"Ah! because you've had a hard time. But that's nothing. I've been
stony-broke myself a dozen times, and I've lived to think that these
were the moments when I enjoyed my life the most. The great point is,
you've shown yourself capable of an adventure. That's the spirit I
like to see, and I like you the better for it. Now, my boy, I'd
recommend you to get a good sleep. I've a pile of business to attend
to. Later on we'll talk over your affairs, and I'll have something
definite to say to you."
Great is the power of wealth, greater still, perhaps, the power of
reputed wealth and the willingness to distribute it. At the waving of
Bundy's magic wand Arthur had become at once a person of consideration;
he was the tenant of an admirable suite of rooms, waited on by
obsequious bell-boys, remarked by admiring chamber-maids, even sought
by adroit reporters. He was a friend of Bundy's--that was the sole
explanation of the miracle--for it appeared that Bundy's star was once
more in the ascendant. When, late in the afternoon, Arthur left his
room and went down into the hotel lobby, it seemed to him that it
hummed with the name of Bundy. A constant stream of messenger-boys
sought Parlour A.; a succession of automobiles discharged at the hotel
door fur-coated men with anxious eyes, all bound for the same goal; the
evening papers were full of the portraits and exploits of Bundy.
Opening the door of Parlour A., he had a passing glimpse of a Bundy he
had never seen before--a wild-eyed, gesticulating Bundy, orating behind
a barricade of books and papers to a crowded room, rushing at intervals
to the telephone and shouting orders, a man glowing with ardour, on
springs with energy, intoxicated with success.
"I'll see you presently," he cried, and went on pouring out what
appeared to be a Niagara of figures.
Arthur withdrew silently, went up to his room, and ordered all the
papers, from which he proceeded to inform himself on the doings of his
friend. The story, divested of a vast accretion of shop-soiled
adjectives, reduced itself to this--that Bundy had suddenly enrolled
himself among the multi-millionaires, at least potentially.
"The story of Mr. Bundy," began the chronicle, "is one of those
romances of sudden wealth which are only possible in this country of
unlimited and still undiscovered resources. Born in humble
circumstances in the city of London, England, Mr. Bundy has raised
himself by his own exertions to a place among the great captains of
wealth, whose remarkable careers constitute the epic of human progress,
and shed glory on the institutions of this free and enlightened
country." Here, it appeared, the journalist's well of rhetoric ran
dry, and he condescended to laconic statement. It was not to be
supposed that a plain statement of fact could support all the amiable
exaggerations with which the reporter had adorned Mr. Bundy's personal
history; but the facts themselves were sufficiently amazing. From them
Arthur gathered that Bundy had discovered fresh deposits of gold in the
rivers of the Yukon, of undoubted value, and was about to float a
dredging company which promised enormous dividends. "As early as
1898," continued the report, "fine-grained platinum was recognised in
the black sand obtained along the Tuslin River, Yukon Territory, but
until recently no active preparations have been made to recover it.
This river drains the Tuslin Lake; its gravel-bed carries gold in
paying quantities even by hand-working, throughout its entire length of
120 miles. Mr. Bundy claims that this gravel-bed contains immense
quantities of gold, which may be recovered by the simple process of
dredging. For thousands of years the erosion of the hills has
precipitated gold into the river; the gold has sunk by its specific
gravity into the river-bed, and there it remains in incalculable
quantities. A good dredger costs about five thousand dollars. It
scoops up the river-bed in so thorough a fashion that not a grain of
gold is lost. Mr. Bundy has proved by actual experiment that from ten
ounces of black sand, taken at random, sixty cents worth of platinum is
obtainable, and gold in much larger quantities. Mr. Bundy holds a
concession for more than eighty miles of this river. This means that
with the most adequate machinery it will take fifty years to dredge the
Tuslin. When we reckon the relatively light cost of dredging, it
appears probable that Mr. Bundy's proposition means not less than _one
thousand per cent._ profit to the fortunate investor."
