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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19173-8.txt b/19173-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0bb143 --- /dev/null +++ b/19173-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9020 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cow Puncher, by Robert J. C. Stead + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Cow Puncher + +Author: Robert J. C. Stead + +Release Date: September 4, 2006 [EBook #19173] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COW PUNCHER *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: The Cow Puncher] + + + + + +The Cow Puncher + + +By + +ROBERT J. C. STEAD + + + +Author of "The Homesteaders," "Kitchener and Other Poems," "The Bail +Jumper," "Songs of the Prairie," "Prairie Born," "The Empire Builders," +etc. + + + + + +TORONTO + +THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY + +LIMITED + + + + +Copyright Canada, 1918 + +THE MUSSON BOOK CO., LIMITED + +Publishers -------- TORONTO + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER I + CHAPTER II + CHAPTER III + CHAPTER IV + CHAPTER V + CHAPTER VI + CHAPTER VII + CHAPTER VIII + CHAPTER IX + CHAPTER X + CHAPTER XI + CHAPTER XII + CHAPTER XIII + CHAPTER XIV + CHAPTER XV + CHAPTER XVI + CHAPTER XVII + CHAPTER XVIII + CHAPTER XIX + CHAPTER XX + CHAPTER XXI + CHAPTER XXII + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +The Cow Puncher . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ + +These long rides afforded her many side-lights on the remarkable nature +of her escort. + +"You aren't talking to-day . . . what's wrong?" + +"There is only one answer, Dave. Because I love you." + + + + +THE COW PUNCHER + + +CHAPTER ONE + +The shadows of the spruce trees fell north-eastward, pointing long, +cool fingers across belts of undulating prairie, or leaning lazily +against the brown foothills. Like an incandescent globe the afternoon +sun hung in the bowl of a cloudless heaven, filmy with heat, but the +hot rays were met by the high altitude of the ranch country and lost +their force like a blow half struck. And among the spruce trees it was +cool and green, and clear blue water rippled over beds of shining +gravel. + +The ranch buildings lay a little to the rear, as though the trees stood +sentinel between them and the prairies. The house was of round +straight logs; the shingles of the squat roof were cupped and blistered +with the suns of many summers. Refuse loitered about the open door; +many empty tins; a leaky barrel, with missing hoops; boxes, harness, +tangled bits of wire. Once there had been a fence; a sort of picket +fence of little saplings, but wild bronchos had kicked it to pieces and +range steers had straggled unscarred across its scattered remnants. + +Forward, and to the left, was the corral; mill slabs on end, or fences +of lodge-pole pine; a corner somewhat covered in, offering vague +protection from the weather. The upper poles were worn thin with the +cribbing of many horses. + +The sunlight bathed the scene; nursed it in a soft, warm silence. The +desertion seemed absolute; the silence was the silence of the unspoken +places. But suddenly it was broken by a stamping in the covered part +of the corral, and a man's voice saying, "Hip, there; whoa, you cayuse; +get under your saddle! Sleepin' against a post all day, you +sloppy-eye. Hip, come to it!" + +Horse and rider dashed into the sunlight. The boy--for he was no more +than a boy--sat the beast as though born to it, his lithe frame taking +every motion of his mount as softly as a good boat rides the sea. His +red shirt and thick hairy schaps could not disguise the lean +muscularity of his figure; the broad felt hat, and the revolver at his +belt, gave just the touch of romance. With a yell at his horse he +snatched the hat from his head, turning to the sun a smooth, brown face +and a mane of dark hair, and slapped the horse across the flank with +his crumpled headgear. At the signal the animal sprang into the air, +then dashed at a gallop down the roadway, bearing the boy as +unconcerned as a flower on its stem. + +Suddenly he brought his horse to a stop; swung about, and rode back at +a gentle canter. A few yards from the house he again spurred him to a +gallop, and, leaning far down by the animal's side, deftly picked a +bottle from among the grass. Then he circled about, repeating this +operation as often as his eye fell on a bottle, until he had +half-a-dozen; then down the road again, carefully setting a bottle on +each post of the fence that skirted it to the right. + +Again he came back to the house, but, when he turned, his eye was on +the row of posts, and his right hand lay on the grip of his revolver. +Again his sharp yell broke the silence and the horse dashed forward as +though shot from a gun. Down the road they went until within a rod of +the first bottle; then there was a flash in the sunlight, and to the +clatter of the horse's hoofs came the crack-crack of the revolver. Two +bottles shivered to fragments, but four remained intact, and the boy +rode back, muttering and disappointed. + +He reasoned with his horse as he rode. "'Taint no use, you ol' +slop-eye; a fellow can't get the bede if he ain't got the fillin'; +cooked meals an' decent chuck. I could plug 'em six out o' six--you +know that, you ol' flop-ears; don't you argue about it, neither--when +I'm right inside my belt I smash 'em six out o' six, but I ain't right, +an' you know it. You don't know nothin' about it; you never had a +father, leastways, you never had to be responsible for one. . . . +Well, it's comin' to a finish--a damn lame finish, you know that. You +know--" + +But he had reloaded his revolver and set up two more bottles. This +time he broke four, and was better pleased with himself. As he rode +back his soliloquy was broken by a strange sound from beyond the belt +of trees. The horse pricked up his ears, and the boy turned in the +saddle to listen. + +"Jumpin' crickets, what's loose?" he ejaculated. He knew every sound +of the foothill country, but this was strange to him. A kind of snort, +a sort of hiss; mechanical in its regularity, startling in its +strangeness, it came across the valley with the unbroken rhythm of a +watch-tick. + +"Well, I guess it won't eat us," he ventured at last. "We'll just run +it down and perhaps poke a hole in it." So saying, he cantered along +the road which skirted the spruce trees, crossed the little stream and +swung up the hill on the farther side. + +He was half way up when a turn in the road brought him into sudden +sight of the strange visitor. It was the first he had seen, but he +knew it at once, for the fame of the automobile, then in its +single-cylinder stage, had already spread into the farthest ranching +country. The horse was less well informed. Whether or not in that +moment he recognized the great rival of his race must be left to some +analyst of horse character, but he bucked and kicked in rage and +terror. But the boy was conscious not so much of the horse as of two +bright eyes turned on him in frank and surprised admiration. + +"What horsemanship!" she exclaimed, but the words had scarce left her +lips when they were followed by a cry of alarm. For the car had taken +a sudden turn from the road and plunged into a growth of young poplars +that fringed the hillside. The oldish man at the wheel gave it a +violent wrench, but left his motor in gear, and the car half slid, half +plowed its way into semi-vertical position among the young trees. The +two occupants were thrown from their seat; the girl fell clear, but her +father was less fortunate. + +In an instant the boy had flung himself from his horse, dropping the +reins to the ground, and the animal, although snorting and shivering, +had no thought of disgracing his training by breaking his parole. With +quick, ungainly strides the boy brought himself to the upturned +machine. It was curious that he should appear to such disadvantage on +his feet. In the saddle he was grace personified. + +For a moment he looked somewhat stupidly upon the wreck. Had it been a +horse or a steer he would have known the procedure, but this experience +was new to his life. Besides, there were strangers here. He had no +fear of strangers when they wore schaps and coloured handkerchiefs, but +a girl in a brown sweater and an oldish man with a white collar were +creatures to be approached with caution. The oldish man was lying on +the ground, with a leg pinned under the car, and Brown Sweater raised +his head against her knee and pressed his cheeks with small white +fingers and looked at the boy with bright grey eyes and said, "Well, +aren't you going to do anything?" + +That brought him back. "Sure," he said, springing to her side. "Whada +ye' want me to do?" + +"I am afraid my leg is broken," said the man, speaking calmly +notwithstanding his pain. "Can you get the jack out of the tool box +and raise the car?" + +The girl pointed to the box, and in a moment he had the jack in his +hand. But it was a new tool to him and he fumbled with it stupidly. +The handle would not fit, and when it did fit it operated the wrong way. + +"Oh, let me have it," she cried, impatiently. In a moment she had it +set under the frame of the car and was plying the handle up and down +with rapid strokes. The machine began to groan with the pressure, and +the boy looked on, helpless and mortified. He was beginning to realize +that there were more things in the world than riding a horse, and +shooting bottles. He felt a sudden desire to be of great service. And +just now he could be of no service whatever. + +But the foot of the jack began to sink in the soft earth, and the girl +looked up helplessly. "It won't lift it," she said. "What shall we +do?" + +It was his chance. He was eighteen, and his wild, open life had given +him muscles of steel. "Here," he said, roughly, "move his leg when I +get it clear." He turned his back to the machine and crouched down +until he could get his hands under the steel frame. Then he lifted. +The car was in a somewhat poised position, and he was able to swing it +up far enough to release the injured leg. + +"Very good, my boy," said the man. "That was a wonderful lift. The +leg is broken--compound. Can you get some way of moving me to shelter? +I will pay you well." + +The last words were unfortunate. Hospitality in the ranching country +is not bought and sold. + +"You can't pay me nothin'," he said rudely. "But I can bring a light +wagon, if you can ride in that, and put you up at the ranch. The old +man's soused," he added, as an afterthought, "but it's better than +sleepin' out. I won't be long." + +He was back at his horse, and in a moment they heard the clatter of +hoofs galloping down the hillside. + +The girl sat on the ground and rested her father's head in her lap. +Tears made her bright eyes brighter still. + +"Don't cry, Reenie," he said, gently. "We are very lucky to be so +close to help. Of course, I'll be laid up for awhile, but it will give +you a chance to see ranch life as it really is"--He winced with pain, +but continued, "I fancy we shall find it plain and unveneered. What a +horseman! If I could run an automobile like he does a horse we should +not be here. Did you notice that I didn't release the clutch? Just +ambled into this predicament--embraced it, I might say." + +"He's strong," she said. "But he's rude." + +"The best fields for muscle are often poor schools for manners," he +answered. "But manners are no substitute for hospitality, and he seems +to have that, all right. It is something that belongs to the open +country, the big, open country. In cities they _entertain_, but in the +ranching country they, why, there isn't any word for it, but you will +see for yourself." + +He was soon back with a wagon and a stretcher. He avoided the eyes of +his guests, but quickly and gently enough he placed the injured man on +the stretcher. "I guess you'll have to take the feet," he said. The +words were for the girl, although he did not look at her. "I could +hustle him myself, but it might hurt 'im." + +But the injured man interrupted. "I beg your pardon," he said, "that I +did not introduce my daughter. I am Doctor Hardy--this is my daughter, +Irene, Mr.----?" + +"They don't call me mister," said the boy. "Misters is scarce in these +woods. My name is Elden--Dave Elden." + +He was for dropping it at that, but the girl came up with extended +hand. He took it shyly, but it made him curiously bold. "I'm glad to +meet you, Mr. Elden," she said. + +"I'm glad to meet you, too," he answered. "Misses is scarcer than +misters in this neck o' the woods." + +Carefully they lifted the injured man into the wagon, and Dave drove to +the ranch building with an unwonted caution that must have caused +strange misgivings in the hearts of his team. + +"It ain't much of a place," he said, as they pulled up at the door. "I +guess you can see that for yourself," he added, with a grin. "You see, +there's just Dad and me, and he's soused most of the time, and I handle +a lasso better'n a scrubbin' brush." He was already losing his +shyness. "Now, you take the feet again. Steady, don't break any more +bones. Look out for that barrel hoop. This way, now." + +He led into the old ranch house, kicking the door wider open with his +heel as he passed. A musty smell fell on the senses of the girl as she +entered, and she was conscious of the buzzing of innumerable flies. A +partition from east to west divided the house, and another partition +from north to south divided the northern half. In the north-east room +they set the stretcher on the floor. + +"Now," Said the boy, "I'm goin' for the doctor. It's forty miles to +town, and it'll likely be mornin' before I'm back, but I'll sure burn +the trail. You'll have to make the best of it," he continued, +impersonally addressing the much-spotted window. "There's grub in the +house, and you won't starve--that is, if you can cook." (This was +evidently for Irene. There was a note in it that suggested the girl +might have her limitations.) "Dig in to anythin' in sight. And I hope +your father's leg won't hurt very much." Irene wondered afterwards why +the hope concerning her father should have been expressed to her. Did +he already feel--what was it?--better acquainted with her? + +"Oh, I'll stand it," said Doctor Hardy, with some cheerfulness. "We +medical men become accustomed to suffering--in other people. You are +very kind. My daughter may remain in this room, I suppose? There is +no one else?" + +"No one but the old man," he answered. "He's asleep in the next room, +safe till mornin'. I'll be back by that time. That's my bed," +indicating a corner. "Make yourselves at home." He lounged through +the door and they heard his spurs clanking across the hard earth. + +The girl's first thought was to assure as much comfort for her father +as the circumstances would permit. She removed his boot and stocking, +and, under his direction, slit the leg of his trousers above the +injury. It was bleeding a little. In the large room of the house she +found a pail with water, and she bathed the wound, wiping it with her +handkerchief, and mingling a tear or two with the warm blood that +dripped from it. + +"You're good stuff," her father said, pressing the fingers of her +unoccupied hand. "Now, if you could find a clean cloth to bandage it--" + +She looked about the place, somewhat hopelessly. Her expedition to the +main part of the house, when she had found the water pail, had not +reassured her as to the housekeeping of the Eldens. Her father read +her perplexity. + +"It seems as though you would be in charge here for awhile, Reenie," he +said, "so you will save time by getting acquainted at once with your +equipment. Look the house over and see what you have to work with." + +"Well, I can commence here," she answered. "This is Dave's room. I +suppose I should say Mr. Elden's, but--what was it he said about +'mistering'? It would be splendid if it were cleaned up," she +continued, with kindling enthusiasm. "These bare logs, bare floors, +bare rafters--we've got back to essentials, anyway. And that's his +bed." She surveyed a framework of spruce poles, on which lay an old +straw mattress and some very grey blankets. "I suppose he is very +tired when he goes to bed," she said, drolly, as though that could be +the only explanation of sleep amid such surroundings. "And the walls +give one a clue to the artistic side of his nature." A poster +advertising a summer fair, with a prodigious bull occupying the centre +of the picture, hung on one wall, and across from it a lithograph of a +young woman, with very bright clothing and very alabaster skin and very +decollete costume tendered a brand of beer with the assurance that it +goes to the spot. "I ought to drape it," she said, and the curl on her +lip showed smooth white teeth. + +"I was forgetting I have to find a bandage for you," she suddenly +remembered. "There's his trunk; it might produce something, but we +will save it for a last resort. Now I will explore this main room, +which I suppose is the kitchen, dining room, living room, everything." + +In the south end of the larger room stood a fireplace, crudely made of +slabs of native rock. The fires of many winters had crumbled the rock, +so that it had fallen in in places, and was no longer employed for its +original purpose. A very rusty and greasy stove now occupied the space +immediately in front of the fireplace, the stove-pipe leading into the +ample but tottering chimney. Near the stove was a bench supporting a +tin wash-basin, a wooden pail, and certain fragments of soap--evidently +all the equipment necessary for the simple ablutions of the Elden +household. The remnant of a grain bag, with many evidences of use and +abuse, performed the functions of towel, and a broken piece of +looking-glass gave the faintest intimation that a strain of fundamental +relationship links the sexes. By the western wall was a table, with +numerous dishes; and to the wall itself had been nailed wooden +boxes--salmon and tomato cases--now containing an assortment of +culinary supplies. A partially used sack of flour, and another of +rolled oats, leaned against the wall, and a trap-door in the floor gave +promise of further resources beneath. There was a window in the east +and another in the west, both open and unscreened; myriads of flies +gave the only touch of life to the dismal scene. + +Irene looked it all over, then leaned against the window sill and +laughed. Her father had brought her west for holidays with the promise +of changed surroundings and new experiences, but he had promised her no +such delight as this. With the Elden kitchen still photographed in her +mind she called up the picture of her own city home; the green lawn, +faultlessly trimmed by a time-serving gardener; the floral borders, the +hedges; the two stately trees; the neat walk, the wide verandah, the +dim, mysterious hall; the rooms, heavily shaded to save the rich +carpets; the order, the precision, the fixedness, the this-sits-here +and that-stands-thereness--the flatness and emptiness and formality of +it all, and she turned again to the Elden kitchen and laughed--a soft, +rippling, irrepressible laugh, as irrepressible as the laughter of the +mountain stream amid the evergreens. Then she thought of her mother; +prim, sedate, conventional, correct--"Always be correct, my dear; there +is a right way and a wrong way, and a well-bred person always chooses +the right"--and her eyes sobered a trifle, then flashed in brighter +merriment as they pictured her mother amid these surroundings. + +"She would be so shocked, oh, dreadfully shocked," she rippled to +herself. "I am quite sure she would never approve of Father breaking +his leg with such consequences. It wasn't the correct thing--very +commonplace, I should say--and think of Irene! Why, the child--she's +but a child, Andrew, a very beautiful child, but with just a little +weakness for the--ah--unconventional--she must be restrained--she needs +her mother's guidance to protect her from the suggestion of +maybe--shall I say?--vulgarity. That's a very dreadful word. Think of +all the vulgar people there are in the world. . . . And here is dear +little Irene right in the midst of it, and--horrors--revelling in it." + +Then she looked again from the open window, this time with eyes that +saw the vista of valley and woodland and foothill that stretched down +into the opening prairie. Suddenly she realized that she was looking +down upon a picture--one of Nature's obscure masterpieces--painted in +brown and green and saffron against an opal canvas. It was beautiful, +not with the majesty of the great mountains, nor the solemnity of the +great plains, but with that nearer, more intimate relationship which is +the peculiar property of the foothill country. Here was neither the +flatness that, with a change of mood, could become in a moment +desolation, nor the aloofness of eternal rocks towering into cold +space, but the friendship of hills that could be climbed, and trees +that lisped in the light wind, and water that babbled playfully over +gravel ridges gleaming in the August sunshine. The girl drew a great +breath of the pure air and was about to dream a new day-dream when the +voice of her father brought her to earth. + +"Can't you find anything that will do for a bandage?" he asked. + +"Oh you dear Daddykins," she replied, her voice tremulous with +self-reproach. "I had forgotten. There was a spell, or something; it +just came down upon me in the window. That's a good idea, blaming +one's negligence on a spell. I must remember that. But the bandage? +Dear, no; the only cloth I see is the kitchen towel, and I can't +recommend it. But what a goose I am! Our grips are in the car, or +under it, or somewhere. I'll be back in a jiffy." And she was off at +a sharp trot down the trail along which she had so recently come in +Dave Elden's wagon. + +At the little stream she paused. A single log was the only bridge, and +although the water was not deep it ran swiftly, and still with the +coldness of its glacier source. She ventured along the log, but near +the centre she was seized with an acute sense of her temerity. Perhaps +she had been foolish in attempting this passage without the aid of a +stick. A stick, which could be shoved against the gravel below that +blue water, would have been a very practical aid. Suddenly, the +waverings of the mind were transmuted to the body. She felt an +impetuous desire to fall upstream, which she resisted so successfully +that she promptly fell down stream. The water was deeper than it +looked, and colder than it looked, and when she scrambled up the +farther bank she was a very wet young woman indeed. She was conscious +of a deep annoyance toward young Elden. A fine bridge, that! She +would tell him--but this thought died at its birth with the +consciousness that Elden would be amused over the incident, and would +be at little pains to disguise his merriment. And then she laughed, +and ran along up the road. + +The grips were duly found, and Irene congratulated herself that she and +her father were in the habit of traveling with equipment for over +night. She had even a spare skirt along, with which she was able to +disguise her mishap at the stream, although she took the precaution not +to make the change until she was safe back over the narrow bridge. And +this time she used a stick. Arrived at the house, she deftly wrapped a +bandage about her father's injury, and set to work at the preparation +of supper--a task not strange to her, as her mother considered it +correct that her daughter should have a working knowledge of kitchen +affairs. Her equipment was meagre, and she spent more time scouring +than cooking, but her heart beat high with the spirit of adventure. + +Once, during the evening, she took a glance into the other room. It +was even less inviting than Dave's, with walls bare of any adornment, +save dirty garments that hung from nails driven in the logs. On the +rude bed lay an old man; she could see only part of his face; a grey +moustache drooping over an open mouth, and a florid cheek turned to the +glow of the setting sun. On a chair beside the bed sat a bottle, and +the room reeked with the smell of breath charged with alcohol. She +gently closed the door, and busied herself through the long evening +with reforms in the kitchen, and with little ministrations designed to +relieve the sufferings of her father. + +The sun sank behind the Rockies, and a darkness, soft and mystical and +silent, stole up the valley, hushing even the noiseless day. Presently +the glow of the rising moon burst in ruddy effulgence over the +foothills to the east, first with the effect of fire upon their crests, +and then as a great, slowly-whitening ball soaring high into the +fathomless heaven. The girl stood framed in the open window, and the +moonlight painted her face to the purest ivory, and toyed with the rich +brown fastness of her hair, and gleamed from a single ornament at her +throat. And she thought of the young horseman galloping to town; +wondered if he had yet set out on his homeward journey, and the eerie +depths of the valley communicated to her a fantastic admiration for his +skill and bravery. She was under the spell. She was in a new world, +where were manhood, and silence, and the realities of being; and +moonlight, and great gulfs of shadow between the hills, and large, +friendly stars, and soft breezes pushing this way and that without +definite direction, and strange, quiet noises from out of the depths, +and the incense of the evergreens, and a young horseman galloping into +the night. And conventions had been swept away, and it was correct to +live, and to live! + + + + +CHAPTER TWO + +The first flush of dawn was mellowing the eastern sky when the girl was +awakened from uneasy sleep by sounds in the yard in front of the ranch +house. She had spent most of the night by her father's side, and +although he had at last prevailed upon her to seek some rest for +herself, she had done so under protest and without undressing. Now, +after the first dazed moment of returning consciousness, she was on her +feet and through the door. + +The stars were still shining brightly through the cold air. In the +faint light she could distinguish a team and wagon, and men unhitching. +She approached, and, in a voice that sounded strangely distant in the +vastness of the calm night, called, "Is that you, Dave?" + +And in a moment she wondered how she had dared call him Dave. But she +soon had other cause for wonder, for the boy replied from near beside +her, in that tone of friendly confidence which springs so spontaneously +in the darkness, "Yes, Reenie, and the doctor, too. We'll have Mr. +Hardy fixed up in no time. How did he stand the night?" + +How dared he call her Reenie? A flush of resentment rose in her breast +only to be submerged in the sudden remembrance that she had first +called him Dave. That surely gave him the right to address her as he +had done. But with this thought came recognition of the curious fact +that Dave had not presumed upon her frankness; that it was not by her +word that he would attempt to justify his. Indeed, she was convinced +that he would have called her Reenie anyway,--just as she had called +him Dave, without premeditation or intention. Then she remembered she +was in the ranch country, in the foothills, where the conventions--the +conventions she hated--had not yet become rooted, and where the souls +of men and women stood bare in the clear light of frank acceptance of +the fact. It would be idle--dangerous--to trifle with this boy by any +attempt at concealment or deception. And what were conventions but a +recognized formula of concealment and deception? + +She could see his form now, as he led the horses toward the corral. +How straight he was, and how bravely his footsteps fell on the hard +earth! The poetry of his motion reached her through the darkness. She +heard the harness jingle as the horses rubbed between the posts of the +corral gate. + +"He's a wonderful boy," said the doctor, of whose presence she had been +unconscious. "Cat's eyes. Full gallop through the dark; side hills, +mountain streams, up and down; break-neck. Well, here we are." The +doctor breathed deeply, as though this last fact were one to occasion +some wonderment. "Your brother tells me you have an injured man here; +accident; stranger, I believe? Well, shall we go in?" + +Brother! But why should she explain? Dave hadn't bothered. Why +hadn't he? He had told about the stranger; why had he not told about +both strangers? Why had he ignored her altogether? This time came +another flush, born of that keen womanly intuition which understands. + +With a commonplace she led the doctor into the house and to the bedside +of her father. She was struck by the change in attitude of the +visiting physician when he learned that his patient was of his own +profession. It was like the meeting of brothers in a secret order. +There was an exchange of technical terms that might have served as +password or sign into some fine fraternity, and the setting of the limb +was accompanied by a running fire of professional comment as effective +upon the nerves of the sufferer as an opiate. + +When the operation was completed the girl turned her attention to the +kitchen, where she found Dave, sweating in vicarious suffering. He had +helped to draw the limb into place, and it had been his first close +contact with human pain. It was different from branding calves, and he +had slipped out of the room as soon as possible. The morning sun was +now pouring through the window, and the distraught look on the boy's +face touched her even more than the frankness of the words spoken in +the darkness. She suddenly remembered that he had been up all +night--for her. She would not deceive herself with the thought that it +was for her father's sake Dave had galloped to town, found a doctor, +secured a fresh team and driven back along the little-used foothill +trails. She recalled the doctor's terse description of that journey. +No doubt Dave would have done it all for her father, had her father +been there alone, but as things were she had a deep conviction that he +had done it for her. And it was with a greater effort than seemed +reasonable that she laid her fingers on his arm and said, "Thank you, +Dave." + +"What for?" he asked, and she could not doubt the genuineness of his +question. + +"Why, for bringing the doctor, and all that. Driving all night on +those awful roads. We fell off them in day time. I am sure I +can't--Father won't be able to--" + +"Oh, shucks," he interrupted, with a manner which, on the previous +afternoon, she would have called rudeness. "That's nothin'. But say, +I brought home some grub. The chuck here was pretty tame; guess you +found that out last night." He looked about the room, and she knew +that he was taking note of her house-cleaning, but he made no remark on +the subject. + +"Well, let's get breakfast," she said, after a moment's pause, and for +lack of other