The Landslide
The apple blossoms fell like flakes of snow; the sunflowers faded and
were no more; the sun blazed on in all its radiant glory; the lakes
stood in a glassy calm;--and still the rush and scramble went
on--buying at a price and selling for more--still came the cry for
more money on mortgage to cover up and extend, pulling conservative
men into the gamble--their money providing the stake with no chance
for them to win more than their seven or eight per cent. Prices
soared; everyone lived within a multi-coloured bubble of prosperity.
The Langford-Ralston Financial Corporation became a corporation
indeed. To do business with them was the rage of the Valley, for their
work from end to end was business-like and honest. And even the thief
and the crook like to do business with honest men.
Then came the Valley's harvest; the greatest harvest it had ever
known; but, alas for the rancher, there was no market in which to
place his produce. He was at the mercy of the jobber, the kerb-stone
broker, the pedlar in fruit. He could not sell--he had to forward his
merchandise on consignment to the nearest large centre and, in
consequence, he often lost his entire shipment. Not only that, but at
times was saddled with storage and freight charges to boot.
Little wonder he grew tired; little wonder he grumbled. Who, after
all, could blame him for fathering thoughts that ranching was not all
it was supposed to be?
Yet the land was the best in the country; the conditions for fruit
growing--with a proper system of irrigation--unsurpassed in the
Province; the climate, the surroundings for home-making, ideal.
It was simply the lull time in the era of progress; simply the time in
between small things and things of magnitude; the time when the little
man was liable to be forced to the wall and the big man would have to
cling on despairingly; the time when organisation and brains would
have to step in and take the reins.
Autumn faded and early winter promised with its damp fogs which, in
the night time, froze quickly, covering houses, trees and fences with
a white crystalline hoar which dropped like snow at the first faint
blush of the next morning's sun. But oblivious of winter and without
forebodings, men continued to buy at a price and sell for more.
The winter came, with its snow fence-high, and its cold north wind
compressing the thermometer to twenty below and binding the earth as
with an iron crust; the winter came with its days of dazzling sunshine
and its cloudless skies over a pall of white; with its nights when
great fleecy clouds scudded across the face of a brilliant moon,
causing long shadows and streaks of pale light to chase each other
across the white, frozen fields and over the undulating ranges;--but
the majority of the men who lived by buying and selling heeded it not
nor did they admire its beauties. Some were browsing in the warmer
clime of California and those who remained behind sat in the comfort
of their clubs, still buying at a price and selling for more, or
planning their early spring campaigns.
Graham Brenchfield was in Los Angeles. John Royce Pederstone held
office in Victoria, and Eileen--but for an occasional flying
visit--remained with her father.
Phil and Jim--no longer the Swede's apprentice and the irresponsible,
occasional drunk, but men whose opinions counted, whose lead was worth
following, whose actions carried force--continued to paddle quietly
and cautiously down the Stream of Conditions toward the Cataract of
Consequences. Far away they could hear the roar of the rushing,
falling waters which, so far, others failed or refused to hear.
With the first blink of spring, the old frenzy of the previous few
years reasserted itself, and business in land and ranches and town
property showed early signs of breaking all previous records.
The Langford-Ralston Company were in almost every transaction; but it
was not until the blossoms were again on the trees that someone
suddenly realised a strange fact.
The private-exchange girl in the L.-R. Company switched the call to
Phil's desk.
"Hullo! Brixton talking. That you, Jim?"
"No, Pete! Jim's out. This is Ralston."
"Well,--I guess you'll do. Say!--what's the matter with that outfit of
yours, anyway?"
"Don't know, Peter. Tell me, and I'll try to fix it."
"Oh, no, you won't! But why the devil don't you fellows buy some
real-estate once in a while?"
"What have you got, Pete? Any snaps?"
"Come off the perch, Phil! You know what I'm gettin' at. Are you
fellows trying to create a slump or some such damned thing?"