So this accounted for the wild scene in Parlour A., the rush of
automobiles to the door of the hotel, the sudden fame of Bundy. The
indefatigable adventurer, who was supposed to be in Texas or Oklahoma,
had all the time been scooping gold in handfuls from the lap of the
frozen north; Oklahoma had no doubt been used as a blind to cover his
tracks; the reports in the papers had been ingeniously engineered; and
then, at the precise moment, Bundy had descended on New York in a
benignant advent. Arthur's thoughts went back to the shabby house in
Lion Row, and he wondered if Mrs. Bundy had heard the news. He saw her
preparing for a new apotheosis; fitting on the golden wings, so to
speak, which were to waft her to the porticos of palaces; and,
remembering her stories of similar hegiras, he wondered how much of
truth lay behind this astounding story. Bundy no doubt believed it--it
was impossible to doubt his good faith; but Bundy had been deceived
before, he might be deceived again. A voice told Arthur that there was
something unsubstantial in this glittering edifice; somewhere there was
a rotten bolt, which, if plucked out, would result in total ruin. And
the same voice told him that his own path did not lie in this
direction; that whatever its allurement, it was not for him.
Bundy did not have the promised talk with him that evening, nor all the
next day. The man was devoured by his own energy; he ate little, slept
not at all, rushed frantically about New York in automobiles, was
always the centre of a crowd, himself excited, vociferous, burning with
zeal like an apostle. It was not until the third evening that he
rushed into Arthur's room, and sank exhausted on the couch.
"I've treated you shamefully," he cried, "but it couldn't be helped.
Lad, I've done it. I've pulled it off. Don't speak a word to me about
it yet. I believe I've gone the limit. One more question to answer
and I'd have a fit."
It was obvious even to an unpractised eye that he spoke the truth. The
blood was congested in his cheeks, his breath came unevenly, his hands
trembled, an insane frenzy blazed in his eyes.
"Order dinner," he went on hoarsely. "An hour's time--that will do. I
didn't know I was so tired. I believe I'll just go to sleep where I
am. They won't look for me here."
Arthur turned the lights down, covered him with a travelling-rug, and
left him. He might have been a felon hiding from justice rather than a
triumphant millionaire, and Arthur could not but reflect upon the
strangeness of the spectacle. It was the first time he had looked upon
the lust for gold. His father had acquired wealth, but not in this
way. It had been won by deliberate siege, by steady, patient pressure
which called for high qualities of restraint; if it was a gross
passion, it had elicited certain elements of character that in
themselves were worthy. But this mode of winning wealth had no
dignity. It was a lust. It had the grossness and ferocity of a lust.
It took the brain and body of a man and shattered them with its
tremendous throb. And it was a lust also that had contagion in it. It
was impossible to deny that its subtle virus had already touched his
own heart. During those three days he had been as a man deafened by
the noise of guns; he had stood in the very heart of the explosion, and
had recognised something strong and savage in the scene. It thrilled
him, fascinated him, made all ordinary modes of life trite and tame,
and left him asking, Was not this life indeed?
And he knew it was not. He had only to think of that prostrate,
half-demented man, sunk in the sleep of exhaustion on the couch, only
to recollect the brave and lonely woman waiting for him in Lion Row, to
know that this was not life. Better, better far, the humblest bread
earned in quietness and eaten in peace, than this madness of mere
possession. "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things
which he possesseth"--ah no! _things_ are a poor substitute for life,
and to forfeit life in the pursuit of things is man's crowning folly.
An hour later there emerged a Bundy clothed and in his right mind,
fresh-shaved, fresh-bathed, smiling, easy, tolerant. Dinner was served
in Bundy's rooms, and when the meal was over he began to talk freely of
his adventures and affairs.
"You'll never know how good civilised food is till you've gone upon a
diet of salt-horse and biscuit for four months," he remarked. Little
by little he unfolded the story of his travels, a story full of fierce
hazards, Homeric toils, adroit strategies, defeats, despairs,
surprising victories, ending in the supreme moment when he held his
dearly-won concession in his hand, and knew himself master of
incalculable spoil. It was the story of Ulysses, master of men,
diplomat and fighter, swift, strong, and infinitely cunning, retold not
without pride, but with the laconic brevity of the man who counts past
hazards things of no importance.
