A FLIER IN STOCKS
It was as dazzling to Rimrock as a burst of sunshine to a man just come
up from a mine--that look in Mary Fortune's eyes. He went out of her
office like a man in a dream and wandered off by himself to think. But
that was the one thing he could not negotiate, his brain refused to
work. It was a whirl of weird flashes and forms and colors, like a
futurist painting gone mad, but above it all when the turmoil had
subsided was the thought of going back. He had told her when he left
her that he would come around again, and that fixed idea had held to
the end. But how? Under what pretext? And would she break down his
pretense with that smile?
Rimrock thought it over and it seemed best at the end to invite her to
take a ride. There were certain things in connection with their mine
which he wished very much to discuss, but how could he do it in the
hotel lobby with the Gunsight women looking on? Since his rise to
affluence one of them had dared to speak to him, but she would never do
it again. He remembered too well the averted glances with which they
had passed him, poor and ragged, on the street. No, he hated them
passionately as the living symbols of Gunsight fraud and greed; the
soft, idle women of those despicable parasites who now battened on what
he had earned.
But Mary Fortune, how else was he to meet her without envious eyes
looking on; or stealthy ears of prying women, listening at keyholes to
catch every word? And out on the desert, gliding smoothly along in the
best hired automobile in town, where better could he give expression to
those surging confidences which he was impelled against his judgment to
make? It was that same inner spirit that made all his troubles, now
urging him he knew not where. All he knew for certain was that the shy
woman-look had crept back for a moment into her eyes; and after that
the fate of empires was as nothing to the import of her smile. Did she
feel, as he felt, the mystic bond between them, the appeal of his young
man's strength; or was that smile a mask, a provocative weapon, to veil
her own thoughts while she read through his like a book? He gave it
up; but there was a way of knowing--he could call out that smile again.
The idle women of the Gunsight Hotel, sitting in their rockers on the
upper porch, were rewarded on that day for many a wasted hour. For
long months they had watched McBain's typist, with her proud way of
ignoring them all; and at last they had something to talk about.
Rimrock Jones in his best, and with a hired automobile, came gliding up
to her office; and as he went tramping in every ear on the veranda was
strained to catch his words.
"Aw, don't mind those old hens," he said after a silence, roaring it
out that all could hear. "They're going to talk anyway so let's take a
ride; and make 'em guess, for once, what I say."
There was nothing, after that, for the ladies to do but retire in the
best form they could; but as Mary Fortune came out in an auto' bonnet
with a veil and coat to match they tore her character to shreds from
behind the Venetian blinds. So that was her game--she had thrown over
McBain and was setting her cap for Rimrock Jones. And automobile
clothes! Well, if that wasn't proof that she was living down a past
the ladies would like to know. A typewriter girl, earning less that
seventy dollars a month, and with a trunk full of joy-riding clothes!
With such women about her it called for some courage for Mary Fortune
to make the plunge; but the air was still fragrant, spring was on the
wind and the ground dove crooned in his tree. She was tired, worn out
with the deadly monotony of working on day by day; and she had besides
that soul-stirring elation of having won in the great game for her
stock.
"It'll be a stockholders' meeting," Rimrock had explained in her ear.
"We represent a majority of the stock. I want to tell you something
big, where nobody else will hear. Come on, let your typewriting slide!"
And Mary Fortune had laughed and run scampering up the stairs and come
down with her gloves and veil, and as the automobile moved off she had
that joyous sensation of something about to happen. They drove out of
town on the one straight road that led to the Gunsight mine and Rimrock
was so busy with the mechanics of his driving that she had a chance to
view the landscape by herself. The white, silty desert, stretching off
to blue mountains, was set as regularly as a vineyard with the waxy,
dark-green creosote bushes; and at uncertain intervals the fluted giant
cactus rose up like sentinels on the plain. All the desert trees that
grew near the town--the iron-woods and palo verdes and cat-claws and
mesquite and salt-bushes--had been uprooted by the Mexicans in their
search for wood; but in every low swale the grass was still green and
the cactus was crowned with gorgeous blossoms.
"Isn't it glorious?" she sighed as she breathed the warm air and
Rimrock looked up from studying his clutches.
"The finest God ever made!" he said as his engine chugged smoothly
along. "By George, I was glad to get home. Ever been in New York?