"No,--certainly not! That would be poor business for a real-estate
agent."
"Well,--why the devil are you the bear in every transaction you put
through? It didn't used to be that way. Every broker in town's been
buying from you fellows all this year."
"Somebody's got to sell, if there's to be any buying. Now,--don't get
rattled, Pete. It is up to you. Sell if you want to. Nobody will stop
you."
Peter Brixton's voice grew more conciliatory.
"What do you fellows know, anyway? You might let me in on it. We've
done lots of business together."
"We don't know a thing, Peter; just surmise. And everyone knows it,
for we haven't hidden anything."
"That there's going to be a tightening up for a while?"
"Yes!"
"That it is coming soon?"
"No!"
"What then?"
"That it has come."
Peter laughed a little hilariously, then his laugh ended with a touch
of nervousness.
"Say!--is that straight goods, Phil?"
"Just our private opinion, Pete!"
"Well,--I think you're about two years out in your guess, but I'm
going to try a little selling just to be in the fashion. Thanks, old
man!"
"You'd better hurry up then, Peter."
Phil had hardly hung up the receiver, when Jim rushed in, his rugged
face full of excitement.
"Read that!" he shouted, thrusting a cablegram under Phil's nose. "By
gad!--but we've been lucky; every client of ours has had a chance to
sell. If he wouldn't do it, he has only himself to blame now."
The message was in code, with the interpretation scrawled underneath
by Jim. It was from Jim's father's firm, Langford & Macdonald of
Edinburgh.
"Extend no more loans in behalf this firm meantime. Informed Canadian
Banks about to cease practice of extending credit on security of
realty purchases. Letter follows."
Phil rose slowly and extended his hand to his partner.
"Jim, you're a wonder--a blooming wizard."
Jim grinned, but he was well pleased.
"If it hadn't been for your opinion, rammed well down my throat
morning, noon and night, I guess the Langford-Ralston Financial
Corporation would not be quite so well thought of after this comes
out, as it will be in the light of the quiet but persistent advice it
has given its clients. And to think of it--your father wires as if he
were the absolute and only detector of this information, while it was
your letter of six months ago that set him on the hunt for it and
started him on his conservatism regarding loans in general."
Jim laughed.
"That's just my old dad's way, Phil. He knows who put him on to it and
what's more, he knows we know. You never heard of a Scots business man
admitting that his son knew anything he didn't--at least, admitting it
to his son.
"How much money have we in the bank?"
Phil beckoned the accountant, who brought the desired information.
"Two hundred and fifty thousand, six hundred and twenty dollars."
"Great Scotland Yard! And all straight commissions on realty and
loans. Isn't it a corker though, how it grows?
"Well,--it represents a turn-over of over six million dollars one way
and another. That's something any two-year-old firm might be proud
of."
"And two years ago I was----You know what, Jim!"
"And two years ago I was Captain Mayne Plunkett of dime novel
repute--or disrepute--with glazed pants and a celluloid collar."
"And Aunt Christina of 'Love Notes' fame," Phil reminded.
Jim put up his hand. "Hush! Let the dead bury their dead.
"But it beats the Dutch all the same how offers keep coming in on a
man when he doesn't require them; yet, when he's nearly down and out,
he can't even get a political speech to report."
"That's simple enough too, Jim. You know the reason; you have preached
it in this business long enough.
"Think failure and you bring every brooding failure carrion-crow in
the Universe to roost on the top rail of your iron bedstead. Think
success, look success, live success,--and success walks in at your
front door, while everyone helps you along the same way with each
thought he gives your apparent success, even if his thought be simply
one of envy."
"Yes!--and as you are aware, my one object in life when I was slightly
younger was to be a successful novelist. But no publisher would look
at me. Then I got my nose in on this penny-a-line Deadwood Dick
stuff--which I shall never despise, for many a square meal I have had
to fill a round hole off the fifty dollars a book they netted me.