conversation. "You must be hungry." + +Dave's purchases had been liberal. They included fresh meat and +vegetables, canned goods, coffee, rice and raisins. He laid the last +three items on the table with a great dissembling of indifference, for +he was immensely proud of them. They were unwonted items on the Elden +bill of fare; he had bought them especially for her. From somewhere +the knowledge had been borne in upon him that city people frequently +drink coffee for breakfast, and the rice and raisins were an +inspiration quite his own. He would see what she could do with them. +But she busied herself at the breakfast without a thought of the +epoch-marking nature of these purchases. + +"Do you milk?" she asked, presently. + +"Milk what?" he demanded, pausing with stove-lid and lifter raised in +his hand, in the half-completed act of putting wood on the fire. + +"Dave!" she cried. "Put that lid down. Look at the smoke." A blue +cloud was curling under the rafters. "Yes," he said, with great +composure. "It always does that in this country." + +She shot a quick glance at him. Was he making fun of her? No; plainly +not; he was just making fun _with_ her; he had a vein of humor. And a +little before she had found his face drawn in sympathy for her father. +Perhaps for her. . . . He was not all on the surface. + +He completed his operation at the stove and returned the lid to its +place with no lack of deliberation. He was evidently waiting for her +to speak again, but she worked on in silence. + +"What did you say about milking?" he ventured at length. + +"I asked you if you milked," she said, with an attempt at curtness. +"And you answered, 'Milk what?' as though that were clever. And we +need milk for breakfast." + +"Well, I was serious enough," he said. "There isn't a cow within +twenty miles." + +"No cows? Why, I thought this was the ranching country?" + +"Sure thing. We sell beef and buy milk. Let me show you." + +He approached a packing-case on the wall, walking softly and extending +his hands as though to touch it gently, and murmuring, "So boss; so +boss," as he went. From the box he removed a tin of condensed milk, +which he set on the table. In his pocket he found a nail, and with a +hammer quickly made two holes in the tin. + +"Milkin' is finished," he announced. + +At this juncture the doctor, who had been resting in the room with his +patient, entered the kitchen. During the setting of the limb he had +gradually become aware of the position of Irene in the household, but +had that not been so, one glance at the boy and girl as they now stood +in the bright morning sunshine, he with his big, wiry frame, his brown +face, his dark eyes, his black hair; she, round and knit and smooth, +with the pink shining through her fair skin and the light of youth +dancing in her grey eyes and the light of day glancing on her brown +hair, must have told him they had sprung from widely separated stock. +For one perilous moment he was about to apologize for the mistake made +in the darkness, but some wise instinct closed his lips. But he +wondered why she had not corrected him. + +They were seated at breakfast when the senior Elden made his +appearance. He had slept off his debauch and was as sober as a man in +the throes of alcoholic appetite may be. He was only partially +dressed; his face had the peculiar bulginess of the hard drinker; his +eyes were watery and shifty, and several days' growth of beard, with +patchy grey and black spots, gave a stucco effect to his countenance. +His moustache drooped over a partly open mouth; the top of his large +head was bald, and the hair that hung about his ears was much darker +than his moustache. Seeing the strangers, he hesitated in his lurch +toward the water pail, steadied himself on wide-spread feet, very flat +on the floor, and waved his right hand slowly in the air. Whether this +was to be understood as a form of salutation or a gesture of defiance +was a matter of interpretation. + +"Vishitors," said the old man, at length. "Alwaysh welcome, m'sure. +'Sh scush me." He made his uncertain way to the water bench, took a +great drink, and set about washing his face and hands, while the +breakfast proceeded in silence. As his preparations neared completion +Irene set a place at the table. + +"Won't you sit down here, Mr. Elden?" she said. There had been no +introductions. Dave ate on in silence. + +"Thank you," said the old man, and there was something in his voice +which may have been emotion, or may have been the huskiness of the +heavy drinker's throat. The girl gave it the former explanation. +Perhaps it was his unintended tribute to that touch of womanly +attentiveness to which his old heart still beat response. As he took +the proffered chair she saw in this old man shreds of dignity which the +less refined eye of his son had not distinguished. To Dave, his father +was an affliction to be borne; an unfair load on a boy who had done +nothing to deserve this punishment. The miseries associated with his +parentage had gone far to make him sour and moody. Irene at first had +thought him rude and gloomy; flashes of humor had modified that +opinion, but she had not yet learned that his disposition was naturally +a buoyant one, weighed down by an environment which had made it soggy +and unresponsive. In years to come she was to know what unguessed +depths of character were to be revealed when that stoic nature was +cross-sectioned by the blade of a keen and defiant passion. This +morning she foresaw nothing of those future revelations, but in the old +man her instinct detected qualities which perhaps were awaiting only +some touch of sympathetic understanding to flash forth even yet like +that burst of sunset radiance which sometimes marks the close of a +leaden day. + +Mr. Elden promptly engaged the doctor in conversation, and in a few +moments had gleaned the main facts in connection with the accident and +the father and daughter which it had brought so involuntarily under his +roof. He was quite sober now, and his speech, although slovenly, was +not indelicate. He was still able to pay to woman that respect which +curbs the coarseness of a tongue for years subjected to little +discipline. + +After breakfast Irene attended to the wants of her father, and by this +time the visiting doctor was manifesting impatience to be away. Other +fees were calling him, and he assured Doctor Hardy, what the latter +quite well knew, that nothing more could be done for him at present. +He would come again at any time if summoned by the young man, or if his +professional duties should bring him into the neighborhood of the Elden +ranch. But Dave declared with prompt finality that the horses must +rest until after noon, and the doctor, willy-nilly, spent the morning +rambling in the foothills. Meanwhile the girl busied herself with work +about the house, in which she was effecting a rapid transformation. + +After the mid-day dinner Dave harnessed the team for the journey to +town, but before leaving inquired of Irene if there were any special +purchases, either personal or for the use of the house, which she would +recommend. With some diffidence she mentioned one that was uppermost +in her thoughts: soap, both laundry and toilet. Dr. Hardy had no +hesitation in calling for a box of his favorite cigars and some new +magazines, and took occasion to press into the boy's hand a bill out of +all proportion to the value of the supplies requested. There was an +argument in the yard, which the girl did not fully hear, between father +and son, but she gathered that the old man insisted on going to town, +and, failing that, that Dave should replenish his stock of whiskey, to +neither of which would the young man consent. It was evident that Dave +was the responsible person in the affairs of the Elden ranch. + +The day was introductory to others that were to follow. Dave returned +the next afternoon, riding his own horse, and heavily laden with +cigars, magazines, soap, and with a soft little package which proved to +be a sponge, which he had bought on his own initiative, and which he +tendered to Irene. She took it with slowly rising color, and with a +strange misgiving whether this was a bona fide contribution to the +toilet equipment of the house, or a quiet satire designed to offset the +effect of the appeal for soap. + +The following day it was decided that the automobile, which since the +accident had lain upturned by the roadway, should be brought to the +ranch buildings. Dave harnessed his team, and, instead of riding one +of the horses, walked behind, driving by the reins, and accompanied by +the girl, who had proclaimed her ability to steer the car. When they +reached the stream she hesitated, remembering her mishap, but the boy +slipped his unoccupied hand firmly under her arm, and they walked the +log in safety. It seemed to Irene that he continued his assistance +when it was no longer needed, but she accepted the courtesy without +remark. + +With the aid of the team and Dave's lariat the car was soon righted, +and was found to be none the worse for its deflection from the beaten +track. Irene presided at the steering wheel, watching the road with +great intentness, and turning the wheel too far on each occasion, which +gave to her course a somewhat wavy or undulating order, such as is +found in bread knives, or perhaps a better figure would be to compare +it to that rolling motion affected by fancy skaters. However, the mean +of her direction corresponded with the mean of the trail, and all went +merrily until the stream was approached. Here was a rather steep +descent, and the car showed a sudden purpose to engage the horses in a +contest of speed. The animals were suspicious enough at best of their +strange wagon, and had no thought of allowing it to assume the +initiative. Now, Irene knew perfectly well where the brake was, and +how to use it. In fact, there were two brakes, operated by different +members, and perhaps it was this duplication, intended to insure +safety, that was responsible for her undoing. Her first impulse was to +use the emergency, but to do so she must remove her hand from the +steering wheel, where it was very fully occupied. She did start to put +this impulse into effect, but an unusually violent deflection caused +her to reconsider that intention. She determined to use the foot +brake, a feat which was accomplished, under normal conditions, by +pressing one foot firmly against a contraption somewhere beneath the +steering post. She shot a quick glance downward, and to her alarm +discovered not one, but three contraptions, all apparently designed to +receive the pressure of a foot--if one could reach them--and as similar +as the steps of a stair. This involved a further hesitation, and in +automobiling he who hesitates invites a series of rapid experiences. +By this time all Irene's attention was required to bring the car to +some unanimity of direction. It was quite evident that it was running +away. It was quite evident that the horses were running away. The +situation assumed the qualities of a race, and the only matter of grave +doubt related to its termination. Dave, still holding fast to the +reins, ran beside the car with prodigious strides which enabled him to +bring but little restraint upon the team, and Irene held to the +steering wheel with a grip of desperation. + +Then they struck the water. It was not more than two feet deep, but +the extra resistance it caused, and the extra alarm it excited in the +horses, resulted in the breaking of the lariat. Dave still clung fast +to his team, and, now that the terrifying rival no longer pursued them, +they were soon brought to a standstill. Having pacified them he tied +them to a post and returned to the stream. The car sat in the middle; +the girl had put her feet on the seat beside her, and the swift water +flowed by a few inches below. She was laughing merrily when Dave, very +wet in parts, appeared on the bank. + +"Well, I'm not wet, except for a little splashing," she said, "and you +are. Does anything occur to you?" Without reply he walked stolidly +into the cold water, took her in his arms, and carried her ashore. The +lariat was soon repaired and the car hauled to the ranch buildings +without further mishap. + +Later in the day he said to her, "Can you ride?" + +"Some," she answered. "I have ridden city horses, but don't know about +these ranch animals. You know, a city horse has to do as he is told, +but a ranch horse seems to do pretty much as he likes. But I would +like to try--if I had a saddle." + +"I have an extra saddle," he said. "But it's a man's. . . . They all +ride that way here." + +She made no answer, and the subject was dropped for the time. But the +next morning she saw Dave ride away, leading a horse by his side. He +did not return until evening, but when he came the idle horse carried a +saddle. + +"It's a strad-legger," he said when he drew up beside Irene, "but it's +a girl's. I couldn't find anythin' else in the whole diggin's." + +"I'm sure it will do--splendidly--if I can just stick on," she replied. +But another problem was already in her mind. It apparently had not +occurred to Dave that women require special clothing for riding, +especially if it's a "strad-legger." She opened her lips to mention +this, then closed them again. He had been to enough trouble on her +account. He had already spent a whole day scouring the country for a +saddle. . . . She would manage some way. + +Late that night she was busy with scissors and needle. + + + + +CHAPTER THREE + +Dr. Hardy recovered from his injuries as rapidly as could be expected, +and, while he chafed somewhat over spending his holidays under such +circumstances, the time passed not unhappily. Had he sought the world +over for a haven from the intrusion of business or professional cares +he could have found it nowhere in greater perfection than in the +foothill country centering about the Elden ranch. Here was an Arcadia +where one might well return to the simple life; a little bay of still +water sheltered from the onrushing tide of affairs by the warm brown +prairies and the white-bosomed mountains towering through their +draperies of blue-purple mist. It was life as far removed from his +accustomed circles as if he had been suddenly spirited to a different +planet. It was life without the contact of life, without the crowd and +jostle and haste and gaiety and despair that are called life; but the +doctor wondered if, after all, it did not come nearer to filling the +measure of experience--which is life. + +A considerable acquaintanceship had sprung up between him and the +senior Elden. The rancher had come from the East forty years before, +but in turning over their memories the two men found many links of +association; third persons known to them both; places, even streets and +houses common to their feet in early manhood; events of local history +which each could recall, although from different angles. And Elden's +life in the West had been a treasury of experience, in which he now +dipped for the first time in years, regaling his guest with tales of +the open range long before barbed wire had stuck its poisoned fang into +the heart of the ranchman; tales of horse-stealing and cattle-rustling, +with glimpses of sudden justice unrecorded in the official documents of +the territory; of whiskey-running and excess and all those large +adventures that drink the red blood of the wilderness. In his grizzled +head and stooping frame he carried more experiences than would fill a +dozen well-rounded city lives, and he had the story-teller's art which +scorns to spoil dramatic effect by a too strict adherence to fact. But +over one phase of his life he kept the curtain resolutely down. No ray +of conversation would he admit into the more personal affairs of his +heart, or of the woman who had been his wife, and even when the talk +turned on the boy he quickly withdrew it to another topic, as though +the subject were dangerous or distasteful. But once, after a long +silence following such a diversion, had he betrayed himself into a +whispered remark, an outburst of feeling rather than a communication. +"I've been alone so much," he said. "It seems I have never been +anything but alone. And--sooner or later--it gets you--it gets you." + +"You have the boy," ventured the doctor. + +"No," he answered, almost fiercely. "That would be different, I could +stand it then. But I haven't got him, and I can't get him. He +despises me because--because I take too much at times." He paused as +though wondering whether to proceed with this unwonted confidence, but +the ache in his heart insisted on its right to human sympathy. "No, it +ain't that," he continued. "He despises me because he thinks I wasn't +fair to his mother. He can't understand. He doesn't know yet that +there's things--pulls and tugs of life, that lead a man as helpless as +a steer chokin' in his lasso. I was like that. I wanted to be good to +her, to be close to her. Then I took to booze, as natural as a steer +under the brandin' iron roars to drown his hurt. But the boy don't +understand." The old man got up and stood at the western window, +watching the gold of approaching sunset gather on the mountains. . . . +"He despises me." Then, after a long silence, "No matter. I despise +myself." + +The doctor approached and placed a hand on his shoulder. But Elden was +himself again. The curtains of his life, which he had drawn apart for +a moment, he whipped together again rudely, almost viciously, and +covered his confusion by plunging into a tale of how he had led a breed +suspected of cattle rustling on a little canter of ten miles with a +rope about his neck and the other end tied to the saddle. "He ran +well," said the old man, chuckling still at the reminiscence. "And it +was lucky he did. It was a strong rope." + +The morning after Dave had brought in the borrowed saddle Irene +appeared in a sort of bloomer suit, somewhat wonderfully contrived from +the spare skirt to which allusion has been made, and announced a +willingness to risk life and limb on any horse that Dave might select +for that purpose. He provided her with a dependable mount, and their +first journey, taken somewhat gingerly along the principal trail, was +accomplished without incident. It was the fore-runner of many others, +plunging deeper and deeper into the fastnesses of the foothills, and +even into the passes of the very mountains themselves. These long +rides through the almost untracked wilderness, frequently along paths +on which the element of danger was by no means a mere fancy, and into +regions where the girl's sense of distance and direction were totally +confused, afforded her many side-lights on the remarkable nature of her +escort. His patience was infinite, and, although there were no silk +trappings to his courtesy, it was a very genuine and manly deference he +paid her. She was quite sure that he would at any moment give his life +if needed to defend her from injury--and accept the transaction as a +matter of course. His physical endurance was inexhaustible, and his +knowledge of prairie and foothill seemed to her almost uncanny. When +she had been utterly lost for hours he would suddenly swing their +horses' heads about and guide them home with the accuracy of the wild +goose on its nights to the nesting grounds. He read every sign of +footprint, leaf, water, and sky with unfailing insight. He had no +knowledge of books, and she had at first thought him ignorant, but as +the days went by she had found in him a mine of wisdom which shamed her +ready-made education. + +[Illustration: These long rides afforded her many side-lights on the +remarkable nature of her escort.] + +After such a ride they one day dismounted in a grassy opening among the +trees that bordered a mountain canyon. The waters of ages had +chiselled a sharp passage through the rock, and the green stream now +swirled in its rapid course a hundred feet below. Fragments of rock, +loosened by the sun and wind and frost of centuries, had fallen from +time to time, leaving sheltered nooks and shelves in the walls of the +canyon. In one of these crevices they found a flat stone that gave +comfortable seating, and here they rested while the horses browsed +their afternoon meal on the grass above. Little irregular bits of +stone had broken off the parent rock, and for awhile they amused +themselves with tossing these into the water. But both were conscious +of a gradually increasing tension in the atmosphere. For days the boy +had been moody. It was evident he was harbouring something that was +calling through his nature for expression, and Irene knew that this +afternoon he would talk of more than trees and rocks and footprints of +the wild things of the forest. + +"Your father is gettin' along well," he said at length. + +"Yes," she answered. "He has had a good holiday, even with his broken +leg. He is looking ever so much better." + +"You will be goin' away before long," he continued. + +"Yes," she answered, soberly, and waited. + +"Things about here ain't goin' to be the same after you're gone," he +went on. He was avoiding her eyes and industriously throwing bits of +crumbled rock into the canyon. He wore no coat, and the neck of his +shirt was open, for the day was warm. Had he caught her side-long +glances even his slow, self-deprecating mind must have read their +admiration. But he kept his eyes fixed on the green water. + +"You see," he said, "before you came it was different. I didn't know +what I was missin', an' so it didn't matter. Not but what I was +dog-sick of it at times, but still I thought I was livin',--thought +this was life, and, of course, now I know it ain't. At least, it won't +be after you're gone." + +"That's strange," she said, not in direct answer to his remark, but as +a soliloquy on it as she turned it over in her mind. "This life, now, +seems empty to you. All my old life seems empty to me. This seems to +me the real life, out here in the foothills, with the trees, and the +mountains, and--and our horses, you know." + +She might have ended the sentence in a way that would have come much +closer to him, and been much truer, but conventionality had been bred +into her for generations and she did not find it possible yet freely to +speak the truth. Indeed, as she thought of her position here it seemed +to her she had become shamelessly unconventional. She thought of her +mother, careful, correct,--"Always be correct, my dear,"--and wondered +what she would say could she see her only child on these wild, +unchaperoned rides and in these strange confidences where she was a +girl and Dave was a boy and all the artificialities with which society +aims to protect itself had been stripped away. There was a dash of +adventure which added to the relish of the situation. + +"It's such a wonderful life," she continued. "One gets so strong and +happy in it." + +"You'd soon get sick of it," he said. "We don't see nothin'. We don't +learn nothin'. Reenie, I'm eighteen, an' I bet you could read an' +write better'n me when you was six." + +"Did you never go to school?" she asked, in genuine surprise. She knew +his speech was ungrammatical, but thought that due to careless training +rather than to no training at all. + +"Where'd I go to school?" he demanded bitterly. "There ain't a school +within forty miles. Guess I wouldn't have went if I could," he added +as an afterthought, wishing to be quite honest in the matter. "School +didn't seem to cut no figure--until jus' lately." + +"But you have learned--some?" she continued. + +"Some. When I was a little kid my father used to work with me at +times. He learned me to read a little, an' to write my name, an' a +little more. But things didn't go right between him an' mother, an' he +got to drinkin' more an' more, an' just makin' hell of it. We used to +have a mighty fine herd of steers here, but it's all shot to pieces. +We don't put up hardly no hay, an' in a bad winter they die like +rabbits. When we sell a bunch the old man'll stay in town for a month +or more, blowin' the coin and leavin' the debts go. But I've been +fixin' him this year or two. I sneak a couple of steers away now an' +then, an' with the money I keep our grocery bills paid up, an' have a +little to rattle in my jeans. My credit's good at any store in town," +and Irene thrilled to the note of pride in his voice as he said this. +The boy had real quality in him. "But I'm sick of it all," he +continued. "Sick of it, an' I wanna get out." + +"You think you are not educated," she answered, trying to meet his +outburst as tactfully as possible. "Perhaps you are not, the way we +think of it in the city. But I guess there's a good many things you +can't learn out of books, and I guess you could show the city boys a +good many things they don't know, and never will know." + +For the first time he looked her straight in the face. His dark eyes +met her grey ones, and demanded truth. "Irene," he said, "do you mean +that?" + +"Sure I do," she answered. "College courses, and all that kind of +thing; they're good stuff, all right, but they make some awful nice +boys--real live boys, you know--into some awful dead ones. Either they +get the highbrow, and become bores, or the swelled head, and become +cads. Not all, you know, but lots of them. And then when they get out +they have to start learning the real things of life--things that you +have been learning here for ever so long. My father says about the +best education is to learn to live within your income, pay your debts, +and give the other fellow a chance to do the same. They don't all +learn that in college. So when they get out they have to go and work +for somebody who has learned it, like you have. Then there's the +things you do, just like you were born to it, that they couldn't do to +save their lives. Why, I've seen you smash six bottles at a stretch, +you going full gallop, and whooping and shooting so we could hardly +tell which was which. And ride--you could make more money riding for +city people to look at than most of those learned fellows, with letters +after their names like the tail of a kite, will ever see. But I +wouldn't like you to make it that way. There's more useful things to +do." + +He was comforted by this speech, but he referred to his accomplishments +modestly. "Ridin' an' shootin' ain't nothin'," he said. + +"I'm not so sure," she answered. "Father says the day is coming when +our country will want men who can shoot and ride more than it will want +lawyers or professors." + +"Well, when it does, it can call on me," he said, and there was the +pride in his voice which comes to a boy who feels that in some way he +can take a man's place in the world. "Them is two things I sure can +do." + +Years later she was to think of her remark and his answer, consecrated +then in clean red blood. + +They talked of many things that afternoon, and when at last the +lengthening shadows warned them it was time to be on the way they rode +long distances in silence. Both felt a sense which neither ventured to +express, that they had travelled very close in the world of their hopes +and sorrows and desires. Perhaps, as they rode along the foothill +trail, they were still journeying together down the long, strange +trails of the future; dim, visionary, exquisite trails; rough, hard, +cruel trails hidden in the merciful mirage of their young hopefulness. + +The shadows had deepened into darkness, and the infinite silence of the +hills hung about them as they dropped from their saddles at the Elden +door. A light shone from within, and Dr. Hardy, who was now able to +move about with the aid of a home-made crutch, could be seen setting +the table, while Mr. Elden stirred a composition on the stove. They +chatted as they worked, and there was something of the joy of little +children in their companionship. The young folks watched for a moment +through the window, and in Dave's heart some long-forgotten emotion +moved momentarily at the sight of the good fellowship prevailing in the +old house. Irene, too, was thinking; glimpses of her own butlered +home, and then this background of primal simplicity, where the old +cow-man cooked the meals and the famous specialist set the plates on +the bare board table, and then back of it all her mother, sedate and +correct, and very much shocked over this mingling of the classes. But +the girl's reverie was cut short by a sudden affectionate licking of +her fingers, and glancing downward she found Brownie, adopted early in +her visit at the Eldens', expressing its fondness in the only fashion +at its command. + +The calf had been an incident in her ranch experience. It was a late +comer, quite unable to keep pace with the earlier fruits of the herd, +and had the additional misfortune to be born of an ambitious mother, +who had no thought of allowing her domestic duties to impair her social +relationships with the matrons and males of her immediate set. She had +no place for old-fashioned notions; she was determined to keep up with +the herd and the calf might fare as best it could. So they rambled +from day to day; she swaggering along with the set, but turning now and +then to send an impatient moo toward the small brown body stuck on four +long, ungainly legs,--legs which had an unfortunate habit of folding +up, after the fashion of a jack knife, upon unforeseen occasions, and +precipitating the owner in a huddled mass on the ground. At rare +times, when heaven must have stooped close about the herd, the mother +instinct would assert itself, and the cow would return to her +offspring, licking it lavishly and encouraging it with mooings of deep +affection, but such periods of bliss were of short duration. The lure +of "the life" was too great for her; she felt herself born for more +important roles than mere motherhood, and she would presently rush away +to her favourite circle, leaving her begotten to such fates as might +befall. + +It was on such an occasion, when left far behind, that one of the +ungainly legs found its way into a badger hole. The collapse was +harder and more complete than usual, and the little sufferer would have +died there had he not been found by Dave and Irene in the course of +their rides. Dave, after a moment's examination, drew his revolver, +but Irene pled for the life of the unfortunate. + +"Oh, don't kill it, Dave," she cried. "You couldn't kill it! Let's +get the wagon and take it home. It'll get all right, won't it?" + +"Never be worth a----," said Dave, checking his vocabulary in the nick +of time. "Once they begin to give trouble you might's well knock 'em +on the head." + +"But it's cruel," she protested. "Just to kill it because it's hurt." + +"I don't know about the cruel," he answered. "You see, they're all +raised, every one of 'em, to be killed, anyway. Jus' like people, I +guess. Sooner or later. But if your heart's set on this little +crittur, we'll save it's long as we can." + +So the calf was taken home and became Irene's special care. The mother +was captured and tied up in the corral, and the calf, although lame, +began to thrive and wax strong. It