Of course, after the third blow Samuel put in several weeks at
conscientious introspection. The blow years before at Andover
had landed on his personal unpleasantness; the workman of his
college days had jarred the snobbishness out of his system, and
Marjorie's husband had given a severe jolt to his greedy
selfishness. It threw women out of his ken until a year later,
when he met his future wife; for the only sort of woman worth
while seemed to be the one who could be protected as Marjorie's
husband had protected her. Samuel could not imagine his grass-widow,
Mrs. De Ferriac, causing any very righteous blows on her
own account.
His early thirties found him well on his feet. He was associated
with old Peter Carhart, who was in those days a national figure.
Carhart's physique was like a rough model for a statue of
Hercules, and his record was just as solid--a pile made for the
pure joy of it, without cheap extortion or shady scandal. He had
been a great friend of Samuel's father, but he watched the son
for six years before taking him into his own office. Heaven
knows how many things he controlled at that time--mines,
railroads, banks, whole cities. Samuel was very close to him,
knew his likes and dislikes, his prejudices, weaknesses and
many strengths.
One day Carhart sent for Samuel and, closing the door of his
inner office, offered him a chair and a cigar.
"Everything O. K., Samuel?" he asked.
"Why, yes."
"I've been afraid you're getting a bit stale."
"Stale?" Samuel was puzzled.
"You've done no work outside the office for nearly ten years?"
"But I've had vacations, in the Adiron---"
Carhart waved this aside.
"I mean outside work. Seeing the things move that we've always
pulled the strings of here."
"No," admitted Samuel; "I haven't."
"So," he said abruptly "I'm going to give you an outside job
that'll take about a month."
Samuel didn't argue. He rather liked the idea and he made up his
mind that, whatever it was, he would put it through just as
Carhart wanted it. That was his employer's greatest hobby, and
the men around him were as dumb under direct orders as infantry
subalterns.
"You'll go to San Antonio and see Hamil," continued Carhart.
"He's got a job on hand and he wants a man to take charge."
Hamil was in charge of the Carhart interests in the Southwest, a
man who had grown up in the shadow of his employer, and with
whom, though they had never met, Samuel had had much official
correspondence.
"When do I leave?"
"You'd better go to-morrow," answered Carhart, glancing at the
calendar. "That's the 1st of May. I'll expect your report here on
the 1st of June."
Next morning Samuel left for Chicago, and two days later he was
facing Hamil across a table in the office of the Merchants'
Trust in San Antonio. It didn't take long to get the gist of the
thing. It was a big deal in oil which concerned the buying up of
seventeen huge adjoining ranches. This buying up had to be done
in one week, and it was a pure squeeze. Forces had been set in
motion that put the seventeen owners between the devil and the
deep sea, and Samuel's part was simply to "handle" the matter
from a little village near Pueblo. With tact and efficiency the
right man could bring it off without any friction, for it was
merely a question of sitting at the wheel and keeping a firm
hold. Hamil, with an astuteness many times valuable to his
chief, had arranged a situation that would give a much greater
clear gain than any dealing in the open market. Samuel shook
hands with Hamil, arranged to return in two weeks, and left for
San Felipe, New Mexico.
It occurred to him, of course, that Carhart was trying him out.
Hamil's report on his handling of this might be a factor in
something big for him, but even without that he would have done
his best to put the thing through. Ten years in New York hadn't
made him sentimental and he was quite accustomed to finish
everything he began--and a little bit more.
All went well at first. There was no enthusiasm, but each one of
the seventeen ranchers concerned knew Samuel's business, knew
what he had behind him, and that they had as little chance of
holding out as flies on a window-pane. Some of them were
resigned--some of them cared like the devil, but they'd talked
it over, argued it with lawyers and couldn't see any possible
loophole. Five of the ranches had oil, the other twelve were
part of the chance, but quite as necessary to Hamil's purpose,
in any event.
Samuel soon saw that the real leader was an early settler named
McIntyre, a man of perhaps fifty, gray-haired, clean-shaven,
bronzed by forty New Mexico summers, and with those clear steady
eye that Texas and New Mexico weather are apt to give. His ranch
had not as yet shown oil, but it was in the pool, and if any man
hated to lose his land McIntyre did. Every one had rather looked
to him at first to avert the big calamity, and he had hunted all
over the territory for the legal means with which to do it, but
he had failed, and he knew it. He avoided Samuel assiduously,
but Samuel was sure that when the day came for the signatures he
would appear.
It came--a baking May day, with hot wave rising off the parched
land as far as eyes could see, and as Samuel sat stewing in his
little improvised office--a few chairs, a bench, and a wooden
table--he was glad the thing was almost over. He wanted to get
back East the worst way, and join his wife and children for a
week at the seashore.
The meeting was set for four o'clock, and he was rather
surprised at three-thirty when the door opened and McIntyre came
in. Samuel could not help respecting the man's attitude, and
feeling a bit sorry for him. McIntyre seemed closely related to
the prairies, and Samuel had the little flicker of envy that
city people feel toward men who live in the open.
"Afternoon," said McIntyre, standing in the open doorway, with
his feet apart and his hands on his hips.
"Hello, Mr. McIntyre." Samuel rose, but omitted the formality of
offering his hand. He imagined the rancher cordially loathed
him, and he hardly blamed him. McIntyre came in and sat down
leisurely.
"You got us," he said suddenly.
This didn't seem to require any answer.
"When I heard Carhart was back of this," he continued, "I gave up."
"Mr. Carhart is---" began Samuel, but McIntyre waved him silent.
"Don't talk about the dirty sneak-thief!"
