Then she began to sing, and he felt again that the sunshine was playing

about him, but this time he heard the birds, too, and the ripple of the

distant water, and the stir of the spruce trees, and he could see the

lattice of sunlight through their dark leaves playing on the brown

grass, and there was a smell of distant wood smoke, and the glow of

dying coals. . . He was swaying gently in his seat, held in the thrall

of her voice, and suddenly he was glad he had put a dollar on the

plate. He could not follow all the words, but it was something about a

land where the sun would never go down. Well--no doubt the preacher

would tell them more about it.

Then there was a long prayer by the preacher. He began by addressing

the Deity as all mighty and all knowing, and then spent many minutes in

drawing His attention to details which had evidently escaped His

notice, and in offering suggestions for the better government of the

universe. He dwelt on the humility and penitence of the congregation,

including himself, and at this point Dave's unorthodox ear began to

detect a false note. He looked about from preacher to congregation,

and saw no evidence of penitence or humility. "If God is all-knowin',"

said Dave to himself, "that preacher is goin' to get in wrong. Why, he

couldn't put over that humility bunk on me."

At length it seemed that the sermon was really going to commence, but a

well dressed man came down the aisle and read a long financial

statement. Dave gathered from it that the Lord was pretty hard pressed

for ready cash. "No wonder," thought he, "if they all give nickels and

nothin's. Pretty well dressed bunch, too."

Finally the preacher took the meeting in hand again, and announced his

text, but Dave soon forgot it in trying to follow the sermon. It was

an orthodox exposition of the doctrine of the atonement. Dave would

not have known it by that name, and there were many expressions which

he could not understand, but out of a maze of phrases he found himself

being slowly shocked into an attitude of uncompromising hostility.

There was no doubt about it; the preacher was declaring that an

innocent One had been murdered that the guilty might go free. This was

bad enough, but when the speaker went on to say that this was God's

plan; that there had to be a sacrifice, and that no other sacrifice was

sufficient to appease the wrath of Jehovah directed toward those whom

He had created, Dave found himself boiling with indignation. If this

was Christianity he would have none of it. His instruction in religion

had been of the most meagre nature, but he had imbibed some conception

of a Father who was love, and this doctrine of the sacrifice of the

innocent crashed through all his slender framework of belief. Had he

been told of a love which remained steadfast to its ideals even at the

cost of Calvary his manliness would have responded as to the touch of a

kindred spirit, but the attempt to fit that willing sacrifice into a

dogmatic creed left him adrift and rudderless. Suddenly from somewhere

in his memory came the words, "Then what becomes of the justice of

God?" It was Reenie Hardy who had asked that question. And he

recalled his answer, "I don't know nothin' about the justice of God.

All I know is the crittur 'at can't run gets caught." Was he then in

sympathy with this doctrine of cruelty, without knowing it? No. No!

Reenie Hardy had believed in justice, and he would believe in the same.

He rose from his seat and walked down the aisle and out of the

building, oblivious to the eyes that followed him.

His feet led him to the river, running brown with the mud of spring.

He sat on the gravel, in the warm sunshine, and tossed pebbles into the

swift-flowing water. . . He had determined on a new road, but how was

he to find the road? Environment had never been kind to him, and he

was just beginning to realize its power in shaping his destinies. He

was dissatisfied, but he did not know where to find satisfaction; he

was bewildered, and nowhere was a clear path before him. He was

lonely. He knew a room where a little game would be in progress; he

arose, brushed the gravel-dust from his Sunday clothes, and wended his

way down town.

A crowd was entering the theatre which he had attended the night

before. He looked at it wonderingly, as by statute the theatres were

closed on Sundays. Still, it was evident something was going on, and

he went in with the others. No tickets were required, and an usher

showed him to a good seat.

It was not long before Dave realized that he was in a Socialist

meeting. He knew rather less of Socialism than he did of Christianity,

but the atmosphere of the place appealed to him. They were mostly men

in working clothes, with tobacco or beer on their breaths, and in their

loud whisperings he caught familiar profanities which made him feel at

home. When the speaker said something to their liking, they applauded

him; when he crossed them they denounced him openly. Interruptions

were frequent, and sometimes violent, but Dave admired the spirit of

fair play which gave every man a chance to speak his mind. Through it

all he gathered that there were two great forces in the world; Capital

and Labour, and that Capital was a selfish monster with a strangle-hold

on Labour and choking him to death. No, not quite to death, either,

for Capital needed Labour, and therefore only choked him until he was

half dead. Also, there were two classes of people in the world; the

Masters and the Slaves. Dave was a Slave. He had never known it

before, but the speaker made it quite apparent.

"But I'm not a slave," said Dave, suddenly springing to his feet. "I

can quit my job to-morrow, and tell my boss to go to hell."

There were boos and cat-calls, but at last the man on the platform made

himself heard.

"And what will you do, my friend, after you have quit your job?" he

asked, quite courteously.

"Get another one," said Dave, without scenting the trap. "There's lots

of jobs."

"That is, you would get another master," said the Socialist. "You

would still have a master. And as long as you have a master, you are a

slave." And Dave sat down, confused and wondering.

After the main address there was a sort of free-for-all. Half a dozen

sprang to their feet, each seeking to out-talk his neighbour, and it

was with difficulty the chairman obtained order and established a

sequence of events. An old man in the gallery read loudly from Victor

Hugo while a speaker in the orchestra declaimed on Single Tax. Finally

the old man was silenced, and Dave began to learn that all the economic

diseases to which society is heir might be healed by a potion

compounded by Henry George. Another in the audience started to speak

of the failure of the established system of marriage, embellishing his

argument with more than one local incident of a salacious nature, but

he was at last required to give place to a woman who had a more

personal grievance to present.

"You talk about your masters and your slaves, and your taxes and your

marriages," she cried in a shrill voice that penetrated every corner of

the building. "I can tell you something about masters and slaves. I'm

hearing everywhere that what this country wants is population; that is

the talk of the politician, and the learned men, that are supposed to

know. Now, what is the country doing for those that bring the

population--not from the slums of Europe, that is not what I'm

asking--but for those that bring the native-born population--the only

population that doesn't have to be naturalized? I'm the mother of six,

and what has the country done for me, but leave me at the mercy of

those who charge more for an hour's attendance than my old man can save

from a month's drudgery? And then, with my health broken down--in the

service of the State--I have to go to the hospital, and they tell me I

must have an operation, and I wake up with a horrid pain and a bill for

a hundred and fifty dollars. All done in an hour, or less, and that's

the bill, or part of it, for the hospital dues and the extras and

etceteras are still to come. Masters and slaves! More than I can save

in a year, or two years, and no one to say whether the work was needed

or not, or whether it was well done or not. When my kitchen pipes are

plugged a plumber fixes them and charges me a dollar, and if he doesn't

do it right he has to do it over again, but when the human pipes go

wrong the man-plumber charges a hundred and fifty dollars, and if he

doesn't do it right he collects just the same, and the undertaker adds

another hundred. Now I don't know whether this comes under the head of

Capital or Labour or Single Tax, but I do know it is outrageous

extortion--extortion of blood money, imposed by the wealthy and

prosperous on the poor and the sick and the unfortunate, and while the

State clamours for population it does not raise a finger to protect

those who are bringing the native-born."

During this philippic Dave had turned toward the woman; her thin face

still wore marks of refinement and even his uncultured ear recognized a

use of English that indicated a fair degree of education. But she was

broken; crushed with the joint cares of motherhood and poverty, and

desperate at the injustices of a system that capitalized her

sacrifices. He had heard much talk of slaves, but here, he felt, he

saw one, not in the healthy, well fed men with their deep mutterings

against employers, but in this haggard woman from whose life the lamp

of joy had gone out in the bitterness of suffering and physical

exhaustion.

He spent the rest of the day alone, thinking. He was not yet sure of

any road, but he knew that his mind had been made to think, and that

his life was bigger that night than it had been in the morning. He

might not find the right road at once, but he could at least leave the

old one. He felt a strange hunger to understand all that had been

said. He felt, also, a tremendous sense of his own ignorance;

tremendous, but not crushing; a realization that the world was full of

things to be learned; problems to be faced; conclusions to be studied

out, and underneath was a sense almost of exaltation that he should

take some part in the studies and perhaps aid in the solutions. It was

his first glimpse into the world of reason, and it charmed and invited

him. He would follow.

He went early to bed, thinking over all he had heard. His mind was

full, but it was happy, and, in some strange way, fixed. Even the

morning service came back with a sense of worthwhileness as he recalled

it in the semi-consciousness of approaching sleep. . . The music had

been good. It had made him think of spring and the deep woods . . .

and water . . . and wood smoke. . .

It was about a far away land . . . and Reenie Hardy. She was very like

Reenie Hardy. . .

CHAPTER SEVEN

Fortunate Fate, or whatever good angel it is that sometimes drops

unexpected favours, designed that young Elden should the following day

deliver coal at the home of Mr. Melvin Duncan. Mr. Duncan, tall,

quiet, and forty-five, was at work in his garden as Dave turned the

team in the lane and backed them up the long, narrow drive connecting

with the family coal-chute. As the heavy wagon moved straight to its

objective Mr. Duncan looked on with approval that heightened into

admiration. Dave shovelled his load without remark, but as he stood

for a moment at the finish wiping the sweat from his coal-grimed face

Mr. Duncan engaged him in conversation.

"You handle a team like you were born to it," he said. "Where did you

get the knack?"

"Well, I came up on a ranch," said Dave. "I've lived with horses ever

since I could remember."

"You're a rancher, eh?" queried the older man. "Well, there's nothing

like the range and the open country. If I could handle horses like you

there isn't anything would hold me in town.

"Oh, I don' know," Dave answered. "You get mighty sick of it."

"Did you get sick of it?"

Elden shot a keen glance at him. The conversation was becoming

personal. Yet there was in Mr. Duncan's manner a certain kindliness, a

certain appeal of sincere personality, that disarmed suspicion.

"Yes, I got sick of it," he said. "I lived on that ranch eighteen

years, and never was inside school or church. Wouldn't that make you

sick? . . . So I beat it for town."

"And I suppose you are attending church regularly now, and night

school, too?"

Dave's quick temper fired up in resentment, but again the kindliness of

the man's manner disarmed him. He was silent for a moment, and then he

said, "No, I ain't. That's what makes me sick now. I came in here

intendin' to get an education, an' I've never even got a start at it,

excep' for some things perhaps wasn't worth the money. There always

seems to be somethin' else--in ahead."

"There always will be," said Mr. Duncan, "until you start."

"I suppose so," said Dave, wearily, and took up the reins.

But Mr. Duncan persisted. "You're not in such a hurry with that team,"

he said. "Even if you are late--even if you should lose your job over

it--that's nothing to settling this matter of getting started with an

education."

"But how's it to be done?" Dave questioned, with returning interest.

"Schools an' books cost money, an' I never save a dollar."

"And never will," said Mr. Duncan, "until you start. But I think I see

a plan that might help, and if it appeals to you it will also be a

great convenience to me. My wife likes to go driving Sundays, and

sometimes on weekday evenings, but I have so many things on hand I find

it hard to get out with her. My daughter used to drive, but these

new-fangled automobiles are turning the world upside down--and many a

buggy with it. They're just numerous enough to be dangerous. If there

were more or less they would be all right, but just now every horse is

suspicious of them. Well--as I saw you driving in here I said to

myself, 'There's the man for that job of mine, if I can get him,' but

I'm not rich, and I couldn't pay you regular wages. But if I could

square the account by helping with your studies a couple of nights a

week--I used to teach school, and haven't altogether forgotten--why,

that would be just what I want. What do you say?"