would gallop in its ungainly way +about the yard, in its exuberation of youthful innocence, while the +mother pined for the latest scandal from the great fields over the +hills. + +"Brownie, we'll call it," said Irene, "on account of its colour." + +"All right," said Dave, "on account of your sweater. That'll sort o' +show the connection." + +So this night she rubbed its nose, and scratched its forehead, and then +reproved its affection, which had a habit of running to extremes. And +the mother cow mooed from the corral, and Brownie forgot his +benefactress and ambled away at the call of the blood. + +"Well, you youngsters must have this country pretty well explored," +said Dr. Hardy, as they entered the house. "Where was it today: the +prairies, the foothills, or the real fellows behind?" + +"The canyon, up the river," said Irene, drawing off her sweater. +"What's the eats? Gee, I'm hungry. Getting pretty supple, Daddykins, +aren't you?" + +"Yes, an' I'm sorry for it, Miss," said the old rancher. "Not wishin' +him any harm, or you neither. We was jus' talkin' it over, an' your +father thinks he's spry enough for the road again. Ain't ever goin' to +be like it use to be after he's gone, an' you." + +So the afternoon's conversations in the canyon and the cabin had been +on the same theme, although prompted by very different emotions. Yet +the girl wondered whether the loneliness in the old man's heart, which +cried out to his own sex, might not bear some relationship to a +strange, new sense she herself was experiencing; a sense which reminded +her that she was incomplete--and alone. And it called across the +barrier of sex for completion. + +"We'll be sorry to go," said the doctor. "That's what I've been saying +all day, and thinking, too. If misfortunes can be lucky, ours was one +of that kind. I don't know when I've enjoyed a holiday so much. What +do you say, girl?" he asked, as he rested an arm on her round, firm +shoulder and looked with fatherly fondness into the fine brown of her +face. + +"I've never known anything like it," she answered. "It's wonderful. +It's life." Then with a sudden little scream she exclaimed, "Oh, +Daddy, why can't you sell your practice and buy a ranch? Wouldn't that +be wonderful?" + +"Your mother might not see it that way," he replied, and her eyes fell. +Yes, that was the obstacle. She would have to go back to the city, and +talk by rule, and dress by rule, and behave by rule, and be correct. +She wondered how often her father had turned from the path of the true +adventure because her mother "might not see it that way." + +"It's been a good time," the doctor continued, when they had commenced +supper, "but I've already overstayed my holiday. Well, I had good +excuse. I feel that I can travel now, and my leg will be pretty strong +by the time I am back East. If Dave will oblige us by going to town +to-morrow and bringing back someone who can drive a car we will be able +to start the following morning. I will just take the car to town and +either sell it there or ship it." + +The following morning found Dave early on the trail, leading a saddled +horse by his side. The hours were leaden for the girl all that day, +and looking into the future she saw the spectre of her life shadowed +down the years by an unutterable loneliness. How could she ever drop +it all--all this wild freedom, this boundless health, this great +outdoors, this life, life, how could she drop it all and go back into +the little circle where convention fenced out the tiniest alien +streamlet, although the circle itself might lie deep in mire? And how +would she give up this boy who had grown so imperceptibly but so +intimately into the very soul of her being; give him up with all his +strength, and virility, and--yes, and coarseness, if you will--but +sincerity too; an essential man, as God made him, in exchange for a +machine-made counterfeit with the stamp of Society? Deeply did she +ponder these questions, and as the day wore on she found herself +possessed of a steadily growing determination that she would not follow +the beaten trail, let the by-paths lead where they might. + +Darkness, save for a white moon, had settled over the foothills when +the boy returned with another young man. The stranger ate a ravenous +supper, but was not too occupied to assay conversation with Irene. +Indeed, from their meeting at the doorway his eyes scarcely left her. +He chose to call her cook. + +"Swell pancakes, cook," was his opening remark. "Can you find another +for yours truly?" + +She refilled his plate without answer. + +"Used to know a girl mighty like you," he went on. "Waitress in the +Royal Edward. Gee, but she was swell! A pippin! Class! Say, she had +'em all guessing. Had me guessing myself for awhile. But just for +awhile." He voiced these remarks with an air of intense self-approval +more offensive than the words. + +Irene felt the colour rise about her neck and cheeks and run like an +over-flowing stream into her ears and about her hair. It was evident +that, for a second time, Dave had chosen to say nothing to strangers +about her presence at the ranch. But that was not what brought the +colour. She was addressed as a menial, as a hired helper in the Elden +household! Her own honesty told her that even that was not what +brought the colour. It was not even the man's insolent familiarity; it +was his assumption that his familiarity would not be resented. Her +father and Mr. Elden were in Dave's room; Dave had stopped eating and +she saw the veins rising in his clenched fists. But the challenge was +to her, and she would accept it; she felt no need of his protection. + +"Fill your stomach," she said, passing more pancakes; "your head is +hopeless." + +He attempted a laugh, but the meal was finished in silence. The +stranger lit a cigarette, and Irene went to the door with Dave. An +over-lace of silver moonlight draped the familiar objects near at hand +and faded into the dark, vague lingerie of night where the spruce trees +cut their black wedge along the valley. + +"Come for a walk," he whispered. "The horses are tired, so let's walk. +. . . It's our last chance." + +She ran for her sweater and rejoined him in a moment. They walked in +silence down a path through the fragrant trees, but Dave turned from +time to time to catch a glimpse of her face, white and fine as ivory in +the soft light. He had much to say; he felt that the ages could not +utter all he had to say to-night, but he was tongue-tied under the +spell of her beauty. + +"You squelched him, all right," he broke out at length. + +"Just in time, too, I think," she replied. "I was watching your hands." + +He smiled a quiet but very confident smile. "Reenie," he said, "that +fellow makes me sick. All the way out he talked about girls. If it +hadn't been that I was makin' the trip for your father I'd 'a' licked +him on the road, sure. He's a city chap, an' wears a white collar, but +he ain't fit to speak your name. Another minute an' I'd 'a' had 'im by +the neck." He seized a spruce limb that stuck across their path. It +was the size of a stout stick but he snapped it with a turn of his +wrist. It was very tough; it oozed sticky stuff where he broke it. +"His neck," he said, between his teeth. "Jus' like that." + +They reached an open space. Something black--or was it red?--lay on +the ground. Dave bent over it a moment, then looked up to her white, +clear face, whiter and clearer than ever since witnessing the strength +of his hate. + +"It's Brownie," he said, as calmly as he could. "Half et up. Wolves, +I guess." + +He saw her eyes grow slowly larger in the moonlight. Without a word +she sank to her knees. He saw her fingers about her head, burrowing in +her hair. Then she looked up, over the black trees, to the sky with +its white moon and its few great stars. + +"The poor, poor thing," she breathed. "The poor, innocent thing. Why +did it have to die?" + +"It's always the innocent things 'at suffers," he answered. + +"Always the innocent things," she repeated mechanically. "Always--" + +She sprang to her feet and faced him. "Then what about the justice of +God?" she demanded. + +"I don' know nothin' about the justice of God," he answered, bitterly. +"All I know is the crittur 't can't run gets caught." + +There was a long pause. "It doesn't seem right," she said at length. + +"It ain't right," he agreed. "But I guess it's life. I see it here on +the prairies with every living thing. Everything is a victim, some way +or other. Even the wolves 'at tore this little beast 'll go down to +some rancher's rifle, maybe, although they were only doing what nature +said . . . I guess it's the same way in the cities; the innocent bein' +hunted, an' the innocenter they are the easier they're caught. An' +then the wolves beggin' off, an' sayin' it was only nature." + +The girl had no answer. No one had ever talked to her like this. What +did this country boy know? And yet it was plain he did know. He had +lived among the fundamentals. + +"I guess I was like that, some," he went on. "I've been caught. I +guess a baby ain't responsible for anything, is it? I didn't pick my +father or my mother, did I? But I got to bear it." + +There was something near a break in his voice on the last words. She +felt she must speak. + +"I think your father is a wonderful old man," she said, "and your +mother must have been wonderful, too. You should be proud of them +both." + +"Reenie, do you mean that?" he demanded. His eyes were looking +straight into hers. Once before he had faced her with that question, +and she had not forgotten. + +"Absolutely," she answered. "Absolutely, I mean it." + +"Then I'm goin' to say some more things to you," he went on, rapidly. +"Things 'at I didn't know whether to say or not, but now they've got to +be said, whatever happens. Reenie, I haven't ever been to school, or +learned lots of things I should 'a' learned, but I ain't a fool, +neither. I know 'at when you're home you live thousands of miles from +me, but I know 'at in your mind you live further away than that. I +know it's like all the prairies an' all the oceans were between us. +But I know, too, that people cross prairies an' oceans, an' I'm wantin' +to cross. I know it takes time, an' I'll be a slow traveller, but I'm +a mighty persistent crittur when I start out. I didn't learn to break +all those bottles in a day. Well, I can learn other things, too, an' I +will, if only it will take me across. I'm goin' to leave this old +ranch, someway, jus' as soon as it can be arranged. I'm goin' to town, +an' work. I'm strong; I can get pretty good wages. I've been thinkin' +it all over, and was askin' some questions in town to-day. I can work +days and go to school nights. An' I'll do it if--if it'll get me +across. You know what I mean. I ain't askin' no pledges, Reenie, but +what's the chance? I know I don't talk right, an' I don't eat +right--you tried not to notice, but you couldn't help--but Reenie, I +think right, an' I guess with a girl like you that counts more than +eatin' and talkin'." + +She had thought she could say yes or no to any question he could ask, +but as he poured forth these plain passionate words she found herself +enveloped in a flame that found no expression in speech. She had no +words. She was glad when he went on. + +"I know I'm only a boy, an' you're only a girl. That's why I don' ask +no pledge. I leave you free, only I want you to stay free until I have +my chance. Will you promise that?" + +She tried to pull herself together. "You know I've had a good time +with you, Dave," she said, "and I've gone with you everywhere, like I +would not have gone with any other boy I ever knew, and I've talked and +let you talk about things I never talked about before, and I believe +you're true and clean, and--and--" + +"Yes," he said. "What's your answer?" + +"I know you're true and clean," she repeated. "Come to me--like +that--when I'm a woman and you're a man, and then--then we'll know." + +He was tall and straight, and his shadow fell across her face, as +though even the moon must not see. "Reenie," he said, "kiss me." + +For one moment she thought of her mother. She knew she stood at the +parting of the ways; that all life for her was being moulded in that +moment. Then she put both her arms about his neck and drew his lips to +hers. + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + +Dave's opportunity came sooner than he expected. After the departure +of the Hardys things at the old ranch were as both father and son had +predicted, very different. They found themselves on a sort of good +behaviour; a behaviour which, unhappily excited in each other grave +suspicions as to purpose. Between these two men rude courtesies or +considerations of any kind had been so long forgotten that attempts to +reintroduce them resulted in a sort of estrangement more dangerous than +the old open hostility. The tension steadily increased, and both +looked forward to the moment when something must give way. + +For several weeks the old man remained entirely sober, but the call of +the appetite in him grew more and more insistent as the days went by, +and at last came the morning when Dave awoke to find him gone. He +needed no second guess; the craving had become irresistible and his +father had ridden to town for the means to satisfy it. The passing +days did not bring his return, but this occasioned no anxiety to Dave. +In the course of a carouse his father frequently remained away for +weeks at a stretch, and at such times it was Dave's custom to visit the +boys on a ranch a dozen miles over the foothills to the southward. +These boys had a sister, and what was more natural than that Dave +should drown his loneliness in such company? + +But this time he did not ride southward over the hills. He moped +around the ranch buildings, sat moodily by the little stream, casting +pebbles in the water, or rode over the old trails on which she had so +often been his companion. The season was bright with all the glory of +the foothill September; the silver dome of heaven, cloudless morning +and noon, ripened with the dying day into seas of gold on which floated +cloud-islands of purple and amethyst, and through the immeasurable +silence of the night moon and stars bathed the deep valleys in +celestial effulgence. But in the heart of the boy was neither sun, nor +moon, nor stars, but only the black gulfs of loneliness from which his +light had gone out. + +Then the old man's horse came home. Dave saw it coming up the trail, +not running wildly, but with nervous gallop and many sidelong turnings +of the head. As the boy watched he found a strange emptiness possess +him; his body seemed a phantom on which his head hung over-heavy. He +spoke to the horse, which pulled up, snorting, before him; noted the +wet neck and flanks, and at last the broken stirrup. Then, slowly and +methodically, and still with that strange sensation of emptiness, he +saddled his own horse and set out on the search. . . . + +After the last rites had been paid to the old rancher Dave set about at +once to wind up his affairs, and it was not until then that he +discovered how deeply his father had been involved. The selling of the +cattle and the various effects realized only enough to discharge the +liabilities, and when this had been done Dave found himself with a +considerable area of unmarketable land, a considerable bundle of paid +bills, and his horse, saddle and revolver. He rode his horse to town, +carrying a few articles of wear with him. It was only after a stiff +fight he could bring himself to part with his one companion. The last +miles into town were ridden very slowly, with the boy frequently +leaning forward and stroking the horse's neck and ears. + +"Tough doin's, ol' Slop-eye," he would say. "Tough doin's. But it's +got to be done. I can't keep you in town; 't ain't like out on the old +ranch. An' I got a bigger job now than ever you an' me stood in on, +an' we've stood in on some big ones, too, ain't we? But that's gone +an' done; that old life's all busted, all of a sudden, like a bottle. +Busted an' run out. I got a big job on now, an' you can't take no +part. You jus' got to get out. You're done, see?" He sold horse and +saddle for sixty dollars and took a room at a cheap hotel until he +should find work and still cheaper lodgings. + +In the evening he walked through the streets of the little cow-town. +It was not altogether new to him; he had frequently visited it for +business or pleasure, but he had never felt the sense of strangeness +which oppressed him this night. In the past he had always been in the +town as a visitor; his roots were still in the ranch; he could afford +to notice the ways of the town, and smile to himself a whimsical smile +and go on. But now he was throwing in his lot with the town; he was +going to be one of it, and it stretched no arms of welcome to him. It +snubbed him with its indifference. . . . He became aware that he was +very lonely. He became aware that the gathering twilight in the great +hills had never seemed so vague and empty as the dusk of this strange +town. He realized that he had but one friend in the world; but one, +and of her he knew not so much as her address. . . . He began to +wonder whether he really had a friend at all; whether the girl would +not discard him when he was of no further use just as he had discarded +his faithful old horse. Tears of loneliness and remorse gathered in +his eyes, and a mist not of the twilight blurred the street lamps now +glimmering from their poles. He felt that he had treated the horse +very shabbily indeed. He wanted old Slop-eye back again. He suddenly +wanted him with a terrific longing; wanted him more than anything else +in the world. For a moment he forgot the girl, and all his +homesickness centred about the beast which had been so long his +companion and servant and friend. + +"I'll buy him back in the mornin', I will, sure as hell," he said in a +sudden gust of emotion. "We got to stick together. I didn't play fair +with him, but I'll buy him back. Perhaps I can get a job for him, too, +pullin' a light wagon, or somethin'." + +The resolution to "play fair" with Slop-eye gradually restored his +cheerfulness, and he walked slowly back to the hotel, looking in at +many window displays as he went. Half shyly he paused before a window +of women's wear; fine, filmy things, soft and elusive, and, he +supposed, very expensive. He wondered if Reenie bought clothes like +that to wear in her city home. And then he began to look for a brown +sweater, and to move from window to window. And presently he found +himself at his hotel. + +The men's sitting room now presented a much more animated picture than +when he had registered earlier in the evening. It was filled with +ranchers, cowboys, and cattlemen of all degree; breeders, buyers, +traders, owners and wage-earners, with a sprinkling of townspeople and +others not directly engaged in some phase of the cattle business. The +room was strong with smoke and language and expectoration and +goodfellowship, to which the maudlin carousal of the line-up at the bar +furnished appropriate accompaniment. Through the smoke he could see +another room farther back, in which were a number of pool tables; loud +voices and loud laughter and occasional awe-inspiring rips of profanity +betokened deep interest in the game, and he allowed himself to drift in +that direction. Soon he was in a group watching a gaudily dressed +individual doing a sort of sleight-of-hand trick with three cards on a +table. + +"Smooth guy that," said some one at his side. The remark was evidently +intended for Dave, and he turned toward the speaker. He was a man +somewhat smaller than Dave; two or three years older; well dressed in +town clothes; with a rather puffy face and a gold filled tooth from +which a corner had been broken as though to accommodate the cigarette +which hung there. He blew a slow double stream of smoke from his +nostrils and repeated, "Smooth guy that." + +"Yes," said Dave. Then, as it was apparent the stranger was inclined +to be friendly, he continued, "What's the idea?" + +The stranger nudged him gently. "Come out of the bunch," he said, in a +low voice. When they had moved a little apart he went on, in a +confidential tone: "He has a little trick with three cards that brings +him in the easy coin. He's smooth as grease, but the thing's simple. +Oh, it's awful simple. It's out of date with the circuses in the +States--that was where I got wise to it--but it seems to get 'em here. +Now you watch him for a minute," and they watched through an opening in +the crowd about his table. The player held three cards; two red ones +and a black. He passed them about rapidly over the table, occasionally +turning his hand sideways so that the on-lookers could see the position +of the cards. Then he suddenly threw them, face down, on the table, +each card by itself. + +"The trick is to locate the black card," Dave's companion explained. +"It's easy enough if you just keep your eye on the card, but the +trouble with these rubes is they name the card and then start to get +out their money, and while they're fumbling for it he makes a change so +quick they never see it. There's just one way to beat him. Get up +close, but don't say you're going to play; just pretend you're getting +interested. Then when you're dead sure of a card, crack your fist down +on it. Glue yourself right to it, and get out your money with the +other hand. When he sees you do that he'll try to bluff you; say you +ain't in on it, but you just tell him that don't go, this is an open +game and he's got to come through, and the crowd'll back you up. I +stuck him one--a whole hundred first crack--and then he barred me. +Watch him." + +Dave watched. Saw the black card go down at one corner of the board; +saw a bystander fumbling for a five dollar bill; saw the bill laid on +the card; saw it turned up--and it was red. + +"That _is_ smooth," he said. "I'd 'a' sworn that was the black card." + +"So it was--when you saw it," his companion explained. "But you were +just like the sucker that played him. You couldn't help glancing at +the jay getting out his money, and it was in that instant the trick was +done. He's too quick for the eye, but that's how he does it." + +Dave became interested. He saw two or three others lose fives and +tens. Then his companion pinched his arm. "Watch that new guy," he +whispered. "Watch him. He's wise." + +A new player had approached. He stood near the table for some minutes, +apparently looking on casually; then his left fist came down on one of +the cards. "A hundred on this one," he said, and began thumbing out a +roll with his other hand. + +"You ain't playin'," said the dealer. "You ain't in on this." + +"Ain't I? What do you say, fellows?" turning to the crowd. "Am I in +or not?" + +"Sure you're in," they exclaimed. "Sure you're in," repeated a big +fellow, lounging forward. "If this guy ain't in we clean you out, see?" + +"It's on me," said the dealer, with an ugly smile. "Well, if I must +pay, I pay. Turn 'er up." + +It was black. The dealer paid out a hundred dollars to the new player, +who quickly disappeared in the crowd. + +Dave had made his decision. It was plain his companion's tip was +straight. There was just one way to beat this game, but it was simple +enough when you knew how. He sidled close to the table, making great +pretense of indifference, but watching the cards closely with his keen +black eyes. The dealer showed his hand, made a few quick passes, and +the black card flew out to the right. This was Dave's chance. He +pounced on it with his left hand, while his other plunged into his +pocket. + +"Sixty dollars on this one," he cried, and there was the triumphant +note in his voice of the man who knows he has beaten the other at his +own game. + +"You ain't playin'," said the dealer. "You ain't in on this." + +"That don't go," said Dave, very quietly. "You're playin' a public +game here, an' I choose to play with you, this once. Sixty dollars on +this card." He was fumbling his money on the table. + +"You ain't playin'," repeated the dealer. "You're a butt-in. You +ain't in this game at all." + +"Sure he's in," said the crowd. + +"Sure he's in," repeated the big fellow who had interfered before. +"He's a stranger here, but you play with him or you don't play no more +in this joint, see?" + +"That's hittin' me twice in the same spot, an' hittin' me hard," whined +the dealer, "but you got it on me. Turn 'er up." + +The card was red. + +Dave looked at it stupidly. It was a moment or two before he realized +that his money was gone. Then, regardless of those about, he rushed +through the crowd, flinging by-standers right and left, and plunged +into the night. + +He walked down a street until it lost itself on the prairie; then he +followed a prairie trail far into the country. The air was cold and a +few drops of rain were flying in it, but he was unconscious of the +weather. He was in a rage, through and through. More than once his +hand went to his revolver, and he half turned on his heel to retrace +his steps, but his better judgment led him on to fight it out with +himself. Slop-eye was now a dream, a memory, gone--gone. Everything +was gone; only his revolver and a few cents remained. He gripped the +revolver again. With that he was supreme. No man in all that town of +men, schooled in the ways of the West, was more than his equal while +that grip lay in his palm. At the point of that muzzle he could demand +his money back--and get it. + +Then he laughed. Hollow and empty it sounded in the night air, but it +was a laugh, and it saved his spirit. "Why, you fool," he chuckled. +"You came to town for to learn somethin', didn't you? Well, you're +learnin'. Sixty dollars a throw. Education comes high, don't it? But +you shouldn't kick. He didn't coax you in, an' gave you every chance +to back away. You butted in and got stung. Perhaps you've learned +somethin' worth sixty dollars." + +With these more philosophical thoughts he turned townward again, and as +he tramped along his light heartedness re-asserted itself. His sense +of fairness made him feel that he had no grievance against the card +sharper, and in his innocence of the ways of the game it never occurred +to him that the friendly stranger who had showed him how to play it, +and the big fellow who insisted on his being "in", and the other player +who had won a hundred dollars a few minutes before, were all partners +with the sharper and probably at this moment were dividing his sixty +dollars--the price of old Slop-eye--between them. + +Early next morning he was awake and astir. The recollection of his +loss sent a sudden pang through his morning spirits, but he tried to +close his mind to it. "No use worryin' over that," he said, jingling +the few coins that now represented his wealth. "That's over and gone. +I traded sixty dollars for my first lesson. Maybe it was a bad trade, +but anyway, I ain't goin' to squeal." He turned that thought over in +his mind. It suddenly occurred to him that it expressed a principle +which he might very well weave into his new life. "If I can jus' get +that idea, an' live up to it," he said, "never to squeal, no matter +what hits me, nor how, I guess it's worth sixty dollars." He whistled +as he finished dressing, ate his breakfast cheerfully, and set out in +search of employment. + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + +Almost the first person he met was the stranger who had schooled him in +the gambling game the night before. He greeted Dave cordially; his +voice had a soft, sedulous, almost feminine quality which Dave had not +noticed in their whispered conversation in the pool room. There was +something attractive about his personality; something which invited +friendship and even confidence, and yet beneath these emotions Dave +felt a sense of distrust, as though part of his nature rebelled against +the acquaintanceship. + +"That was the rottenest luck you had last night," the stranger was +saying. "I never saw the beat of it. I knew you were wrong the moment +you had your hand down, but I couldn't butt in then. I was hoping +you'd stay and raise him next time; you might have got your money back +that way." + +"Oh, I don't mind the money," said Dave, cheerfully. "I don't want it +back. In fact, I figure it was pretty well spent." + +"Lots more where it came from, eh?" laughed the other. "You're from +the ranches, I see, and I suppose the price of a steer or two doesn't +worry you a hair's worth." + +"_From_ is right," Dave replied. "I'm from them, an' I'm not goin' +back. As for money--well, I spent my last nickle for breakfast, so +I've got to line up a job before noon." + +The stranger extended his hand. "Shake," he said. "I like you. +You're no squealer, anyway. My name is Conward. Yours?" + +Dave told his name, and shook hands. Conward offered his cigarette +box, and the two smoked for a few moments in silence. + +"What kind of a job do you want?" Conward asked at length. + +"Any kind that pays a wage," said Dave. "If I don't like it I'll chuck +it as soon as I can afford t' be partic'lar, but just now I've got to +get a grub-stake." + +"I know the fellow that runs an employment agency down here," Conward +answered. "Let's go down. Perhaps I can put you in right." + +Conward spoke to the manager of the employment agency and introduced +Dave. + +"Nothing very choice on tap to-day," said the employment man. "You can +handle horses, I suppose?" + +"I guess I can," said Dave. "Some." + +"I can place you delivering coal. Thirty dollars a month, and you +board with the boss." + +"I'll take it," said Dave. + +The boss proved to be one Thomas Metford. He owned half a dozen teams +and was engaged in the cartage business, specializing on coal. He was +a man of big frame, big head, and a vocabulary appropriate to the +purposes to which he applied it. Among his other possessions were a +wife, numerous children, and a house and barn, in which he boarded his +beasts of burden, including in the term his horses, his men, and his +wife, in the order of their valuation. The children were a by-product, +valueless until such time as they also would be able to work. + +Dave's duties were simple enough. He had to drive a wagon to a coal +yard, where a very superior young man, with a collar, would express +surprise that he had been so long gone, and tell him to back in under +chute number so-and-so. It appeared to be always a matter of great +distress to this young man that Dave did not know which chute to back +under until he was told. Having backed into position, a door was +opened. There was a fiction that the coal in the bin should then run +into the wagon box, but, as Dave at once discovered, this was merely a +fiction. Aside from a few accommodating lumps near the door the coal +had to be shovelled. When the box was judged to be full the wagon was +driven on to the scales. If the load were too heavy some of it had to +be thrown off, while the young man with the collar passed remarks +appropriate to the occasion. If the load were too light less distress +was experienced. Then