BOUND WEST.
Vance went to a Clark Street restaurant and had supper.
It was all right, but the boy did not enjoy it as much as he would have
done at home.
The Thorntons lived in a small house, one of a row, on the North Side,
which Mrs. Thornton owned.
They had once been wealthy, for Mr. Thornton had at one time been a
successful member of the Chicago Board of Trade.
But a few months before his death, which had occurred ten years
previously, he had been caught in a short deal and squeezed.
He extricated himself at the cost of his entire fortune.
Everything was swept away except the one little house, the property
of Mrs. Thornton, to which the family immediately moved, and a few
thousand dollars banked in the wife’s name.
After Mr. Thornton’s death the widow devoted herself to her children,
and when Vance graduated from the public school, she made application
to Mr. Whitemore, with whom her husband had had business relations, for
a position for her son in his office.
The application being made at a lucky moment, the lad was taken on, and
had in every way proved himself worthy of Jared Whitemore’s confidence.
Promptly at eight o’clock Vance was shown up to Mr. Whitemore’s rooms
in the Grand Pacific Hotel.
The corn operator was in his sitting-room before a table that was
scattered over with papers and telegraph blanks.
It was a cool evening, but Jared Whitemore was in his shirt sleeves,
and, although the windows were down at the top, his face was red and he
was perspiring furiously.
A half-smoked cigar projected between his lips, and several discarded
stumps lay on a lacquer tray that held one of the hotel pitchers of ice
water.
“You have the government report on the visible supply in that bundle,
have you?” asked Jared Whitemore, as soon as he became aware of the
boy’s presence in the room.
“Yes, sir.”
“Let me have it,” with an impatient gesture.
Vance had it before his employer in a twinkling.
“Your notes, please,” said the operator, after he had studied the
report for several minutes.
The boy laid them before him.
“Put the pamphlets down there. Now, take the evening paper and go over
there by the window and sit down.”
Vance did so, and there was perfect silence in the room for the next
half hour, when it was broken by a knock on the door.
“See who that is,” almost snapped Whitemore, jerking his thumb in the
direction of the entrance.
Vance found a telegraph boy outside, signed for the yellow envelope and
brought it to his employer.
Two more dispatches arrived before the little marble clock on the
mantel chimed the hour of nine.
Another half hour of almost perfect silence ensued, during which two
more cigar stumps were added to the collection on the dish; and Vance
was beginning to wonder why he was being held there by Mr. Whitemore,
when the operator rose from his seat, mopped his forehead with his
familiar bandana handkerchief and then sat down again.
“Vance.”
“Yes, sir,” answered the boy, springing up.
“Come here.”
The tones were short, sharp and incisive.
“Sit down here alongside of me.”
Vance obeyed this order with military promptness.
“When can you start for Omaha?”
“Sir!” said the boy, almost speechless from amazement.
“I asked you when you could leave for Omaha?” repeated the operator,
brusquely.
“By the eight o’clock train in the morning, if you particularly wish
it,” answered the astonished lad.
“Very well; make your arrangements to that effect. Now, Vance, I want
to speak to you. Heretofore I have always closed my dealings with the
elevator people through Mr. Vyce. For reasons which I need not discuss
with you I am going to send you to do the business for me this time.”
The boy’s eyes expanded to the size of saucers at this information.
It simply meant a most remarkable expression of confidence on Mr.
Whitemore’s part in his youthful office assistant.
Confidence not only in the boy’s business sagacity, but even more so in
his integrity, for he would be obliged to handle checks signed in blank
for a very large sum of money; just how large would, of course, depend
on the amount of corn the options covered.
That it ran into several millions of bushels the lad already knew.
“I am taking this unusual course,” continued Mr. Whitemore, lighting
a fresh cigar and regarding Vance keenly, “for several reasons. To
begin with, since I started this deal I have in hand I have met with
opposition from a most unexpected quarter. It could only have developed
through information furnished by some one who had an insight to my
plans. In order to test the accuracy of my suspicions in a certain
direction I cut off all information from that quarter. The result
has been confusion in the ranks of the opposition. I’m, therefore,
convinced I can at any time put my finger on the traitor to my
interests. To continue the further development of my scheme, I have
decided to substitute you for Mr. Vyce, so far as the settlement of
my Western corn options are concerned. During the last five or six
weeks you have probably noticed that I have employed you on business
of a confidential nature. This was to test you for the purpose I had
in view. On one occasion I so arranged matters that you were forced to
retain in your possession over Sunday a very large sum of money. I had
no doubts as to your honesty, but I wished to see how you would proceed
under the responsibility. The result was perfectly satisfactory to me.