"I never saw anything on four feet I couldn't drive," said Dave, "an'

if you're willing to take a chance, I am. When do we start?"

"First lesson to-night. Second lesson Thursday night. First drive

Sunday." Mr. Duncan did not explain that he wanted to know the boy

better before the drives were commenced, and he felt that two nights

together would satisfy him whether he had found the right man.

Dave hurried back to the coal-yard and completed the day's work in high

spirits. It seemed he was at last started on a road that might lead

somewhere. After supper he surprised his fellow labourers by changing

to his Sunday clothes and starting down a street leading into the

residential part of the town. There were speculations that he had

"seen a skirt."

Mr. Duncan met him at the door and showed him into the living-room.

Mrs. Duncan, plump, motherly, lovable in the mature womanliness of

forty, greeted him cordially. She was sorry Edith was out; Edith had a

tennis engagement. She was apparently deeply interested in the young

man who was to be her coachman. Dave had never been in a home like

this, and his eyes, unaccustomed to comfortable furnishings, appraised

them as luxury. There were a piano and a phonograph; leather chairs; a

fireplace with polished bricks that shone with the glow of burning

coal; thick carpets, springy to the foot; painted pictures looking down

out of gilt frames. And Mr. Duncan had said he was not rich! And

there was more than that; there was an air, a spirit, an atmosphere

that Dave could feel although he could not define it; a sense that

everything was all right. He soon found himself talking with Mrs.

Duncan about horses, and then about his old life on the ranch, and then

about coming to town. Almost, before he knew it, he had told her about

Reenie Hardy, but he had checked himself in time. And Mrs. Duncan had

noticed it, without comment, and realized that her guest was not a boy,

but a man.

Then Mr. Duncan talked about gardening, and from that to Dave's skill

in backing his team to the coal-chute, and from that to coal itself.

Dave had shovelled coal all winter, but he had not thought about coal,

except as something to be shovelled and shovelled. And as Mr. Duncan

explained to him the wonderful provisions of nature; how she had stored

away in the undiscovered lands billions of tons of coal, holding them

in reserve until the world's supply of timber for fuel should be

nearing exhaustion, and as he told of the immeasurable wealth of this

great new land in coal resources, and of how the wheels of the world,

traffic and industry, and science, even, were dependent upon coal and

the man who handled coal, Dave felt his breast rising with a sense of

the dignity of his calling. It was no longer dirty and grimy; it was

part of the world; it was essential to progress and happiness--more

essential than gold, or diamonds, or all the beautiful things in the

store windows. And he had had to do with this wonderful substance all

winter, and not until to-night had it fired the divine spark of his

imagination. The time ticked on, and although he was eager to be at

work he almost dreaded the moment when Mr. Duncan should mention his

lesson. But before that moment came there was a ripple of laughter at

the door, and a girl in tennis costume, and a young man a little older

than Dave, entered.

"Edith," said Mrs. Duncan. Dave arose to shake hands, but then his

eyes fell full on her face. "Oh, I know you," he exclaimed. "I heard

you sing yesterday."

Slowly he felt the colour coming to his cheeks. Had he been too

familiar? Should he have held that back? What would she think? But

then he felt her hand in his, and he knew it was all right.

"And I know you," she was saying. "I saw you--" she stopped, and it

was her turn to feel the rising colour.

"Yes, I know what you saw," he took up her thought. "You saw me get up

and go out of church because I wouldn't sit and listen to a man say

that God punished the innocent to let the guilty go free. And I

won't." There was a moment's silence following this outburst, and Mr.

Duncan made a new appraisal of his pupil. Then it was time to

introduce Mr. Allan Forsyth. Mr. Forsyth shook hands heartily, but

Dave was conscious of being caught in one quick glance which embraced

him from head to heel. And the glance was satisfied--self-satisfied.

It was such a glance as Dave might give a horse, when he would say, "A

good horse, but I can handle him." It was evident from that glance

that Forsyth had no fear of rivalry from that quarter. And having no

fear he could afford to be friendly.

Dave had no distinct remembrance of what happened just after that, but

he was conscious of an overwhelming desire to hear Miss Duncan sing.

How like Reenie she was! And just as he was beginning to think Mr.

Duncan must surely have forgotten his lesson, he heard her asking him

if she should sing. And then he saw Forsyth at the piano--why couldn't

he leave her to do it herself, the butt-in?--and then he heard her

fine, silvery voice rising in the notes of that song about the land

where the sun should never go down. . . And suddenly he knew how

lonely, how terribly, terribly lonely he was. And he sat with head

bowed that they might not know. . .

And then there were other songs, and at last Mrs. Duncan, who had

slipped away unnoticed, returned with a silver teapot, and cups of

delicate china, and sandwiches and cake, and they sat about and ate and

drank and talked and laughed. And Edith refilled his cup and sat down

beside him, leaving that Forsyth quite on the opposite side of the

room. And suddenly he was very, very happy. And when he looked at his

watch it was eleven o'clock!

"I guess we didn't get any lesson to-night," he said, as he shook hands

with Mr. Duncan at the sidewalk.

"I am not so sure," replied his tutor. "The first thing for you to

learn is that all learning does not come from books. A good listener

can learn as much as a good reader--if he listens to the right kind of

people." And as Dave walked home the thought deepened in him that it

really had been a lesson, and that Mr. Duncan had intended it that way.

And he wondered what remarkable fortune had been his. The air was full

of the perfume of balm-o'-gilead, and his feet were light with the joy

of youth. And he thought much of Edith, and of Reenie Hardy.

In subsequent lessons Dave was rapidly initiated into many matters

besides parlour manners and conversation. Mr. Duncan placed the first

and greatest emphasis upon learning to write, and to write well. They

had many philosophic discussions, in which the elder man sought to lead

the younger to the acceptance of truths that would not fail him in the

strain of later life, and when a conclusion had been agreed upon, it

was Mr. Duncan's habit to embody it in a copy for Dave's writing

lesson. One evening they had a long talk on success, and Mr. Duncan

had gradually stripped the glamour from wealth and fame and social

position. "The only thing worth while," he said, "is to give

happiness. The man who contributes to the happiness of the world is a

success, and the man who does not contribute to the happiness of the

world is a failure, no matter what his wealth or position. Every man

who lives long enough, and has brains enough, comes to know this in

time. And those who have not brains enough to know it, are the

greatest failures of all, because they think they have attained

success, and they have only been buncoed with a counterfeit."

"But a man who has money is in a position to give more happiness than

one who hasn't," objected Dave. "Think of all the things a man with a

million dollars can do to make people happy--like paying for libraries,

and giving excursions to poor children, and things like that. So, in

order to make people happy, wouldn't the first step be to make money,

so it could be spent in that way?"

"That is a good thought," agreed Mr. Duncan, "but not a conclusive one.

In reckoning the happiness a man gives we must, of course, subtract the

unhappiness he occasions. He may make a great sum of money, and use

much of it in creating happiness, but if in the making of the money he

used methods that resulted in unhappiness, we must subtract the

unhappiness first before we can give him any credit for the happiness

he has created. And I am disposed to think that many a philanthropist,

if weighed in that balance, would be found to have a debit side bigger

than his credit. No matter how much wealth a man may amass, or how

wisely he may distribute it, we cannot credit him with success if he

has oppressed the hireling or dealt unfairly with his competitors or

the public. Such a man is not a success; he is a failure. In his own

soul he knows he is a failure, that is, provided he still has a soul,

and if not, as I said before, he is a greater failure still."

Out of this discussion Mr. Duncan evolved the copy line, "The success

of a life is in direct proportion to its net contribution to human

happiness," and Dave sat writing it far into the night.

As soon as Dave had learned to read a little Mr. Duncan took him one

day to the public library, and the young man groped in amazement up and

down the great rows of books. Presently a strange sense of

inadequateness came over him. "I can never read all of those books,

nor half of them," he said. "I suppose one must read them in order to

be well informed."

Mr. Duncan appeared to change the subject.

"You like fruit?" he asked.

"Yes, of course. Why--"

"When you go into a fruit store do you stand and say, 'I can never eat

all of that fruit; crates and crates of it, and carloads more in the

warehouse?' Of course you don't. You eat enough for the good of your

system, and let it go at that. Now, just apply the same sense to your

reading. Read enough to keep your mind fresh, and alert, and vigorous;

give it one new thought to wrestle with every day, and let the rest

go. . . Oh, I know that there is a certain school which holds that

unless you have read this author or that author, or this book or that

book, you are hopelessly uninformed or behind the times. That's

literary snobbery. Let them talk. A mind that consumes more than it

can assimilate is morally on a par with a stomach that swallows more

than it can digest. Gluttons, both of them. Read as much as you can

think about, and no more. The trouble with many of our people is that

they do not read to think, but to save themselves the trouble of

thinking. The mind, left to itself, insists upon activity. So they

chloroform it."

Mr. Duncan also took occasion to speak with Dave about his religious

views. He did not forget Dave's explanation of why he went out of the

church. "I sympathize with your point of view a great deal," he said,

"but don't be too sweeping in your conclusions. The church is too

fussy over details; too anxious to fit the mind of man--which is his

link with the Infinite--into some narrow, soul-crushing creed; too

insistent upon the form of belief and not nearly insistent enough upon

conduct. It makes me think of a man who was trying to sell me an

automobile the other day. He was explaining all about the trimmings;

the cushions and the lights and the horn and all that sort of stuff,

and when he was through I said, 'Now tell me something about the motor.

I want to know about the thing that makes the wheels go round. If it's

no good I guess the trimmings are only fit for junk.' Well, that's the

way with the church. The motor that has kept it running for nineteen

centuries is the doctrine of love; love of man to man, love of man to

God, love of God to man. Nothing about wrath--that's only a

back-fire--but love. Without that motor all the trimmings are junk.

Each sect has its own trimmings, but they all profess to use the same

motor. . . Still, the motor is all right, even if it is neglected and

abused. I don't think you'll find a better, and you must have power of

some kind."

"What about Socialism?" asked Dave.

"Very good, insofar as it is constructive. But there is a destructive

brand of Socialism which seizes the fancy of disappointed and

disgruntled men and women, and bids them destroy. There is a basic

quality in all human nature which clamours for destruction. You see it

in the child pulling his toys to pieces, or in the mob wrecking

buildings. Destruction is easy and passionate, but construction

demands skill and patience."

"I have been at some of their meetings," said Dave. "They lay great

stress on the war between Labour and Capital--"

"Between husband and wife in the family of production," interrupted Mr.

Duncan. "Nothing is to be gained by that quarrel. I admit the husband

has been overbearing, offensive, brutal, perhaps; but the wife has been

slovenly, inefficient, shallow. Neither has yet been brought to

realize how hopeless is the case of one without the other. And I don't

think they will learn that by quarreling. What they need is not hard

words, but mutual respect and sympathy, and an honest conception of

what constitutes success. Doctrines and policies are helpful to the

extent to which they cause men to think, either directly, or by

creating environment conducive to thought; but they will never bring

the golden age of happiness. That can come only through the

destruction of selfishness, which can be destroyed only by the power of

love. That is why I emphasized the motor, in our talk about the

church. It is our only chance."

Dave's talks with Mr. Duncan became almost nightly occurrences, either

at the Duncan home, or when he drove the family--for the master of the

house often accompanied them--or when they met down town, as frequently

happened. And the boy was not slow to realize the broad nature of the

task to which Mr. Duncan had set himself. His education was to be

built of every knowledge and experience that could go into the rounding

of a well-developed life.