Dave had to drive to an address that was given +him, shovel the coal down a chute located in the most inaccessible +position the premises afforded, and return to the coal yard, where the +young man with the collar would facetiously inquire whether Mrs. Blank +had invited him in to afternoon tea, or if he had been waiting for a +change in the weather. + +Conditions in the boarding-house had the value of distracting Dave's +attention from the unpleasantness of his work. Mrs. Metford, +handicapped by her numerous offspring, embittered by the regular +recurrence of her contributions to the State, and disheartened by +drudgery and overwork, had long ago ceased to place any store on +personal appearance or even cleanliness. As Dave watched her slovenly +shuffle to and from the kitchen, preceded and pursued by young Metfords +in all degrees of childish innocence, his mind flew back to dim +recollections of his own mother, and the quiet, noiseless order of +their home. Even in the latter days, when he and his father had been +anything but model housekeepers, they had never known such squalor as +this. + +Metford's attitude toward his wife fluctuated from course humour to +brutality, but there was left in the woman no spark of spirit to +resist. With neither tongue nor eye did she make any response, and her +shufflings back and forth were neither hastened nor delayed by the +pleasure of her lord. Her bearing was that of one who has suffered +until the senses are numb, who has drunk the last dregs of bitterness, +for whom no possible change of condition can be worse. Her +indifference was tragic. + +The sleeping accommodations had the virtue of simplicity. The Metford +tribe was housed in a lean-to which supported one wall of the kitchen, +and the eight boarders slept upstairs over the main part of the house. +The room was not large, but it had four corners, and in each corner +stood a cheap iron bed with baggy springs and musty mattress. The +ceiling, none too high at any part, sloped at the walls almost to the +edges of the beds. One table and wash basin had to serve for the eight +lodgers; those who were impatient for their turn might omit their +ablutions altogether or perform them in the horse-trough at the barn. + +All Metford's employees, with the exception of Dave, were foreigners, +more or less inconversant with the English language. Somewhat to his +surprise, they maintained an attitude of superiority toward him, +carrying on their conversations in a strange tongue, and allowing him +little part in their common life. Dave's spirit, which had always been +accustomed to receive and be received on a basis of absolute equality, +rebelled violently against the intangible wall of exclusion which his +fellow workers built about themselves, and as they had shown no desire +for his company, he retaliated by showing still less for theirs, with +the result that he found himself very much alone and apart from the +life of his new surroundings. + +His work and supper were over by seven o'clock each evening, and now +was the opportunity for him to begin the schooling for which he had +left the ranch. But he developed a sudden disinclination to make the +start; he was tired in the evening, and he found it much more to his +liking to stroll down town, smoke cigarettes on the street corners, or +engage in an occasional game of pool. In this way the weeks went by, +and when his month with Metford was up he had neglected to find another +position, so he continued where he was. He was being gradually and +unconsciously submerged in an inertia which, however much it might hate +its present surroundings, had not the spirit to seek a more favourable +environment. + +So the fall and winter drifted along; Dave had made few acquaintances +and no friends, if we except Conward, whom he frequently met in the +pool rooms, and for whom he had developed a sort of attachment. His +first underlying sense of distrust had been lulled by closer +acquaintanceship; Conward's mild manner and quiet, seductive voice +invited friendship, and it became a customary thing for the two to play +for small stakes, which Dave won as often as he lost. + +One Saturday evening as Dave was on the way to their accustomed resort +he fell in with Conward on the street. "Hello, old man," said Conward, +cheerily, "I was just looking for you. Got two tickets for the show +to-night. Some swell dames in the chorus. Come along. There'll be +doings." + +There were two theatres in the town, one of which played to the better +class residents. In it anything of a risque nature had to be presented +with certain trimmings which allowed it to be classified as "art," but +in the other house no such restrictions existed. It was to the latter +that Conward led. Dave had been there before, in the cheap upper +gallery, but Conward's tickets admitted to the best seats in the house. +Dave had adopted town ways to the point where he changed his clothes +and put on a white collar Saturday evenings, and he found himself amid +the gay rustle and perfumes of the orchestra floor with a very pleasant +sense of being somebody among other somebodies. The orchestra played a +swinging air, to which his foot kept tap, and presently the curtain +went up and the show was on with a rush of girls and colour. + +It was an entirely new experience. From the upper gallery the actors +and actresses always seemed more or less impersonal and abstract, but +here they were living, palpitating human beings, almost within hand +reach, certainly within eye reach, as Dave presently discovered. There +was a trooping of girls about the stage, with singing and rippling +laughter and sweet, clear voices; then a sudden change of formation +flung a line of girls right across behind the footlights, where they +tripped merrily through motions of mingled grace and acrobatics. Dave +found himself regarding the young woman immediately before him; all in +white she was, with some scintillating material that sparkled in the +glare of the spot-light; then suddenly she was in orange, and pink, and +purple, and mauve, and back again in white. And although she performed +the various steps with smiling abandon, there was in her dress and +manner a modesty which fascinated the boy with a subtlety which a more +reckless appearance would have at once defeated. + +And then Dave looked in her face. It was a pretty face, +notwithstanding its grease-paint, and it smiled right into his eyes. +His heart thumped between his shoulders as though it would drive all +the air from his lungs. She smiled at him--for him! Now they were +away again; there were gyrations about the stage, he almost lost her in +the maze; a young man in fine clothes rushed in, and was apparently +being mobbed by the girls, and said some lines in a rapid voice which +Dave's ear had not been trained to catch; and then he danced about with +one of them--with the very one--with his one! My, how nimble she was! +He wondered if she knew the young man very well. They seemed very +friendly. But he supposed she had to do that anyway; it was part of +her job; it was all in the play. Certainly the young man was very +clever, but he didn't like his looks. Certainly he could dance very +well. "I could make him dance different to the tune of a six-shooter," +Dave said to himself, and then flushed a little. That was silly. The +young man was paid to do this, too. Still it looked like a very good +job. It looked like a very much better job than shovelling coal for +Metford. + +Then there was a sudden break-away in the dance, and the girl +disappeared behind a forest, and the mobbing of the young man +recommenced. Dave supposed she had gone to rest; dancing like that +must be hard on the wind. He found little to interest him now in what +was going on on the stage. It seemed rather foolish. They were just +capering around and being foolish. They were a lot of second-raters. +And the young man--it was plain he didn't care a whit for them; he was +just doing it because he had to. There was a vacant seat in front. He +wished the girl behind the forest would come down and rest there. Then +she could see the show herself. Then she could see-- + +But there was a whirr from the forest, and the girl re-appeared, this +time all in red, but not nearly so much in red as she had previously +been in white. My, what a quick change she had made! And how her +skirt stood out like a rim when she whirled herself! And the young man +left all the rest and went to dance with her again. Dave was not +altogether pleased with that turn of events. But presently the dance +broke up, and they were flung again in line across the stage. And +there she was, all in red--no, not all in red, but certainly not in any +other colour--right before him. And then she looked down and smiled +again at him. And he smiled back. And then he looked at Conward and +saw him smiling, too. And then he felt a very distressing uncertainty, +which brought the colour slowly to his face. He resolved to say +nothing, but watch. And his observations convinced him that the smiles +had been for Conward, not for him. And then he lost interest in the +play. + +They hustled into their overcoats to the playing of the National +Anthem. "Hurry," said Conward, "let's get out quick. Ain't she some +dame? There--through the side exit--the stage door is that way. She +promised to have her chum with her--they'll be waiting if we don't +hurry." + +Conward steered him to the stage entrance, where a little group was +already congregated. In a moment the girl appeared, handsomely dressed +in furs. Dave would not have known her, but Conward recognized her at +once, and stepped forward. With her was another girl, also from the +chorus, but Dave could not recall her part. He was suddenly aware of +being introduced. + +"This is my friend Belton," Conward was saying. Dave was about to +correct him when Conward managed to whisper, "Whist! Your stage name. +Mine's Elward. Don't forget." + +Conward took the first girl by the arm, and Dave found himself +following rapidly with the other. They cut through certain side +streets, up a stairway, and into a dark hall. Conward was rattling +keys and swearing amiably in his soft voice. Presently a door opened; +Conward pressed a button, and they found themselves in a small but +comfortably furnished room--evidently bachelor apartments. + +The girls threw off their wraps and sauntered about the place, +commenting freely on the furnishings and decorations, while Conward +started a gas grate and put some water to boil. + +"Sorry I've nothing for you to eat," he said, "but I've some good +medicine for the thirst." + +"Eating's poor business when there's a thirst to be quenched," said one +of the girls, with a yawn. "And believe me, I've a long one." + +Conward pulled a table into the centre of the room, set chairs about, +and produced glasses and a bottle. Dave experienced a sudden feeling +as of a poor swimmer beyond his depth. He had never drunk, not even +beer, not so much from principles of abstinence as from disgust over +his father's drunkenness and enmity towards the means of it. . . . + +The glasses were filled and raised. "Ho!" said Conward. + +"Here's looking!" said one of the girls. Dave still hesitated, but the +other girl clinked her glass against his. "Here's looking at you," she +said, and she appeared to lay special emphasis on the last two words. +Certainly her eyes were on Dave's as she raised her glass to her lips. +And under the spell of those eyes he raised his glass and drained it. + +Other glasses were filled and drained. The three were chattering away, +but Dave was but vaguely conscious of their talk, and could weave no +connected meaning into it. His head was buzzing with a pleasant dreamy +sensation. A very grateful warmth surrounded him, and with it came a +disposition to go to sleep. He probably would have gone to sleep had +his eye not fallen on a picture on the wall, It was a picture of a girl +pointing her finger at him. He suspected that she was pointing it at +him, and as he looked more closely he became very sure of it. . . No +girl could point her finger at him. He arose and made a lunge across +the room. He missed her, and with difficulty retraced his steps to the +table to make a fresh start. + +"She's makin' fun of me," he said, "an' I don't stand for that. Nobody +can do that with me. Nobody--see? I don't 'low it." + +"Oh, you don't," laughed one of the girls, running into a corner and +pointing a finger at him. "You don't?" + +He turned his attention to her, steadying himself very carefully before +he attempted an advance. Then, with wide-stretched arms, he bore down +cautiously upon her. When he had her almost within reach she darted +along the edge of the room. He attempted a sudden change in direction, +which ended disastrously, and he found himself very much sprawled out +upon the floor. He was aware of laughter, but what cared he? He was +disposed to sleep. What better place to sleep than this? What better +time to sleep than this? In a moment he was lost to all consciousness. +. . . + +It was later in the night when he felt himself being dragged into a +sitting posture. He remonstrated in a mumbling voice. "'S too early," +he said. "Altogether too early. Early. Whew! Watch 'er spin. Jus' +his job. Paid for it, ain't he?" + +"Well, I ain't paid for this," said Conward, rather roughly, "and you +got to pull yourself together. Here, take a little of this; it'll put +some gimp into you." He pressed a glass to his lips, and Dave +swallowed. + +"Where am I?" he said, blinking at the light. + +He rose uncertainly to his feet and stared about the room in returning +consciousness. + +"Where's the girls?" he asked. + +"Gone," said Conward, sulkily. "Couldn't expect 'em to stick around +all night to say good bye, could you, and you sleeping off your drunk?" + +Dave raised his hand to his head. A sense of disgrace was already upon +him. Then he suddenly turned in anger on Conward. + +"You put this up on me," he cried. "You made a fool of me. I've a +mind to bash your skull in for you." + +"Don't be silly," Conward retorted. "I didn't enjoy it any more than +you did--introducing you as my friend, and then have you go out like +that. Why didn't you tip me? I didn't know it would put you to sleep." + +"Neither did I," said Dave. + +"Well, the next thing is to get you home. Can you walk?" + +"Sure." Dave started for the door, but his course suddenly veered, and +he found himself leaning over a chair. Conward helped him into his +overcoat, and half led, half shoved him to his boarding house. + + + + +CHAPTER SIX + +Elden awoke Sunday morning with a feeling that his head had been +boiled. Also he had a prodigious thirst, which he slacked +[Transcriber's note: slaked?] at the water pitcher. It was the +practice of Metford's gang to select one of their number to care for +all the horses on Sundays, while the others enjoyed the luxury of their +one day of leisure. In consequence of this custom the room was still +full of snoring sleepers, and the air was very close and foul. + +Dave sat down by the little table that fronted the open window and +rested his head on his hands. It was early spring; the snow was gone; +dazzling sunshine bathed the prairies in the distance, and near at hand +were the twitter of birds and the ripple of water. It was a day to be +alive and about. + +But the young man's thoughts were not of the sunshine, nor the fields, +nor the water. He was recalling, with considerable effort, the events +of the previous night; piecing them together in impossible ways; +re-assorting them until they offered some sequence. The anger he had +felt toward Conward had subsided, but the sting of shame rankled in his +heart. He had no doubt that he had furnished the occasion for much +merriment upon the part of the young women, in which, quite probably, +Conward had joined. + +"Fool," he said to himself. And because he could think of no more +specific expression to suit his feelings, and because expression of any +kind brought a sort of relief, he kept on repeating the word, "Fool, +fool, fool!" And as his self-condemnation gradually won him back to a +sense of perspective he became aware of the danger of his position. He +went over the events of the recent months, and tried to be rational. +He had left his ranch home to better himself, to learn things, to rise +to be somebody. He had worked harder than ever before, at more +disagreeable employment; he had lived in conditions that were almost +nauseating, and what had he learned? That you can't beat a card man at +his own game, price sixty dollars, and that the gallery seats are +cheaper, and sometimes safer, than the orchestra. + +Then all of a sudden he thought of Reenie. He had not thought of her +much of late; he had been so busy in the days, and so tired at nights, +that he had not thought of her much. True, she was always in the back +of his mind; in his subconscious mind, perhaps, but he seemed to have +put her away, like his skill with revolver and lasso. Now she burst +upon him again with all that beauty and charm which had so magnetised +him in those glad, golden days, and the frank cleanness of her girlhood +made him disgusted and ashamed. It was to fit himself for her that he +had come to town, and what sort of mess was he making of it? He was +going down instead of up. He had squandered his little money, and now +he was squandering his life. He had been drunk. . . + +Dave's nature was one in which emotions were accelerated with their own +intensity. When he was miserable his misery left no place in his soul +for any ray of sunshine. It fed on itself, and grew to amazing +proportions. It spread out from its original cause and enveloped his +whole life. It tinctured all his relationships, past, present and +future. When a cloud of gloom settled upon him he felt that it would +never lift, but became heavier and heavier until he was crushed under +its weight. And the sudden manner in which Reenie had now invaded his +consciousness intensified the blackness in which he was submerged, as +lightning darkens the storm. He saw her on that last night, with the +moonlight wooing her white face, until his own body had eclipsed it in +a warmer passion, and he heard her words, "I know you are true and +clean." + +True and clean. "Yes, thank God, I am still that!" he cried, springing +suddenly to his feet and commencing to dress. "I've been spattered, +but nothing that won't wash off. Perhaps," and he stopped as the great +thought struck him, "perhaps it was the luckiest thing in the world +that the booze did put me out last night. . . It'll wash off." + +There was considerable comfort in this thought. He had wasted some +precious months, but he had not gone too far, and there was still time +to turn back. But he must begin work at once on the serious business +of life. With this resolve his spirits returned with a rush, and he +found himself whistling as he completed his toilet. There was no +breakfast for the late sleepers Sunday mornings, and he went at once +into the warm air outside. The sunshine fondled his body, his limbs, +his face; the spring ozone was in his lungs; it was good to be alive. +Alive--for a purpose. Well, he would start at once; how could he begin +a life of purpose to-day? He was quite set on the necessity of doing +something, but quite at sea as to what that something should be. It +occurred to him for the first time that society had been much more +generous in supplying facilities for a boy to go down hill than to go +up. + +He became aware of a bell ringing. At first the sound had fallen only +on his subconsciousness, but gradually he became aware of it, as one +being slowly recalled from sleep. Then he remembered that it was +Sunday, and that was a church bell. He had often heard them on +Sundays. He was about to dismiss the matter when a strange impulse +came into his mind. Why not go to church? He had never been in +church, and he felt that the surroundings of the pool hall would be +much more congenial. He had little stomach for church. What if the +rest of the gang should learn he had been at church? + +"I believe you're afraid to go," he said to himself. That settled it. +In a few minutes he was at the church door, where an oldish man, after +surveying him somewhat dubiously, gave him a formal handshake and +passed him into the hands of an usher. The usher led him down an aisle +and crowded him into a small pew with several others. There were many +unoccupied pews, so Dave concluded it must be a church policy to fill +them full as far as they went. He also observed that the building was +filling up from the rear, notwithstanding the efforts of the ushers to +cajole the people farther down the aisles. Dave reflected that the +custom here was quite different from the theatre, especially the "rush" +gallery, where every one scrambled for the front seats. + +He was very conscious of being observed, and there was an atmosphere of +formality and, as it seemed to him, of strained goodness that made him +uncomfortable. But presently the organ commenced and diverted his +interest from himself. It was very wonderful. His position commanded +a view of the organist, and Dave marvelled at the manner in which that +gentleman's feet hopped about, and how his hands flourished up and +down, and occasionally jumped from the keyboard altogether to jerk out +a piece of the machine. + +Then the choir filed in. They were all dressed alike, and the men had +on a kind of gown. Dave thought that was very silly. By some mental +freak he found himself picturing a man with a gown roping a steer, and +it was only by a sudden tightening of his jaws that he prevented an +explosion of amusement. He was still feeling very happy over this when +a tall man entered from a side door and ascended the steps to the +pulpit. He moved very solemnly, and, when he sat down, rested his head +on his hand for a minute. Then he looked over the audience, and Dave +thought that his expression was one of approval. Then he looked at the +ceiling. + +"He feels safe in his seat," thought Dave. "No buckin' in this bunch. +Well--" + +The organ had broken forth in a great burst of sound and every one was +standing up. Dave did so too, belatedly. Then everybody sang. They +seemed to know just what to sing. It was all new to Dave, but it +sounded all right. It made him feel just like the sunshine did after +the stuffy room. Then they all sat down. Dave was becoming more +alert, and was not caught napping in this movement. + +There was a short prayer, which Dave did not understand, and more +singing by everybody, and then the ushers came around for the +collection. Dave did not know how much to put on the plate, but he +supposed a good seat like this in the theatre would cost a dollar, so +he put on that amount. He noticed that his neighbour on one side put +on a nickel, and on the other side nothing at all. He began to think +he must have made a mistake. All this time the organ was playing +boisterously, but suddenly it dropped to a low, meditative theme, and +Dave began to fear it would stop altogether. But no; a young woman was +standing up in the choir; she was pretty, with quite a different air +and a finer comeliness than that of the theatre girls of the night +before. In some vague way she seemed reminiscent of Reenie Hardy. +Dave's introspection was not deep enough to know that any fine girl +would remind him of Reenie Hardy. + +Then she began to sing, and he felt again that the sunshine was playing +about him, but this time he heard the birds, too, and the ripple of the +distant water, and the stir of the spruce trees, and he could see the +lattice of sunlight through their dark leaves playing on the brown +grass, and there was a smell of distant wood smoke, and the glow of +dying coals. . . He was swaying gently in his seat, held in the thrall +of her voice, and suddenly he was glad he had put a dollar on the +plate. He could not follow all the words, but it was something about a +land where the sun would never go down. Well--no doubt the preacher +would tell them more about it. + +Then there was a long prayer by the preacher. He began by addressing +the Deity as all mighty and all knowing, and then spent many minutes in +drawing His attention to details which had evidently escaped His +notice, and in offering suggestions for the better government of the +universe. He dwelt on the humility and penitence of the congregation, +including himself, and at this point Dave's unorthodox ear began to +detect a false note. He looked about from preacher to congregation, +and saw no evidence of penitence or humility. "If God is all-knowin'," +said Dave to himself, "that preacher is goin' to get in wrong. Why, he +couldn't put over that humility bunk on me." + +At length it seemed that the sermon was really going to commence, but a +well dressed man came down the aisle and read a long financial +statement. Dave gathered from it that the Lord was pretty hard pressed +for ready cash. "No wonder," thought he, "if they all give nickels and +nothin's. Pretty well dressed bunch, too." + +Finally the preacher took the meeting in hand again, and announced his +text, but Dave soon forgot it in trying to follow the sermon. It was +an orthodox exposition of the doctrine of the atonement. Dave would +not have known it by that name, and there were many expressions which +he could not understand, but out of a maze of phrases he found himself +being slowly shocked into an attitude of uncompromising hostility. +There was no doubt about it; the preacher was declaring that an +innocent One had been murdered that the guilty might go free. This was +bad enough, but when the speaker went on to say that this was God's +plan; that there had to be a sacrifice, and that no other sacrifice was +sufficient to appease the wrath of Jehovah directed toward those whom +He had created, Dave found himself boiling with indignation. If this +was Christianity he would have none of it. His instruction in religion +had been of the most meagre nature, but he had imbibed some conception +of a Father who was love, and this doctrine of the sacrifice of the +innocent crashed through all his slender framework of belief. Had he +been told of a love which remained steadfast to its ideals even at the +cost of Calvary his manliness would have responded as to the touch of a +kindred spirit, but the attempt to fit that willing sacrifice into a +dogmatic creed left him adrift and rudderless. Suddenly from somewhere +in his memory came the words, "Then what becomes of the justice of +God?" It was Reenie Hardy who had asked that question. And he +recalled his answer, "I don't know nothin' about the justice of God. +All I know is the crittur 'at can't run gets caught." Was he then in +sympathy with this doctrine of cruelty, without knowing it? No. No! +Reenie Hardy had believed in justice, and he would believe in the same. +He rose from his seat and walked down the aisle and out of the +building, oblivious to the eyes that followed him. + +His feet led him to the river, running brown with the mud of spring. +He sat on the gravel, in the warm sunshine, and tossed pebbles into the +swift-flowing water. . . He had determined on a new road, but how was +he to find the road? Environment had never been kind to him, and he +was just beginning to realize its power in shaping his destinies. He +was dissatisfied, but he did not know where to find satisfaction; he +was bewildered, and nowhere was a clear path before him. He was +lonely. He knew a room where a little game would be in progress; he +arose, brushed the gravel-dust from his Sunday clothes, and wended his +way down town. + +A crowd was entering the theatre which he had attended the night +before. He looked at it wonderingly, as by statute the theatres were +closed on Sundays. Still, it was evident something was going on, and +he went in with the others. No tickets were required, and an usher +showed him to a good seat. + +It was not long before Dave realized that he was in a Socialist +meeting. He knew rather less of Socialism than he did of Christianity, +but the atmosphere of the place appealed to him. They were mostly men +in working clothes, with tobacco or beer on their breaths, and in their +loud whisperings he caught familiar profanities which made him feel at +home. When the speaker said something to their liking, they applauded +him; when he crossed them they denounced him openly. Interruptions +were frequent, and sometimes violent, but Dave admired the spirit of +fair play which gave every man a chance to speak his mind. Through it +all he gathered that there were two great forces in the world; Capital +and Labour, and that Capital was a selfish monster with a strangle-hold +on Labour and choking him to death. No, not quite to death, either, +for Capital needed Labour, and therefore only choked him until he was +half dead. Also, there were two classes of people in the world; the +Masters and the Slaves. Dave was a Slave. He had never known it +before, but the speaker made it quite apparent. + +"But I'm not a slave," said Dave, suddenly springing to his feet. "I +can quit my job to-morrow, and tell my boss to go to hell." + +There were boos and cat-calls, but at last the man on the platform made +himself heard. + +"And what will you do, my friend, after you have quit your job?" he +asked, quite courteously. + +"Get another one," said Dave, without scenting the trap. "There's lots +of jobs." + +"That is, you would get another master," said the Socialist. "You +would still have a master. And as long as you have a master, you are a +slave." And Dave sat down, confused and wondering. + +After the main address there was a sort of free-for-all. Half a dozen +sprang to their feet, each seeking to out-talk his neighbour, and it +was with difficulty the chairman obtained order and established a +sequence of events. An old man in the gallery read loudly from Victor +Hugo while a speaker in the orchestra declaimed on Single Tax. Finally +the old man was silenced, and Dave began to learn that all the economic +diseases to which society is heir might be healed by a potion +compounded by Henry George. Another in the audience started to speak +of the failure of the established system of marriage, embellishing his +argument with more than one local incident of a salacious nature, but +he was at last required to give place to a woman who had a more +personal grievance to present. + +"You talk about your masters and your slaves, and your taxes and your +marriages," she cried in a shrill voice that penetrated every corner of +the building. "I can tell you something about masters and slaves. I'm +hearing everywhere that what this country wants is population; that is +the talk of the politician, and the learned men, that are supposed to +know. Now, what is the country doing for those that bring the +population--not from the slums of Europe, that is not what I'm +asking--but for those that bring the native-born population--the only +population that doesn't have to be naturalized? I'm the mother of six, +and what has the country done for me, but leave me at the