"To-day I have a letter from the publishers of these same paper
'Horribles,' enclosing six of my poor, starved, mental offsprings.
They are the pick of fifty which they say I have written."
Jim took off his hat and passed his fingers through his hair.
"Lord! I didn't know, Phil,--honest to goodness!--I didn't know I had
written so many.
"They say these six, with a little toning up in language, a little
toning down in cold-blooded murder and exclamatory remarks, would make
ideal, cloth-bound books for boys, for Sunday School prizes and
junior libraries. They offer me royalties on each if I execute the
work for them under my real name."
"Aren't you going to take it on? I really think you should. It would
give you a certain amount of literary permanency. I've told you all
along that you ought to be doing nobler work in that line than
ten-cent 'hair-raisers.'"
"Me? No, thanks! Captain Mayne Plunkett is as dead a deader as Aunt
Christina. _Requiescat in pace_."
He waved his hand in dismissal of the subject.
"'On with the dance--let joy be unconfined.'"
"Phil," said Jim seriously, half an hour afterwards, "Royce Pederstone
is going to come a terrible cropper over this business. He is
mortgaged up to the neck and, singly or with some of the political
gang, he is in almost every realty proposition we hear of."
"I know it. I've tried my best to make him see it, but he says if he
doesn't have faith in the Valley, who will."
"But this isn't a question of faith;--it is a shortage of money and a
tightening up of foreign capital chiefly."
"I've told him. I am worried sick over it. But he refuses to move."
"Let's send him a wire now," suggested Jim.
In five minutes the message in cipher was on the way.
"Definite information banks closing down immediately with loans on
realty. Mortgagees not renewing. Advise prompt sale. Wire lowest
prices."
The reply came in an hour and a half.
"Think information canard. Sell Remington Ranch eighty thousand
dollars, Pedloe Ranch fifty thousand dollars, Bonnington Ranch forty
thousand dollars."
Phil and Jim scoured the town, but there were no buyers at the
figures, for they were rocket-high.
They wired again, quoting best offers, but no answer came that
afternoon.
On the day following, Graham Brenchfield, stout and prosperous-looking
as ever, stepped inside the office for the first time, as bold as
brass too.
"Nice day, boys!" he shouted familiarly. "Would like to see you two
for a minute."
To Phil's inquiring eyes, he appeared slightly flustered.
"Come in here!" said Jim, beckoning him to the inner office, where
Phil followed, closing the door behind him.
"You fellows have a pretty fine lay-out here," the Mayor began,
chewing at his cigar.
"Pretty fine!"
"Guess you've got us all skinned now, Phil. Wouldn't like to take me
in on that old fifty-fifty proposition?" he inquired sarcastically.
"If you have come in on any funny stuff," answered Phil, rising, "then
you'd better get outside. We haven't the time for it."
"Shucks! Don't get sore! I don't want to make you mad to-day. I've had
a scrap with the bank this morning and I'm going to make them sit up
for a while and guess."
"That is quite a big proposition."
"All the better! I hear you folks have lots of money to loan?" he
queried.
"Yes!--and what?" put in Jim.
"I wish to borrow some."
"Yes!"
"I'm paying eight percent, with first-class security."
"Ugh-huh!"
"I want forty thousand dollars for two years."
"Ay!"
"Can I have it?"
"No!"
Brenchfield looked sidelong at Jim, then at Phil; and back again at
Jim.
"Good Lord! You can have the best ranch in the country as security."
"On second mortgage?"
"Sure! Why not? The first mortgage don't amount to a hill of beans.
You could buy it out any old time."
"No, thanks! Not to-day! Man, but you've got your nerve! What do you
think we are, anyway?--a charity institution?" growled Jim.
Brenchfield flushed, but he swallowed his anger.
"Would the bank loan you on second mortgage?" pursued Jim.
"No!--guess not!"
"Well,--neither will the Langford-Ralston Company."
"I'll give you ten percent."
"Not if you made it twenty percent."
