THE GAMBLERS
Harris found some difficulty in providing that affairs of the farm
would proceed satisfactorily during his absence, but at last they
were arranged, if not exactly to his liking, at least in a manner
that promised no serious loss. It was most unfortunate that Mary, in
a moment of headstrong passion quite without precedent in his
experience of her, had determined upon a visit just at the time when
she was particularly needed at home. If Harris had been quite fair he
would have remembered that there had been no time in the last
twenty-five years when she had not been needed at home, and the
present occasion was perhaps no less opportune for her visit than
many others. But he felt a deep grievance over his wife's conduct,
and while he missed her sorely he was determined that no act of his
should shorten her visit or imply that the business of the farm was
in any way suffering from her absence. He had managed their affairs
successfully in the past; he would continue to manage them
successfully in the future; and he only hoped that time would impress
upon her the fact that he was doing everything for the best. He
assured himself that he was actuated only by a desire for the highest
good for his family, even while their disobedience and ingratitude
rendered his task unnecessarily difficult.
The hired man, in consideration of having no field work to do,
finally consented to milk the cows and deliver the milk daily to Mrs.
Riles, who would convert it into butter--for a consideration of so
much per pound. To his good neighbours, the Grants, Harris turned for
assurance that should he and Allan be delayed on their trip, or
should the harvest come in earlier than expected, ample steps would
be taken to garner it.
So, with these arrangements complete, the farmer and his son drove
into Plainville one fine bright morning at the end of July, ready for
their first long trip into the New West. Indeed, it was Allan's first
long journey anywhere; an excursion to Winnipeg at the time of the
summer exhibition had been the limit of his experience of travel, and
the hard work of the farm had not yet extinguished the young man's
desire for novelty and excitement. He looked forward to their
expedition with a feeling akin to enthusiasm, and he secretly
cherished the hope that their travels might bring them again into the
company of his mother and sister, for whom, with the slackening of
labour, he now felt an increasing loneliness.
Harris got off at the railway station to buy the tickets; Allan went
to the post office on the odd chance of any letters awaiting
delivery, and the hired man turned the horses homeward. The station
agent was threading his way through his car report, and remained
provokingly unconscious of Harris's presence at the ticket window.
The farmer took no pains to conceal his impatience, coughing and
shuffling obviously, but it was not until the last box-car had been
duly recorded that the agent deigned to recognize his existence.
"Nothing for you from--," he said, mentioning the mail order house
from which Harris made most of his purchases.
"Well, I didn't expect anythin'," retorted the farmer, "although
you're just as likely to have it when I don't as when I do. How much
is a ticket to Calgary?"
"You got the land fever, too?" the agent asked, as he consulted his
tariffs. "Riles went up the other day. You'll be making a clean-up on
the cheap land, I suppose. But I tell you, Harris, if I'd a farm like
yours you couldn't pry me off it with a pinch-bar. No more worries
for little Willie, and I'd leave the free land to those that haven't
got any--like myself."
"Worry!" snorted Harris. "What do you worry about? You get your pay,
whether it freezes or hails or shrivels up with one of these Dakota
scorchers."
The agent thought of the piles of reports on his table, but as he
thumped the stamp on the tickets he answered, "Oh, I worry over the
Monroe doctrine." He left the farmer counting his change, and turned
to his reports. "Another money-grubber gone crazy with the heat," he
muttered. "If I'd his wad wouldn't I burn this wire with one hot,
short sentence!"
Harris met his son on the platform. "What d'ye think, Dad? A letter
from Riles." He drew the crumpled missive from its envelope. "Looks
like a laundry ticket," he said, "but I figured it out, and he wants
you to sell the farm and buy a coal mine."
Harris read the letter through, not without some difficulty. At first
he was inclined to laugh, but the earnestness of Riles impressed him
through the makeshift English.
"What d'ye think of it, Dad?" said the younger man, at length. "Of
course we don't know anything about coal, but then--"
"It must look good to Riles or he wouldn't want to put any money in
it," commented Harris, after a few minutes' reflection. "Riles is
pretty cautious. He's got money in the bank drawin' three per cent;
he's afraid to lend it out among the farmers. And he ain't easy
talked into a new scheme, either."
"D'ye suppose we could sell the farm?" The idea of a big, profitable
speculation suddenly appealed to Allan with much greater force than
the prospect of three years on a homestead. He knew that vast sums of
money had been made, and made quickly, in the Far West, but he had
never before thought of himself or his father sharing in this sudden
wealth. They had worked hard for their money, and took it as a matter
of course that they should continue to work hard for it. But the
vision of quick riches, the prospect of realizing it in his own
person, the dizzy thought that Fortune, which had seemed to move in a
circle quite apart from his existence, might actually now be within a
hand's reach--these intoxicated him with a sudden hope which burst
the old bounds of his imagination and set up new and wilder
ambitions.