mercy of +those who charge more for an hour's attendance than my old man can save +from a month's drudgery? And then, with my health broken down--in the +service of the State--I have to go to the hospital, and they tell me I +must have an operation, and I wake up with a horrid pain and a bill for +a hundred and fifty dollars. All done in an hour, or less, and that's +the bill, or part of it, for the hospital dues and the extras and +etceteras are still to come. Masters and slaves! More than I can save +in a year, or two years, and no one to say whether the work was needed +or not, or whether it was well done or not. When my kitchen pipes are +plugged a plumber fixes them and charges me a dollar, and if he doesn't +do it right he has to do it over again, but when the human pipes go +wrong the man-plumber charges a hundred and fifty dollars, and if he +doesn't do it right he collects just the same, and the undertaker adds +another hundred. Now I don't know whether this comes under the head of +Capital or Labour or Single Tax, but I do know it is outrageous +extortion--extortion of blood money, imposed by the wealthy and +prosperous on the poor and the sick and the unfortunate, and while the +State clamours for population it does not raise a finger to protect +those who are bringing the native-born." + +During this philippic Dave had turned toward the woman; her thin face +still wore marks of refinement and even his uncultured ear recognized a +use of English that indicated a fair degree of education. But she was +broken; crushed with the joint cares of motherhood and poverty, and +desperate at the injustices of a system that capitalized her +sacrifices. He had heard much talk of slaves, but here, he felt, he +saw one, not in the healthy, well fed men with their deep mutterings +against employers, but in this haggard woman from whose life the lamp +of joy had gone out in the bitterness of suffering and physical +exhaustion. + +He spent the rest of the day alone, thinking. He was not yet sure of +any road, but he knew that his mind had been made to think, and that +his life was bigger that night than it had been in the morning. He +might not find the right road at once, but he could at least leave the +old one. He felt a strange hunger to understand all that had been +said. He felt, also, a tremendous sense of his own ignorance; +tremendous, but not crushing; a realization that the world was full of +things to be learned; problems to be faced; conclusions to be studied +out, and underneath was a sense almost of exaltation that he should +take some part in the studies and perhaps aid in the solutions. It was +his first glimpse into the world of reason, and it charmed and invited +him. He would follow. + +He went early to bed, thinking over all he had heard. His mind was +full, but it was happy, and, in some strange way, fixed. Even the +morning service came back with a sense of worthwhileness as he recalled +it in the semi-consciousness of approaching sleep. . . The music had +been good. It had made him think of spring and the deep woods . . . +and water . . . and wood smoke. . . + +It was about a far away land . . . and Reenie Hardy. She was very like +Reenie Hardy. . . + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + +Fortunate Fate, or whatever good angel it is that sometimes drops +unexpected favours, designed that young Elden should the following day +deliver coal at the home of Mr. Melvin Duncan. Mr. Duncan, tall, +quiet, and forty-five, was at work in his garden as Dave turned the +team in the lane and backed them up the long, narrow drive connecting +with the family coal-chute. As the heavy wagon moved straight to its +objective Mr. Duncan looked on with approval that heightened into +admiration. Dave shovelled his load without remark, but as he stood +for a moment at the finish wiping the sweat from his coal-grimed face +Mr. Duncan engaged him in conversation. + +"You handle a team like you were born to it," he said. "Where did you +get the knack?" + +"Well, I came up on a ranch," said Dave. "I've lived with horses ever +since I could remember." + +"You're a rancher, eh?" queried the older man. "Well, there's nothing +like the range and the open country. If I could handle horses like you +there isn't anything would hold me in town. + +"Oh, I don' know," Dave answered. "You get mighty sick of it." + +"Did you get sick of it?" + +Elden shot a keen glance at him. The conversation was becoming +personal. Yet there was in Mr. Duncan's manner a certain kindliness, a +certain appeal of sincere personality, that disarmed suspicion. + +"Yes, I got sick of it," he said. "I lived on that ranch eighteen +years, and never was inside school or church. Wouldn't that make you +sick? . . . So I beat it for town." + +"And I suppose you are attending church regularly now, and night +school, too?" + +Dave's quick temper fired up in resentment, but again the kindliness of +the man's manner disarmed him. He was silent for a moment, and then he +said, "No, I ain't. That's what makes me sick now. I came in here +intendin' to get an education, an' I've never even got a start at it, +excep' for some things perhaps wasn't worth the money. There always +seems to be somethin' else--in ahead." + +"There always will be," said Mr. Duncan, "until you start." + +"I suppose so," said Dave, wearily, and took up the reins. + +But Mr. Duncan persisted. "You're not in such a hurry with that team," +he said. "Even if you are late--even if you should lose your job over +it--that's nothing to settling this matter of getting started with an +education." + +"But how's it to be done?" Dave questioned, with returning interest. +"Schools an' books cost money, an' I never save a dollar." + +"And never will," said Mr. Duncan, "until you start. But I think I see +a plan that might help, and if it appeals to you it will also be a +great convenience to me. My wife likes to go driving Sundays, and +sometimes on weekday evenings, but I have so many things on hand I find +it hard to get out with her. My daughter used to drive, but these +new-fangled automobiles are turning the world upside down--and many a +buggy with it. They're just numerous enough to be dangerous. If there +were more or less they would be all right, but just now every horse is +suspicious of them. Well--as I saw you driving in here I said to +myself, 'There's the man for that job of mine, if I can get him,' but +I'm not rich, and I couldn't pay you regular wages. But if I could +square the account by helping with your studies a couple of nights a +week--I used to teach school, and haven't altogether forgotten--why, +that would be just what I want. What do you say?" + +"I never saw anything on four feet I couldn't drive," said Dave, "an' +if you're willing to take a chance, I am. When do we start?" + +"First lesson to-night. Second lesson Thursday night. First drive +Sunday." Mr. Duncan did not explain that he wanted to know the boy +better before the drives were commenced, and he felt that two nights +together would satisfy him whether he had found the right man. + +Dave hurried back to the coal-yard and completed the day's work in high +spirits. It seemed he was at last started on a road that might lead +somewhere. After supper he surprised his fellow labourers by changing +to his Sunday clothes and starting down a street leading into the +residential part of the town. There were speculations that he had +"seen a skirt." + +Mr. Duncan met him at the door and showed him into the living-room. +Mrs. Duncan, plump, motherly, lovable in the mature womanliness of +forty, greeted him cordially. She was sorry Edith was out; Edith had a +tennis engagement. She was apparently deeply interested in the young +man who was to be her coachman. Dave had never been in a home like +this, and his eyes, unaccustomed to comfortable furnishings, appraised +them as luxury. There were a piano and a phonograph; leather chairs; a +fireplace with polished bricks that shone with the glow of burning +coal; thick carpets, springy to the foot; painted pictures looking down +out of gilt frames. And Mr. Duncan had said he was not rich! And +there was more than that; there was an air, a spirit, an atmosphere +that Dave could feel although he could not define it; a sense that +everything was all right. He soon found himself talking with Mrs. +Duncan about horses, and then about his old life on the ranch, and then +about coming to town. Almost, before he knew it, he had told her about +Reenie Hardy, but he had checked himself in time. And Mrs. Duncan had +noticed it, without comment, and realized that her guest was not a boy, +but a man. + +Then Mr. Duncan talked about gardening, and from that to Dave's skill +in backing his team to the coal-chute, and from that to coal itself. +Dave had shovelled coal all winter, but he had not thought about coal, +except as something to be shovelled and shovelled. And as Mr. Duncan +explained to him the wonderful provisions of nature; how she had stored +away in the undiscovered lands billions of tons of coal, holding them +in reserve until the world's supply of timber for fuel should be +nearing exhaustion, and as he told of the immeasurable wealth of this +great new land in coal resources, and of how the wheels of the world, +traffic and industry, and science, even, were dependent upon coal and +the man who handled coal, Dave felt his breast rising with a sense of +the dignity of his calling. It was no longer dirty and grimy; it was +part of the world; it was essential to progress and happiness--more +essential than gold, or diamonds, or all the beautiful things in the +store windows. And he had had to do with this wonderful substance all +winter, and not until to-night had it fired the divine spark of his +imagination. The time ticked on, and although he was eager to be at +work he almost dreaded the moment when Mr. Duncan should mention his +lesson. But before that moment came there was a ripple of laughter at +the door, and a girl in tennis costume, and a young man a little older +than Dave, entered. + +"Edith," said Mrs. Duncan. Dave arose to shake hands, but then his +eyes fell full on her face. "Oh, I know you," he exclaimed. "I heard +you sing yesterday." + +Slowly he felt the colour coming to his cheeks. Had he been too +familiar? Should he have held that back? What would she think? But +then he felt her hand in his, and he knew it was all right. + +"And I know you," she was saying. "I saw you--" she stopped, and it +was her turn to feel the rising colour. + +"Yes, I know what you saw," he took up her thought. "You saw me get up +and go out of church because I wouldn't sit and listen to a man say +that God punished the innocent to let the guilty go free. And I +won't." There was a moment's silence following this outburst, and Mr. +Duncan made a new appraisal of his pupil. Then it was time to +introduce Mr. Allan Forsyth. Mr. Forsyth shook hands heartily, but +Dave was conscious of being caught in one quick glance which embraced +him from head to heel. And the glance was satisfied--self-satisfied. +It was such a glance as Dave might give a horse, when he would say, "A +good horse, but I can handle him." It was evident from that glance +that Forsyth had no fear of rivalry from that quarter. And having no +fear he could afford to be friendly. + +Dave had no distinct remembrance of what happened just after that, but +he was conscious of an overwhelming desire to hear Miss Duncan sing. +How like Reenie she was! And just as he was beginning to think Mr. +Duncan must surely have forgotten his lesson, he heard her asking him +if she should sing. And then he saw Forsyth at the piano--why couldn't +he leave her to do it herself, the butt-in?--and then he heard her +fine, silvery voice rising in the notes of that song about the land +where the sun should never go down. . . And suddenly he knew how +lonely, how terribly, terribly lonely he was. And he sat with head +bowed that they might not know. . . + +And then there were other songs, and at last Mrs. Duncan, who had +slipped away unnoticed, returned with a silver teapot, and cups of +delicate china, and sandwiches and cake, and they sat about and ate and +drank and talked and laughed. And Edith refilled his cup and sat down +beside him, leaving that Forsyth quite on the opposite side of the +room. And suddenly he was very, very happy. And when he looked at his +watch it was eleven o'clock! + +"I guess we didn't get any lesson to-night," he said, as he shook hands +with Mr. Duncan at the sidewalk. + +"I am not so sure," replied his tutor. "The first thing for you to +learn is that all learning does not come from books. A good listener +can learn as much as a good reader--if he listens to the right kind of +people." And as Dave walked home the thought deepened in him that it +really had been a lesson, and that Mr. Duncan had intended it that way. +And he wondered what remarkable fortune had been his. The air was full +of the perfume of balm-o'-gilead, and his feet were light with the joy +of youth. And he thought much of Edith, and of Reenie Hardy. + +In subsequent lessons Dave was rapidly initiated into many matters +besides parlour manners and conversation. Mr. Duncan placed the first +and greatest emphasis upon learning to write, and to write well. They +had many philosophic discussions, in which the elder man sought to lead +the younger to the acceptance of truths that would not fail him in the +strain of later life, and when a conclusion had been agreed upon, it +was Mr. Duncan's habit to embody it in a copy for Dave's writing +lesson. One evening they had a long talk on success, and Mr. Duncan +had gradually stripped the glamour from wealth and fame and social +position. "The only thing worth while," he said, "is to give +happiness. The man who contributes to the happiness of the world is a +success, and the man who does not contribute to the happiness of the +world is a failure, no matter what his wealth or position. Every man +who lives long enough, and has brains enough, comes to know this in +time. And those who have not brains enough to know it, are the +greatest failures of all, because they think they have attained +success, and they have only been buncoed with a counterfeit." + +"But a man who has money is in a position to give more happiness than +one who hasn't," objected Dave. "Think of all the things a man with a +million dollars can do to make people happy--like paying for libraries, +and giving excursions to poor children, and things like that. So, in +order to make people happy, wouldn't the first step be to make money, +so it could be spent in that way?" + +"That is a good thought," agreed Mr. Duncan, "but not a conclusive one. +In reckoning the happiness a man gives we must, of course, subtract the +unhappiness he occasions. He may make a great sum of money, and use +much of it in creating happiness, but if in the making of the money he +used methods that resulted in unhappiness, we must subtract the +unhappiness first before we can give him any credit for the happiness +he has created. And I am disposed to think that many a philanthropist, +if weighed in that balance, would be found to have a debit side bigger +than his credit. No matter how much wealth a man may amass, or how +wisely he may distribute it, we cannot credit him with success if he +has oppressed the hireling or dealt unfairly with his competitors or +the public. Such a man is not a success; he is a failure. In his own +soul he knows he is a failure, that is, provided he still has a soul, +and if not, as I said before, he is a greater failure still." + +Out of this discussion Mr. Duncan evolved the copy line, "The success +of a life is in direct proportion to its net contribution to human +happiness," and Dave sat writing it far into the night. + +As soon as Dave had learned to read a little Mr. Duncan took him one +day to the public library, and the young man groped in amazement up and +down the great rows of books. Presently a strange sense of +inadequateness came over him. "I can never read all of those books, +nor half of them," he said. "I suppose one must read them in order to +be well informed." + +Mr. Duncan appeared to change the subject. + +"You like fruit?" he asked. + +"Yes, of course. Why--" + +"When you go into a fruit store do you stand and say, 'I can never eat +all of that fruit; crates and crates of it, and carloads more in the +warehouse?' Of course you don't. You eat enough for the good of your +system, and let it go at that. Now, just apply the same sense to your +reading. Read enough to keep your mind fresh, and alert, and vigorous; +give it one new thought to wrestle with every day, and let the rest +go. . . Oh, I know that there is a certain school which holds that +unless you have read this author or that author, or this book or that +book, you are hopelessly uninformed or behind the times. That's +literary snobbery. Let them talk. A mind that consumes more than it +can assimilate is morally on a par with a stomach that swallows more +than it can digest. Gluttons, both of them. Read as much as you can +think about, and no more. The trouble with many of our people is that +they do not read to think, but to save themselves the trouble of +thinking. The mind, left to itself, insists upon activity. So they +chloroform it." + +Mr. Duncan also took occasion to speak with Dave about his religious +views. He did not forget Dave's explanation of why he went out of the +church. "I sympathize with your point of view a great deal," he said, +"but don't be too sweeping in your conclusions. The church is too +fussy over details; too anxious to fit the mind of man--which is his +link with the Infinite--into some narrow, soul-crushing creed; too +insistent upon the form of belief and not nearly insistent enough upon +conduct. It makes me think of a man who was trying to sell me an +automobile the other day. He was explaining all about the trimmings; +the cushions and the lights and the horn and all that sort of stuff, +and when he was through I said, 'Now tell me something about the motor. +I want to know about the thing that makes the wheels go round. If it's +no good I guess the trimmings are only fit for junk.' Well, that's the +way with the church. The motor that has kept it running for nineteen +centuries is the doctrine of love; love of man to man, love of man to +God, love of God to man. Nothing about wrath--that's only a +back-fire--but love. Without that motor all the trimmings are junk. +Each sect has its own trimmings, but they all profess to use the same +motor. . . Still, the motor is all right, even if it is neglected and +abused. I don't think you'll find a better, and you must have power of +some kind." + +"What about Socialism?" asked Dave. + +"Very good, insofar as it is constructive. But there is a destructive +brand of Socialism which seizes the fancy of disappointed and +disgruntled men and women, and bids them destroy. There is a basic +quality in all human nature which clamours for destruction. You see it +in the child pulling his toys to pieces, or in the mob wrecking +buildings. Destruction is easy and passionate, but construction +demands skill and patience." + +"I have been at some of their meetings," said Dave. "They lay great +stress on the war between Labour and Capital--" + +"Between husband and wife in the family of production," interrupted Mr. +Duncan. "Nothing is to be gained by that quarrel. I admit the husband +has been overbearing, offensive, brutal, perhaps; but the wife has been +slovenly, inefficient, shallow. Neither has yet been brought to +realize how hopeless is the case of one without the other. And I don't +think they will learn that by quarreling. What they need is not hard +words, but mutual respect and sympathy, and an honest conception of +what constitutes success. Doctrines and policies are helpful to the +extent to which they cause men to think, either directly, or by +creating environment conducive to thought; but they will never bring +the golden age of happiness. That can come only through the +destruction of selfishness, which can be destroyed only by the power of +love. That is why I emphasized the motor, in our talk about the +church. It is our only chance." + +Dave's talks with Mr. Duncan became almost nightly occurrences, either +at the Duncan home, or when he drove the family--for the master of the +house often accompanied them--or when they met down town, as frequently +happened. And the boy was not slow to realize the broad nature of the +task to which Mr. Duncan had set himself. His education was to be +built of every knowledge and experience that could go into the rounding +of a well-developed life. + +The climax seemed to be reached when Mr. Duncan invited Dave to +accompany him to a dinner at which a noted thinker, just crossing the +continent, had consented to speak. + +"It will be evening dress," said Mr. Duncan. "I suppose you are hardly +fitted out that way?" + +"I guess not," said Dave, smiling broadly. He recalled the half +humorous sarcasm with which the Metford gang referred to any who might +be seen abroad in their "Hereford fronts." He had a sudden vision of +himself running the gauntlet of the ridicule. + +But Mr. Duncan was continuing. "I think I can fix you up," he said. +"We must be pretty nearly of a size, and I have a spare suit." And +almost before he knew it it was arranged that Dave should attend the +dinner. + +It was an eventful night for him. His shyness soon wore off, for +during these months he had been learning to accept any new experience +gladly. "Life is made up of experience," his teacher had said, +"therefore welcome every opportunity to broaden your life by travelling +in new tracks. There are just two restrictions--the injurious and the +immoral. You must grow by experience, but be sure you grow the right +way. Only a fool must personally seize the red iron to see if it will +burn. . . But most of us are fools." And as he sat among this company +of the best minds of the town he felt that a new and very real world +was opening before him. His good clothes seemed to work up in some way +through his sub-consciousness and give him a sense of capability. He +was in the mental atmosphere of men who did things, and by conforming +to their customs he had brought his mind into harmony with theirs, so +that it could receive suggestions, and--who knows?--return suggestions. +And he was made to think, think, think. + +As he walked home with Mr. Duncan under the stars he spoke of the +subtle sense of well-being and ability which came with good clothes. +"I don't mind confessing I have always had something like contempt for +stylish dressing," he said. "Now I almost feel that there's something +to it." + +"There is some good quality in everything that survives," said Mr. +Duncan. "Otherwise it would not survive. That doesn't mean, of +course, that the good qualities outweigh the bad, but the good must be +there. Take the use of liquor, for instance; perhaps the greatest +source of misery we have. Yet it touches a quality in man's life: +sociability, conviviality, if you like; but a quality that has virtue +in it none the less. And the errors of sex are so often linked with +love that one can scarcely say where virtue ceases and where vice +begins. I know convention placards them plainly enough, but convention +does not make virtue vice, nor vice virtue. There are deeper laws down +beneath, and sometimes they may set at defiance all accepted codes. + +"Yet I would not quarrel with the accepted codes--until I knew I had +something better. Accepted codes represent man's net progress through +experience to truth. The code, for instance, 'Thou shalt not kill;' we +accept it in general, but not completely. The State does not hesitate +to kill in self-defence, or even to carry out purposes which have no +relation to defence. And shall we not allow similar exceptions to the +other codes? And yet, although we may find our codes are not +infallible, are they not still the best guides we have? + +"To return to clothes. Clothes won't make you, but they will help you +to make yourself. Only, don't become a clothes-tippler. You can run +to intoxication on fine raiment as well as on fine wines. It has +virtue in it, but just beyond the virtue lies the vice." + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + +The summer was not far gone when Dave, through an introduction +furnished by Mr. Duncan, got a new job. It was in the warehouse of a +wholesale grocery, trundling cases and sacks of merchandise. It was +cleaner than handling coal, and the surroundings were more congenial, +and the wages were better--fifty dollars a month, to begin. + +"The first thing is to get out of the dead-line," said Mr. Duncan. "I +am not hoping that you will have found destiny in a wholesale +warehouse, but you must get out of the dead-line. As long as you +shovel coal, you will shovel coal. And you are not capable of anything +better until you think you are." + +"But I've liked it pretty well," said Dave. "As long as I was just +working for my wages it was dull going, but it was different after I +got to see that even shovelling coal was worth while. I suppose it is +the same with groceries, or whatever one does. As soon as you begin to +study what you handle the work loses its drudgery. It isn't a man's +job that makes him sick of his job; it's what he thinks of his job." + +A light of satisfaction was in his teacher's eyes as Dave made this +answer. Mr. Duncan had realized that he was starting late with this +pupil, and if there were any short-cuts to education he must find them. +So he had set out deliberately to instil the idea that education is not +a matter of schools and colleges, or courses of reading, or formulae of +any kind, but a matter of the five senses applied to every experience +of life. And he knew that nothing was coarse or common that passed +through Dave's hands. Coal had ceased to be a smutty mineral, and had +taken on talismanic qualities unguessed by the mere animal workman; and +sugar, and coffee, and beans, and rice, and spices, each would open its +own wonderful world before this young and fertile mind. As an heritage +from his boyhood on the ranges Dave had astonishingly alert senses; his +sight, his hearing, his sense of smell and of touch were vastly more +acute than those of the average university graduate. . . And if that +were true might it not fairly be said that Dave was already the better +educated of the two, even if he, as yet, knew nothing of the classics? + +As Dave parted from the Metford gang he felt that he knew what Mr. +Duncan had meant by the dead-line. These were men who would always +shovel coal, because they aspired to nothing better. There was no atom +of snobbery in Dave's nature; he knew perfectly well that shovelling +coal was quite as honourable and respectable a means of livelihood as +managing a bank, but the man who was content to shovel coal was on the +dead-line. . . And, by the same logic, the man who was content to +manage a bank was on the dead-line. That was a new and somewhat +startling aspect of life. He must discuss it with Mr. Duncan. + +Dave's energy and enthusiasm in the warehouse soon brought him +promotion from truck hand to shipping clerk, with an advance in wages +to sixty-five dollars a month. He was prepared to remain in this +position for some time, as he knew that promotion depends on many +things besides ability. Mr. Duncan had warned him against the delusion +that man is entirely master of his destiny. "Life, my boy," he had +said, "is fifty per cent. environment and forty per cent. heredity. +The other ten per cent. is yours. But that ten per cent. is like the +steering gear in an automobile; it's only a small part of the +mechanism, but it directs the course of the whole machine. Get a good +grip on the part of your life you can control, and don't worry over the +rest." + +To economize both time and money Dave took his lunch with him and ate +it in the warehouse. He had also become possessed of a pocket +encyclopaedia and it was his habit to employ the minutes saved by +eating lunch in the warehouse in reading from his encyclopaedia. It +chanced one day that as he was reading in the noon hour Mr. Trapper, +the head of the firm, came through the warehouse. Dave knew him but +little; he thought of him as a stern, unapproachable man, and avoided +him as much as possible. But this time Mr. Trapper was upon him before +he was seen. + +"What are you reading?" he demanded. "Yellow backed nonsense?" + +"No, sir," said Dave, rising and extending his arm with the book. + +"Why, what's this?" queried Mr. Trapper, in some surprise. +"Tea--tea--oh, I see, it's an encyclopaedia. What is the idea, young +man?" + +"I always like to read up about the stuff we are handling," said Dave. +"It's interesting to know all about it; where it comes from, how it is +grown, what it is used for; the different qualities, and so forth." + +"H'm," said Mr. Trapper, returning the book. "No doubt." And he +walked on without further comment. But that afternoon he had something +to say to his manager. + +"That young fellow on the shipping desk--Elden, I think his name is. +How do you find him?" + +"Very satisfactory, sir. Punctual, dependable, and accurate." + +"Watch him," said Mr. Trapper. + +The manager swung around in his chair. "Why, what do you mean? You +haven't occasion to suspect--?" + +Mr. Trapper's customary sternness slowly relaxed, until there was the +suggestion of a smile about the corners of his mouth, and rather more +than a suggestion in the twinkle in his eye. + +"Do you know what I caught that young fellow doing during noon hour?" +he asked. "Reading up the encyclopaedia on tea. Tea, mind you. Said +he made a practice of reading up on the stuff we are handling. _We_, +mind you. Found it very interesting to know where it came from, and +all about it. I've been in the grocery business for pretty close to +forty years, and I've seen many an employee spend his noon hour in the +pool rooms, or in some other little back room, or just smoking, but +this is the first one I ever caught reading up the business in an +encyclopaedia. Never read it that way myself. Well--you watch him. +I'd risk a ten-spot that he knows more about tea this minute than half +of our travellers." + +But Dave was not to continue in the grocery trade, despite his reading +of the encyclopaedia, A few evenings later he was engaged in reading in +the public library; not an encyclopaedia, but Shakespeare. The +encyclopaedia was for such time as he could save from business hours, +but for his evening reading Mr. Duncan had directed him into the realm +of fiction and poetry, and he was now feeling his way through Hamlet. +From the loneliness of his boyhood he had developed the habit of +talking aloud to himself, and in abstracted moments he read in an +audible whisper which impressed the substance more deeply on his mind, +but made him unpopular in the public reading rooms. It was well known +among the patrons of the rooms that he read Hamlet. This fact, +however, may not have been altogether to Dave's disadvantage. On the +evening in