"Mr. McIntyre," said Samuel briskly, "if this half-hour is to be
devoted to that sort of talk---"
"Oh, dry up, young man," McIntyre interrupted, "you can't abuse
a man who'd do a thing like this."
Samuel made no answer.
"It's simply a dirty filch. There just ARE skunks like him too
big to handle."
"You're being paid liberally," offered Samuel.
"Shut up!" roared McIntyre suddenly. "I want the privilege of
talking." He walked to the door and looked out across the land,
the sunny, steaming pasturage that began almost at his feet and
ended with the gray-green of the distant mountains. When he
turned around his mouth was trembling.
"Do you fellows love Wall Street?" he said hoarsely, "or
wherever you do your dirty scheming---" He paused. "I suppose you
do. No critter gets so low that he doesn't sort of love the
place he's worked, where he's sweated out the best he's had in
him."
Samuel watched him awkwardly. McIntyre wiped his forehead with a
huge blue handkerchief, and continued:
"I reckon this rotten old devil had to have another million. I
reckon we're just a few of the poor he's blotted out to buy a
couple more carriages or something." He waved his hand toward
the door. "I built a house out there when I was seventeen, with
these two hands. I took a wife there at twenty-one, added two
wings, and with four mangy steers I started out. Forty summers
I've saw the sun come up over those mountains and drop down red
as blood in the evening, before the heat drifted off and the
stars came out. I been happy in that house. My boy was born
there and he died there, late one spring, in the hottest part of
an afternoon like this. Then the wife and I lived there alone
like we'd lived before, and sort of tried to have a home, after
all, not a real home but nigh it--cause the boy always seemed
around close, somehow, and we expected a lot of nights to see
him runnin' up the path to supper." His voice was shaking so he
could hardly speak and he turned again to the door, his gray
eyes contracted.
"That's my land out there," he said, stretching out his arm, "my
land, by God-- It's all I got in the world--and ever wanted." He
dashed his sleeve across his face, and his tone changed as he
turned slowly and faced Samuel. "But I suppose it's got to go
when they want it--it's got to go."
Samuel had to talk. He felt that in a minute more he would lose
his head. So he began, as level-voiced as he could--in the sort
of tone he saved for disagreeable duties.
"It's business, Mr. McIntyre," he said. "It's inside the law.
Perhaps we couldn't have bought out two or three of you at any
price, but most of you did have a price. Progress demands some
things---"
Never had he felt so inadequate, and it was with the greatest
relief that he heard hoof-beats a few hundred yards away.
But at his words the grief in McIntyre's eyes had changed to fury.
"You and your dirty gang of crooks!" he cried. "Not one of you
has got an honest love for anything on God's earth! You're a
herd of money-swine!"
Samuel rose and McIntyre took a step toward him.
"You long-winded dude. You got our land--take that for Peter
Carhart!"
He swung from the shoulder quick as lightning and down went
Samuel in a heap. Dimly he heard steps in the doorway and knew
that some one was holding McIntyre, but there was no need. The
rancher had sunk down in his chair, and dropped his head in his
hands.
Samuel's brain was whirring. He realized that the fourth fist
had hit him, and a great flood of emotion cried out that the law
that had inexorably ruled his life was in motion again. In a
half-daze he got up and strode from the room.
The next ten minutes were perhaps the hardest of his life. People
talk of the courage of convictions, but in actual life a man's
duty to his family may make a rigid corpse seem a selfish
indulgence of his own righteousness. Samuel thought mostly of
his family, yet he never really wavered. That jolt had brought him
to.
When he came back in the room there were a log of worried faces
waiting for him, but he didn't waste any time explaining.
"Gentlemen," he said, "Mr. McIntyre has been kind enough to
convince me that in this matter you are absolutely right and the
Peter Carhart interests absolutely wrong. As far as I am
concerned you can keep your ranches to the rest of your days."
He pushed his way through an astounded gathering, and within a
half-hour he had sent two telegrams that staggered the operator
into complete unfitness for business; one was to Hamil in San
Antonio; one was to Peter Carhart in New York.
Samuel didn't sleep much that night. He knew that for the first
time in his business career he had made a dismal, miserable
failure. But some instinct in him, stronger than will, deeper
than training, had forced him to do what would probably end his
ambitions and his happiness. But it was done and it never
occurred to him that he could have acted otherwise.
Next morning two telegrams were waiting for him. The first was
from Hamil. It contained three words:
"You blamed idiot!"
The second was from New York:
"Deal off come to New York immediately Carhart."
Within a week things had happened. Hamil quarrelled furiously
and violently defended his scheme. He was summoned to New York
and spent a bad half-hour on the carpet in Peter Carhart's
office. He broke with the Carhart interests in July, and in
August Samuel Meredith, at thirty-five years old, was, to all
intents, made Carhart's partner. The fourth fist had done its
work.
I suppose that there's a caddish streak in every man that runs
crosswise across his character and disposition and general
outlook. With some men it's secret and we never know it's there
until they strike us in the dark one night. But Samuel's showed
when it was in action, and the sight of it made people see red.
He was rather lucky in that, because every time his little devil
came up it met a reception that sent it scurrying down below in
a sickly, feeble condition. It was the same devil, the same
streak that made him order Gilly's friends off the bed, that
made him go inside Marjorie's house.
If you could run your hand along Samuel Meredith's jaw you'd
feel a lump. He admits he's never been sure which fist left it
there, but he wouldn't lose it for anything. He says there's no
cad like an old cad, and that sometimes just before making a
decision, it's a great help to stroke his chin. The reporters
call it a nervous characteristic, but it's not that. It's so he
can feel again the gorgeous clarity, the lightning sanity of
those four fists.