"D'ye suppose we could sell the farm?" he repeated. It began to seem
that the short-cut to wealth hinged on the possibility of selling the
farm.
"I guess we could sell it, all right," said Harris. "Maybe not for
that much cash, but we can get cash on the agreement, if we need it."
He, too, found the inborn gaming instinct which cries out for money
without labour welling within him and surging up against his
long-established, sober judgment. But he was not a man to act
precipitately, or risk all on a single throw unless he were very,
very sure of the result.
"Of course, maybe it's all right," he continued. "But it's a good
thing to buy your buggy before you throw away your cart. If this
thing's as good as Riles says, it will keep until we can see it for
ourselves. If it don't, somethin' else'll turn up."
"Yes," said Allan, "but if we find it's all right when we get there,
and we've only a few measly hundred dollars along, we'll want to kick
ourselves all the way home. Lots of fellows are making big money just
because they had some capital to work with, and why shouldn't we do
it, too? Couldn't you fix it some way to get the money without coming
back, if everything looks all right? That'd save time, and expense
too."
"There's something in that. There's time to see Bradshaw yet before
the train comes. We'll kind o' leave it standin' in his hands."
They made a hurried call on Bradshaw, the lawyer, and asked him to be
on the look-out for a buyer for the farm.
"Mind, I'm not actu'lly puttin' it up for sale," Harris cautioned
him, "but I want you to keep your eye open for a buyer. Forty
thousand dollars takes the whole thing as a goin' concern, an' the
more cash the better. Get a line on a buyer if you can, and if I send
you word to sell, see, you sell, and if I don't send you word, don't
do anythin'. You understand?"
"I think I understand you perfectly," said the lawyer, who was also a
dealer in real estate. Indeed, since the activity in farm lands had
commenced he might be said to be a real estate dealer who was also a
lawyer. "Not many buyers have that much ready cash, Mr. Harris, but
it could no doubt be arranged to sell your agreement, or raise a
mortgage on the property, that would give you the whole amount in
your hand." Bradshaw, along with his other pursuits, was agent for a
mortgage company, and always valued two commissions higher than one.
The lawyer wrote something on a sheet of paper. "This is a power of
attorney, which will enable me to complete the documents without the
delay of sending them to you, if you should decide to sell," he
explained. Harris signed the paper, and Allan witnessed it.
With this understanding the journey westward was undertaken, and
completed without event of importance. As his daughter had done a few
weeks before, and his wife still later, Harris spent a few hours in
the young city just beginning to stir itself on the sleepy, sunny
slopes where the prairies ran into the foothills, stretching one last
long tongue far up the valley of the Bow and lapping at the feet of
the eternal snows. His original plan had been to spend a day or two
in Calgary, "sizing up" the land situation for himself before joining
Riles, but the possibilities of the coal mine speculation had grown
upon him with every mile of the journey. He had only to use his ears
to hear of so many men, apparently no more capable men than he and
Allan, who had grown suddenly rich from fortunate investments. It was
a case of recognizing the opportunity when it presented itself, and
having the nerve to seize it without hesitation. He found himself now
in a country and an atmosphere where "playing safe" was somewhat to a
man's discredit--where the successful man was the man who dared to
throw discretion to the winds and take the chance. And because money,
not earned in the country, was pouring in from outside, and by its
own buoyancy raising the price of land and labour, the chance, even
the foolish chance, was likely to turn out to advantage and justify
the daring of the speculator rather than the discretion of the
careful buyer. Harris had, all his life, lived in an atmosphere of
conservatism, where saving a penny was greater merit than making two,
but he was amazed to find how quickly the gambling spirit of the new
land seized upon him. Unlike Riles, he was a man who responded to his
environment; in a community of hard-working, money-saving farmers he
worked hardest and saved most; but in a community of reckless,
unlicensed speculation he had the qualities which would soon make of
him the greatest gambler of them all. He was astonished and somewhat
frightened by this hitherto unrevealed side of his own character. His
long-dormant imagination began to revive; with imagination came hope
and optimism; and hope and optimism, unchecked, soon breed
recklessness. He saw the evidence of prosperity on every side--not
the prosperity that hedges itself about with socialisms and affected
dignity, but the prosperity that stays on the job in its
shirt-sleeves. He saw men who were doing big things--building
railways, opening up wildernesses, farming or carrying on business
transactions on a scale of which he had never dreamed--and he began
to see that the only reason these men could do these things was that
they dared to do them. Well, he too--he and Allan--would dare some
things...He paid a dollar for their lunch without a grumble, and
again they took the train.