question an elderly man engaged him in conversation. + +"You are a Shakespearean student, I see?" + +"Not exactly. I read a little in the evenings. But I haven't gone far +enough to call myself a student." + +"I have seen you here different times. Are you well acquainted with +the town?" + +"Pretty well," said Dave, scenting that there might be a purpose in the +questioning. + +"Working now?" + +Dave told him where he was employed. + +"I am the editor of _The Call_," said the elderly man. "We need +another man on the street; a reporter, you know. We pay twenty-five +dollars a week for such a position. If you are interested you might +call at the office tomorrow." + +Dave hurried with his problem to Mr. Duncan. "I think I'd like the +work," he said, "but I am not sure whether I can do it. My writing is +rather--wonderful." + +Mr. Duncan turned the matter over in his mind. "Yes," he said at +length, "but I notice you are beginning to use the typewriter. When +you learn that God gave you ten fingers, not two, you may make a +typist. And there is nothing more worth while than being able to +express yourself in English. They'll teach you that on a newspaper. I +think I'd take it. + +"Not on account of the money," he continued, after a little. "You +would probably soon be earning more in the wholesale business. +Newspaper men are about the worst paid of all professions. But it's +the best training in the world, not for itself, but as a step to +something else. I have often wondered why editors, who are forever +setting every other phase of the world's work to rights, are content to +train up so many thousands of bright young men--and then pass them +along into other businesses where they are better paid. But the +training is worth while, and it's the training you want. Take it." + +Dave explained his disadvantages to the editor of _The Call_. "I +didn't want you to think," he said with great frankness, "that because +I was reading Shakespeare I was a master of English. And I guess if I +were to write up stuff in Hamlet's language I'd get canned for it." + +"We'd probably have a deputation from the Moral Reform League," said +the editor, with a dry smile. "Just the same, if you know Shakespeare +you know English, and we'll soon break you into the newspaper style." + +So, almost before he knew it, Dave was on the staff of _The Call_. His +beat comprised the police court, fire department, hotels, and general +pick-ups. And the very first day, as though to afford fuel for his +genius, a small fire occurred in a clothing store. + +"'S good for two sticks--about four inches," said the editor, when Dave +had given him the main facts. "Write your story to fit." + +Dave suddenly realized that, although he had been a persistent reader +of newspapers during the recent months, he had scarcely the remotest +idea of how many words went to a column, or to an inch. It was a piece +of information needed at once, so he set about to count the words in a +column. Then he wrote his story to fit. He had already learned that +everything in a newspaper office, from a wedding to a ball game, is "a +story." When he turned his in it looked like this: + + +The fire bell was heard ringing this morning about ten o'clock, and +soon after crowds were seen wending their way to the Great West +Clothing Store. There was a heavy black smoke coming from the back end +of the store. The firemen were late in getting there, and before they +arrived a man had got badly choked by trying to go into the store. +Presently the engine came up and before long water was being applied in +great quantities, and soon the fire was under control. Part of the +roof fell in, and the building is pretty badly ruined. Some of the +contents may be fit for sale. It seems too bad that the fire engine +should have been so long in coming, as without doubt if it had got +there promptly the fire could have been put out before much damage +occurred. However, it might have been worse, as it was a frame +building, in a row of other frame buildings, and if the fire had once +got beyond control much damage might have been done. Nobody seems to +know how the fire started. + + +It was with much quiet excitement that he awaited the appearance of the +evening edition. He had a strange eagerness to see his contribution in +print; a manifestation, no doubt, of that peculiar trait in human +nature which fills the editorial waste basket with unaccepted +contributions. At last he found it, but it read like this: + + +Fire this morning gutted the Great West Clothing Store with a loss of +$8,000.00 of which $4,000.00 is covered by insurance in the Occidental. +Frank Beecher, proprietor of the store, was overcome by smoke, and is +in the city hospital. + +Smoke was first seen issuing from the back of the store by Fred Grant, +a delivery man for the Imperial Laundry, who turned in an alarm at +10.08. Owing to the fire team colliding with a dray owned by Sheppard +& Co. some minutes of delay occurred. During this period the building, +which was of frame, burned fiercely. It was almost completely +destroyed, although some of the stock may be salable. + +Beecher rushed into the back room for certain papers, where he was +found by Fireman Carey in an unconscious condition. He is recovering, +and is already planning to rebuild. + + +Dave read the account with a sinking heart. By the time he reached the +end it seemed his heart could sink no further. He found that the +editor had not left the office, so he approached him with as much +spirit as he could command. + +"I guess you won't need me any more," he said. "I'm sorry I made a +mess of that fire story." + +There was a kind twinkle in the chief's eye as he answered, "Nonsense. +Of course we need you. You have merely made the mistake every one else +makes, in supposing you could write for a newspaper without training. +We will give you the training--and pay you while you learn. The only +man we can't use is the man who won't learn. Now let me give you a few +pointers," and the editor got up from his desk and held the paper with +the fire story before him. "In the first place, don't start a story +with 'the,' at least, not more than once or twice a week. In the +second place, get the meat into the first paragraph. Seventy-five per +cent. of the readers never go further than the first paragraph; give +them the raw facts there; if they want the trimmings they will go down +for them. That is where a magazine story is exactly opposite to a +newspaper story; a newspaper story shows its hand in the first +paragraph, a magazine story in the last. + +"Then, get the facts. Nobody cares whether the fire bell rang or not, +but they do care about the man who was suffocated; who he was, what he +was doing there, what became of him. Revel in names. Get the names of +everybody, and get them right. The closest tight-wad in the town will +buy a paper if it has his name in it. Every story, no matter how +short, is good for a number of names. In your copy as you turned it +in"--the editor picked it up from his desk; he had evidently saved it +for such an occasion as this--"the only name you had was that of the +clothing store. I had one of the other boys get to work on the +telephone, and you see he got the name of the proprietor; of the +insurance company, with the amount of the insurance; of the man who +turned in the alarm; of the owner of the dray team that obstructed the +engine, and of the firemen who carried Beecher to safety. Every one of +these people, with their families, their cousins, and their aunts, +become especially interested in the story the moment their names are +introduced. + +"Next, remember that it is not the business of a reporter to pass +editorial comment. It may have been too bad that the fire engine was +delayed, but that is a matter for the editor to decide. The business +of the reporter is to find out why it was delayed, and state the facts, +without regrets or opinions. You must learn to hold the mirror up to +nature without making faces in it. You know what I mean--keep your own +reflection out of the picture. If you think the incident calls for an +expression of opinion by the paper, write an editorial and submit it to +me. But remember that the editorial and news columns of a paper should +be as distinct as the two sides of a fence." + +"Thank you very much," said Dave, slowly, when it was plain the editor +had finished. "I think I begin to see. But there's one thing I don't +understand. Why did you not mention the origin of the fire?" + +A flicker of amusement--or was it confession?--ran across the chief's +face as he answered, "Because we don't know what started it--and +Beecher is one of our best advertisers. To say the origin of the fire +is unknown always leaves a smack of suspicion. It is like the almost +imperceptible shrug of the shoulder at the mention of a woman's name. +You can't get away from it. And it is the advertiser who keeps the +paper alive. . . I know it's not idealism, but idealism doesn't pay +wages and paper bills, and as long as readers demand papers for less +than it costs to print them they will have to take second place to the +advertiser." + +"Then all reports are to be coloured to suit the advertiser?" demanded +Dave. + +"No. Where a principle is involved--and we have principles, even in +these degenerate days--we stand by the principle, even if we lose the +patronage. Our notions of what is for the public good have cost us a +lot of money at times. You see, the exploiter is always ready to pay +his servants, which is more than can be said of the public. But where +no real principle is involved we try to be friendly to our friends." + +With these fresh viewpoints on his profession Dave entered upon his +work the following day chastened but determined. Almost immediately he +found the need of acquaintanceships. The isolation of his boyhood had +bred in him qualities of aloofness which had now to be overcome. He +was not naturally a good "mixer;" he preferred his own company, but his +own company would not bring him much news. So he set about +deliberately to cultivate acquaintance with the members of the police +force and the fire brigade, and the clerks in the hotels. And he had +in his character a quality of sincerity which gave him almost instant +admission into their friendships. He had not suspected the charm of +his own personality, and its discovery, feeding upon his new-born +enthusiasm for friendships, still further enriched the charm. + +As his acquaintance with the work of the police force increased Dave +found his attitude toward moral principles in need of frequent +re-adjustment. By no means a Puritan, he had, nevertheless, two +sterling qualities which so far had saved him from any very serious +misstep. He practised absolute honesty in all his relationships. His +father, drunken although he was in his later years, had never quite +lost his sense of commercial uprightness, and Dave had inherited the +quality in full degree. And Reenie Hardy had come into his life just +when he needed a girl like Reenie Hardy to come into his life . . . He +often thought of Reenie Hardy, and of her compact with him, and +wondered what the end would be. And meanwhile he found the need of +frequent readjustments. He became aware of the fact that in every +community there are two communities; one on the surface, respectable, +discreet, conventional; and one beneath the surface, to which these +terms would not apply. He found that the province of the police was +not to enforce morality, but to prevent immorality becoming obnoxious. +Anything, almost, might go on so long as its effects were confined to +the voluntary participants. Underneath the sham of good behaviour was +a world, known to the police and the newspaper men and a few others, +which refused to accept standard conventions and lived according to its +own impulse. And this world included so-called best citizens, of both +sexes. And they _were_ good citizens. It seemed the community had two +natures; a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on a community basis. +Splendid qualities; large heartedness, generosity, were mingled and +streaked through degrees of selfishness and lust running down into +positive crime. . . And the wonder was not what the papers printed, +but what they left untold. . . And he was glad he had met Reenie +Hardy. She was an anchor about his soul. . . And Edith Duncan. + +One morning, as he sat with Carson of _The Times_ at the reporters' +table in the police court, listening absently to the clerk calling a +list of names, his companion, with a grimace, intimated that there was +something beneath the surface. "Pure fiction," he whispered, as the +list was completed. "It would do you good to know who they are. +Shining lights, every one of them. And when they are lit up they can't +be kept under a bushel. The police just had to do something. They +won't be here--not one of them. Their lawyer will plead guilty, and +pay the fines, and every one will be sorry--they were caught. Even his +nibs on the bench isn't twice as happy. It was by good luck he wasn't +with the bunch himself." + +It turned out as Carson predicted. One of the leading lawyers of the +city addressed the Court, expressing the regret of his clients that +their behaviour had necessitated interference by the police. He was +full of suave assurances that no disrespect to the law, nor annoyance +to any member of the community, was intended, and he pleaded feelingly +for as great leniency as the court might consider consistent with the +offence. The minimum fine was imposed, and the lawyer withdrew, +bearing with him the double happiness of having earned a good fee and +having saved a number of his personal friends from a public exposure +which would have been, at least, embarrassing. As the lawyer passed +the reporters' table Dave felt something pressed into his hand, and +heard the whispered words, "Split it." + +In his hand was a ten dollar bill. "What's the idea?" said Dave to +Carson, when the session was over. + +"The idea is that I get five," said Carson, "and both of us forget it. +Cheap skate, he might have made it twenty. Of course the names were +bogus, but they couldn't risk mention, even with that precaution. Easy +picking, isn't it?" + +"It doesn't look quite right," Dave faltered. "I'm here to get the +news--" + +"Oh, can that. You know we don't publish all the news. Why, man, we'd +wreck society, or the ship of state, or whatever it is we are all +floating on, if we did that. We'd have every lawyer in this burg busy +in a week, and they're making too much money already. What the world +doesn't know the world doesn't grieve over. And the joke of it is, +everybody thinks he's putting it over somebody else, and while he's +busy thinking that somebody else is putting it over him. So they're +about even in the finish. Besides, if you talk about principle, +doesn't the Bible say to do unto others as you would that they should +do unto you? How would you feel in their position? + +"I tell you," said Carson, warming up to his subject, "this is an +intricate game, this life business. Pretty seedy in spots, but, after +all, most people are merely victims of circumstances. And if +circumstances place a five-spot in your hand to-day, accept what the +gods bring you. To-morrow they will take it away. + +"See this suit," he continued, indicating his attire, which greatly +out-classed Dave's. "A friend gave me that. I get all my suits that +way. When a scrap occurs in a bar-room; a booze riot, or knifing, or +something goes wrong upstairs, I just mention that it took place in 'a +down town hotel.' Then I order myself a suit, or something of that +kind, and have the tailor send his bill to the proprietor of the joint. +He pays. If he doesn't, next time I name his tavern right in the +story." + +"Don't you call that graft?" asked Dave. + +"Graft? Nonsense! Merely an exchange of courtesies. . . There are +others, too. You'll get wise to them in time." + +But Dave was by no means satisfied with Carson's philosophy. He went +to his editor with the five dollar bill and the police court incident. +"What shall I do about it?" he demanded. + +He fancied there was a note of impatience in the editor's reply. "Give +the money to the Salvation Army," he said, "and forget about the rest. +Isn't it Kipling who says 'There comes a night when the best gets +tight,' and so on? We could tell the story, but what good would it do? +And let me tell you, Elden, there are mighty few, men or women, who +have gone half way through life without something they'd like to +forget. Why not let them forget it? You're young yet, and perhaps you +don't see it that way, but you'll be older. There's a verse by +somebody runs like this: + + "Don't take the defensive by saying + "I told only just what was true," + For there's more at that game might be playing + If the truth were all told about you." + + +"That may be bad poetry, but it's good journalistic ethics." + +But after Dave had gone the editor called his business manager. "I +guess we'll have to raise Elden to thirty dollars a week," said he. +"He's so honest he embarrasses me, and I guess I need that kind of +embarrassment, or I wouldn't be embarrassed." + + + + +CHAPTER NINE + +While the gradually deepening current of Dave's life flowed through the +channels of coal heaver, freight hustler, shipping clerk, and reporter, +its waters were sweetened by the intimate relationship which developed +between him and the members of the Duncan household. He continued his +studies under Mr. Duncan's directions; two, three, or even four nights +in the week found him at work in the comfortable den, or, during the +warm weather, on the screened porch that overlooked the family garden. +His duties as reporter frequently called for attendance at public +meetings devoted to all conceivable purposes, and he was at first +disposed to feel unkindly toward these interruptions in his regular +studies. He raised the point with Mr. Duncan. + +"One thing I have been trying to drill into you," said his tutor, "is +that education is not a thing of books or studies or formulae of any +kind. It is the whole world; particularly the world of thought, +feeling, and expression. It is not a flower in the garden of life; it +is the garden itself, with its flowers, and its perfumes, and its +sunshine and rain. Yes, and its weeds, and droughts, and insects and +worms. There is a phase of education in the public meeting, whether +its purpose be to discuss the municipal tax rate or the flora of the +Rockies. You can't afford to miss any subject; but still less can you +afford to miss the audiences that are interested in any subject. They +are deeper than any book. There are all kinds of audiences. There is +the violent audience, and the mysterious audience, and the sentimental +audience, and the destructive audience, and the whimsical audience, and +the hysterical audience,--and every other kind. And the funny thing is +that they are all made up of much the same people. Take a sentimental +audience, for instance; a few passes, and you have an hysterical +audience. It is a difference of moods. We don't think enough about +moods. We are all subject to moods, and yet we judge a new +acquaintance by the mood he happens to be in--and the mood we happen to +be in--at the time of making the acquaintanceship. Another day, in +other moods, he would make a quite different impression--if the +impression already made could be effaced. I have a theory that the +world's sorrow is largely a matter of moods. I don't deny the sorrow, +nor the need for sorrow, nor the reality of it, but I do believe there +is a mood of happiness which even the deepest sorrows cannot suppress. +And the more you study people the more you will understand moods, and, +perhaps, be master of your own. And the man who can, by force of his +own will, determine the mood in which he will live, is master of the +world." + +So Dave came to realize that every incident in the reportorial round +was to be assimilated for its educational value, and this lent a zest +to his work which it could not otherwise have had. But the attraction +of the Duncan household grew upon him, and many an hour he spent under +its hospitable roof. Mrs. Duncan, motherly, and yet not too +motherly--she might almost have been an older sister--appealed to the +young man as an ideal of womanhood. Her soft, well modulated voice +seemed to him to express the perfect harmony of the perfect home, and +underneath its even tones he caught glimpses of a reserve of power and +judgment not easily unbalanced. She was a woman to whom men might +carry their ambitions, and women their hopes, and little children their +wonderings, and all be assured of sympathetic audience and wise +counsel. And as Dave's eyes would follow her healthy, handsome figure +as it moved noiselessly about in her domestic duties, or as he caught +the flush of beauty that still bloomed in her thoughtful face, or as at +rarer intervals he plunged into the honest depths of her frank grey +eyes, the tragedy of his own orphaned life bore down upon him and he +rebelled that he had been denied the start which such a mother could +have given him. + +"I am twenty years behind myself," he would reflect, with a grim smile. +"Never mind. I will do three men's work for the next ten, and then we +will be even." + +And there was Edith,--Edith, who had held him rapture-bound on that +first Sunday in church--Edith, who had burst so unexpectedly upon his +life that first evening in her father's home. He had not allowed +himself any foolishness about Edith. It was evident that Edith was +pre-empted, just as he was pre-empted, and the part of honour in his +friend's house was to recognize the _status quo_. . . Still, Mr. Allan +Forsyth was unnecessarily self-assured. He might have made it less +evident that he was within the enchanted circle, while Dave remained +outside. His complacence irritated Dave almost into rivalry. But the +boon camaraderie of Edith herself checked any adventure of that kind. +She checked it in two ways; by her own frank acceptance of him much as +she would have accepted a brother in the household, and by her uncanny +and unconscious knack of reminding him in almost every word and gesture +of Reenie Hardy. She was of about the same figure as Reenie Hardy; a +little slighter, perhaps; and about the same age; and she had the same +quick, frank eyes. And she sang wonderfully. He had never heard +Reenie sing, but in some strange way he had formed a deep conviction +that she would sing much as Edith sang. He was not yet psychologist +enough to know that his admiration for Edith was the reflex action to +his love for the girl who had so wonderfully invaded his foothill life +and so wonderfully changed the current of his destinies. In love, as +in religion, man is forever setting up idols to represent his +ideals. . . And forever finding feet of clay. + +Dave was not long in discovering that his engagement as coachman was a +device, born of Mr. Duncan's kindness, to enable him to accept +instruction without feeling under obligation for it. When he made this +discovery, he smiled quietly to himself, and pretended not to have made +it. Two things were apparent after their first drive; that nothing was +further from the minds of Mr. Duncan's bays than anything which called +for so much exertion as a runaway, and that, even had they been so +disposed, Edith was entirely competent to manage them. The girl had +not lived in the foothill town since childhood without becoming +something of a horse-woman. But Dave pretended not to know that he was +a supernumerary. To have acted otherwise would have seemed ungrateful +to Mr. Duncan. And presently the drives began to have a strange +attraction of themselves. + +When they drove in the two-seated buggy on Sunday afternoons the party +usually comprised Mrs. Duncan and Edith, young Forsyth and Dave. Mr. +Duncan was interested in certain Sunday afternoon meetings. It was +Mrs. Duncan's custom to sit in the rear seat, for its better riding +qualities, and it had a knack of falling about that Edith would ride in +the front seat with the driver. She caused Forsyth to ride with her +mother, ostensibly as a courtesy to that young gentleman,--a courtesy +which, it may be conjectured, was not fully appreciated. At first he +accepted it with the good nature of one who feels his position secure, +but gradually that good nature gave way to a certain testiness of +spirit which he could not entirely conceal. It became evident that he +would have preferred other ways of spending the Sunday afternoons. The +parks, for instance, or quiet walks through the cottonwoods by the +river. . . + +The crisis was precipitated one fine Sunday in September, in the first +year of Dave's newspaper experience. Dave called early, and found +Edith in a riding habit. + +"Mother is 'indisposed,' as they say in the society page," she +explained. "In other words, she doesn't wish to be bothered. So I +thought we would ride to-day." + +"But there are only two horses," said Dave. + +"Well?" queried the girl, and there was a note in her voice that +sounded strange to him. Then, after a pause in which the colour slowly +rose to her cheeks, "There are only two of us." + +"But Mr. Forsyth?" + +"He is not here. He may not come. Will you saddle the horses and let +us get away?" + +It was evident to Dave that, for some reason, Edith wished to evade +Forsyth this afternoon. A lover's quarrel, no doubt. That she had a +preference for him, and was revealing it with the utmost frankness, +never occurred to his sturdy, honest mind. One of the delights of his +companionship with Edith had been that it was a real companionship. +None of the limitations occasioned by any sex consciousness had +narrowed the sphere of the frank friendship he felt for her. She was +to him almost as another man, yet in no sense masculine. It seemed +rather that her femininity was of such purity that, like the atmosphere +he breathed, it surrounded him, flooded him without exciting +consciousness of its existence. Save for a certain tender delicacy +which her womanhood inspired, he came and went with her as he might +have done with a man chum of his own age. And when she preferred to +ride _without_ Forsyth it did not occur to Elden that she preferred to +ride _with_ him. + +They were soon in the country, and Edith, leading, swung from the road +to a bridle trail that followed the winding of the river. As her +graceful figure drifted on ahead it seemed more than ever reminiscent +of Reenie Hardy. What rides they had had on those foothill trails! +What dippings into the great canyons! What adventures into the spruce +forests! And how long ago it all seemed. That was before he started +on the paper; before he had been in the grocery business, or in the +coal business; back in the long, long past on the ranch in the days +before his father died. Life--how it goes! And had it brought to her +as many changes as to him? And had it, perhaps, brought to her one +change it had not brought to him--a change in the anchor about which +her heart's affection clung? This girl, riding ahead, suggestive in +every curve and pose of Reenie Hardy. . . His eyes were burning with +loneliness. + +He knew he was dull that day, and Edith was particularly charming and +vivacious. She coaxed him into conversation a dozen times, but he +answered absent-mindedly. At length she leapt from her horse and +seated herself, facing the river, on a fallen log. Without looking +back she indicated with her hand the space beside her, and Dave +followed and sat down. For a time they watched the swift water in +silence; blue-green where the current ran deeply; tinged with brown +glow in the shallows from the gravel underneath. + +"You aren't talking to-day," she said at length. "You don't quite do +yourself justice. What's wrong?" + +[Illustration: "You aren't talking to-day . . . what's wrong?"] + +"Oh, nothing," he answered with a laugh, pulling himself together. +"This September weather always gets me. I guess I have a streak of +Indian; it comes of being brought up on the ranges. And in September, +after the first frosts have touched the foliage--" He paused, as +though it was not necessary to say more. + +"Yes, I know," she said quietly. Then, with a queer little note of +confidence, "Don't apologize for it, Dave." + +"Apologize?" and his form straightened. "Certainly not. . . One +doesn't apologize for nature, does he? . . . But it comes back in +September." He smiled, and she thought the subconscious in him was +calling up the smell of fire in dry grass, or perhaps even the rumble +of buffalo over the hills. And he knew he smiled because he had so +completely misled her. + +Presently she took out a pocket volume. "Will you read?" she said. +Strangely enough he opened it at the lines: + + "Oh, you will never hide your soul from me; + I've seen the jewels flash, and know 'tis there + Muffle it as you will." + + +. . . It was dusk when they started homeward. + +Forsyth was waiting for her. Dave scented stormy weather and excused +himself early. + +"What does this mean?" demanded Forsyth, angrily, as soon as Dave had +gone. "Do you think I'll take second place to that--that coal heaver?" + +She straightened, and her bright eyes were charged with a blaze which +would have astonished Dave, who had known her only in her milder moods. +But she tried to speak without passion. + +"That is not to his discredit," she said. + +"Straight from the corrals into good society," Forsyth sneered. + +Then she made no pretense of composure. "If you have nothing more to +urge against Mr. Elden, perhaps you will go." + +Forsyth took his hat. At the door he paused and turned, but she was +already ostensibly interested in a magazine. He went out into the +night. + +The week was a busy one with Dave, and he had no opportunity to visit +the Duncans. Friday Edith called him on the telephone. She asked an +inconsequential question about something which had appeared in the +paper, and from that the talk drifted on until it turned on the point +of their expedition of the previous Sunday. Dave never could account +quite clearly how it happened, but when he hung up the receiver he knew +he had asked her to ride with him again on Sunday, and she had +accepted. He had ridden with her before, of course, but he had never +_asked_ her before. He had been a sort of honoured employee, whose +business it was to comply with her wishes. But this time she would +ride at his request. He felt that a subtle change had come over their +relationship. + +He was at the Duncan house earlier than usual Sunday afternoon, but not +too early for Edith. She was dressed for the occasion; she seemed more +fetching than he had ever seen her. There was the blush of health--or +was it altogether the blush of health?