The climax seemed to be reached when Mr. Duncan invited Dave to

accompany him to a dinner at which a noted thinker, just crossing the

continent, had consented to speak.

"It will be evening dress," said Mr. Duncan. "I suppose you are hardly

fitted out that way?"

"I guess not," said Dave, smiling broadly. He recalled the half

humorous sarcasm with which the Metford gang referred to any who might

be seen abroad in their "Hereford fronts." He had a sudden vision of

himself running the gauntlet of the ridicule.

But Mr. Duncan was continuing. "I think I can fix you up," he said.

"We must be pretty nearly of a size, and I have a spare suit." And

almost before he knew it it was arranged that Dave should attend the

dinner.

It was an eventful night for him. His shyness soon wore off, for

during these months he had been learning to accept any new experience

gladly. "Life is made up of experience," his teacher had said,

"therefore welcome every opportunity to broaden your life by travelling

in new tracks. There are just two restrictions--the injurious and the

immoral. You must grow by experience, but be sure you grow the right

way. Only a fool must personally seize the red iron to see if it will

burn. . . But most of us are fools." And as he sat among this company

of the best minds of the town he felt that a new and very real world

was opening before him. His good clothes seemed to work up in some way

through his sub-consciousness and give him a sense of capability. He

was in the mental atmosphere of men who did things, and by conforming

to their customs he had brought his mind into harmony with theirs, so

that it could receive suggestions, and--who knows?--return suggestions.

And he was made to think, think, think.

As he walked home with Mr. Duncan under the stars he spoke of the

subtle sense of well-being and ability which came with good clothes.

"I don't mind confessing I have always had something like contempt for

stylish dressing," he said. "Now I almost feel that there's something

to it."

"There is some good quality in everything that survives," said Mr.

Duncan. "Otherwise it would not survive. That doesn't mean, of

course, that the good qualities outweigh the bad, but the good must be

there. Take the use of liquor, for instance; perhaps the greatest

source of misery we have. Yet it touches a quality in man's life:

sociability, conviviality, if you like; but a quality that has virtue

in it none the less. And the errors of sex are so often linked with

love that one can scarcely say where virtue ceases and where vice

begins. I know convention placards them plainly enough, but convention

does not make virtue vice, nor vice virtue. There are deeper laws down

beneath, and sometimes they may set at defiance all accepted codes.

"Yet I would not quarrel with the accepted codes--until I knew I had

something better. Accepted codes represent man's net progress through

experience to truth. The code, for instance, 'Thou shalt not kill;' we

accept it in general, but not completely. The State does not hesitate

to kill in self-defence, or even to carry out purposes which have no

relation to defence. And shall we not allow similar exceptions to the

other codes? And yet, although we may find our codes are not

infallible, are they not still the best guides we have?

"To return to clothes. Clothes won't make you, but they will help you

to make yourself. Only, don't become a clothes-tippler. You can run

to intoxication on fine raiment as well as on fine wines. It has

virtue in it, but just beyond the virtue lies the vice."

CHAPTER EIGHT

The summer was not far gone when Dave, through an introduction

furnished by Mr. Duncan, got a new job. It was in the warehouse of a

wholesale grocery, trundling cases and sacks of merchandise. It was

cleaner than handling coal, and the surroundings were more congenial,

and the wages were better--fifty dollars a month, to begin.

"The first thing is to get out of the dead-line," said Mr. Duncan. "I

am not hoping that you will have found destiny in a wholesale

warehouse, but you must get out of the dead-line. As long as you

shovel coal, you will shovel coal. And you are not capable of anything

better until you think you are."

"But I've liked it pretty well," said Dave. "As long as I was just

working for my wages it was dull going, but it was different after I

got to see that even shovelling coal was worth while. I suppose it is

the same with groceries, or whatever one does. As soon as you begin to

study what you handle the work loses its drudgery. It isn't a man's

job that makes him sick of his job; it's what he thinks of his job."

A light of satisfaction was in his teacher's eyes as Dave made this

answer. Mr. Duncan had realized that he was starting late with this

pupil, and if there were any short-cuts to education he must find them.

So he had set out deliberately to instil the idea that education is not

a matter of schools and colleges, or courses of reading, or formulae of

any kind, but a matter of the five senses applied to every experience

of life. And he knew that nothing was coarse or common that passed

through Dave's hands. Coal had ceased to be a smutty mineral, and had

taken on talismanic qualities unguessed by the mere animal workman; and

sugar, and coffee, and beans, and rice, and spices, each would open its

own wonderful world before this young and fertile mind. As an heritage

from his boyhood on the ranges Dave had astonishingly alert senses; his

sight, his hearing, his sense of smell and of touch were vastly more

acute than those of the average university graduate. . . And if that

were true might it not fairly be said that Dave was already the better

educated of the two, even if he, as yet, knew nothing of the classics?

As Dave parted from the Metford gang he felt that he knew what Mr.

Duncan had meant by the dead-line. These were men who would always

shovel coal, because they aspired to nothing better. There was no atom

of snobbery in Dave's nature; he knew perfectly well that shovelling

coal was quite as honourable and respectable a means of livelihood as

managing a bank, but the man who was content to shovel coal was on the

dead-line. . . And, by the same logic, the man who was content to

manage a bank was on the dead-line. That was a new and somewhat

startling aspect of life. He must discuss it with Mr. Duncan.

Dave's energy and enthusiasm in the warehouse soon brought him

promotion from truck hand to shipping clerk, with an advance in wages

to sixty-five dollars a month. He was prepared to remain in this

position for some time, as he knew that promotion depends on many

things besides ability. Mr. Duncan had warned him against the delusion

that man is entirely master of his destiny. "Life, my boy," he had

said, "is fifty per cent. environment and forty per cent. heredity.

The other ten per cent. is yours. But that ten per cent. is like the

steering gear in an automobile; it's only a small part of the

mechanism, but it directs the course of the whole machine. Get a good

grip on the part of your life you can control, and don't worry over the

rest."

To economize both time and money Dave took his lunch with him and ate

it in the warehouse. He had also become possessed of a pocket

encyclopaedia and it was his habit to employ the minutes saved by

eating lunch in the warehouse in reading from his encyclopaedia. It

chanced one day that as he was reading in the noon hour Mr. Trapper,

the head of the firm, came through the warehouse. Dave knew him but

little; he thought of him as a stern, unapproachable man, and avoided

him as much as possible. But this time Mr. Trapper was upon him before

he was seen.

"What are you reading?" he demanded. "Yellow backed nonsense?"

"No, sir," said Dave, rising and extending his arm with the book.

"Why, what's this?" queried Mr. Trapper, in some surprise.

"Tea--tea--oh, I see, it's an encyclopaedia. What is the idea, young

man?"

"I always like to read up about the stuff we are handling," said Dave.

"It's interesting to know all about it; where it comes from, how it is

grown, what it is used for; the different qualities, and so forth."

"H'm," said Mr. Trapper, returning the book. "No doubt." And he

walked on without further comment. But that afternoon he had something

to say to his manager.

"That young fellow on the shipping desk--Elden, I think his name is.

How do you find him?"

"Very satisfactory, sir. Punctual, dependable, and accurate."

"Watch him," said Mr. Trapper.

The manager swung around in his chair. "Why, what do you mean? You

haven't occasion to suspect--?"

Mr. Trapper's customary sternness slowly relaxed, until there was the

suggestion of a smile about the corners of his mouth, and rather more

than a suggestion in the twinkle in his eye.

"Do you know what I caught that young fellow doing during noon hour?"

he asked. "Reading up the encyclopaedia on tea. Tea, mind you. Said

he made a practice of reading up on the stuff we are handling. _We_,

mind you. Found it very interesting to know where it came from, and

all about it. I've been in the grocery business for pretty close to

forty years, and I've seen many an employee spend his noon hour in the

pool rooms, or in some other little back room, or just smoking, but

this is the first one I ever caught reading up the business in an

encyclopaedia. Never read it that way myself. Well--you watch him.

I'd risk a ten-spot that he knows more about tea this minute than half

of our travellers."

But Dave was not to continue in the grocery trade, despite his reading

of the encyclopaedia, A few evenings later he was engaged in reading in

the public library; not an encyclopaedia, but Shakespeare. The

encyclopaedia was for such time as he could save from business hours,

but for his evening reading Mr. Duncan had directed him into the realm

of fiction and poetry, and he was now feeling his way through Hamlet.

From the loneliness of his boyhood he had developed the habit of

talking aloud to himself, and in abstracted moments he read in an

audible whisper which impressed the substance more deeply on his mind,

but made him unpopular in the public reading rooms. It was well known

among the patrons of the rooms that he read Hamlet. This fact,

however, may not have been altogether to Dave's disadvantage. On the

evening in question an elderly man engaged him in conversation.

"You are a Shakespearean student, I see?"

"Not exactly. I read a little in the evenings. But I haven't gone far

enough to call myself a student."

"I have seen you here different times. Are you well acquainted with

the town?"

"Pretty well," said Dave, scenting that there might be a purpose in the

questioning.

"Working now?"

Dave told him where he was employed.

"I am the editor of _The Call_," said the elderly man. "We need

another man on the street; a reporter, you know. We pay twenty-five

dollars a week for such a position. If you are interested you might

call at the office tomorrow."

Dave hurried with his problem to Mr. Duncan. "I think I'd like the

work," he said, "but I am not sure whether I can do it. My writing is

rather--wonderful."

Mr. Duncan turned the matter over in his mind. "Yes," he said at

length, "but I notice you are beginning to use the typewriter. When

you learn that God gave you ten fingers, not two, you may make a

typist. And there is nothing more worth while than being able to

express yourself in English. They'll teach you that on a newspaper. I

think I'd take it.

"Not on account of the money," he continued, after a little. "You

would probably soon be earning more in the wholesale business.

Newspaper men are about the worst paid of all professions. But it's

the best training in the world, not for itself, but as a step to

something else. I have often wondered why editors, who are forever

setting every other phase of the world's work to rights, are content to

train up so many thousands of bright young men--and then pass them

along into other businesses where they are better paid. But the

training is worth while, and it's the training you want. Take it."

Dave explained his disadvantages to the editor of _The Call_. "I

didn't want you to think," he said with great frankness, "that because

I was reading Shakespeare I was a master of English. And I guess if I

were to write up stuff in Hamlet's language I'd get canned for it."

"We'd probably have a deputation from the Moral Reform League," said

the editor, with a dry smile. "Just the same, if you know Shakespeare

you know English, and we'll soon break you into the newspaper style."

So, almost before he knew it, Dave was on the staff of _The Call_. His

beat comprised the police court, fire department, hotels, and general

pick-ups. And the very first day, as though to afford fuel for his

genius, a small fire occurred in a clothing store.

"'S good for two sticks--about four inches," said the editor, when Dave

had given him the main facts. "Write your story to fit."

Dave suddenly realized that, although he had been a persistent reader

of newspapers during the recent months, he had scarcely the remotest

idea of how many words went to a column, or to an inch. It was a piece

of information needed at once, so he set about to count the words in a

column. Then he wrote his story to fit. He had already learned that

everything in a newspaper office, from a wedding to a ball game, is "a

story." When he turned his in it looked like this:

The fire bell was heard ringing this morning about ten o'clock, and

soon after crowds were seen wending their way to the Great West

Clothing Store. There was a heavy black smoke coming from the back end

of the store. The firemen were late in getting there, and before they

arrived a man had got badly choked by trying to go into the store.