Well, you know what it's like then; give me Arizona, every time. But
say, that's some town; I stayed at the Waldorf, where the tips are a
dollar a throw. Every time you turn around, or the boy grabs your hat,
you give him a dollar bill. Say, I put up a front--they all thought I
was a millionaire--have you ever been down to the curb market? Oh,
don't you know what that is? Why, it's the place near Wall street
where they sell stock in the middle of the street."
He negotiated a sand wash and nearly stripped a gear as he threw in the
low by mistake.
"You bet, quite a country!" he went on unconcernedly. "I thought I
knew sign language, but those curb brokers have got me beat. I can sit
down with an Indian and by signs and sand-pictures I can generally make
him savvy what I want, but those fellers back there could buy and sell
me while I was asking the price of a horse. I was down there on Broad
street and a man in the crowd jumped up and let out a yell.
"'Sold!' says a feller that's standing next to me, and began to make
signs to a fellow in a second-story window and writes something down on
a pad. I asked a man that was taking me around--they treated me right
in that town--what in the world was going on, and he told me they'd
made a trade in stock. The first fellow says:
"'Sell five hundred shares of So-and-So at seventy-nine!' and the
second man raises his right hand like an Indian how-sign and there's a
twenty thousand-dollar trade pulled off. They both write it down on a
slip of paper and the man in the window does the telephoning. Say, I'm
going back there when I got a stake, and try my hand at that game."
An expression of pain, as of some evil memory, passed swiftly over Mary
Fortune's face and she turned from gazing at the mountains to give him
a warning shake of the head.
"Don't you do it!" she said; but when he asked her why not she shut her
lips and looked far away.
"You must've got bit some time," he suggested cheerfully, but she
refused for the moment to be drawn out.
"Perhaps," she replied, "but if that's the case my advice is all the
more sound."
"No, but I'm on the inside," he went on impressively. "I know some of
those big ones personally. That makes the difference; those fellows
don't lose, they skim the cream off of everything. Say, I ought to
know--didn't I go in there lone-handed and fight it out with a king of
finance? That's the man we're in with--I can't tell you his name,
now--he's the one that owns the forty-nine per cent. They're crazy
about copper or he'd never have looked at me--there's some big market
fight coming on. And didn't he curse and squirm and holler, trying to
make me give up my control? He told me in years he had never gone into
anything unless he got more than half _for a gift_! But I told him
'no,' I'd been euchered out of one mine; and after his expert had
reported on the property he came through and gave me my way. And after
that! Say, there was nothing too good for me. He agreed to spend
several million dollars to pay for his share of the mine and then he
gave me that roll of bills to bind the bargain we'd made. By George, I
felt good, to go there with two thousand dollars and come back with a
big roll of yellowbacks; but before I went away he introduced me to a
friend and told him how to show me the sights.
"This friend was a broker, by the name of Buckbee, and believe me, he's
on the inside. He took me around and showed me the Stock Exchange and
put me wise to everything. We were up in the gallery and, on the floor
below us, there were a whole lot of posts with signs; and a bunch of
the craziest men in the world were fighting around those posts. Fight?
They were tearing each other's clothes off, throwing paper in the air,
yelling like drunk Indians, knocking each other flat. It was so rough,
by George, it scared me; but Buckbee told me they were selling stocks.
There were thousands of dollars in every yell they let out, they talked
signs like they were deaf and dumb, and every time a man held up his
right hand it meant: Sold! And they wrote it down on a slip."
Rimrock paused in his description to make some hurried adjustments as
his machine slowed down to a stop, but after a hasty glance he burst
into a laugh and settled back in his seat.
"Well, what do we care?" he went on recklessly. "This desert is all
the same. We can sit right here and see it all, and when it comes time
to go back I'll shake the old engine up. But as I was telling you,
playing the stock market is all right if you've got some one to put you
wise."
"No, it isn't," she answered positively. "I've been there and I know."
"Well, listen to this then," went on Rimrock eagerly, "let me show you
what Buckbee can do. I dropped in at his office, after I'd received my
roll, and he said: 'Want to take a flier?'
"'Sure,' I said, 'here's a thousand dollars. Put it on and see how far
it will go.' Well, you can believe me or not, in three days' time he
gave me back over two thousand dollars."
He nodded triumphantly, but the woman beside him shook her head and
turned wearily away.