Brenchfield sat in silence for a moment. Suddenly he seemed to make a
resolve.
"Will you lend me forty thousand dollars on first mortgage on my
Redmans Ranch?"
Jim gasped, and Phil sucked with his lips, for the Redmans Ranch was
Brenchfield's one best bet; it was one of the finest and largest
ranches on that side of the Okanagan Lake.
Jim winked to Phil.
"Would the bank lend you forty thousand dollars on it?" asked Phil.
"Sure!" braved the Mayor. "They'd be tickled to death to do it."
Phil got up.
"I guess you'd better make friends with them and get their loan. We
haven't any desire for the name of Graham Brenchfield on our
books;--it wouldn't look good."
The Mayor jumped up, his face livid.
"What's that?" he cried. "You--you would say that to me who could
squeeze you like this----"
"No good! You tried hard to do it several times, but it wouldn't
work."
"Haven't you got a say in this, Langford?"
"Yes!--and my say's the same as Phil's."
"By God! I'll fix both of you good and plenty before I'm through.
You--you pair of Real Estate sharks!"
Jim pounced on him and pinned him against the door before he could say
another word. Brenchfield was impotent.
"Another word o' that, and I'll bang your heid through the panel,"
exclaimed Jim, rising as usual in his anger to his beloved native
tongue.
Brenchfield quieted down, lamblike, and Jim released him.
He spoke to Jim and pointed his finger at Phil.
"You wouldn't feel so mighty bad about what I say, if you knew you had
a ticket-of-leave jailbird for a partner."
"Yes, you dirty, black-mailing thief!" answered Jim. "I know--and if
you open your trap here or anywhere else, I'll put you where you
belong, whether Phil agrees to it or not,--see!
"You're broke, Brenchfield. The bank has got you, and got you good.
They'll show you what squeezing is; damn you for what you are!
"Here's your hat! Get out! And, by Heck!--as I open the door for
you,--smile; for heaven's sake, smile, and delude the staff that we've
had a nice, genial, conversational love-feast."
But Mayor Brenchfield's jaunty air had departed. He tried hard to
appear unconcerned as he hurried away, but the smile was frozen at the
tap and refused to turn on.
"Things are getting lively," remarked Jim. "Here are some more!"
The outer office was filled with inquirers.
All morning Phil and Jim were kept busy turning prospective money
buyers down.
The news of the banks' new attitude regarding the advancing of money
on the security of realty had spread quickly. Property values flopped
like a house of cards and interest rates soared sky-high.
At the end of the week, Eileen's father telegraphed his acceptance of
the offers made for his property the previous Monday. But these offers
were already withdrawn, and even ridiculous prices were hard to get,
as everyone was keen on selling and no one at all anxious to
purchase.
It was the old story, which had repeated itself time and again in
almost every new town and settlement on the American Continent.
Someone had to bear the burden of it at the finish. No one was
particularly anxious to be that one. All were scrambling to get out
from under. Mother Earth and Father Money had put their feet down, as
they always do, sooner or later.
In the midst of the excitement, Phil and Jim had a strange visitor.
For the first time to their knowledge, he was Canadianised in
appearance. His slippers were substituted for boots, his loose-fitting
clothes were in the discard for a second-hand suit of European model,
several sizes too big for him, and he was minus his pig-tail.
At first glance, Jim was unable to recognise him, then he laughed.
"Good land, Phil! See what the breeze has blown in. Ah Sing!
"How-do, Ah,--or is it, Sing!"
"Ya! You lemember me,--Ah Sing! Me allee same Canadian."
The Chinaman was brazen as brass. But evidently he had something on
his mind.
"Me no work any more lanch. Bossee man no likee Chinaman!"
"I don't blame him!" answered Jim, across the polished counter.
"Me go back next week my old job. Me go back work in big bank.
Me be janitor. Me washee window, washee floor; watchman allee
night-time,--see!"