"Well, I've pulled it off," he cried. "I've paid blood and sweat to do
it. And now, do you know, about the only thing I've left to wish for
is to go to sleep for a month, and wake up in my old bed at home, and
smell the eggs and bacon cooking for my breakfast, and hear the old dog
barking in the garden at the kids."
"Mrs. Bundy will be glad to hear the news."
"Yes, I guess she will. I didn't ought to have been away so long.
It's been hard on her. Tell me, now, how was she looking? Older, I'm
afraid, eh?"
And then he fell into a train of tender reminiscence. He talked of how
brave and patient his wife had been, and of the long separation, and of
the boys of whom he had seen so little.
"Sometimes it seems as if it wasn't worth it. It's only a short time
folk have to live together any way, and I've been away from home most
of my life. I don't know but what I'd have been a sight happier if I'd
have lived like other folk, and gone to church Sundays with the kids,
and earned my bit of money in the city, and just had a home. That's
the thing I've never had--a home."
It was a singular confession for a man to make who had just attained
the summit of success. He spoke with an extraordinary simplicity and
tenderness, as if unconscious of an auditor, obedient only to some tide
of memory that rose and swelled within his bosom.
"It's queer, the way we're made," he went on. "Here am I telling you
what I've got by leaving England, and yet, if you're like me, you'll
never have a happy day till you get back again. There's a house me and
Mrs. Bundy lived in when we were first married: it was out Epping way,
and it had a bed of mignonette under the window, and a hay-field just
beyond the garden-wall; and I can smell that mignonette now, and the
hay, and up there in the Yukon I'd wake in the mornings with that smell
in the air, though there wasn't a flower in sight for God knows how
many miles. I don't believe I could bear to see that house again. Yet
if I could just go back, and be young again, I guess I'd give all the
gold in the Yukon to do it--and then repent my bargain, and go off to
get some more. Well, that's the way we're made. We don't know what we
want, and with all our trying we get the wrong thing after all, most
like."
He ended abruptly.
"I oughtn't to be talking like this. I guess it's mere foolishness.
Well, let us come to business. There's something I want to say to you.
It's about your father. Now, did Mrs. Bundy ever tell you that your
father once helped me when I was in difficulties?"
"Yes, she told me that."
"She did, eh? Well, I've never forgotten it. Of course I've paid the
money back long ago, but you can't pay a debt like that with money.
I've always wanted to do more than that, and now the chance has come to
me. I can't do anything for your father, but there's something I would
like to do for you."
"You've already done a great deal, for which I am deeply grateful,"
said Arthur.
"Ah, that's a bagatelle! I mean something permanent. Now, how would
it suit you if I made you secretary to my Dredging Company? You could
draw five thousand dollars a year for a beginning, and I'd assign you
shares in the company besides."
It was a splendid offer which might well dazzle a youth who a week ago
had been acquainted with starvation. Had it come on that night when he
shuddered at the bread-line, he would have snatched it as a starving
dog flies upon a bone. But he had had time to recapture his
self-control. He had been fed with good meat, he had slept, and once
more the physical machine ran sweetly. And he had also had a
terrifying glimpse of what the lust of gold meant, he had just heard
Bundy's own expression of innocent regret, he had before him the man
himself. Did he envy him? Something half-heroic in those Homeric
labours he could recognise, but what about their object? And it came
to him with the vividness of a revelation that there were elements in
his own nature that responded all too eagerly to the bribe held out to
him; that if he yielded now he would go the way of multitudes whose
only god is wealth; that if he resisted now he might preserve those
higher ideals of life so intimately dear and sacred to him, and only
thus could they be retained. No, it must not be. The die was cast in
silence, and the golden phantom vanished.
"Mr. Bundy," he said in a low and trembling voice, "you have made me a
munificent offer. You have spoken to me your own intimate thoughts.
Will you now let me speak mine with equal frankness?"
"Surely."
"Don't think me ungrateful, but I must refuse your offer."
"Why?"