--on her cheeks, and a light in +her eyes such as he had seen more than once on those last rides with +Reenie Hardy. And across her saddle she threw a brown sweater. + +She led the way over the path followed the Sunday before until again +they sat by the rushing water. Dave had again been filled with a sense +of Reenie Hardy, and his conversation was disjointed and uninteresting. +She tried unsuccessfully to draw him out with questions about himself; +then took the more astute tack of speaking of her own past life. It +had begun in an eastern city, ever so many years ago. + +Chivalry could not allow that to pass. "Oh, not so very many," said +Dave. + +"How many?" she teased. "Guess." + +He looked judicially on her bright face; it was a good face to look +upon. Perhaps his eyes said as much. + +"Nineteen," he hazarded. + +"Oh, more than that." + +"Twenty-one?" + +"Oh, less than that." And their first confidence was established. + +"Twenty," thought Dave to himself. "Reenie must be about twenty now." + +"And I was five when--when Jack died," she went on. "Jack was my +brother, you know. He was seven, and a great boy for his daddy. Most +boys run to their mother with their hurts, but Jack was different. +When father was at the office Jack would save up his little hurts until +evening. . . Well, we were playing, and I stood on the car tracks, +signalling the motorman, to make him ring his bell. On came the car, +with the bell clanging, and the man in blue looking very cross. Jack +must have thought I was waiting too long, for he suddenly rushed on the +track to pull me off." She stopped, and sat looking at the rushing +water. + +"I heard him cry, 'Oh Daddy, Daddy,' above the screech of the brakes," +she continued, in a dry voice. + +"Sorrow is a strange thing," she went on, after a pause. "I don't +pretend to understand, but it seems to have its place in life. I fancy +this would soon be a pretty degenerate world if there were no sorrow in +it. I have been told that sometimes fruit trees refuse to bear until +they have met with adversity. Then the gardener bores a hole in them, +or something like that, and, behold, next season they bear. Sounds +silly, but they say it's a fact. I guess it's natural law. Well--" +She paused again, and when she spoke it was in a lower, more +confidential note. + +"I shouldn't tell you this, Dave. I shouldn't know it myself. But +before that things hadn't been, well, just as good as they might in our +home. . . They've been different since." + +The shock of her words brought him upright. To him it seemed that Mr. +and Mrs. Duncan were the ideal father and mother. It was impossible to +associate them with a home where things "hadn't been just as good as +they might." But her half confession left no room for remark. + +"Mother told me," she went on, after a long silence, and without +looking at him. "A few years ago, 'If some one had only told me, when +I was your age,' she said." + +"Why do you tell me this?" he suddenly demanded. + +"Did you ever feel that you just had to tell _someone_?" + +It was his turn to pause. "Yes," he confessed, at length. + +"Then tell me." + +So he led her down through the tragedy of his youth and the lonely +rudderless course of his boyhood. She followed sympathetically to the +day when Dr. Hardy and his daughter Irene became guests at the Elden +ranch. And then her interest manifested something deeper than +sympathy. But he had become engrossed in his narrative. . . The +September day had drawn to a close, and the dusk was thick about them, +ere he reached the end. But before the end he stopped. Should he tell +her all? Why not? She had opened her life to him. So he told her of +that last evening with Irene, and the compact under the trees and the +moon. Her hand had fallen into his as they talked, but here he felt it +slowly withdrawn. But he was fired with the flame of love which had +sprung up in the breath of his reminiscence. . . And Edith was his +friend and his chum. + +"And you have been true?" she said, but her voice was distant and +strained. + +"Yes." + +"And you are waiting for her?" + +"Yes, I am waiting. . . It must be so." . . . + +"It is cold," she said. "Let us go home." + + + + +CHAPTER TEN + +Whatever the effect of this conversation had been upon Edith she +concealed it carefully, and Dave counted it one of the fortunate events +of his life. It had sealed to him a new friendship, a confidence to +support him in days of stress. He had been working under the spur of +his passion for Irene, but now this was to be supplemented by the +friendship of Edith. That it was more than friendship on her part did +not occur to him at all, but he knew she was interested in him, and he +was doubly determined that he would justify her interest and +confidence. He threw himself into the columns of _The Call_ with +greater vigour than ever. + +But just at this time another incident occurred which was to turn the +flood of his life into strange channels. Dave had been promoted to the +distinction of a private office--a little six-by-six "box stall," as +the sports editor described it--but none the less a distinction shared +only with the managing editor and Bert Morrison, compiler of the +woman's page. Her name was Roberta, but she was masculine to the tips, +and everybody called her Bert. The remainder of the staff occupied a +big, dingy room, with walls pasted with specimen headings, comic +cartoons, and racy pictures, and floor carpeted deeply with exchanges. +Dave, however, had established some sort of order in his den, and had +installed at his own cost a spring lock to prevent depredations upon +his paste pot or sudden raids upon his select file of time copy. + +Into this sanctuary one afternoon in October came Conward. It was such +an afternoon as to set every office-worker at war with the gods; the +glories of the foothill October are known only in the foothill country, +and Dave, married though he was to his work, felt the call of the +sunshine and the open spaces. This was a time for fallen leaves and +brown grass and splashes of colour everywhere--nature's autumn colours, +bright, glorious, unsubdued. Only Dave knew how his blood leaped to +that suggestion. But the world must go on. + +Conward's habitual cigarette hung from its accustomed short tooth, and +his round, florid face seemed puffier than usual. His aversion to any +exercise more vigorous than offered by a billiard cue was beginning to +reflect itself in a premature rotundity of figure. But his soft, +sedulous voice had not lost the note of friendly confidence which had +attracted Dave, perhaps against his better judgment, on the night of +their first meeting. + +"'Lo, Dave," he said. "Alone?" + +"Almost," said Dave, without looking up from his typewriter. Then, +turning, he kicked the door shut with his heel and said, "Shoot." + +"This strenuous life is spoiling your good manners, Dave, my boy," said +Conward, lazily exhaling a thin cloud of smoke. "If work made a man +rich you'd die a millionaire. But it isn't work that makes men rich. +Ever think of that?" + +"If a man does not become rich by work he has no right to become rich +at all," Dave retorted. + +"What do you mean by that word 'right,' Dave? Define it." + +"Haven't time. We go to press at four." + +"That's the trouble with fellows like you," Conward continued. "You +haven't time. You stick too close to your jobs. You never see the +better chances lying all around. Now suppose you let them go to press +without you to-day, and you listen to me for a while." + +Dave was about to throw him out when a gust of yearning for the open +spaces swept over him again. It was true enough. He was giving his +whole life to his paper. Promotion was slow, and there was no prospect +of a really big position at any time. He remembered Mr. Duncan's +remarks about newspaper training being the best preparation for +something else. With a sudden decision he closed his desk. "Shoot," +he said again, but this time with less impatience. + +"That's better," said Conward. "Have you ever thought of the future of +this town?" + +"Well, I can't say that I have. I've been busy with its present." + +"That's what I supposed. You've been too busy with the details of your +little job to give attention to bigger things. Now, let me pass you a +few pieces of information--things you must know, but you have never put +them together before. What are the natural elements which make a +country or city a desirable place to live? I'll tell you. Climate, +transportation, good water, variety of landscape, opportunity of +independence. Given these conditions, everything else can be added. +Now, our climate--of course it is misunderstood in the South and East, +but misunderstanding doesn't ruffle it. You and I know what it is. +This is a white man's climate. Follow our latitude into Europe if you +want to find the seats of power and success. London and Berlin are +north of us; Paris very little south." + +"Where did you get this stuff?" Dave interjected. "Sounds like the +prelude of an address before a boomsters' club." + +"I've been thinking, while you've been too busy to think," Conward +retorted. "Then there's transportation. This is one of the few +centres in America which has a north and south trade equal to its east +and west trade. We're on the cross-roads. Every settler who goes into +the North--and it is a mighty North--means more north and south trade. +The development of the Pacific Coast, the industrialization of Asia, +the opening of the Panama Canal--these mean east and west trade. Every +railway that taps this country must come to this city, because we have +the start, and are too big to be ignored." + +"'City' is good," said Dave. + +"All right. Scoff as much as you like. Have your joke before it turns +on you. There'll be a quarter of a million people here before you're +dead, if you play fair with the life insurance people." + +"Go on." + +"Then there's the soil--the richest soil in the world. Just dry enough +to keep it from leaching. Natural possibilities for irrigation +wherever necessary--" + +"I'm not sure about it as a grain country," interrupted Dave, with a +touch of antagonism. + +"That is because you were brought up on a ranch, and are a rancher at +heart," Conward shot back. "No rancher is ever sure of any country +being a grain country. All he is sure of is that if the farmer comes +it is good-bye to the open range. Just as the fur-trader blackguarded +the climate to keep the stockman out, so is the stockman blackguarding +the climate to keep the farmer out. But they're coming. They can't be +stopped. It's only a case of education--of advertising. + +"I tell you, Dave, the movement is on now, and before long it'll hit us +like a tidal wave. I've been a bit of a gambler all my life, but this +is the biggest jack-pot ever was, and I'm going to sit in. How about +you?" + +"I'd like to think it over. Promotion doesn't come very fast on this +job, that's sure." + +"Yes, and while you are thinking it over chances are slipping by. +Don't think it over--put it over. I tell you, Dave, there are big +things in the air. They are beginning to move already. Have you +noticed the strangers in town of late? That's the advance guard--" + +"Advance guard of a real estate boom?" + +"Hish! That's a bad word. Get away from it. Say 'Industrial +development.'" + +"All right,--industrial development. And do we have to have an advance +guard of strangers to bring about 'industrial development?'" + +"Sure. That's the only way. You never heard of the old-timers in a +town booming it--the term goes between us--did you? Never. The old +resident is always deader than the town, no matter how dead the town +may be. And this business is a science. The right gang can spring it +anywhere, and almost any time. + +"Let me elaborate. We'll say Alkali Lake is a railway station where +lots go begging at a hundred dollars each. In drops a well dressed +stranger--buys ten lots at a hundred and fifty each--and the old-timers +are chuckling over sticking him. But in drops another stranger and +buys a block of lots at two hundred each. Then the old timers begin to +wonder if they didn't sell too soon. By the time the fourth or fifth +stranger has dropped in they are dead sure of it, and they are trying +to buy their lots back. All sorts of rumours get started, nobody knows +how. New railways are coming, big factories are to be started, +minerals have been located, there's a secret war on between great +monied interests. The town council meets and changes the name to +Silver City--having regard, no doubt, to the alkali in the sleugh +water. The old-timers, and all that great, innocent public which is +forever hoping to get something for nothing, are now glad to buy the +lots at five hundred to ten thousand dollars each, and by the time +they've bought it up the gang moves on. It's the smoothest game in the +world, and every community will fall for it at least twice. . . Well, +they're here. + +"Of course, it's a little different in this case, because there really +is something in the way of natural advantages to support it. It's not +all hot air. That'll make the event just so much bigger. + +"Now, Dave, I've been dipping in a little already, and it struck me we +might work together on this deal. Your paper has considerable weight, +and if that weight falls the right way you won't find me stingy. For +instance, an item that this property"--he produced a slip with some +legal descriptions--"has been sold for ten thousand dollars to eastern +investors--very conservative investors from the East, don't forget +that--might help to turn another deal that's just hanging. Sorry to +keep you so long, but perhaps you can catch the press yet." And, with +one of his friendly mannerisms, Conward departed. + +Dave sat for some minutes in a quandary. He was discouraged with his +salary, or, rather, with the lack of prospect of any increase in his +salary. Conward's words had been very unsettling. They pulled in +opposite directions. They fired him with a new enthusiasm for his +city, and they intimated that a gang of professional land-gamblers was +soon to perpetrate an enormous theft, leaving the public holding the +sack. Still there must be a middle course somewhere. + +He walked to his little window and looked across the warm prairie. No +buildings cut his view from the brown hillsides where the lazy mists of +autumn beckoned to be out and free. It was a sleepy cow-town still, +and yet, as he now recalled, a new pulse had been throbbing its +arteries of late. The proportion of strangers--men in white collars +and street shoes--at the hotels was steadily growing. Rents were going +up. It was the first low wave--and Conward's ear had caught it. . . + +At any rate, he could use Conward's story about the land sale. That +was news--legitimate news. Of course, it might be a faked sale--faked +for its news value--but reporters are not paid for being detectives. +The rule was to publish the news while it was hot. Nothing is so +perishable as news. It must be used at once or discarded +altogether. . . The _Evening Call_ carried a statement of Conward's +sale, and on that statement was hung a column story on the growing +prosperity of the city, and its assured future owing to its exceptional +climate and natural resources, combined with its commanding position on +transportation routes, both east and west and north and south. With +the industrialization of Asia and the settlement of the great +North--and how great is that North--etc., etc. + +During the following days Dave had a keener eye than usual for +evidences of 'industrial development.' He found them on every hand. +Old properties, long considered unsalable, were changing owners. +Handsomely furnished offices had been opened on principal corners for +the sale of city and country property. Hotels were crowded, bar-rooms +were jammed. The preponderance of the male population had never been +so pronounced, and every incoming train added to it. Money moved +easily; wages were stiffening; tradesmen were in demand. There was +material for many good stories in his investigations. He began writing +features on the city's prosperity and prospects. The rival paper did +the same, and there was soon started between them a competition of +optimism. The great word became "boost." It stood, apparently, for +any action or attitude that would increase prices. The virus was now +in the veins of the community; pulsing through every street and by-way +of the little city. Dave marvelled, and wondered how he had failed to +read these signs until Conward had laid their portent bare before him. +But as yet it was only his news sense that responded; his delight in +the strange and the sensational. He was not yet inoculated with the +poison of easy wealth. + +His nights were busy with his investigations, but on Sundays, as usual, +he went out to Duncans'. He had developed the habit of attending +morning service; he loved the music, and it was customary for Edith to +sing a morning solo. Her voice, which had enraptured him when they +first met, had developed wonderfully. It filled the morning air like +the clear tolling of silver bells. For its sake he gladly endured the +sermons, and even in the sermon he sometimes found common ground with +the preacher. They could meet on any faith that postulated the +brotherhood of man. But the reverend speaker touched such a subject +warily. It seemed to Dave he would gladly have gone further, but was +held in restraint by a sense of the orthodoxy of his congregation. Too +literal an interpretation of the brotherhood of man might carry the +taint of Socialism, and the congregation represented the wealth of the +city. It was safer to preach learnedly on abstractions of belief. + +This morning Edith had not been in her place, and the service was flat. +In the afternoon she was not at her home. Mrs. Duncan explained that +Edith had gone to visit a girl friend in the country; would be away for +some time. Dave felt a foolish annoyance that she should have left +town. She might at least have called him up. Why should she call him +up? Of course not. Still, the town was very empty. He drove with +Mrs. Duncan in the afternoon, and at night took a long walk by the +river. He had a vague but oppressive sense of loneliness. He had not +realized what part of his life these Sunday afternoons with Edith had +come to be. He had no man friends; his nature held him apart from his +own sex. And yet he had a strange capacity for making friends quickly, +if he tried. But he didn't try. He didn't feel the need. But he felt +lost without Edith. + +A few days later Conward strolled in, with the inevitable cigarette. +He smoked in silence until Dave completed a story. + +"Good stuff you're giving us," he commented, when the article was +finished. "Mighty good stuff." + +"Your tip put me on to a good lead all right," Dave acknowledged. "And +now _The Times_ is chasing me hard. They had a story this morning that +the ---- railway is buying a right-of-way up the river." + +"Remember what I told you the other day? Stories start from nowhere. +It's just like putting a match to tinder. Now we're off." + +Conward smoked a few minutes in silence, but Dave could not fail to see +the excitement under his calm exterior. He had, as he said, decided to +"sit in" in the biggest game ever played. The intoxication of sudden +wealth had already fired his blood. + +He slipped a bill to Dave. "For your services in that little +transaction," he explained. + +Elden held the bill in his fingers, gingerly, as though it might carry +infection, as in very truth it did. He realized that he stood at a +turning point--that everything the future held for him might rest on +his present decision. There remained in him not a little of the fine, +stern honour of the ranchmen of the open range; an honour curious, +sometimes terrible, in its interpretation of right and wrong, but a +fine, stern honour none the less. And he instinctively felt that to +accept this money would compromise him forever more. And yet--others +did it. He had no doubt of that. Conward would laugh at such +scruples. And Conward had more friends than he had. Everybody liked +Conward. It seemed to Dave that he, only, distrusted him. But that, +also, as Dave said to himself, lay in the point of view. He granted +that he had no more right to impose his standard of morals upon Conward +than the preacher had to impose an arbitrary belief upon him. And as +he turned the bill in his fingers he noticed that it was for one +hundred dollars. He had thought it was ten. + +"I can't take that much," he exclaimed. "It isn't fair." + +"Fair enough," said Conward, well pleased that Dave should be impressed +by his generosity. "Fair enough," he repeated. "It's just ten per +cent. of my profit." + +"You mean you made a thousand dollars on that deal?" + +"Exactly that. And that will look like a peanut to what we are going +to make later on." + +"We?" + +"Yes. You and me. We're going into partnership." + +"But I've nothing to invest. I've only a very little saved up." + +"Invest that hundred." + +Dave looked at Conward sharply. Was he trifling? No; his eyes were +frank and serious. + +"You mean it?" + +"Of course. Now, I'll put you on to something, and it's the biggest +thing that has been pulled off yet. There's a section of land lying +right against the city limits that is owned by a fellow over in +England; remittance man who fell heir to an estate and had to go home +to spend it. Well, he has been paying taxes ever since, and is tired +of the 'bally rawnch'; besides, he is busy keeping his property in +England reasonably well spent. I am arranging through a London office +to offer him ten dollars an acre, and I'll bet he jumps at it. I've +arranged for the necessary credits, but there will be some expenses for +cables, etc., and you can put your hundred into that. If we pull it +off--and we will pull it off--we start up in business as Conward & +Elden, or Elden & Conward, which ever sounds better. Boy, there's a +fortune in it." + +"What do you figure it's worth?" said Dave, trying to speak easily. +"Twenty-five dollars an acre?" + +"Twenty-five dollars an acre!" Conward shouted. "Dave, newspaper +routine has killed your imagination, little as one would expect such a +result, from some of the things the papers print. Twenty-five dollars +an acre! Listen! + +"The city boundaries are to be extended--probably will be by the time +this deal goes through. Then it is city property. A street railway +system is to be built, and we'll see that it runs through our land. We +may have to 'grease' somebody, but it's a poor engineer that saves on +grease. Then we'll survey that section into twenty-five foot lots--and +we'll sell them at two hundred dollars each for those nearest the city +down to one hundred for those farthest out--average one hundred and +fifty, total nine hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Allow say sixty +thousand for 'grease' and there is still nine hundred thousand, and +that doesn't count re-sale commissions. Dave, it's good for a cool +million. And that is just the beginning. It will give us a standing +that will make anything possible." + +Dave was doing rapid thinking. Suddenly he faced Conward, and their +eyes met. "Conward," he said, "why do you put this up to me?" + +"What d'ye mean?" + +"You don't need my little hundred to put this over. Why do you let me +in on it?" + +Conward smiled and breathed easily. There had been a moment of tension. + +"Oh, that's simple," he answered. "I figure this business is going to +be too big for me, and you are the partner I need. I figure we'll +travel well in double harness. I'm a good mixer--I know people--and +I've got ideas. And you're sound and honourable and people trust you." + +"Thanks," said Dave, dryly. + +"That's right," Conward continued. "We'll be a combination hard to +beat. You know the story about the brothers in the coal business?" + +"No." + +"Jim and Fred were coal dealers, when a revival broke out in their +town, and Jim got religion. Then he tried to convert Fred; tried awful +hard to get Fred to at least go to the meetings. But Fred wouldn't +budge. Said it wasn't practicable. Jim argued and coaxed and prayed, +but without result. At last he put it up to Fred. + +"'Fred,' he said, 'why won't you come to our meetings?'" + +"'Well,' the brother answered, 'it was all right for you to get +religion. Sort o' lends respectability to the firm. But if I get it +too, who's going to weigh the coal?'" + +The two men laughed over the story, and yet it left an unpleasant +impression upon Dave. He had never felt sure of Conward, and now he +felt less sure than ever. But the lust of easy money was beginning to +stir within him. The bill in his hands represented more than three +weeks' wages. Conward was making money--making money fast, and surely +here was an opportunity such as comes once in a lifetime. A boy shoved +in his head and yelled for copy. Dave swore at him, impatiently. He +had never before realized how irksome the drudgery of his steady grind +had become. + +"I'll go you," he said to Conward at last. "I'll risk this hundred, +and a little more if necessary." + +"Good," said Conward, springing to his feet and taking Dave's hand in a +warm grasp. "Now we're away. But you better play safe. Stick to your +pay cheque here until we pull the deal through. There won't be much to +do until then, anyway, and you can help more by guiding the paper along +right lines." + +"It sounds like a fairy tale," Dave demurred, as though unwilling to +credit the possibilities Conward had outlined. "You're sure it can be +done?" + +"Done? Why, son, it has been done in all the big centres in the +States, and at many a place that'll never be a centre at all. And it +will be done here. Dave, bigger things than you dare to dream of are +looming up right ahead." + +Then Dave had a qualm. "If that section of land is worth close to a +million dollars," he said, "is it quite fair to take advantage of the +owner's absence and ignorance to buy it for a few thousand?" + +"Dave," said Conward, with an arm on his shoulder, "the respectability +of the firm is safe in your hands. But--_please_ let me weigh the +coal." + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN + +David Elden smoked his after-dinner cigar in his bachelor quarters. +The years had been good to the firm of Conward & Elden; good far beyond +the wildness of their first dreams. The transaction of the section +bought from the English absentee had been but the beginning of bigger +and more daring adventures. That section was now considered close-in +property, and lots which Conward & Elden had originally sold for two +hundred dollars each had since changed hands at more than a thousand. +The street railway ran far beyond it. Water mains, sewers, electric +lights, graded streets and concrete sidewalks had sprawled for miles +across the prairie. Conward, in that first wild prophecy of his, had +spoken of a city of a quarter of a million people; already more lots +had been sold than could be occupied by four times that population. + +It had been a very marvellous development; an enthusiasm which had +grown deeper and wilder until it swept along as an insane abandon, +bearing in its current the last vestiges of conservatism and caution. +For at last the old-timers, long alluded to as the "dead ones," had +come in. For years they had held back, scoffing, predicting disaster; +and while they held back venturesome youths had become millionaires. +One can stand that only so long, and at last the old-timers were buying +and selling and debauching with the others in the lust of easy money. + +Dave had often asked himself where it all would end. He traced it from +its beginning; from the day when he wrote his first "boost" story; from +the hundred-dollar bill that Conward had placed in his hands. It was a +simple course to trace; so simple now that he was amazed that only +Conward and a few shrewd others had seen it at that time. It had begun +with the prosperity of incoming money; the money of a little group of +speculators and adventurers and the others who hung on their train. +They had filled the few hotels and office buildings. Presently some +one began to build a new hotel. Labour was scarce and dear; +carpenters, masons, bricklayers, plumbers, plasterers, labourers, had +to be brought in from the outside. There was no place for them to +sleep; there was no place for them to eat; there were insufficient +stores to supply their wants. More hotels and shops and stores and +houses had to be built, and to build them more carpenters and masons +and bricklayers and plumbers and plasterers and painters had to be +brought from the outside. The thing grew upon itself. It was like a +fire starting slowly in the still prairie grass, which by its own heat +creates a breeze that in turn gives birth to a gale that whips it forth +in uncontrollable fury. Houses went up, blocks of them, streets of +them, miles of them, but they could not keep pace with the demand, for +every builder of a house must have a roof to sleep under. And there +were streets to build; streets to grade and fill and pave; ditches to +dig and sidewalks to lay and wires to string. And more houses had to +be built for the men who paved streets and dug ditches and laid +sidewalks and strung wires. And more stores and more hotels and more +churches and more schools and more places of amusement were needed. +And the fire fed on its own fury and spread to lengths undreamed by +those who first set the match to the dry grass. + +The process of speculation was as easily defined. The first buyers +were cautious; they looked over the vacant lots carefully; weighed +their advantages and disadvantages; the prospect of the city growing +this way or that. But scarcely had they bought when they sold again at +a profit, and were seized with a quick regret that they had not bought +more, or earlier. Soon the caution of the early transactions was +forgotten in the rush for more lots which, almost immediately, could be +re-sold at a profit. Judgment and discretion became handicaps in the +race; the successful man was he who threw all such qualities to the +winds. Fortunes were made; intrinsic values were lost sight of in the +glare of great and sudden profits. Prices mounted up and up, and when +calmer counsels held that they had reached their limits all such +counsels were abashed by prices soaring higher still. + +And the firm of Conward & Elden had profited not the least in these +wild years of gain-getting. Their mahogany finished first floor +quarters were the last word in office luxuriance. Conward's private +room might with credit have housed a premier or a president. Its +purpose was to be impressive, rather than to give any other service, as +Conward spent little of his time therein. On Dave fell the +responsibility of office management, and his room was fitted for +efficiency rather than luxury. It commanded a view of the long general +office where a battery of stenographers and clerks took care of the +detail of the business of Conward & Elden. And Dave had established +his ability as an office manager. His fairness, his fearlessness, his +impartiality, his courtesy, his even temper--save on rare and excusable +occasions--had won from the staff a loyalty which Conward, with all his +abilities as a good mixer, could never have