"You be heap scared, Sing! Devil he get you in bank."
"No,--me no scared! Me bling three, four black cat. Me losem
pig-tail,--me Canadian,--me no scared no more."
"Canadian,--but still hanging on to the black cat theory,--eh! That's
just typical of what we have to suffer, Phil, in this country.
"Well, the bank has a lot to answer for. Man, Phil, but it would serve
them rightly if they got let in some day, employing that kind of
labour when they could get decent white if only they cared to pay the
price.
"Sing!--what you want? We heap busy."
"I catchem letter my uncle,--see!"
He handed a paper to Jim which was brushed over with black Chinese
characters.
"Maybe you are a Canuck, Sing, but I'm no blooming Chinaman. What does
this say?"
"I catchem this letter from China to-day. He say allee place my wifee
and my mama live, rain come down allee time. No come down water."
Ah Sing's face was solemn as a priest's.
"It come down blood--pigs' hair, too; one, two feet deep, all over.
Heap bad! I want catchem money send my uncle so he, and my wifee, my
mama, all go away other place.
"If I no send, they die,--see! I need one hundled dollar. I no have
him. You give me one hundled dollar. I pay back one, two, thlee month
after I work bank."
Jim shook his head.
"Yes!--you givem me. I pay back, sure!"
"No, siree,--not a darned cent! Your uncle, he fool you, Sing."
Sing paid no attention to the remark.
"You no givem?"
"No!"
"All lightee. I guess me tly Mayor Blenchfield. He know me heap good.
Maybe he lendem."
And off he went.
"A fat chance he has of getting a hundred dollars from Brenchfield at
this stage of the game," exclaimed Jim.
"But what's the crazy lunatic's idea, anyway?" asked Phil.
"Oh, this raining pigs' hair and blood stuff is an old gag. Something
like the Spanish prisoner business. It is just a put-up job by
relatives in China to get money out of their superstitious friends
over here. They play on one another's credulity for a fare-you-well.
"And he fancies he is now a Canadian. Gee!--but we're the easy marks
in this country:--Chinks, Japs, Hindoos, Doukhobors, niggers and God
only knows what else. It sure is the melting pot. But some of them
will have a great time melting,--believe me!"
Phil went back to his desk and opened up the day's mail. In it there
was a letter from Eileen, full of love, but overloaded with sorrow,
for it contained the disquieting news that her father had been taken
suddenly ill in the House and had had to be conveyed home. The doctors
at Victoria had recommended a speedy return to the Valley, and Eileen
and her father were taking that advice and following by the next day's
train.
Phil drove down to meet them on arrival, and he was terribly shocked
to see the change that had come over the recently hale, hearty,
healthy, ruddy-complexioned old rancher and politician. He seemed
absolutely broken down and full of anxiety to be in his own home. He
talked all the way there in a most disjointed manner regarding his
property and his business affairs, which to Phil was anything but
reassuring, for John Royce Pederstone, although careless in regard to
many things, was for the most part shrewd and at all times polished,
connected and logical in his speech and argument.
Poor little Eileen was broken-hearted. Phil tried hard to make light
of her father's condition, but she remained inconsolable; he
endeavoured to convince her that business affairs might really not be
half so bad as they seemed, but it was against his own personal
opinion, consequently it was unconvincing, and Eileen was not
deceived.
"It isn't any good, boy!" she remarked sadly, as they sat together.
"It is just as bad as it can be. Everything he has is held as security
by the bank. He is in it also with property in Vancouver, Victoria,
New Westminster and Prince Rupert. I have gone through it--and it is
absolutely hopeless. There is nothing left for him in honour to do but
to assign everything. This house and ranch is all that will be left,
because it was made over to me over a year ago--but it will have to
go, too."
"Oh, no, it won't! They can't touch it if it is yours."
"Phil, boy!--do you think I would hold it if daddy owed a cent? Shame
for you!"
"But I tell you, dearie, it would be madness to throw this place in.