Presently the engine came up and before long water was being applied in

great quantities, and soon the fire was under control. Part of the

roof fell in, and the building is pretty badly ruined. Some of the

contents may be fit for sale. It seems too bad that the fire engine

should have been so long in coming, as without doubt if it had got

there promptly the fire could have been put out before much damage

occurred. However, it might have been worse, as it was a frame

building, in a row of other frame buildings, and if the fire had once

got beyond control much damage might have been done. Nobody seems to

know how the fire started.

It was with much quiet excitement that he awaited the appearance of the

evening edition. He had a strange eagerness to see his contribution in

print; a manifestation, no doubt, of that peculiar trait in human

nature which fills the editorial waste basket with unaccepted

contributions. At last he found it, but it read like this:

Fire this morning gutted the Great West Clothing Store with a loss of

$8,000.00 of which $4,000.00 is covered by insurance in the Occidental.

Frank Beecher, proprietor of the store, was overcome by smoke, and is

in the city hospital.

Smoke was first seen issuing from the back of the store by Fred Grant,

a delivery man for the Imperial Laundry, who turned in an alarm at

10.08. Owing to the fire team colliding with a dray owned by Sheppard

& Co. some minutes of delay occurred. During this period the building,

which was of frame, burned fiercely. It was almost completely

destroyed, although some of the stock may be salable.

Beecher rushed into the back room for certain papers, where he was

found by Fireman Carey in an unconscious condition. He is recovering,

and is already planning to rebuild.

Dave read the account with a sinking heart. By the time he reached the

end it seemed his heart could sink no further. He found that the

editor had not left the office, so he approached him with as much

spirit as he could command.

"I guess you won't need me any more," he said. "I'm sorry I made a

mess of that fire story."

There was a kind twinkle in the chief's eye as he answered, "Nonsense.

Of course we need you. You have merely made the mistake every one else

makes, in supposing you could write for a newspaper without training.

We will give you the training--and pay you while you learn. The only

man we can't use is the man who won't learn. Now let me give you a few

pointers," and the editor got up from his desk and held the paper with

the fire story before him. "In the first place, don't start a story

with 'the,' at least, not more than once or twice a week. In the

second place, get the meat into the first paragraph. Seventy-five per

cent. of the readers never go further than the first paragraph; give

them the raw facts there; if they want the trimmings they will go down

for them. That is where a magazine story is exactly opposite to a

newspaper story; a newspaper story shows its hand in the first

paragraph, a magazine story in the last.

"Then, get the facts. Nobody cares whether the fire bell rang or not,

but they do care about the man who was suffocated; who he was, what he

was doing there, what became of him. Revel in names. Get the names of

everybody, and get them right. The closest tight-wad in the town will

buy a paper if it has his name in it. Every story, no matter how

short, is good for a number of names. In your copy as you turned it

in"--the editor picked it up from his desk; he had evidently saved it

for such an occasion as this--"the only name you had was that of the

clothing store. I had one of the other boys get to work on the

telephone, and you see he got the name of the proprietor; of the

insurance company, with the amount of the insurance; of the man who

turned in the alarm; of the owner of the dray team that obstructed the

engine, and of the firemen who carried Beecher to safety. Every one of

these people, with their families, their cousins, and their aunts,

become especially interested in the story the moment their names are

introduced.

"Next, remember that it is not the business of a reporter to pass

editorial comment. It may have been too bad that the fire engine was

delayed, but that is a matter for the editor to decide. The business

of the reporter is to find out why it was delayed, and state the facts,

without regrets or opinions. You must learn to hold the mirror up to

nature without making faces in it. You know what I mean--keep your own

reflection out of the picture. If you think the incident calls for an

expression of opinion by the paper, write an editorial and submit it to

me. But remember that the editorial and news columns of a paper should

be as distinct as the two sides of a fence."

"Thank you very much," said Dave, slowly, when it was plain the editor

had finished. "I think I begin to see. But there's one thing I don't

understand. Why did you not mention the origin of the fire?"

A flicker of amusement--or was it confession?--ran across the chief's

face as he answered, "Because we don't know what started it--and

Beecher is one of our best advertisers. To say the origin of the fire

is unknown always leaves a smack of suspicion. It is like the almost

imperceptible shrug of the shoulder at the mention of a woman's name.

You can't get away from it. And it is the advertiser who keeps the

paper alive. . . I know it's not idealism, but idealism doesn't pay

wages and paper bills, and as long as readers demand papers for less

than it costs to print them they will have to take second place to the

advertiser."

"Then all reports are to be coloured to suit the advertiser?" demanded

Dave.

"No. Where a principle is involved--and we have principles, even in

these degenerate days--we stand by the principle, even if we lose the

patronage. Our notions of what is for the public good have cost us a

lot of money at times. You see, the exploiter is always ready to pay

his servants, which is more than can be said of the public. But where

no real principle is involved we try to be friendly to our friends."

With these fresh viewpoints on his profession Dave entered upon his

work the following day chastened but determined. Almost immediately he

found the need of acquaintanceships. The isolation of his boyhood had

bred in him qualities of aloofness which had now to be overcome. He

was not naturally a good "mixer;" he preferred his own company, but his

own company would not bring him much news. So he set about

deliberately to cultivate acquaintance with the members of the police

force and the fire brigade, and the clerks in the hotels. And he had

in his character a quality of sincerity which gave him almost instant

admission into their friendships. He had not suspected the charm of

his own personality, and its discovery, feeding upon his new-born

enthusiasm for friendships, still further enriched the charm.

As his acquaintance with the work of the police force increased Dave

found his attitude toward moral principles in need of frequent

re-adjustment. By no means a Puritan, he had, nevertheless, two

sterling qualities which so far had saved him from any very serious

misstep. He practised absolute honesty in all his relationships. His

father, drunken although he was in his later years, had never quite

lost his sense of commercial uprightness, and Dave had inherited the

quality in full degree. And Reenie Hardy had come into his life just

when he needed a girl like Reenie Hardy to come into his life . . . He

often thought of Reenie Hardy, and of her compact with him, and

wondered what the end would be. And meanwhile he found the need of

frequent readjustments. He became aware of the fact that in every

community there are two communities; one on the surface, respectable,

discreet, conventional; and one beneath the surface, to which these

terms would not apply. He found that the province of the police was

not to enforce morality, but to prevent immorality becoming obnoxious.

Anything, almost, might go on so long as its effects were confined to

the voluntary participants. Underneath the sham of good behaviour was

a world, known to the police and the newspaper men and a few others,

which refused to accept standard conventions and lived according to its

own impulse. And this world included so-called best citizens, of both

sexes. And they _were_ good citizens. It seemed the community had two

natures; a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on a community basis.

Splendid qualities; large heartedness, generosity, were mingled and

streaked through degrees of selfishness and lust running down into

positive crime. . . And the wonder was not what the papers printed,

but what they left untold. . . And he was glad he had met Reenie

Hardy. She was an anchor about his soul. . . And Edith Duncan.

One morning, as he sat with Carson of _The Times_ at the reporters'

table in the police court, listening absently to the clerk calling a

list of names, his companion, with a grimace, intimated that there was

something beneath the surface. "Pure fiction," he whispered, as the

list was completed. "It would do you good to know who they are.

Shining lights, every one of them. And when they are lit up they can't

be kept under a bushel. The police just had to do something. They

won't be here--not one of them. Their lawyer will plead guilty, and

pay the fines, and every one will be sorry--they were caught. Even his

nibs on the bench isn't twice as happy. It was by good luck he wasn't

with the bunch himself."

It turned out as Carson predicted. One of the leading lawyers of the

city addressed the Court, expressing the regret of his clients that

their behaviour had necessitated interference by the police. He was

full of suave assurances that no disrespect to the law, nor annoyance

to any member of the community, was intended, and he pleaded feelingly

for as great leniency as the court might consider consistent with the

offence. The minimum fine was imposed, and the lawyer withdrew,

bearing with him the double happiness of having earned a good fee and

having saved a number of his personal friends from a public exposure

which would have been, at least, embarrassing. As the lawyer passed

the reporters' table Dave felt something pressed into his hand, and

heard the whispered words, "Split it."

In his hand was a ten dollar bill. "What's the idea?" said Dave to

Carson, when the session was over.

"The idea is that I get five," said Carson, "and both of us forget it.

Cheap skate, he might have made it twenty. Of course the names were

bogus, but they couldn't risk mention, even with that precaution. Easy

picking, isn't it?"

"It doesn't look quite right," Dave faltered. "I'm here to get the

news--"

"Oh, can that. You know we don't publish all the news. Why, man, we'd

wreck society, or the ship of state, or whatever it is we are all

floating on, if we did that. We'd have every lawyer in this burg busy

in a week, and they're making too much money already. What the world

doesn't know the world doesn't grieve over. And the joke of it is,

everybody thinks he's putting it over somebody else, and while he's

busy thinking that somebody else is putting it over him. So they're

about even in the finish. Besides, if you talk about principle,

doesn't the Bible say to do unto others as you would that they should

do unto you? How would you feel in their position?

"I tell you," said Carson, warming up to his subject, "this is an

intricate game, this life business. Pretty seedy in spots, but, after

all, most people are merely victims of circumstances. And if

circumstances place a five-spot in your hand to-day, accept what the

gods bring you. To-morrow they will take it away.

"See this suit," he continued, indicating his attire, which greatly

out-classed Dave's. "A friend gave me that. I get all my suits that

way. When a scrap occurs in a bar-room; a booze riot, or knifing, or

something goes wrong upstairs, I just mention that it took place in 'a

down town hotel.' Then I order myself a suit, or something of that

kind, and have the tailor send his bill to the proprietor of the joint.

He pays. If he doesn't, next time I name his tavern right in the

story."

"Don't you call that graft?" asked Dave.

"Graft? Nonsense! Merely an exchange of courtesies. . . There are

others, too. You'll get wise to them in time."

But Dave was by no means satisfied with Carson's philosophy. He went

to his editor with the five dollar bill and the police court incident.

"What shall I do about it?" he demanded.

He fancied there was a note of impatience in the editor's reply. "Give

the money to the Salvation Army," he said, "and forget about the rest.

Isn't it Kipling who says 'There comes a night when the best gets

tight,' and so on? We could tell the story, but what good would it do?

And let me tell you, Elden, there are mighty few, men or women, who

have gone half way through life without something they'd like to

forget. Why not let them forget it? You're young yet, and perhaps you

don't see it that way, but you'll be older. There's a verse by

somebody runs like this:

"Don't take the defensive by saying

"I told only just what was true,"

For there's more at that game might be playing

If the truth were all told about you."

"That may be bad poetry, but it's good journalistic ethics."

But after Dave had gone the editor called his business manager. "I

guess we'll have to raise Elden to thirty dollars a week," said he.

"He's so honest he embarrasses me, and I guess I need that kind of

embarrassment, or I wouldn't be embarrassed."

CHAPTER NINE

While the gradually deepening current of Dave's life flowed through the

channels of coal heaver, freight hustler, shipping clerk, and reporter,

its waters were sweetened by the intimate relationship which developed

between him and the members of the Duncan household. He continued his

studies under Mr. Duncan's directions; two, three, or even four nights

in the week found him at work in the comfortable den, or, during the

warm weather, on the screened porch that overlooked the family garden.