Riles met them on the station platform. He had met every train for a
week, as it had been agreed that it would be better that the Harrises
should not visit Gardiner's ranch until plans were more fully
developed. Jim was still there, and Gardiner insisted that Jim should
not meet Harris at present. He allowed Riles to think that he feared
trouble if former employer and employee should meet; as a matter of
fact, he feared that if their coal mine proposition should reach the
ears of Travers the young man would attempt to dissuade Harris from
having anything to do with it, or at least would urge a fuller
investigation than might be desirable. Besides, he meant to make of
Travers an unwitting party to the affair.
Riles, in overalls and shirt-sleeves, leaned against the iron rail at
the back of the station platform, his big hands stuffed in the
bulging band of his trousers, and his under-jaw busy with an ample
ration of tobacco. He watched the passengers alighting from the train
with little interest; he had no particular expectations of meeting
Harris on this occasion, and, if the truth be told, he had little
desire to meet him. Riles had no pangs of conscience over his part in
the plot against his old neighbour, but he had an uneasy feeling of
cowardice. When suddenly his eye fell on Harris and his big,
strapping son, his first impulse was to slip away in the crowd before
they should notice him. But it was only for a moment; the next,
Harris was calling, "'Lo, Hiram," and the two were shaking hands as
old friends met in a far country.
"Didja get my letter?" asked Riles, ignoring the commonplaces with
which it was their custom to introduce any important topic. "Didja
sell the farm?"
"I got the letter, Hiram, but I didn't sell the farm. Thought we'd
just have a look over this coal mine before goin' into the business
altogether."
"H-s-h. Throttle your voice down. This place is full of men on the
look-out for somethin' like that, an' you can't keep it too dark
until it's all settled."
"Well, ain't we going to put up somewhere?" said Allan, breaking the
silence that followed Riles' warning. "There ought to be an Alberta
hotel here, somewhere. I saw one in every town for the last two
hundred miles."
"I got that beat," said Riles, with a snicker. "Boardin' on a lord,
or duke, or somethin'."
"Don't say?"
"Yeh. You mind Gard'ner? Him 'at lit out from Plainville after that
stealin' affair?"
"The one you got credit for bein' mixed up in?" said Allan, with
disconcerting frankness. "A lame kind of a lord he'd make. What about
him?"
"Well, he struck a soft thing out here, fo' sure. This lord I'm
tellin' you about's gone off home over some bloomin' estate or other,
an' Gard'ner's runnin' his ranch--his 'bloody-well rawnch' he calls
it. Gets a good fat wad for ridin' round, an' hires a man to do the
work. But it was Gard'ner put me on t' this coal mine deal."
"Let's get settled first, and we'll talk about Gardiner and the mine
afterwards," said Harris, and they joined the throng that was now
wending its way to the hotels.
"How's your thirst, Hiram?" inquired Harris, after he had registered.
"Pretty sticky," confessed Riles. "But they soak you a quarter to
wash it out here."
"Well, I got a quarter."
"A quarter apiece, I mean."
"Well, I got a quarter apiece," said Harris. "Come on."
Riles followed, astonishment over Harris's sudden liberality, and
misgiving as to how he himself could avoid a similar expenditure,
struggling for uppermost place in his mind.
"Pretty strong stuff they have here," he said, after Harris and Allan
had "set 'er up" in turn. "Keel you over if you don't watch it."
"Does taste kind o' snakey," said Harris. "Guess that's enough for
this time. Now come upstairs and tell us all about this deal you have
on."
When the travellers had thrown off their coats and vests, and all
were seated in the little bedroom, Riles cleared his throat.
"Well, there ain't much t' tell yuh, more'n I said in m' letter," he
started. "As I said, it's Gard'ner you'll have t' thank for this
thing, good or bad. I ain't a coal miner, an' I told him that, an' I
told him you wasn't neither, but he says that don't make no
difference. He says there's all kinds o' money in it, an' I reckon
that's what we came out here for, ain't it?"
"Yes, provided the tiling's sound," said Harris. "Anyone can see with
half an eye that there's easier ways of makin' money than bustin' up
this prairie sod for it. But you and me've worked hard for what we've
got, Hiram, and we want t' go mighty careful about spendin' it."
"I suppose you've sent home word to sell your farm, have you?" put in
Allan. "You'll be chipping in at the same time?"
"Oh, yes, I'll be chippin' in. Of course. But I didn't just say to
sell the farm yet. I'll have t' get back an' straighten things up
some first. You see, I thought you'd get my letter before you left,
an' you could kind o' make your deal then, an' your payment would
hold the bargain bound until I could sell mine, y' see, Harris?"
Riles was beginning to address himself mainly to the older man.
"Don't take me up wrong," said Allan. "I'm in on this along with Dad,
if he's in; an' if he's out, I'm out. But I was just kind o' curious
about it."
"It's all right, it's all right," assured Riles, with great
magnanimity. Inwardly he was cursing Gardiner for having left this
task to him. He was suspicious of a trap in the simplest question,
and feared that any minute he might find himself floundering in a
mesh of contradictions.