"That's only the beginning," she answered sadly, "the end is--what
happened to me."
"What was that?" he asked and she gazed at him curiously with a look he
did not understand.
"Well, you can see for yourself," she said at last, "this is the first
pleasure I've had for a year. I used to have a home with servants to
wait on me; and music, and society and all, and when my father died and
left me alone I might even then have kept on. But--well, I'll tell it
to you; it may make you stop and think the next time you meet one of
those brokers. My father was a judge and the ethics of his profession
prevented him from speculating in stocks, but he had an old friend, his
college classmate, who had made millions and millions on the Stock
Exchange. He was one of the most powerful financiers in New York and
when my father died he made the request that Mr. Rossiter should invest
my legacy for me. My father knew that the money he left would barely
keep me, at the best; and so he asked this old friend of his to see
that it was safely invested.
"So when the estate had been administered I went to see Mr. Rossiter
and, after discussing different investments, he told me of a plan he
had. It seems he was at the head of a tremendous combination that
controlled the price of a certain stock and, although it was strictly
against the rules, he was going to give me a tip that would double my
money in a few weeks. I was afraid, at first, but when he guaranteed
me against loss I took all my money to a certain broker and bought
forty-three thousand shares. Then I watched the papers and every day I
could see the price of it going up. One day it nearly doubled and then
it went back, and then stopped and went up and up. In less than a
month the price went up from twenty-three cents to nearly fifty and
then, just at a time when it was rising fastest, Mr. Rossiter called me
to his office again. He took me back into his private room and told me
how much he had loved my father. And then he told me that the time had
come for me to take my profits and quit; that the market was safe for a
man of his kind who was used to every turn of the game, but the best
thing for me now was to get my money from my broker and invest it in
certain five per cent. bonds. And then he made me promise, as long as
I lived, never to buy a share of stock again."
She paused and sighed.
"Can you guess what I did?" she asked. "What would you do in a case
like that? Well, I went to the broker and sold back my shares and then
I stood watching the tape. I had learned to read it and somehow it
fascinated me--and my stock was still going up. In less than two hours
it had gone up twenty points--it was the only stock that was sold! And
when I saw what I could have gained by waiting--what do you think I
did?"
"You turned right around," answered Rimrock confidently, "and bought
the same stock again."
"No, you're wrong," she said with a twist of the lips, "I'm a bigger
gambler than that. I put up all my money on a ten-point margin and was
called and sold out in an hour. The stock went tumbling right after I
bought it and, before I could order them to sell, the price had gone
down far below my margin and the brokers were in a panic. They
wouldn't stop to explain anything to me--all they said was that I had
lost. I went back home and thought it over and decided never to let
him know--Mr. Rossiter, I mean; he had been so kind to me, and I hadn't
done what he said. I found out afterwards that, shortly after I had
left him, he had deliberately wrecked the price; and he, poor man, was
thinking all the time, what a favor he had done his old friend's
daughter."
She laughed, short and mirthlessly, and Rimrock sat looking at her, his
eyes once more big with surprise. She was not the inexperienced
creature he had taken her for, she was a woman with high spots in her
career.
"Well, then what did you do?" he enquired at last as she showed no
disposition to proceed. "How'd you come to get out here? Did you know
old McBain or----"
"Say, can't you start that engine?" she spoke up sharply. "Let's go on
and forget about the rest. I'm here, we know that; and I only told you
what I did to break you of gambling in stocks."
"No, that engine is stalled," he said with authority, "but I'll get it
to go, when it's time. But say, tell me something--we're going to be
friends, you know--does Rossiter know where you are now?"
"Oh, yes," she answered, "I write to him frequently. He thinks I'm out
here for my health. I have this trouble, you know, and the doctors
advised me to come out where the air is dry."
"Well, you're a peach," observed Rimrock admiringly. "And the old man
still thinks you're rich? What'll he say, do you think, when he hears
of your latest--getting in on this Tecolote strike?"
"Oh, I won't dare tell him," she answered quickly. "I'm afraid he
wouldn't approve. And may I make a suggestion? If you'll throw on
your spark I think your engine will run."
"Say, you scare me!" said Rimrock with a guilty grin. "You're so smart
you make me afraid. I'll crank her up, too--do you think that would
help some? Huh, huh; I get caught every time!"