His duties as reporter frequently called for attendance at public

meetings devoted to all conceivable purposes, and he was at first

disposed to feel unkindly toward these interruptions in his regular

studies. He raised the point with Mr. Duncan.

"One thing I have been trying to drill into you," said his tutor, "is

that education is not a thing of books or studies or formulae of any

kind. It is the whole world; particularly the world of thought,

feeling, and expression. It is not a flower in the garden of life; it

is the garden itself, with its flowers, and its perfumes, and its

sunshine and rain. Yes, and its weeds, and droughts, and insects and

worms. There is a phase of education in the public meeting, whether

its purpose be to discuss the municipal tax rate or the flora of the

Rockies. You can't afford to miss any subject; but still less can you

afford to miss the audiences that are interested in any subject. They

are deeper than any book. There are all kinds of audiences. There is

the violent audience, and the mysterious audience, and the sentimental

audience, and the destructive audience, and the whimsical audience, and

the hysterical audience,--and every other kind. And the funny thing is

that they are all made up of much the same people. Take a sentimental

audience, for instance; a few passes, and you have an hysterical

audience. It is a difference of moods. We don't think enough about

moods. We are all subject to moods, and yet we judge a new

acquaintance by the mood he happens to be in--and the mood we happen to

be in--at the time of making the acquaintanceship. Another day, in

other moods, he would make a quite different impression--if the

impression already made could be effaced. I have a theory that the

world's sorrow is largely a matter of moods. I don't deny the sorrow,

nor the need for sorrow, nor the reality of it, but I do believe there

is a mood of happiness which even the deepest sorrows cannot suppress.

And the more you study people the more you will understand moods, and,

perhaps, be master of your own. And the man who can, by force of his

own will, determine the mood in which he will live, is master of the

world."

So Dave came to realize that every incident in the reportorial round

was to be assimilated for its educational value, and this lent a zest

to his work which it could not otherwise have had. But the attraction

of the Duncan household grew upon him, and many an hour he spent under

its hospitable roof. Mrs. Duncan, motherly, and yet not too

motherly--she might almost have been an older sister--appealed to the

young man as an ideal of womanhood. Her soft, well modulated voice

seemed to him to express the perfect harmony of the perfect home, and

underneath its even tones he caught glimpses of a reserve of power and

judgment not easily unbalanced. She was a woman to whom men might

carry their ambitions, and women their hopes, and little children their

wonderings, and all be assured of sympathetic audience and wise

counsel. And as Dave's eyes would follow her healthy, handsome figure

as it moved noiselessly about in her domestic duties, or as he caught

the flush of beauty that still bloomed in her thoughtful face, or as at

rarer intervals he plunged into the honest depths of her frank grey

eyes, the tragedy of his own orphaned life bore down upon him and he

rebelled that he had been denied the start which such a mother could

have given him.

"I am twenty years behind myself," he would reflect, with a grim smile.

"Never mind. I will do three men's work for the next ten, and then we

will be even."

And there was Edith,--Edith, who had held him rapture-bound on that

first Sunday in church--Edith, who had burst so unexpectedly upon his

life that first evening in her father's home. He had not allowed

himself any foolishness about Edith. It was evident that Edith was

pre-empted, just as he was pre-empted, and the part of honour in his

friend's house was to recognize the _status quo_. . . Still, Mr. Allan

Forsyth was unnecessarily self-assured. He might have made it less

evident that he was within the enchanted circle, while Dave remained

outside. His complacence irritated Dave almost into rivalry. But the

boon camaraderie of Edith herself checked any adventure of that kind.

She checked it in two ways; by her own frank acceptance of him much as

she would have accepted a brother in the household, and by her uncanny

and unconscious knack of reminding him in almost every word and gesture

of Reenie Hardy. She was of about the same figure as Reenie Hardy; a

little slighter, perhaps; and about the same age; and she had the same

quick, frank eyes. And she sang wonderfully. He had never heard

Reenie sing, but in some strange way he had formed a deep conviction

that she would sing much as Edith sang. He was not yet psychologist

enough to know that his admiration for Edith was the reflex action to

his love for the girl who had so wonderfully invaded his foothill life

and so wonderfully changed the current of his destinies. In love, as

in religion, man is forever setting up idols to represent his

ideals. . . And forever finding feet of clay.

Dave was not long in discovering that his engagement as coachman was a

device, born of Mr. Duncan's kindness, to enable him to accept

instruction without feeling under obligation for it. When he made this

discovery, he smiled quietly to himself, and pretended not to have made

it. Two things were apparent after their first drive; that nothing was

further from the minds of Mr. Duncan's bays than anything which called

for so much exertion as a runaway, and that, even had they been so

disposed, Edith was entirely competent to manage them. The girl had

not lived in the foothill town since childhood without becoming

something of a horse-woman. But Dave pretended not to know that he was

a supernumerary. To have acted otherwise would have seemed ungrateful

to Mr. Duncan. And presently the drives began to have a strange

attraction of themselves.

When they drove in the two-seated buggy on Sunday afternoons the party

usually comprised Mrs. Duncan and Edith, young Forsyth and Dave. Mr.

Duncan was interested in certain Sunday afternoon meetings. It was

Mrs. Duncan's custom to sit in the rear seat, for its better riding

qualities, and it had a knack of falling about that Edith would ride in

the front seat with the driver. She caused Forsyth to ride with her

mother, ostensibly as a courtesy to that young gentleman,--a courtesy

which, it may be conjectured, was not fully appreciated. At first he

accepted it with the good nature of one who feels his position secure,

but gradually that good nature gave way to a certain testiness of

spirit which he could not entirely conceal. It became evident that he

would have preferred other ways of spending the Sunday afternoons. The

parks, for instance, or quiet walks through the cottonwoods by the

river. . .

The crisis was precipitated one fine Sunday in September, in the first

year of Dave's newspaper experience. Dave called early, and found

Edith in a riding habit.

"Mother is 'indisposed,' as they say in the society page," she

explained. "In other words, she doesn't wish to be bothered. So I

thought we would ride to-day."

"But there are only two horses," said Dave.

"Well?" queried the girl, and there was a note in her voice that

sounded strange to him. Then, after a pause in which the colour slowly

rose to her cheeks, "There are only two of us."

"But Mr. Forsyth?"

"He is not here. He may not come. Will you saddle the horses and let

us get away?"

It was evident to Dave that, for some reason, Edith wished to evade

Forsyth this afternoon. A lover's quarrel, no doubt. That she had a

preference for him, and was revealing it with the utmost frankness,

never occurred to his sturdy, honest mind. One of the delights of his

companionship with Edith had been that it was a real companionship.

None of the limitations occasioned by any sex consciousness had

narrowed the sphere of the frank friendship he felt for her. She was

to him almost as another man, yet in no sense masculine. It seemed

rather that her femininity was of such purity that, like the atmosphere

he breathed, it surrounded him, flooded him without exciting

consciousness of its existence. Save for a certain tender delicacy

which her womanhood inspired, he came and went with her as he might

have done with a man chum of his own age. And when she preferred to

ride _without_ Forsyth it did not occur to Elden that she preferred to

ride _with_ him.

They were soon in the country, and Edith, leading, swung from the road

to a bridle trail that followed the winding of the river. As her

graceful figure drifted on ahead it seemed more than ever reminiscent

of Reenie Hardy. What rides they had had on those foothill trails!

What dippings into the great canyons! What adventures into the spruce

forests! And how long ago it all seemed. That was before he started

on the paper; before he had been in the grocery business, or in the

coal business; back in the long, long past on the ranch in the days

before his father died. Life--how it goes! And had it brought to her

as many changes as to him? And had it, perhaps, brought to her one

change it had not brought to him--a change in the anchor about which

her heart's affection clung? This girl, riding ahead, suggestive in

every curve and pose of Reenie Hardy. . . His eyes were burning with

loneliness.

He knew he was dull that day, and Edith was particularly charming and

vivacious. She coaxed him into conversation a dozen times, but he

answered absent-mindedly. At length she leapt from her horse and

seated herself, facing the river, on a fallen log. Without looking

back she indicated with her hand the space beside her, and Dave

followed and sat down. For a time they watched the swift water in

silence; blue-green where the current ran deeply; tinged with brown

glow in the shallows from the gravel underneath.

"You aren't talking to-day," she said at length. "You don't quite do

yourself justice. What's wrong?"

[Illustration: "You aren't talking to-day . . . what's wrong?"]

"Oh, nothing," he answered with a laugh, pulling himself together.

"This September weather always gets me. I guess I have a streak of

Indian; it comes of being brought up on the ranges. And in September,

after the first frosts have touched the foliage--" He paused, as

though it was not necessary to say more.

"Yes, I know," she said quietly. Then, with a queer little note of

confidence, "Don't apologize for it, Dave."

"Apologize?" and his form straightened. "Certainly not. . . One

doesn't apologize for nature, does he? . . . But it comes back in

September." He smiled, and she thought the subconscious in him was

calling up the smell of fire in dry grass, or perhaps even the rumble

of buffalo over the hills. And he knew he smiled because he had so

completely misled her.

Presently she took out a pocket volume. "Will you read?" she said.

Strangely enough he opened it at the lines:

"Oh, you will never hide your soul from me;

I've seen the jewels flash, and know 'tis there

Muffle it as you will."

. . . It was dusk when they started homeward.

Forsyth was waiting for her. Dave scented stormy weather and excused

himself early.

"What does this mean?" demanded Forsyth, angrily, as soon as Dave had

gone. "Do you think I'll take second place to that--that coal heaver?"

She straightened, and her bright eyes were charged with a blaze which

would have astonished Dave, who had known her only in her milder moods.

But she tried to speak without passion.

"That is not to his discredit," she said.

"Straight from the corrals into good society," Forsyth sneered.

Then she made no pretense of composure. "If you have nothing more to

urge against Mr. Elden, perhaps you will go."

Forsyth took his hat. At the door he paused and turned, but she was

already ostensibly interested in a magazine. He went out into the

night.

The week was a busy one with Dave, and he had no opportunity to visit

the Duncans. Friday Edith called him on the telephone. She asked an

inconsequential question about something which had appeared in the

paper, and from that the talk drifted on until it turned on the point

of their expedition of the previous Sunday. Dave never could account

quite clearly how it happened, but when he hung up the receiver he knew

he had asked her to ride with him again on Sunday, and she had

accepted. He had ridden with her before, of course, but he had never

_asked_ her before. He had been a sort of honoured employee, whose

business it was to comply with her wishes. But this time she would

ride at his request. He felt that a subtle change had come over their

relationship.

He was at the Duncan house earlier than usual Sunday afternoon, but not

too early for Edith. She was dressed for the occasion; she seemed more

fetching than he had ever seen her. There was the blush of health--or

was it altogether the blush of health?--on her cheeks, and a light in

her eyes such as he had seen more than once on those last rides with

Reenie Hardy. And across her saddle she threw a brown sweater.

She led the way over the path followed the Sunday before until again

they sat by the rushing water. Dave had again been filled with a sense

of Reenie Hardy, and his conversation was disjointed and uninteresting.

She tried unsuccessfully to draw him out with questions about himself;

then took the more astute tack of speaking of her own past life. It

had begun in an eastern city, ever so many years ago.

Chivalry could not allow that to pass. "Oh, not so very many," said

Dave.

"How many?" she teased. "Guess."

He looked judicially on her bright face; it was a good face to look

upon. Perhaps his eyes said as much.

"Nineteen," he hazarded.

"Oh, more than that."

"Twenty-one?"

"Oh, less than that." And their first confidence was established.