It wouldn't save your dad any, for it isn't nearly enough."
Eileen simply shook her head sadly.
"It is no good! If I let this go, it will mean so much less that poor
daddy will owe. And that will be something, after all.
"Eileen Pederstone means to be able to hold her head up, and she could
never do it if she clung on to this."
"Have you any idea how much he would require to tide things over,
Eileen?"
"I am not sure, but with this place sold even at a sacrifice, maybe a
hundred thousand dollars more might stop the gap till the pendulum
swings back a little. And--it might not! It might simply be throwing
good money after bad."
"Eileen,--Jim and I have made two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
between us in cold cash. It is in the bank, thanks to you and the
promise you got me to make when we started in. Half of that money is
mine. I don't require it. Won't you let me come into this; it means
you and me anyway in the finish. Your father can secure me in any way
he likes. My money would satisfy the bank's claim and steady his
holdings. Won't you let me do this for you and your father?"
"And leave you with a lot of unsaleable property instead of hard cash?
No, Phil,--absolutely no! And if you make this offer to my dad, it
will mean the end for you and me, for I could never feel otherwise
towards you than that I had in some way been bought."
"Eileen!" remonstrated Phil, hurt at her words.
She burst into tears and hid her face on his shoulder.
"Oh,--I just can't bear it. I hardly know what I have been saying. I
didn't mean it quite that way, Phil. But you must not suggest putting
your money into this. People would never finish talking over it."
"Yet you were willing to take me, Eileen, when your father's position
looked secure as the country itself and I had hardly one nickel to rub
against another."
"But you had ambition. You were brimming over with it. Nothing could
ever have stopped you from making progress sooner or later. And I knew
that. Lack of money means nothing to a young man with the ambition
which you had, and still have. As for me, I shall have nothing now but
myself."
"And me, Eileen, for I'll never let you back out. Why,--if you wish
it, I'll leave everything here as it stands, or I'll give it
away,--and we can go somewhere else and start all over."
"But that wouldn't be fair, if I did agree."
"Then, dearie, just let me help."
"No,--no,--no!"
"But the land should be saved,--at least, as much of it as we can
save. It is of the best, and when the real merits of the fruit of this
Valley are known, when the markets are opened up for us and
transportation facilities are improved, the land will be worth much
more than it is now, for the younger orchards will be bearing heavier
and heavier year by year. Eileen, we want to hold what we can of your
father's property, unhampered."
"Oh, yes!--you are terribly logical and convincing, but I won't love
you any more if you get mixed up in this;--it is too, too hopeless."
"Immovable as Vancouver Island! and yet they talk of frail femininity.
Ah, Eileen! as difficult to understand as, as any other lady!"
Eileen sighed, went over to the window and parted the curtains, as she
looked out over the peaceful Valley. Phil went to her side.
Up on the hill as they were, overlooking the surrounding country, they
almost forgot their troubles under Nature's hypnotism. The sky
overhead was opalescent; the ranges, dotted with grazing cattle and
unbroken horses, were bathed in sunshine. Away below them, the little
town, with its long Main Street of business houses and its stretch of
regular shade trees, drowsed in an adolescent contentment. All around
lay farm houses surrounded by fields in cultivation with parallel
lines of fruit trees. In the distance, due west between the hills, the
blue waters of the Okanagan Lake sparkled in a winding streak which
melted into the sky.
Phil put his arm round Eileen and drew her to him.
"And we talked about leaving all this, dearie!"
She looked up at him with moist eyes, and her voice trembled.
"Oh, Phil!--I couldn't--I just couldn't! If I did, I should be leaving
part of me behind."
He stooped and kissed her.
"And you won't, sweetheart;--not if I know it!"
A streak of dust rose from the roadway and an automobile turned
quickly in to the avenue.
"Here comes the doctor, Phil, to see daddy."
"I'll be off then, girlie! I'll 'phone later to find out how he is
progressing."