"For reasons, some of which you have supplied, some of which lie in my
own character. To be quite frank, I am not strong enough to resist the
fascination of wealth. Some men know how to set a boundary to their
desires, to stop there, and say, 'I will go no farther.' I do not
believe I am one of these. If I once took the road of wealth, I should
push on to the utmost limit. I might not become avaricious, but the
fascination of the game would absorb me, and God only knows whether I
might not become cruel and hard in course of time. Well, I dare not
risk it, and that is the truth, the humiliating truth, if you like.
The life I have always planned for myself is a life of quiet toil,
simple, content--books, a garden, a home: I cannot let it go. My only
anchorage in life lies there; without it I know not whither I might
drift."
He ended. He had not noticed Bundy's face as he spoke; he had been too
absorbed in his own confession. He saw that face now--pale, eager, and
with tears upon the cheek. To his immense surprise, Bundy sprang up
and flung his arms about his neck.
"My dear fellow," he cried, "I understand. Ah, you little know how
you've torn the veil from my own heart! I once had all those thoughts.
I would have entered the Church; I don't know why I didn't. I took
another road--the wrong road, I suppose, and here I am.... Well, well!
it can't be altered now.
"You're the best and kindest man I ever knew," cried Arthur. "And I
know some one else who would say so too--Mrs. Bundy."
"Ah! that's because she loves me too much to see my faults. But I can
see them. Well, well!" He turned his head away, his good honest face
bowed in his hands. Then he recovered himself briskly, turned round,
and said, "Well, that's done with. Now we'll start out afresh upon a
new tack. I've _got_ to help you, don't you understand? And I'm going
to. Let me think a moment."
Presently he said, "Now I think I've got it. Sit down and light a
fresh cigar. That's right. Now I believe I know the kind of life you
want. Shall I take it for granted you don't mean to return to England?"
"No; there is no place for me there, at present."
"Well, there's one point settled, and let me say I agree with you. Now
for another point. You want an outdoor life?"
"Yes, I prefer it."
"Very good. Now, let me paint you a picture. A country of wooded
hills and snow mountains, a lake, a log-house, and let us say a hundred
acres of cleared land with seventy-five apple trees to the acre. Do
you know what that means? I'll tell you. An apple tree in bearing
means from five to ten dollars. An orchard of only fifty acres
therefore means--here, hand me that paper-pad."
And straightway he fell to work, with all the recovered ardour of the
speculator, adding and re-adding interminable lines of figures, until
he announced the surprising result that the man who owned fifty acres
of land in this most desirable of valleys might count upon a yearly
income of $18,750, and in due time twice or thrice that sum.
"It's better than a gold-mine," he cried inconsistently. "And it's
safe--it's absolutely safe!"
"But how am I to buy it?"
"You're not going to buy it. Don't you understand? It's already
yours. Here, wait a moment."
There was another series of swift calculations, and then Bundy
communicated this result: that the money Archibold Masterman had lent
him years before had been really worth to him thrice its value, for it
had set him on his feet; that morally therefore he owed £2,000 to
Archibold Masterman; that the price of this excellent fruit ranch, by a
strange coincidence, was exactly £2,000; and that finally it was his
fixed determination to make the ranch over to Arthur, as an act of
gratitude.
"There's the life you want," he cried enthusiastically.
"But, Mr. Bundy----"
"Now don't object, for I won't hear of it. I'm only too glad you made
me think of this. Why, if I were younger and hadn't got the Dredging
Company on my hands, I'd go there myself, like a shot. There's no
credit to me in giving it you. I'm rich; and besides, it's yours
morally. God bless you, my boy! and if ever things go wrong with me,
keep a room for poor old Bundy on the ranch. And now let us go to bed."
And, as if to prevent all further discussion, he swiftly switched the
lights off, and incontinently vanished.
XVI
KOOTENAY
The train was climbing slowly to the summit of the Crow's Nest Pass.