"Twenty," thought Dave to himself. "Reenie must be about twenty now."

"And I was five when--when Jack died," she went on. "Jack was my

brother, you know. He was seven, and a great boy for his daddy. Most

boys run to their mother with their hurts, but Jack was different.

When father was at the office Jack would save up his little hurts until

evening. . . Well, we were playing, and I stood on the car tracks,

signalling the motorman, to make him ring his bell. On came the car,

with the bell clanging, and the man in blue looking very cross. Jack

must have thought I was waiting too long, for he suddenly rushed on the

track to pull me off." She stopped, and sat looking at the rushing

water.

"I heard him cry, 'Oh Daddy, Daddy,' above the screech of the brakes,"

she continued, in a dry voice.

"Sorrow is a strange thing," she went on, after a pause. "I don't

pretend to understand, but it seems to have its place in life. I fancy

this would soon be a pretty degenerate world if there were no sorrow in

it. I have been told that sometimes fruit trees refuse to bear until

they have met with adversity. Then the gardener bores a hole in them,

or something like that, and, behold, next season they bear. Sounds

silly, but they say it's a fact. I guess it's natural law. Well--"

She paused again, and when she spoke it was in a lower, more

confidential note.

"I shouldn't tell you this, Dave. I shouldn't know it myself. But

before that things hadn't been, well, just as good as they might in our

home. . . They've been different since."

The shock of her words brought him upright. To him it seemed that Mr.

and Mrs. Duncan were the ideal father and mother. It was impossible to

associate them with a home where things "hadn't been just as good as

they might." But her half confession left no room for remark.

"Mother told me," she went on, after a long silence, and without

looking at him. "A few years ago, 'If some one had only told me, when

I was your age,' she said."

"Why do you tell me this?" he suddenly demanded.

"Did you ever feel that you just had to tell _someone_?"

It was his turn to pause. "Yes," he confessed, at length.

"Then tell me."

So he led her down through the tragedy of his youth and the lonely

rudderless course of his boyhood. She followed sympathetically to the

day when Dr. Hardy and his daughter Irene became guests at the Elden

ranch. And then her interest manifested something deeper than

sympathy. But he had become engrossed in his narrative. . . The

September day had drawn to a close, and the dusk was thick about them,

ere he reached the end. But before the end he stopped. Should he tell

her all? Why not? She had opened her life to him. So he told her of

that last evening with Irene, and the compact under the trees and the

moon. Her hand had fallen into his as they talked, but here he felt it

slowly withdrawn. But he was fired with the flame of love which had

sprung up in the breath of his reminiscence. . . And Edith was his

friend and his chum.

"And you have been true?" she said, but her voice was distant and

strained.

"Yes."

"And you are waiting for her?"

"Yes, I am waiting. . . It must be so." . . .

"It is cold," she said. "Let us go home."

CHAPTER TEN

Whatever the effect of this conversation had been upon Edith she

concealed it carefully, and Dave counted it one of the fortunate events

of his life. It had sealed to him a new friendship, a confidence to

support him in days of stress. He had been working under the spur of

his passion for Irene, but now this was to be supplemented by the

friendship of Edith. That it was more than friendship on her part did

not occur to him at all, but he knew she was interested in him, and he

was doubly determined that he would justify her interest and

confidence. He threw himself into the columns of _The Call_ with

greater vigour than ever.

But just at this time another incident occurred which was to turn the

flood of his life into strange channels. Dave had been promoted to the

distinction of a private office--a little six-by-six "box stall," as

the sports editor described it--but none the less a distinction shared

only with the managing editor and Bert Morrison, compiler of the

woman's page. Her name was Roberta, but she was masculine to the tips,

and everybody called her Bert. The remainder of the staff occupied a

big, dingy room, with walls pasted with specimen headings, comic

cartoons, and racy pictures, and floor carpeted deeply with exchanges.

Dave, however, had established some sort of order in his den, and had

installed at his own cost a spring lock to prevent depredations upon

his paste pot or sudden raids upon his select file of time copy.

Into this sanctuary one afternoon in October came Conward. It was such

an afternoon as to set every office-worker at war with the gods; the

glories of the foothill October are known only in the foothill country,

and Dave, married though he was to his work, felt the call of the

sunshine and the open spaces. This was a time for fallen leaves and

brown grass and splashes of colour everywhere--nature's autumn colours,

bright, glorious, unsubdued. Only Dave knew how his blood leaped to

that suggestion. But the world must go on.

Conward's habitual cigarette hung from its accustomed short tooth, and

his round, florid face seemed puffier than usual. His aversion to any

exercise more vigorous than offered by a billiard cue was beginning to

reflect itself in a premature rotundity of figure. But his soft,

sedulous voice had not lost the note of friendly confidence which had

attracted Dave, perhaps against his better judgment, on the night of

their first meeting.

"'Lo, Dave," he said. "Alone?"

"Almost," said Dave, without looking up from his typewriter. Then,

turning, he kicked the door shut with his heel and said, "Shoot."

"This strenuous life is spoiling your good manners, Dave, my boy," said

Conward, lazily exhaling a thin cloud of smoke. "If work made a man

rich you'd die a millionaire. But it isn't work that makes men rich.

Ever think of that?"

"If a man does not become rich by work he has no right to become rich

at all," Dave retorted.

"What do you mean by that word 'right,' Dave? Define it."

"Haven't time. We go to press at four."

"That's the trouble with fellows like you," Conward continued. "You

haven't time. You stick too close to your jobs. You never see the

better chances lying all around. Now suppose you let them go to press

without you to-day, and you listen to me for a while."

Dave was about to throw him out when a gust of yearning for the open

spaces swept over him again. It was true enough. He was giving his

whole life to his paper. Promotion was slow, and there was no prospect

of a really big position at any time. He remembered Mr. Duncan's

remarks about newspaper training being the best preparation for

something else. With a sudden decision he closed his desk. "Shoot,"

he said again, but this time with less impatience.

"That's better," said Conward. "Have you ever thought of the future of

this town?"

"Well, I can't say that I have. I've been busy with its present."

"That's what I supposed. You've been too busy with the details of your

little job to give attention to bigger things. Now, let me pass you a

few pieces of information--things you must know, but you have never put

them together before. What are the natural elements which make a

country or city a desirable place to live? I'll tell you. Climate,

transportation, good water, variety of landscape, opportunity of

independence. Given these conditions, everything else can be added.

Now, our climate--of course it is misunderstood in the South and East,

but misunderstanding doesn't ruffle it. You and I know what it is.

This is a white man's climate. Follow our latitude into Europe if you

want to find the seats of power and success. London and Berlin are

north of us; Paris very little south."

"Where did you get this stuff?" Dave interjected. "Sounds like the

prelude of an address before a boomsters' club."

"I've been thinking, while you've been too busy to think," Conward

retorted. "Then there's transportation. This is one of the few

centres in America which has a north and south trade equal to its east

and west trade. We're on the cross-roads. Every settler who goes into

the North--and it is a mighty North--means more north and south trade.

The development of the Pacific Coast, the industrialization of Asia,

the opening of the Panama Canal--these mean east and west trade. Every

railway that taps this country must come to this city, because we have

the start, and are too big to be ignored."

"'City' is good," said Dave.

"All right. Scoff as much as you like. Have your joke before it turns

on you. There'll be a quarter of a million people here before you're

dead, if you play fair with the life insurance people."

"Go on."

"Then there's the soil--the richest soil in the world. Just dry enough

to keep it from leaching. Natural possibilities for irrigation

wherever necessary--"

"I'm not sure about it as a grain country," interrupted Dave, with a

touch of antagonism.

"That is because you were brought up on a ranch, and are a rancher at

heart," Conward shot back. "No rancher is ever sure of any country

being a grain country. All he is sure of is that if the farmer comes

it is good-bye to the open range. Just as the fur-trader blackguarded

the climate to keep the stockman out, so is the stockman blackguarding

the climate to keep the farmer out. But they're coming. They can't be

stopped. It's only a case of education--of advertising.

"I tell you, Dave, the movement is on now, and before long it'll hit us

like a tidal wave. I've been a bit of a gambler all my life, but this

is the biggest jack-pot ever was, and I'm going to sit in. How about

you?"

"I'd like to think it over. Promotion doesn't come very fast on this

job, that's sure."

"Yes, and while you are thinking it over chances are slipping by.

Don't think it over--put it over. I tell you, Dave, there are big

things in the air. They are beginning to move already. Have you

noticed the strangers in town of late? That's the advance guard--"

"Advance guard of a real estate boom?"

"Hish! That's a bad word. Get away from it. Say 'Industrial

development.'"

"All right,--industrial development. And do we have to have an advance

guard of strangers to bring about 'industrial development?'"

"Sure. That's the only way. You never heard of the old-timers in a

town booming it--the term goes between us--did you? Never. The old

resident is always deader than the town, no matter how dead the town

may be. And this business is a science. The right gang can spring it

anywhere, and almost any time.

"Let me elaborate. We'll say Alkali Lake is a railway station where

lots go begging at a hundred dollars each. In drops a well dressed

stranger--buys ten lots at a hundred and fifty each--and the old-timers

are chuckling over sticking him. But in drops another stranger and

buys a block of lots at two hundred each. Then the old timers begin to

wonder if they didn't sell too soon. By the time the fourth or fifth

stranger has dropped in they are dead sure of it, and they are trying

to buy their lots back. All sorts of rumours get started, nobody knows

how. New railways are coming, big factories are to be started,

minerals have been located, there's a secret war on between great

monied interests. The town council meets and changes the name to

Silver City--having regard, no doubt, to the alkali in the sleugh

water. The old-timers, and all that great, innocent public which is

forever hoping to get something for nothing, are now glad to buy the

lots at five hundred to ten thousand dollars each, and by the time

they've bought it up the gang moves on. It's the smoothest game in the

world, and every community will fall for it at least twice. . . Well,

they're here.

"Of course, it's a little different in this case, because there really

is something in the way of natural advantages to support it. It's not

all hot air. That'll make the event just so much bigger.

"Now, Dave, I've been dipping in a little already, and it struck me we

might work together on this deal. Your paper has considerable weight,

and if that weight falls the right way you won't find me stingy. For

instance, an item that this property"--he produced a slip with some

legal descriptions--"has been sold for ten thousand dollars to eastern

investors--very conservative investors from the East, don't forget

that--might help to turn another deal that's just hanging. Sorry to

keep you so long, but perhaps you can catch the press yet." And, with

one of his friendly mannerisms, Conward departed.

Dave sat for some minutes in a quandary. He was discouraged with his

salary, or, rather, with the lack of prospect of any increase in his

salary. Conward's words had been very unsettling. They pulled in

opposite directions. They fired him with a new enthusiasm for his

city, and they intimated that a gang of professional land-gamblers was

soon to perpetrate an enormous theft, leaving the public holding the

sack. Still there must be a middle course somewhere.

He walked to his little window and looked across the warm prairie. No

buildings cut his view from the brown hillsides where the lazy mists of

autumn beckoned to be out and free. It was a sleepy cow-town still,

and yet, as he now recalled, a new pulse had been throbbing its

arteries of late. The proportion of strangers--men in white collars

and street shoes--at the hotels was steadily growing. Rents were going

up. It was the first low wave--and Conward's ear had caught it. . .

At any rate, he could use Conward's story about the land sale. That

was news--legitimate news. Of course, it might be a faked sale--faked

for its news value--but reporters are not paid for being detectives.

