you was
in town that you mought inquire about 'im, an' let me know when you come
back. That ud sorter free my mind a little. I didn't close my eyes all
last night.”
“I 'll do all I can, Mrs. Baker,” Alan promised. “But you mustn't worry;
Pole can take care of himself, drunk or sober. I 'll be back to-night.”
Alan rode on, leaving the pathetic figure at the gate looking after him.
“I wonder,” he mused, “what Uncle Ab would say about love that has that
sort of reward. Poor woman! Pole was her choice, and she has to make the
best of it. Perhaps she loves the good that's in the rascal.”
He found Rayburn Miller at his desk, making out some legal document.
“Take a seat,” said Miller, “I 'll be through in a minute. What's the
news out your way?” he asked, as he finished his work and put down his
pen.
“Nothing new, I believe,” said Alan. “I've been away for two days. Not
having anything else to do, I made it my business to ride over every
foot of my father's big investment, and, to tell you the truth, I've
come to you with a huge idea. Don't laugh; I can't help it. It popped in
my head and sticks, that's all.”
“Good. Let me have it.”
“Before I tell you what it is,” said Alan, “I want you to promise not to
ridicule me. I'm as green as a gourd in business matters; but the idea
has hold of me, and I don't know that even your disapproval will make me
let it loose.”
“That's a good way to put it,” laughed Miller. “The idea has hold of you
and you can't let it loose. It applies more closely to investments
than anything else. Once git into a deal and you are afraid to let it
go--like the chap that held the calf and called for help.”
“Well, here it is,” said Alan. “I've made up my mind that a railroad
can--and shall--be built from these two main lines to my father's lumber
bonanza.” Miller whistled. A broad smile ingulfed the pucker of his
lips, and then his face dropped into seriousness. A look almost of pity
for his friend's credulity and inexperience came into his eyes.
“I must say you don't want a little thing, my boy,” he said,
indulgently. “Remember you are talking to a fellow that has rubbed up
against the moneyed world considerable for a chap raised in the country.
The trouble with you, Alan, is that you have got heredity to contend
with; you are a chip off the old block in spite of your belonging to a
later generation. You have inherited your father's big ideas. You are a
sort of Colonel Sellers, who sees millions in everything you look at.”
Alan' s face fell, but there remained in it a tenacious expression that
won Miller's admiration even while he deplored it. There was, too, a
ring of confidence in the young farmer's tone when he replied:
“How much would a railroad through that country, eighteen miles in
length, cost?”
“Nothing but a survey by an expert could answer that, even
approximately,” said the lawyer, leaning back in his creaking chair. “If
you had the right of way, a charter from the State, and no big tunnels
to make nor long bridges to build, you might, I should say, construct
the road alone--without locomotives and rolling-stock generally--for a
little matter of one hundred and fifty thousand. I don't know; I'm only
guessing; but it wouldn't fall under that estimate.”
“I didn't think it would,” replied Alan, growing more enthusiastic. “Now
then, if there _was_ a railroad to my father's property, how much would
his twenty thousand acres be worth?”
Miller smiled again and began to figure on a scrap of paper with a
pencil. “Oh, as for that,” he said, “it would really be worth--standing
uncut, unsawn, including a world of tan-bark--at least twenty-five
dollars an acre, say a clear half million for it all. Oh, I know it
looks as plain as your nose on your face; things always do on paper. It
looks big and it shines; so does a spider-web in the sunshine to a
fly; but you don't want to be no fly, my boy; and you don't want any
spider-webs--on the brain, anyway.”
Alan stood up and walked to the door and back; finally he shrugged his
broad shoulders. “I don't care what you say,” he declared, bringing his
hand down firmly on Miller's desk. “It will pay, as sure as I'm alive.
There's no getting around the facts. It will take a quarter of a million
investment to market a half-million-dollar bunch of timber with the land
thrown in and the traffic such a road would secure to help pay expenses.
There are men in the world looking for such opportunities and I'm going
to give somebody a chance.”
“You have not looked deep enough into it, my boy,” mildly protested
Miller. “You haven't figured on the enormous expense of running such a
road and the dead loss of the investment after the lumber is moved out.
You'd have a railroad property worth a quarter of a million on your
hands. I can't make you see my position. I simply say to you that I
wouldn't touch a deal like that with a ten-foot pole.”
Alan laughed good-naturedly as he laid his hand on his friend's
shoulder. “I reckon you think I'm off,” he said, “but sooner or later
I'm going to put this thing through. Do you hear me? I 'll put it through
if it takes ten years to do it. I want to make the old man feel that
he has not made such a fool of himself; I want to get even with the
Thompson crowd, and Perkins, and everybody that is now poking fun at a
helpless old man. I shall begin by raising money some way or other to
pay taxes, and hold on to every inch of the ground.”
Miller's glance fell before the fierce fire of Alan's eyes, and for the
first time his tone wavered.
“Well,” he said, “you may have the stuff in you that big speculators are
made of, and I may simply be prejudiced against the scheme on account
of your father's blind plunging, and what some men would call
over-cautiousness on my part. I may be trying to prevent what you really
ought to do; but I am advising you as a friend. I only know _I_ would be
more cautious. Of course, you may try. You'd not lose in doing that; in
fact, you'd gain experience. I should say that big dealers in lumber
are the men you ought to see first. They know the values of such
investments, and they are reaching out in all directions now. They have
cleaned up the timber near the railroads.”