To the northward rose an extraordinary mountain, deeply tinted at its
base with greens and purples, and capped with a dazzling crown of snow
and ice. Around the glowing base, like children gathered at the knees
of a monstrous mother, rose seven inferior monoliths, pillars of rock
which in the morning light flamed like torches. All around were
mountains, some flat-topped and hooded, some broken spires as of a vast
cathedral ruined; beneath them wild gullies yawned, intricate defiles,
deep canyons to whose sides the pines clung in an agony of effort; and
so far below that it appeared but a thread of silver ran a silent
river. Into these defiles the train moved timorously; now hanging for
an instant on a wall of precipice, now suspended on a groaning
trestle-bridge over depths of air, but ever moving on, like a living
creature animate with the unconquerable energy of man. How good this
mountain air, chill and clear and bright; how welcome this irregularity
of form, passing through every grade from the exquisite to the
magnificent, after the long, barren monotony of the plains! It was the
transition from prose to poetry, from barbarian prose to lyric music.
It was with a sinking heart that Arthur had remarked the long unfolding
of the plains. They oppressed the mind, they lay like a weight upon
the eyes, they breathed a savage and a hostile spirit. The scattered
towns had an air of dereliction; the very houses seemed frozen to the
soil, and around them was a silence, like the silence of death. But
here once more Nature became a living thing, a hospitable and kindly
mother. And to Arthur, who had never seen a mountain, this sudden
revelation of grandeur and magnificence came with a shock of exquisite
pain. His eyes filled with happy tears, his nerves tingled with
delight, he drank long draughts of crystal air, he could have sobbed
and shouted. For the first time he knew the bliss of being alive.
On that long westward journey he had had time to reflect on many
things. New York had already sunk into the past like a disordered
dream. Legion and Horner were alike unsubstantial figures, shapes that
had moved for an instant on a tinted cloud and had disappeared. But
Bundy travelled with him; the spirit of the man still warmed his heart
like a cordial. He saw his honest features wet with tears as he
recalled his home; heard his reverberating eloquence in Parlour A.; was
subdued and reverent before the generosity and ardour of the man. He
had parted with him two days after that memorable midnight
conversation. He was now upon his way to England--and Mrs. Bundy. If
Arthur could have chosen, he would have wished to be the sole architect
of his own fortunes. That had been his proud dream, and he had been
slow to relinquish it. His pride had struggled to the last against
Bundy's generosity, until remonstrance seemed ungracious and insulting.
He saw now that that pride was the least worthy thing about him. The
refusal to accept generosity was scarcely less base than the refusal to
confer it. God had not designed man to stand alone; He had surrounded
him with a network of obligations and relationships; total independence
was impossible in a world where all living creatures existed by a
dependence on each other. He had been in peril of becoming an Ishmael
by renunciation of the social bond; Bundy had re-created that social
bond for him.
And, strangely enough, Bundy's generosity owed itself to a similar
generosity in his father--the father whom he had deserted. There was
plentiful food for irony in that thought. He had condemned his
father's mode of life, applied to him unsparing judgments, fled from
him; and here, six thousand miles away, he was travelling toward an
opportunity that would not have existed but for a quality of goodness
in Archibold Masterman. He had refused partnership with his father in
London; here, in a strange and distant land, he was still the partner
of his father's deeds. The thought sensibly softened his heart toward
his father. He had long ago ceased to think of him with anger; enmity
he had never felt; now there came to him a gush of tender recollection,
and with it the power of truer comprehension. He saw that no man is
either wholly good or wholly bad; that character cannot be limned in
plain black and white; that a thousand delicate gradations separate yet
unite the two extremes; and that the final verdict on any man lies
beyond the human mind. Man must be taken as he is; he is at all times
a contradiction, an enigma, a creature that exceeds his category. To
see this is to become human; to miss this vision is to remain a
Pharisee, whose cardinal defect is inhumanity. And it was this wider
and more charitable temper that came to birth in him as he reflected on
the new course his life had taken.
From his pocket he took a bundle of letters, and re-read them slowly.
The latest in date was from Elizabeth, and it closed with a phrase that
had clamoured in his memory through all that week of journeying--"Well
I know my true knight will not fail me." No emotional utterance could
have moved his so deeply. It was the affirmation of a vow which he
knew would endure as long as time, and after. It braced his spirit to
repeat it; he accepted with a swelling heart its brave implication, and
wore it like a badge of honour.