The rule was to publish the news while it was hot. Nothing is so

perishable as news. It must be used at once or discarded

altogether. . . The _Evening Call_ carried a statement of Conward's

sale, and on that statement was hung a column story on the growing

prosperity of the city, and its assured future owing to its exceptional

climate and natural resources, combined with its commanding position on

transportation routes, both east and west and north and south. With

the industrialization of Asia and the settlement of the great

North--and how great is that North--etc., etc.

During the following days Dave had a keener eye than usual for

evidences of 'industrial development.' He found them on every hand.

Old properties, long considered unsalable, were changing owners.

Handsomely furnished offices had been opened on principal corners for

the sale of city and country property. Hotels were crowded, bar-rooms

were jammed. The preponderance of the male population had never been

so pronounced, and every incoming train added to it. Money moved

easily; wages were stiffening; tradesmen were in demand. There was

material for many good stories in his investigations. He began writing

features on the city's prosperity and prospects. The rival paper did

the same, and there was soon started between them a competition of

optimism. The great word became "boost." It stood, apparently, for

any action or attitude that would increase prices. The virus was now

in the veins of the community; pulsing through every street and by-way

of the little city. Dave marvelled, and wondered how he had failed to

read these signs until Conward had laid their portent bare before him.

But as yet it was only his news sense that responded; his delight in

the strange and the sensational. He was not yet inoculated with the

poison of easy wealth.

His nights were busy with his investigations, but on Sundays, as usual,

he went out to Duncans'. He had developed the habit of attending

morning service; he loved the music, and it was customary for Edith to

sing a morning solo. Her voice, which had enraptured him when they

first met, had developed wonderfully. It filled the morning air like

the clear tolling of silver bells. For its sake he gladly endured the

sermons, and even in the sermon he sometimes found common ground with

the preacher. They could meet on any faith that postulated the

brotherhood of man. But the reverend speaker touched such a subject

warily. It seemed to Dave he would gladly have gone further, but was

held in restraint by a sense of the orthodoxy of his congregation. Too

literal an interpretation of the brotherhood of man might carry the

taint of Socialism, and the congregation represented the wealth of the

city. It was safer to preach learnedly on abstractions of belief.

This morning Edith had not been in her place, and the service was flat.

In the afternoon she was not at her home. Mrs. Duncan explained that

Edith had gone to visit a girl friend in the country; would be away for

some time. Dave felt a foolish annoyance that she should have left

town. She might at least have called him up. Why should she call him

up? Of course not. Still, the town was very empty. He drove with

Mrs. Duncan in the afternoon, and at night took a long walk by the

river. He had a vague but oppressive sense of loneliness. He had not

realized what part of his life these Sunday afternoons with Edith had

come to be. He had no man friends; his nature held him apart from his

own sex. And yet he had a strange capacity for making friends quickly,

if he tried. But he didn't try. He didn't feel the need. But he felt

lost without Edith.

A few days later Conward strolled in, with the inevitable cigarette.

He smoked in silence until Dave completed a story.

"Good stuff you're giving us," he commented, when the article was

finished. "Mighty good stuff."

"Your tip put me on to a good lead all right," Dave acknowledged. "And

now _The Times_ is chasing me hard. They had a story this morning that

the ---- railway is buying a right-of-way up the river."

"Remember what I told you the other day? Stories start from nowhere.

It's just like putting a match to tinder. Now we're off."

Conward smoked a few minutes in silence, but Dave could not fail to see

the excitement under his calm exterior. He had, as he said, decided to

"sit in" in the biggest game ever played. The intoxication of sudden

wealth had already fired his blood.

He slipped a bill to Dave. "For your services in that little

transaction," he explained.

Elden held the bill in his fingers, gingerly, as though it might carry

infection, as in very truth it did. He realized that he stood at a

turning point--that everything the future held for him might rest on

his present decision. There remained in him not a little of the fine,

stern honour of the ranchmen of the open range; an honour curious,

sometimes terrible, in its interpretation of right and wrong, but a

fine, stern honour none the less. And he instinctively felt that to

accept this money would compromise him forever more. And yet--others

did it. He had no doubt of that. Conward would laugh at such

scruples. And Conward had more friends than he had. Everybody liked

Conward. It seemed to Dave that he, only, distrusted him. But that,

also, as Dave said to himself, lay in the point of view. He granted

that he had no more right to impose his standard of morals upon Conward

than the preacher had to impose an arbitrary belief upon him. And as

he turned the bill in his fingers he noticed that it was for one

hundred dollars. He had thought it was ten.

"I can't take that much," he exclaimed. "It isn't fair."

"Fair enough," said Conward, well pleased that Dave should be impressed

by his generosity. "Fair enough," he repeated. "It's just ten per

cent. of my profit."

"You mean you made a thousand dollars on that deal?"

"Exactly that. And that will look like a peanut to what we are going

to make later on."

"We?"

"Yes. You and me. We're going into partnership."

"But I've nothing to invest. I've only a very little saved up."

"Invest that hundred."

Dave looked at Conward sharply. Was he trifling? No; his eyes were

frank and serious.

"You mean it?"

"Of course. Now, I'll put you on to something, and it's the biggest

thing that has been pulled off yet. There's a section of land lying

right against the city limits that is owned by a fellow over in

England; remittance man who fell heir to an estate and had to go home

to spend it. Well, he has been paying taxes ever since, and is tired

of the 'bally rawnch'; besides, he is busy keeping his property in

England reasonably well spent. I am arranging through a London office

to offer him ten dollars an acre, and I'll bet he jumps at it. I've

arranged for the necessary credits, but there will be some expenses for

cables, etc., and you can put your hundred into that. If we pull it

off--and we will pull it off--we start up in business as Conward &

Elden, or Elden & Conward, which ever sounds better. Boy, there's a

fortune in it."

"What do you figure it's worth?" said Dave, trying to speak easily.

"Twenty-five dollars an acre?"

"Twenty-five dollars an acre!" Conward shouted. "Dave, newspaper

routine has killed your imagination, little as one would expect such a

result, from some of the things the papers print. Twenty-five dollars

an acre! Listen!

"The city boundaries are to be extended--probably will be by the time

this deal goes through. Then it is city property. A street railway

system is to be built, and we'll see that it runs through our land. We

may have to 'grease' somebody, but it's a poor engineer that saves on

grease. Then we'll survey that section into twenty-five foot lots--and

we'll sell them at two hundred dollars each for those nearest the city

down to one hundred for those farthest out--average one hundred and

fifty, total nine hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Allow say sixty

thousand for 'grease' and there is still nine hundred thousand, and

that doesn't count re-sale commissions. Dave, it's good for a cool

million. And that is just the beginning. It will give us a standing

that will make anything possible."

Dave was doing rapid thinking. Suddenly he faced Conward, and their

eyes met. "Conward," he said, "why do you put this up to me?"

"What d'ye mean?"

"You don't need my little hundred to put this over. Why do you let me

in on it?"

Conward smiled and breathed easily. There had been a moment of tension.

"Oh, that's simple," he answered. "I figure this business is going to

be too big for me, and you are the partner I need. I figure we'll

travel well in double harness. I'm a good mixer--I know people--and

I've got ideas. And you're sound and honourable and people trust you."

"Thanks," said Dave, dryly.

"That's right," Conward continued. "We'll be a combination hard to

beat. You know the story about the brothers in the coal business?"

"No."

"Jim and Fred were coal dealers, when a revival broke out in their

town, and Jim got religion. Then he tried to convert Fred; tried awful

hard to get Fred to at least go to the meetings. But Fred wouldn't

budge. Said it wasn't practicable. Jim argued and coaxed and prayed,

but without result. At last he put it up to Fred.

"'Fred,' he said, 'why won't you come to our meetings?'"

"'Well,' the brother answered, 'it was all right for you to get

religion. Sort o' lends respectability to the firm. But if I get it

too, who's going to weigh the coal?'"

The two men laughed over the story, and yet it left an unpleasant

impression upon Dave. He had never felt sure of Conward, and now he

felt less sure than ever. But the lust of easy money was beginning to

stir within him. The bill in his hands represented more than three

weeks' wages. Conward was making money--making money fast, and surely

here was an opportunity such as comes once in a lifetime. A boy shoved

in his head and yelled for copy. Dave swore at him, impatiently. He

had never before realized how irksome the drudgery of his steady grind

had become.

"I'll go you," he said to Conward at last. "I'll risk this hundred,

and a little more if necessary."

"Good," said Conward, springing to his feet and taking Dave's hand in a

warm grasp. "Now we're away. But you better play safe. Stick to your

pay cheque here until we pull the deal through. There won't be much to

do until then, anyway, and you can help more by guiding the paper along

right lines."

"It sounds like a fairy tale," Dave demurred, as though unwilling to

credit the possibilities Conward had outlined. "You're sure it can be

done?"

"Done? Why, son, it has been done in all the big centres in the

States, and at many a place that'll never be a centre at all. And it

will be done here. Dave, bigger things than you dare to dream of are

looming up right ahead."

Then Dave had a qualm. "If that section of land is worth close to a

million dollars," he said, "is it quite fair to take advantage of the

owner's absence and ignorance to buy it for a few thousand?"

"Dave," said Conward, with an arm on his shoulder, "the respectability

of the firm is safe in your hands. But--_please_ let me weigh the

coal."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

David Elden smoked his after-dinner cigar in his bachelor quarters.

The years had been good to the firm of Conward & Elden; good far beyond

the wildness of their first dreams. The transaction of the section

bought from the English absentee had been but the beginning of bigger

and more daring adventures. That section was now considered close-in

property, and lots which Conward & Elden had originally sold for two

hundred dollars each had since changed hands at more than a thousand.

The street railway ran far beyond it. Water mains, sewers, electric

lights, graded streets and concrete sidewalks had sprawled for miles

across the prairie. Conward, in that first wild prophecy of his, had

spoken of a city of a quarter of a million people; already more lots

had been sold than could be occupied by four times that population.

It had been a very marvellous development; an enthusiasm which had

grown deeper and wilder until it swept along as an insane abandon,

bearing in its current the last vestiges of conservatism and caution.

For at last the old-timers, long alluded to as the "dead ones," had

come in. For years they had held back, scoffing, predicting disaster;

and while they held back venturesome youths had become millionaires.

One can stand that only so long, and at last the old-timers were buying

and selling and debauching with the others in the lust of easy money.

Dave had often asked himself where it all would end. He traced it from

its beginning; from the day when he wrote his first "boost" story; from

the hundred-dollar bill that Conward had placed in his hands. It was a

simple course to trace; so simple now that he was amazed that only

Conward and a few shrewd others had seen it at that time. It had begun

with the prosperity of incoming money; the money of a little group of

speculators and adventurers and the others who hung on their train.

They had filled the few hotels and office buildings. Presently some

one began to build a new hotel. Labour was scarce and dear;

carpenters, masons, bricklayers, plumbers, plasterers, labourers, had

to be brought in from the outside. There was no place for them to

sleep; there was no place for them to eat; there were insufficient

stores to supply their wants. More hotels and shops and stores and

houses had to be built, and to build them more carpenters and masons

and bricklayers and plumbers and plasterers and painters had to be

brought from the outside. The thing grew upon itself. It was like a

fire starting slowly in the still prairie grass, which by its own heat

creates a breeze that in turn gives birth to a gale that whips it forth

in uncontrollable fury. Houses went up, blocks of them, streets of

them, miles of them, but they could not keep pace with the demand, for

every builder of a house must have a roof to sleep under. And there

were streets to build; streets to grade and fill and pave; ditches to

dig and sidewalks to lay and wires to string. And more houses had to

be built for the men who paved streets and dug ditches and laid

sidewalks and strung wires. And more stores and more hotels and more

churches and more schools and more places of amusement were needed.