"Where is this coal mine, and who's got it?" said Harris.
"I ain't saw it myself," admitted Riles. "They're awful p'tic'lar
about lettin' people see it," he continued, with a sudden flash of
inspiration. "It's so valu'ble, y' know."
"'Fraid somebody'll bring it home in their pocket, I suppose," said
Allan.
Riles pretended to laugh heartily.
"But where is it?" insisted Harris. "Is there a railroad near, or how
do you get at it?"
"It's up in the mountains, an' that's all I can tell you; but it's
all right, an' there's a pile o' money in it. I guess I better bring
Gard'ner down in the morning, an' he'll explain all about it. Y' see,
he knows the fellow 'at owns it, an' I don't, an' he'll be able to
tell you. That is, if you're goin' in on it. Gard'ner won't say much
unless he knows you're goin' in on it."
"Well, he'll have to say a good deal before he knows," said Harris.
"I ain't buyin' a pig in a poke. He's got t' show me, and then if
it's all right, why, it's all right."
"Oh, it's all right," said Riles, although inwardly he felt little
enthusiasm over the attitude of either father or son. He was annoyed
that Allan should be present. On the whole, it would be better to
leave the rest of the explaining to Gardiner.
"What d'ye think of it, Dad?" said Allan, when Riles was gone.
"Maybe all right," said Harris. "Wouldn't be surprised but it is. At
the same time, I ain't goin' to put a cent in it till I'm dead sure.
And anyway, there's no use lettin' Riles think we're keen on it."
"That's what I think. You think Gardiner's all square in it?"
"I don't know. Likely he's getting a fat commission from somewhere,
but that's fair enough, if he makes the deal. But he won't see any o'
our money till I have the opinion of the best lawyer in town. That's
all we can say till we see it."
"That seems safe," Allan agreed. "Just the same, I think there's lots
more chances to use our money to advantage here than down in
Manitoba, don't you?"
"Yes, I think there is. You see, this is a new country, and
everything on the jump. Think how much we could 'a' made in Manitoba
in the early days if we had the money and knew where t' put it. Well,
out here they've got the benefit of our experience, an' they'll do as
much here in five years as we did in twenty-five. We had t' make the
money t' develop our country--had t' make it right at home on our
farms, an' that's slow. But here the money's rollin' in from
outside."
"What d'ye say if we sell the old farm anyway, and then if this mine
business don't look good, we'll plunk it into farm land?"
"Might do worse," his father agreed. "We'll have a look round for a
day or two, anyway."
The next morning they began a round of the real estate offices. Great
activity prevailed everywhere, and dealers seemed to have hardly time
to give them attention. In one little box of a place they mentioned
that they might be on the market for say a couple of thousand acres.
"Think I can fix you up all right," said the proprietor; "and there's
one sure thing, you can't put your money anywhere where it's safer or
'll grow faster. Why--"
At that moment a man in a pepper-and-salt suit went by the door.
"'Scuse me a minute," said the dealer, rushing to the door and
sending a shrill whistle down the street. The man in the
pepper-and-salt turned, and the dealer beckoned him into the little
office.
"You know that five-thousand-acre block you bought last week," he
said in a low voice, but loud enough to be heard by the Harrises.
"Bought it at six dollars, didn't you? Well, I can give you seven
to-day, for a quick sale."
"Couldn't think of it, my dear fellow," protested the lucky buyer. "I
simply couldn't think of it."
"Couldn't think of making five thousand dollars in a week? It don't
look too bad to a working man like me."
"But it's nowhere near the value of the land. Why, they're selling
stuff in Illinois today that ain't to be compared with it at a
hundred and fifty dollars an acre. It's only a question of time until
this is as much. You've got better land here, and better climate, and
you're a thousand miles nearer the Pacific Ocean, that's going to
carry the commerce of the future. Seven dollars? It's an insult to
Canada to mention such a price."
"Well, say," continued the real estate man, in a still more
confidential tone, "I was allowing myself a little margin on the
deal, even at seven dollars. But I had a man in here a few minutes
ago that'll buy that block at eight-fifty. I'll pay you eight dollars
net to put it through."
"Sorry, but he'll have to get down deeper than that if he wants it.
Tell him I might consider ten dollars, but mind, I ain't making any
promise." And the man in the pepper-and-salt suit continued his
course down the street, just the same as if he were not making five
thousand dollars a week.
"Big capitalist from New York, that fellow," explained the dealer.
"Simply coining money up here, and always salting it into more land."
The incident left a deep impression on the Harrises. They did not
know, of course, that the man in the pepper-and-salt suit always went
by the door when likely-looking strangers were in, and that he always
refused a profit of ten thousand dollars as a matter of little
consequence--except for its influence on the unsuspecting party of
the third part.