Vance, I knew your father well. We had many business dealings, and I
found him a man on whom I could implicitly rely. I believe you are his
duplicate.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Vance, gratefully, as Mr. Whitemore paused for a
moment.
“Now to business. Here is a power of attorney, which will give you all
the necessary authority to represent me on this Western trip. Here are
your general instructions,” and he handed Vance the two typewritten
pages Bessie Brown had executed just before she left the office for the
night.
“You will go to Omaha first, thence to Kansas City, and so on. Here
are letters of introduction addressed to the elevator firms. Some of
them are personally acquainted with me. These are the vouchers for the
options. You will insist on all settlements at the figures given in
the options, which, as you will see, are below the market quotations.
Now, as to the payments of the balances, here is a small check-book of
the Chicago National Bank. I have made out and signed sixteen checks
in blank, one of each payable to the order of the elevator firm; all
you will have to do is to fill in the amount after the difference has
been computed. Immediately after each settlement you will mail me
by registered letter, care of the Chicago National Bank, the firm’s
receipt for the amount of money represented by the check, together with
the warehouse receipt. Now, read your instructions over carefully, and
if there is anything you have to suggest, I will listen to you.”
Vance went over the two-page letter and found that it covered every
emergency, so far as he could see.
The boy was especially directed to visit certain out-of-the-way places,
where elevators, reported as disused or empty, were known to exist, and
to ascertain by every artifice in his power whether any corn had been
received there for storage during the past three months. This was one
of the most important objects of his journey.
“Here are a couple of hundred dollars to cover incidental expenses,”
said Mr. Whitemore, handing Vance a roll of bills. “I hardly need to
tell you that I am reposing an almost unlimited confidence in your
honor and business sagacity--a somewhat unusual thing to do with one so
young as you. But I am rarely mistaken in my estimate of character, and
I feel satisfied you will fill the bill to the letter. I may say right
here that you have studied the corn market to advantage. Such details
as I have asked you to look into for me you have gone over and reduced
to practical results with astonishing clearness and dispatch for one
of your years and limited experience with Board of Trade methods. You
seem to be a born speculator, like your father. I have long wished to
associate with me a young man of nerve and accurate foresight in whom
I could thoroughly depend. You appear to combine all the qualities in
question. On this trip you are bound to acquire knowledge of the most
confidential nature--information that could not but seriously embarrass
me if it became known to my business opponents. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” said Vance, with a serious face.
“You see how much I depend on your loyalty?”
“You need have no fear but I will fulfil your trust down to the
smallest degree,” answered Vance, earnestly.
“I am sure of it, Vance. The proof of the pudding is that I am sending
you West on this business. One thing your age, and, I hope, your wit
and cautiousness, are particularly adapted to, and that is acquiring
the information about the possible contents of those elevators reported
to be empty. On the thoroughness of your report as regards these
properties will depend one of my most important moves on the corn
market.”
“I will find out the truth, if that be within the bounds of
possibility.”
“Now, Vance, another thing. Your mother will naturally want to know
where you are going, but it will be necessary for you to withhold
that information, for I have an idea that as soon as your absence is
noted at the office she will be approached on the subject by some one
interested in tracing your movements. You will simply tell her you are
going out of town on business for me and will be back in a few days.
Do not write to any one in Chicago, not even your folks, while you are
away. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Should you find it necessary to communicate with me at any time, call
up Mr. Walcott, of the Chicago National Bank, on the long-distance
telephone, and he will send for me.”
“Very well, sir.”
“I believe there is nothing further, so I will say good
bye till I see you at the office after your
return.”
“Good-bye, sir.”
Vance took up his hat, after carefully putting all the papers and the
check-book of the Chicago National Bank in an inside pocket of his
coat, and left the hotel.
When he reached home an hour later he duly astonished his mother and
sister with the information that he was going out of town on business
for his employer.
Of course the first thing they wanted to know was his destination.
“I am sorry, mother, I can’t tell you. Where I am going, as well as the
object of the trip, is a business secret.”
“But we ought to know, Vance,” expostulated his pretty sister Elsie.
“Unless you tell us we shall be worried to death about you.”
“Sorry, sis,” he replied, taking her face in his two hands and kissing
her cherry-red, pouting lips; “but I am under strict orders not to say
a word about it.”
“It’s real mean of you. You know neither mamma nor I would say a word
if you told us not to,” she persisted, throwing her arms about his neck
coaxingly.
“Don’t blame me, Elsie--blame the boss. Let me tell you one thing,
dear. I feel sure this trip is the chance of my life. Mr. Whitemore as
good as said so.”
And with that the gentle mother and loving sister had to be content.
Next morning Vance boarded a Pullman drawing-room car and left Chicago
over the C. B. & Q. railroad for Omaha.