And the fire fed on its own fury and spread to lengths undreamed by

those who first set the match to the dry grass.

The process of speculation was as easily defined. The first buyers

were cautious; they looked over the vacant lots carefully; weighed

their advantages and disadvantages; the prospect of the city growing

this way or that. But scarcely had they bought when they sold again at

a profit, and were seized with a quick regret that they had not bought

more, or earlier. Soon the caution of the early transactions was

forgotten in the rush for more lots which, almost immediately, could be

re-sold at a profit. Judgment and discretion became handicaps in the

race; the successful man was he who threw all such qualities to the

winds. Fortunes were made; intrinsic values were lost sight of in the

glare of great and sudden profits. Prices mounted up and up, and when

calmer counsels held that they had reached their limits all such

counsels were abashed by prices soaring higher still.

And the firm of Conward & Elden had profited not the least in these

wild years of gain-getting. Their mahogany finished first floor

quarters were the last word in office luxuriance. Conward's private

room might with credit have housed a premier or a president. Its

purpose was to be impressive, rather than to give any other service, as

Conward spent little of his time therein. On Dave fell the

responsibility of office management, and his room was fitted for

efficiency rather than luxury. It commanded a view of the long general

office where a battery of stenographers and clerks took care of the

detail of the business of Conward & Elden. And Dave had established

his ability as an office manager. His fairness, his fearlessness, his

impartiality, his courtesy, his even temper--save on rare and excusable

occasions--had won from the staff a loyalty which Conward, with all his

abilities as a good mixer, could never have commanded.

He had prospered, of course. His statement to his banker ran into

seven figures. For years he had not known the experience of being

short of money for any personal purpose. Occasionally, at first, and

again of late, the firm had found it necessary to resort to high

finance. This was usually accomplished by getting a bank so deeply

involved in their speculations that, in moments of emergency, it dared

not desert them if it would. There are ways of doing that. And always

the daring of Conward and the organization of Elden had justified

themselves. Dave was still a young man, not yet in his thirties; he

was rated a millionaire; he had health, comeliness, and personality; he

commanded the respect of a wide circle of business men, and was

regarded as one of the matrimonial prizes of the city; his name had

been discussed for public office; he was a success.

And yet this night, as he sat in his comfortable rooms and watched the

street lights come fluttering on as twilight silhouetted the great

hills to the west, he was not so sure of his success. A gas fire

burned in the grate, rippling in blue, sinuous waves, and radiating an

agreeable warmth on the May evening air. Dave finished his cigar and

stood by the window, where the street light now poured in, blending its

pale effulgence with the blue radiance from the grate. He was a man to

be admired. His frame a trifle stouter than when we last saw him, but

still supple and firm; the set of the shoulders, the taper of the body

to the waist, the keen but passive face, the poise of the whole figure

was that of one who, tasting of the goodness of life, had not

gormandized thereon. He was called a success, yet in the honesty of

his own soul he feared the coin did not ring true. Conward had

insisted more and more upon "weighing the coal." And Dave had

concerned himself less and less with the measure. That was what

worried him. He felt that the crude but honest conception of the

square deal which was the one valuable heritage of his childhood was

slipping away from him. He had little in common with Conward outside

of their business relationship. He suspected the man vaguely, but had

never found tangible ground for his suspicion. Dave did not drink, and

those confidences peculiar to a state of semi-intoxication were denied

him. He was afraid to drink, not with the fear of the craven, but with

the fear of a man who knows his enemy's advantage. He had suffered in

his own home, and he feared the enemy, and would make no truce.

Neither was he seduced by the vices which the possession of wealth made

easy to his hand. He counted more as a dream--a sort of supernalism

out of the past--that last night and that last compact with Irene

Hardy, but it had been anchorage for his soul on more than one

dangerous sea, and he would not give it up. Some time, he supposed, he

should take a wife, but until then that covenant, sealed by the

moonlight to the approving murmur of the spruce trees, should stand as

his one title of character against which no _caveat_ might be

registered.

He was turning this very matter over in his mind, and wondering what

the end would be, when a knock came at the door.

"Come," he said, switching on the light. . . "Oh, it's you, Bert. I

am honoured. Sit down."

The girl threw her coat over a chair and sank into another. Without

speaking she extended her shapely feet to the fire, but when its

soothing warmth had comforted her limbs she looked up and said,

"Adam sure put it over on us, didn't he?"

"Still nursing that grievance over your sex," laughed Dave. "I thought

you would outgrow it."

"I don't blame him," continued the girl, ignoring his interruption. "I

am just getting back from forty-seven teas. Gabble, gabble, gabble. I

don't blame him. We deserve it."

"Then you have had nothing to eat?"

"Almost. Only insignificant indigestibles."

Dave pressed a button, and a Chinese boy (all male Chinese are boys)

entered, bowing in that deference which is so potent to separate the

white man from his silver. The white man glories in being salaamed,

especially by an Oriental, who can grovel with a touch of art. And the

Oriental has not been slow to capitalize his master's vanity.

"Bring something to eat. Go out for it, and be quick. For two."

"Ice cleam? Toast? Tea--"

"No! Something to eat! Soup, flied chicken, hot vegetables, dessert,

everything."

"You've had your dinner, surely?" asked Bert.

"Such a dinner as a man eats alone," he answered. "Now for something

real. You stick to the paper like the ink, don't you, Bert?"

"Can't leave it. I hate it--and I love it. It's my poison and my

medicine. Most of all I hate the society twaddle. And, of course,

that's what I have to do."

"And you write it up so gloriously," said Dave. "Enthusiasm in every

line of it."

"You read it, then? I thought all men looked on the society page with

contempt."

"They do. But they look on it just the same--long enough to see

whether their names appear among those present."

"Or whose husband is out of town?"

"You're growing more cynical all the time."

"How can I help it, when I see both sides of the game? If I printed

half what I know I'd have every lawyer in this city busy

to-morrow--except those who skipped out over-night."

"You know it," Dave agreed. "But here is dinner." The boy wheeled a

table between them, and there was a savoury smell of hot food.

"A _recherché_ repast," screamed Bert, half through her soup, with a

great burst of merriment. "Oh, I must tell you. You remember the

Metfords? You used to shovel coal for them. I know you're no snob, or

I wouldn't put it so brutally. Of course, they're rich. Sold the old

stable-yard for a quarter of a million, or thereabouts, and are now

living in style. Some style! When they have guests, as they nearly

always have--there'll be parasites as long as there's easy money--old

man Metford eats breakfast in evening dress. And she orders the

chiffonier to take the guests down to the _depôt_ in their Packer. But

one thing has gone to her heart. She didn't realize in time that it

wasn't good form to be prolific. Now that she knows three is the limit

she has sent the other six to the country. But that isn't what I

started on. She called up this morning and gave me hell because I said

yesterday that she had served a _recherché_ repast at some function

they pulled off the other night. 'See here, young woman,' she says, 'I

want you to understand there's none of that _recherché_ stuff on my

table. Nothing short of champagne, every drop of it.' I just yelled."

"Why didn't you print a retraction?"

"I don't know."

"I do. It's because, Miss Roberta, beneath your cynicism and your

assumption of masculinity, you are as sympathetic as a young mother.

It would be mean to put over anything like that, and you just can't do

it."

"Nonsense. You see what I print at times--"

"Bert," he said suddenly, "why don't you get married?"

"Who, me?" Then she laughed. "I guess I'm too sympathetic. It would

be mean to put over anything like that on a man, and a girl wouldn't

have me."

"Well, then, why don't you buy some real estate?" he continued,

jocularly. "Every man should have some dissipation--something to make

him forget his other troubles."

"A little late in the meal for that word, isn't it?"

He stared a moment, and then sprang to his feet. "I beg your pardon.

What will you drink?"

"What you drink."

"But I drink coffee."

"So do I. . . I may be mannish, Dave, but I don't think I'm a fool. I

can understand a man drinking, but not a woman. It's too

dangerous. . . . But I'll smoke a cigarette.

"Now, as for real estate. The fact is, I _have_ invested."

A look came into his face which she did not understand. "With whom?"

he demanded, almost peremptorily.

"With Conward & Elden," she answered, and the roguishness of her voice

suggested that her despised femininity lay not far from the surface.

"Were you about to be jealous?"

"Why didn't you come to me?" She realized that he was in deep earnest.

"I did," she answered, candidly. "At least, I asked for you, but you

were out of town, so Conward took me in hand, and I followed his

advice."

"Do you trust Conward?" he demanded almost fiercely.

"Well, he's good enough to be your partner, isn't he?"

The thrust hurt more than she knew. He had his poise again.

"Real estate is the only subject I would trust him on," she continued.

"I must say, Dave, that for a shrewd business man you are awfully dense

about Conward."

He remained silent for a few moments. He decided not to follow her

lead. He knew that if she had anything explicit to say about Conward

she would say it when she felt the time to be opportune, and not until

then. He returned to the matter of her speculation.

"How much did you invest?"

"Not much. Just what I had."

"You mean all your savings?"

"Why not? It's all right, isn't it?"

He had risen and was standing again by the window. The long line of

lights stretched out until they became mere diamond points on the

velvet bosom of the night. Motor cars sped noiselessly to and fro,

save where, at the corner below, chauffeurs exercised their sirens.

But neither the lights, nor the night, nor the movement and noises of

the street had any part in the young man's consciousness.

"It's all right, isn't it?" she repeated.

"I'm afraid it isn't," he said at length, in a restrained voice. "I'm

afraid it isn't."

"What do you mean?" she demanded. There was an accusation in her eyes

that was hard to face.

"Bert," he continued, "did it ever occur to you that this thing must

have an end--that we can't go on forever lifting ourselves by our own

bootstraps? We have built a city here, a great and beautiful city,

almost as a wizard might build it by magic over night. There was room

for it here; there was occasion; there was justification. But there

was neither occasion nor justification for turning miles and miles of

prairie land into city lots--lots which in the nature of things cannot

possibly, in your time or mine, be required for city purposes. These

lots should be producing; wheat, oats, potatoes, cows, butter--that is

what we must build our city on. We have been considering the effect

rather than the cause. The cause is the country, the neglected

country, and until it overtakes the city we must stand still, if we do

not go back. Our prosperity has been built on borrowed money, and we

have forgotten that borrowed money must, sometime, be repaid.

Meanwhile, in the heart of the greatest agricultural country in the

world, we bring our potatoes across the American continent and our

butter across the Pacific ocean."

He had spoken with effort, as one who makes a bitter confession, yet

tries to state the case fairly, without excuses and without violence.

"You mean that the boom is about to burst?" she said.

"Not exactly burst. It will not be so sudden as that. It will just

ooze away, like a toy balloon pricked with a pin."

There was silence for some minutes. When she spoke at length it was

with a tinge of bitterness.

"So you are unloading?"

"The firm is. I beg you, Bert, to believe that if I had known your

intention I would have tried to dissuade you. I would have advised you

to keep your money in the bank until after the air cleared. Three per

cent. is small, but it is better than tax bills on unsalable property."

"Why me particularly? I am only one of the great public. Why don't

you give your conclusions to the world? When you were convinced that a

period of inflation was about to occur you did not hesitate to say so.

If I remember you used _The Call_ for that purpose. Now that you see

the reaction setting in, doesn't honesty suggest what your course

should be?"