commanded. + +He had prospered, of course. His statement to his banker ran into +seven figures. For years he had not known the experience of being +short of money for any personal purpose. Occasionally, at first, and +again of late, the firm had found it necessary to resort to high +finance. This was usually accomplished by getting a bank so deeply +involved in their speculations that, in moments of emergency, it dared +not desert them if it would. There are ways of doing that. And always +the daring of Conward and the organization of Elden had justified +themselves. Dave was still a young man, not yet in his thirties; he +was rated a millionaire; he had health, comeliness, and personality; he +commanded the respect of a wide circle of business men, and was +regarded as one of the matrimonial prizes of the city; his name had +been discussed for public office; he was a success. + +And yet this night, as he sat in his comfortable rooms and watched the +street lights come fluttering on as twilight silhouetted the great +hills to the west, he was not so sure of his success. A gas fire +burned in the grate, rippling in blue, sinuous waves, and radiating an +agreeable warmth on the May evening air. Dave finished his cigar and +stood by the window, where the street light now poured in, blending its +pale effulgence with the blue radiance from the grate. He was a man to +be admired. His frame a trifle stouter than when we last saw him, but +still supple and firm; the set of the shoulders, the taper of the body +to the waist, the keen but passive face, the poise of the whole figure +was that of one who, tasting of the goodness of life, had not +gormandized thereon. He was called a success, yet in the honesty of +his own soul he feared the coin did not ring true. Conward had +insisted more and more upon "weighing the coal." And Dave had +concerned himself less and less with the measure. That was what +worried him. He felt that the crude but honest conception of the +square deal which was the one valuable heritage of his childhood was +slipping away from him. He had little in common with Conward outside +of their business relationship. He suspected the man vaguely, but had +never found tangible ground for his suspicion. Dave did not drink, and +those confidences peculiar to a state of semi-intoxication were denied +him. He was afraid to drink, not with the fear of the craven, but with +the fear of a man who knows his enemy's advantage. He had suffered in +his own home, and he feared the enemy, and would make no truce. +Neither was he seduced by the vices which the possession of wealth made +easy to his hand. He counted more as a dream--a sort of supernalism +out of the past--that last night and that last compact with Irene +Hardy, but it had been anchorage for his soul on more than one +dangerous sea, and he would not give it up. Some time, he supposed, he +should take a wife, but until then that covenant, sealed by the +moonlight to the approving murmur of the spruce trees, should stand as +his one title of character against which no _caveat_ might be +registered. + +He was turning this very matter over in his mind, and wondering what +the end would be, when a knock came at the door. + +"Come," he said, switching on the light. . . "Oh, it's you, Bert. I +am honoured. Sit down." + +The girl threw her coat over a chair and sank into another. Without +speaking she extended her shapely feet to the fire, but when its +soothing warmth had comforted her limbs she looked up and said, + +"Adam sure put it over on us, didn't he?" + +"Still nursing that grievance over your sex," laughed Dave. "I thought +you would outgrow it." + +"I don't blame him," continued the girl, ignoring his interruption. "I +am just getting back from forty-seven teas. Gabble, gabble, gabble. I +don't blame him. We deserve it." + +"Then you have had nothing to eat?" + +"Almost. Only insignificant indigestibles." + +Dave pressed a button, and a Chinese boy (all male Chinese are boys) +entered, bowing in that deference which is so potent to separate the +white man from his silver. The white man glories in being salaamed, +especially by an Oriental, who can grovel with a touch of art. And the +Oriental has not been slow to capitalize his master's vanity. + +"Bring something to eat. Go out for it, and be quick. For two." + +"Ice cleam? Toast? Tea--" + +"No! Something to eat! Soup, flied chicken, hot vegetables, dessert, +everything." + +"You've had your dinner, surely?" asked Bert. + +"Such a dinner as a man eats alone," he answered. "Now for something +real. You stick to the paper like the ink, don't you, Bert?" + +"Can't leave it. I hate it--and I love it. It's my poison and my +medicine. Most of all I hate the society twaddle. And, of course, +that's what I have to do." + +"And you write it up so gloriously," said Dave. "Enthusiasm in every +line of it." + +"You read it, then? I thought all men looked on the society page with +contempt." + +"They do. But they look on it just the same--long enough to see +whether their names appear among those present." + +"Or whose husband is out of town?" + +"You're growing more cynical all the time." + +"How can I help it, when I see both sides of the game? If I printed +half what I know I'd have every lawyer in this city busy +to-morrow--except those who skipped out over-night." + +"You know it," Dave agreed. "But here is dinner." The boy wheeled a +table between them, and there was a savoury smell of hot food. + +"A _recherché_ repast," screamed Bert, half through her soup, with a +great burst of merriment. "Oh, I must tell you. You remember the +Metfords? You used to shovel coal for them. I know you're no snob, or +I wouldn't put it so brutally. Of course, they're rich. Sold the old +stable-yard for a quarter of a million, or thereabouts, and are now +living in style. Some style! When they have guests, as they nearly +always have--there'll be parasites as long as there's easy money--old +man Metford eats breakfast in evening dress. And she orders the +chiffonier to take the guests down to the _depôt_ in their Packer. But +one thing has gone to her heart. She didn't realize in time that it +wasn't good form to be prolific. Now that she knows three is the limit +she has sent the other six to the country. But that isn't what I +started on. She called up this morning and gave me hell because I said +yesterday that she had served a _recherché_ repast at some function +they pulled off the other night. 'See here, young woman,' she says, 'I +want you to understand there's none of that _recherché_ stuff on my +table. Nothing short of champagne, every drop of it.' I just yelled." + +"Why didn't you print a retraction?" + +"I don't know." + +"I do. It's because, Miss Roberta, beneath your cynicism and your +assumption of masculinity, you are as sympathetic as a young mother. +It would be mean to put over anything like that, and you just can't do +it." + +"Nonsense. You see what I print at times--" + +"Bert," he said suddenly, "why don't you get married?" + +"Who, me?" Then she laughed. "I guess I'm too sympathetic. It would +be mean to put over anything like that on a man, and a girl wouldn't +have me." + +"Well, then, why don't you buy some real estate?" he continued, +jocularly. "Every man should have some dissipation--something to make +him forget his other troubles." + +"A little late in the meal for that word, isn't it?" + +He stared a moment, and then sprang to his feet. "I beg your pardon. +What will you drink?" + +"What you drink." + +"But I drink coffee." + +"So do I. . . I may be mannish, Dave, but I don't think I'm a fool. I +can understand a man drinking, but not a woman. It's too +dangerous. . . . But I'll smoke a cigarette. + +"Now, as for real estate. The fact is, I _have_ invested." + +A look came into his face which she did not understand. "With whom?" +he demanded, almost peremptorily. + +"With Conward & Elden," she answered, and the roguishness of her voice +suggested that her despised femininity lay not far from the surface. +"Were you about to be jealous?" + +"Why didn't you come to me?" She realized that he was in deep earnest. + +"I did," she answered, candidly. "At least, I asked for you, but you +were out of town, so Conward took me in hand, and I followed his +advice." + +"Do you trust Conward?" he demanded almost fiercely. + +"Well, he's good enough to be your partner, isn't he?" + +The thrust hurt more than she knew. He had his poise again. + +"Real estate is the only subject I would trust him on," she continued. +"I must say, Dave, that for a shrewd business man you are awfully dense +about Conward." + +He remained silent for a few moments. He decided not to follow her +lead. He knew that if she had anything explicit to say about Conward +she would say it when she felt the time to be opportune, and not until +then. He returned to the matter of her speculation. + +"How much did you invest?" + +"Not much. Just what I had." + +"You mean all your savings?" + +"Why not? It's all right, isn't it?" + +He had risen and was standing again by the window. The long line of +lights stretched out until they became mere diamond points on the +velvet bosom of the night. Motor cars sped noiselessly to and fro, +save where, at the corner below, chauffeurs exercised their sirens. +But neither the lights, nor the night, nor the movement and noises of +the street had any part in the young man's consciousness. + +"It's all right, isn't it?" she repeated. + +"I'm afraid it isn't," he said at length, in a restrained voice. "I'm +afraid it isn't." + +"What do you mean?" she demanded. There was an accusation in her eyes +that was hard to face. + +"Bert," he continued, "did it ever occur to you that this thing must +have an end--that we can't go on forever lifting ourselves by our own +bootstraps? We have built a city here, a great and beautiful city, +almost as a wizard might build it by magic over night. There was room +for it here; there was occasion; there was justification. But there +was neither occasion nor justification for turning miles and miles of +prairie land into city lots--lots which in the nature of things cannot +possibly, in your time or mine, be required for city purposes. These +lots should be producing; wheat, oats, potatoes, cows, butter--that is +what we must build our city on. We have been considering the effect +rather than the cause. The cause is the country, the neglected +country, and until it overtakes the city we must stand still, if we do +not go back. Our prosperity has been built on borrowed money, and we +have forgotten that borrowed money must, sometime, be repaid. +Meanwhile, in the heart of the greatest agricultural country in the +world, we bring our potatoes across the American continent and our +butter across the Pacific ocean." + +He had spoken with effort, as one who makes a bitter confession, yet +tries to state the case fairly, without excuses and without violence. + +"You mean that the boom is about to burst?" she said. + +"Not exactly burst. It will not be so sudden as that. It will just +ooze away, like a toy balloon pricked with a pin." + +There was silence for some minutes. When she spoke at length it was +with a tinge of bitterness. + +"So you are unloading?" + +"The firm is. I beg you, Bert, to believe that if I had known your +intention I would have tried to dissuade you. I would have advised you +to keep your money in the bank until after the air cleared. Three per +cent. is small, but it is better than tax bills on unsalable property." + +"Why me particularly? I am only one of the great public. Why don't +you give your conclusions to the world? When you were convinced that a +period of inflation was about to occur you did not hesitate to say so. +If I remember you used _The Call_ for that purpose. Now that you see +the reaction setting in, doesn't honesty suggest what your course +should be?" + +She had risen, and she, too, looked with unseeing eyes upon the busy +street. There was reproach in her voice, Dave thought, rather than +bitterness. + +He spread his hands. "What's the use? The harm is done. To predict a +collapse would be to precipitate a panic. It is as though we were +passengers on a boat at sea. You and I know the boat is sinking, but +the other passengers don't. They are making merry with champagne and +motor cars--if you can accept that figure--and revelry and easy money. +Why spoil their remaining few hours by telling them they are headed for +the bottom? . . . Besides, they are not deserving of sympathy, after +all. They are in the game because they wanted to make money without +earning it. Gamblers, every one of them. And the man or woman who +expects to get wealth without giving value shouldn't whine if, by a +turn of fate, he gives value without getting wealth." + +After a moment she placed her fingers on his arm. "Forgive me, Dave," +she said. "I didn't mean to whine." + +"You didn't whine," he returned, almost fiercely. "It's not in you. +You are too good a sport. But there will be lots of whining in the +coming months." Man-like it did not occur to Dave that in that moment +the girl had bid good-bye to her savings of a dozen years, and had +merely looked up and said, "Forgive me, Dave, I didn't mean to whine." +When he thought of it, long afterward, he had a sudden conviction that +if he had realized then just how much of a brick she was he would have +proposed to her on the spot. . . And she would have laughed, and said, +"Now, Dave, don't spoil our fun with anything like that." + +What she did do was to let her hand creep up his arm until she could +tap his cheek with her second finger. "Is this all the entertainment +you can think of to-night?" she bantered. + +He glanced at his watch. "It's late for a theatre," he said, "but we +can ride. Which do you say--auto or horse-back?" + +"I can't go horse-back in these clothes, and I don't want to change." + +Dave pressed a button, and the omnipresent Chinese "boy" stood before +him. "My car," he said. "The two-passenger car. I shall not want a +driver." Then, continuing to Miss Morrison, "You will need something +more than that coat. Let me see. My smoking jacket should fit." + +In a few minutes they were threading their way through the street +traffic in Dave's machine. Whatever had been his forecast of impending +disaster, the streets held little hint of it. They were congested with +traffic and building material. Although it was late at night the +imperious clamour of electric rivetters rattled down from steel +structures on every hand. Office blocks, with their rental space all +contracted months in advance, were being rushed to completion by the +aid of arc lights and double shifts. But presently the traffic +thinned, and the car hummed through long residential avenues of +comfortable homes. From a thousand unmasked windows came the glow of +light; here and there were the strains of music. On and on they sped, +until the city streets and the city lights fell behind, and the car was +swinging along a fine country road, through a land marked with streams +and bridges, and blocked out with fragrant bluffs of young poplars. + +At last, after an hour's steady driving in a delight of motion too keen +for conversation, they pulled up on the brow of a hill. A soft breeze +from the south-west, sensuous with the smell of spruce and +balm-o'-gilead, pressed, cool and gentle, against their faces, and far +to the south-east some settler's burning straw pile lay like an +orange-red coal on the lips of the prairie, from which she blew an +incense of ruddy gold and ochre, fan-shaped against the heavens. +Behind them, to the north, far-away city lights danced and sparkled in +the lap of the foot-hills, like diamonds strewn by some mighty and +profligate Croesus. Dave switched off his lights, the better to +appreciate the majesty of the night, and in the silence came the low +murmur of water. There were no words. They sat and breathed it. + +Suddenly, from a sharp bend in the road, flashed the lights of an +approaching car. Dave was able to switch his own lights on again only +in time to avoid a collision. The on-coming car lurched and passed by +furiously, but not before Dave had recognized Conward as the driver. +Back on its trail of dust floated the ribald notes of half-intoxicated +women. + +"Close enough," said Dave, when the dust had settled. "Well, let us +jog back home." + +They took the return trip leisurely, drinking in the glories of the +night, and allowing time for the play of conversation. Bert Morrison +was a good conversationalist. Her points of interest were almost +infinite. And they were back among the street lights before they knew. + +"Oh, we are nearly home," she exclaimed. "And, honest, Dave, I wanted +to ask you something. Why don't you get married?" + +"I guess I'm too sympathetic," he answered, after a moment's pause. +"And it wouldn't be fair--" + +"Oh, can that. It's been warmed over once already. Really, though, +why don't you?" + +"Why should I?" + +"Why shouldn't you? It's natural. And you know you can't go on always +just putting it off. It leaves your life empty. To-night, when I +asked you if you had had dinner, you said, 'Such a meal as a man eats +alone.' That betrays the emptiness." + +"I suppose it does. But I don't know many girls. I don't know any +girl very well, except you, and you wouldn't have me." + +"No, I wouldn't," she answered frankly. "I like you too well. But you +know other girls, and you could get to know more if you wanted to. +There's Edith Duncan, for instance." + +"Edith is a fine girl. The Duncans are wonderful people. I owe to +them almost everything. But as for marrying Edith--" + +"Why not?" + +"I don't know. I never thought of it that way. She's a fine girl." + +"None better," said Bert, with decision. "Dave, I'm not much on +orthodox religion, as you know, but that girl's got something on me. +She has a voice that would make her famous on the stage, but she uses +it all the time, as she says, 'in the service of the King!' I think +she's narrow on that point, but I know she's sincere. Edith has had a +great sorrow, and it makes her nobility stand out, pure and wonderful, +like a white gem in a black setting. It seems to be the law that one +must rub shoulders with sorrow before he really begins to live. And +any afternoon you can find her down in the children's ward, singing +with that wonderful voice to the little sick sufferers." + +"I know about her sorrow," said Dave, as though confessing a profound +secret. "She told me about her little brother being killed." + +It sprang to Bert's lips to say, "Oh, what's the use?" but she checked +herself. They were at the door of her boarding-house. As he helped +her to the sidewalk Dave stood for a moment with her hand in his. He +had long liked Bert Morrison, and to-night he was powerfully drawn +toward her. He knew--what she would have most strenuously denied--that +her masculinity was a sham. Her defiance of convention--rambling like +a fellow bachelor into his apartments--her occasional profanity and +occasional cigarette--these were but the cloak from which her own deep +womanhood was forever peering forth. He felt impelled to kiss her. He +wondered if she would be angry; if such a familiarity would obstruct +their growing friendship. He felt sure she would not be angry, but she +would probably think him foolish. And man cannot endure being thought +foolish by woman. + +"Oh, I almost forgot," she said as they parted, as though she really +had forgotten. "I was at a reception to-day when a beautiful woman +asked for you. Asked me if I had ever heard of Mr. David Elden. + +"'What, Dave Elden, the millionaire?' I said. 'Everybody knows him. +He's the beau of the town, or could be, if he wanted to.' Oh, I gave +you a good name, Dave." + +"Thanks, Bert. That was decent. Who was she?" + +"She said her name was Irene Hardy." + + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE + +Upon the return of Irene Hardy to the East it had slowly become +apparent to her mother that things were not as they once had been. +There were various vague stirrings of uneasiness, but perhaps the most +alarming manifestation was the strange silence in which the girl +enveloped herself. It seemed as though she had left part of her nature +behind--had outgrown it, perhaps--and had created about herself an +atmosphere of reserve foreign to her earlier life. It seemed as though +the loneliness of the great plains had settled upon her. The old +virility had been sobered; the gaiety of her girlhood had ripened into +a poise more disturbing to Mrs. Hardy than any conventional excess +could have been. She sought her own company; she tolerated social +engagements in which she had previously found delight. And, most +sinister of all, she showed no disposition to encourage the attentions +which were ready enough in the offering. + +"Whatever has come over Irene?" said Mrs. Hardy to the doctor one +evening when their daughter had been particularly indifferent to a +theatre invitation. "She hasn't been the same since she came home. I +should not have let her go west alone." + +The doctor looked up mildly from his paper. It was the custom of the +doctor to look up mildly when Mrs. Hardy made a statement demanding +some form of recognition. From the wide initiation into domestic +affairs which his profession had given him, Dr. Hardy had long since +ceased to look for the absolute in woman. He had never looked for it +in man. He realized that in Mrs. Hardy he did not possess a perfect +mate, but he was equally convinced that in no other woman would he have +found a perfect mate, and he accepted his lot with the philosophy of +his sixty years. If Mrs. Hardy, in some respects, failed to measure up +to his standard of the ideal, he found it true nevertheless that she +had many admirable qualities. Granting that in his matrimonial +adventure he might possibly have done somewhat better, fairness +compelled the admission that he might also have done very much worse. +And being, as has been hinted, something of a philosopher, he had +sought, whenever possible, to harmonize his life with hers; and when +that was impossible, at least to keep what pressure he might upon the +soft pedal. So instead of reminding his wife that Irene had not been +alone when she went west he remarked, very mildly, that the girl was +growing older. + +Mrs. Hardy found in this remark occasion to lay down the book she had +been holding, and to sit upright in a rigidity of intense disapproval. +Dr. Hardy was aware that this was entirely a theatrical attitude, +assumed for the purpose of imposing upon him a proper humility. He had +experienced it many, many times. And he knew that his statement, +notwithstanding its obviousness, was about to be challenged. + +"Dr. Hardy," said his wife, after the lapse of an appropriate period, +"do you consider that an intelligent remark?" + +"It has the advantage of truthfulness," returned the doctor, +complacently. "It is susceptible of demonstration." + +"I should think this is a matter of sufficient interest to the family +to be discussed seriously," retorted Mrs. Hardy, who had an unfortunate +habit of becoming exasperated by her husband's good humour. She had +none of his philosophy, and she mistook his even temper for +indifference. "Irene is our only child, and before your very eyes you +see her--you see her--" Mrs. Hardy's fears were too nebulous to enable +her to complete the sentence. + +"Yes, I see her," the doctor admitted. "That is, I did see her at +dinner. There is nothing alarming about that." Then, relenting, "But, +seriously, what reason have you for uneasiness about the child?" + +"Reason enough. She behaves so strangely. Do you know, I begin--I +really do begin to suspect that she's in love." + +It was Dr. Hardy's turn to sit upright. "Nonsense," he said. "Why +should she be in love?" It is the unfortunate limitation of the +philosopher that he so often leaves irrational behaviour out of the +reckoning. "She is only a child." + +"She will be eighteen presently. And why shouldn't she be in love? +And the question is--who? That is for you to answer. Whom did she +meet?" + +"If you would find a Hamlet at the root of this melancholy you must ask +our Ophelia. She met no one with me. My accident left me to enjoy my +holiday as best I could at a ranch deep in the foothills, and Reenie +stayed with me there. There was no one else--" + +"No one? No ranch men, cowboys,--cow punchers--I think I have +heard,"--with nice disdain. + +"No. Only young Elden--" + +"_Only_? Who is this young Elden?" + +"But he is just a boy. Just the son of the old rancher of whom I have +told you." + +"Exactly. And Irene is just a girl. Dr. Hardy, you are all very well +with your fevers and your chills, but you can't diagnose a love case +worth a cent. An epidemic would break out under your very eyes and you +blissfully unconscious. What about this young Elden? Did Irene see +much of him?" + +The doctor spread his hands. "Do you realize that there were four of +us at that ranch--four, only, and no one else for miles? How could she +help seeing him?", + +"And you permitted it?" + +"I was on my back with a broken leg. We were guests at their home. +They were good Samaritans to us. I couldn't chaperon her. And +besides, they don't do things that way in that country. You don't +understand. It's altogether different." + +"Andrew," said Mrs. Hardy, leaning forward, and the word was ominous, +for she used his Christian name only in moments of crisis,--"was Irene +ever, with this young man--alone?" + +The doctor arose to his feet and trod heavily upon the rich carpetings. +"I told you you don't understand," he protested. "The West is not the +East. Everything is different--" + +"I suppose human nature is different," she interrupted, meaningly. +Then her head fell upon the table and her hands went up about her hair. +It had been brown hair once, but was now thin and streaked with grey. +"Oh, Andrew," she wept. "We are ruined. That we should ever have come +to this!" + +It was now Dr. Hardy's turn to be exasperated. There was one thing his +philosophy could not endure. That was a person who was not, and would +not be, philosophical. Mrs. Hardy was not, and would not be, +philosophical. She was an absolutist. With Mrs. Hardy things were +right or things were wrong. Moreover, that which was done according to +rule was right, and that which was not done according to rule was +wrong. It was apparent that the acquaintanceship of Irene and Dave +Elden had not been according to rule. + +"This is all nonsense," said the doctor, impatiently. "There is +nothing to it, anyway. The girl had to have some company. What if +they did ride together? What--" + +"They rode together? Alone?" + +"They had their horses along," said the doctor, whose impatience had +made way for sarcasm. + +"Through the forest, I suppose," said Mrs. Hardy, with an air of one +whose humiliation is complete. + +"Oh, yes, through the forests, across the foothills, up the canyons, +hours of it, days of it, weeks of it--" + +"Stop! You are mocking me. In this hour of shame you are making +jests. Call Irene." + +The girl was summoned. Her fine face had lost some of its brownness, +and the eyes seemed deeper and slower, but she was still a vision of +grace and beauty as she stood in response to their call framed in the +curtains of an archway. Her quick sense caught the tense atmosphere, +and she came forward with parted lips and extended fingers. There was +the glint of light on her white teeth. "Yes?" she said. "What is +wrong? Can I help?" + +"Your father has confessed," said Mrs. Hardy, trying hard to speak with +judicial calm. "Now tell us about your relations with this young +Elden, this cow _puncher_. Let us know the worst." + +Irene's startled eyes flew from her mother to her father's face. And +there they caught something that restored their calm. + +"There was no worst," she said, with a ripple of laughter. "But there +was a good deal of best. Shall I tell you the best?" + +"Irene," said her mother, severely, "Did you permit that young man to +make love to you?" + +"I did not give him permission, if that answers you, because--he didn't +ask it." + +Mrs. Hardy had risen, "Andrew, you hear that? She confesses. And you, +blind, blind, couldn't see it!" + +"Is it very dreadful?" asked Irene. + +"Yes, you mock me, too. Of course it's dreadful. Horrible. What will +everybody say?" + +"No worse than you have said, I'll be bound," put in the doctor. + +"Yes, take her part. What care you for the family name?" + +"I have a right to speak for the family name," said the doctor firmly. +"It was mine before it was yours. And I sometimes think, if we lived +under more liberal laws, it might be mine after it had ceased to be +yours. . . . I cannot see that the family name has been compromised in +the slightest degree. This is Irene's first adventure. It will pass +away. And even if it does not--he is a manly boy." + +Mrs. Hardy surveyed her husband hopelessly, then turned to Irene. +"Have you made any promises?" + +"Only that I wouldn't make any promises until he had his chance. That +seemed fair." + +"I suppose you are receiving letters from him?" + +"No." + +"None at all?" + +"None at all." + +"Why doesn't he write?" + +For the first time Irene's eyes fell, and the colour mounted richer in +her cheeks. She had to confess now, not for herself, but for him. + +"He can't write," she said. + +"Merciful Heavens!" exclaimed Mrs. Hardy, collapsing into a chair. +"Andrew, bring me a stimulant." + +The outcome was that Mrs. Hardy insisted upon Irene embarking at once +upon a finishing course. When this was completed, as the girl had +shown a sense for form and colour, she encouraged her into a special +art course. Afterwards they travelled together for a year in Europe. +Then, home again, Irene pursued her art, and her mother surrounded her +with the social attractions which Dr. Hardy's comfortable income and +professional standing made possible. Her purpose was obvious, and but +thinly disguised. She hoped that her daughter would outlive her +youthful infatuation, and would at length, in a more suitable match, +give her heart to one of the numerous eligibles of her circle. + +To promote this end Mrs. Hardy spared no pains. Young Carlton, son of +a banker, and one of the leading men of his set, seemed a particularly +appropriate match. Mrs. Hardy opened her home to him, and Carlton, +whatever his motives, was not slow to grasp the situation. For years +Irene had not spoken of Dave Elden, and the mother had grown to hope +that the old attachment had died down and would presently be quite +forgotten in a new and more becoming passion. The fact is that Irene +at that time would have been quite incapable of stating her relation +toward Elden and its influence upon her attitude to life. She was by +no means sure that she loved that sun-burned boy of romantic memory; +she was by no means sure that she should ever marry him, let his +development in life be what it would. But she felt that her heart was +locked, at least for the present, to all other suitors. She had given +her promise, and that settled the matter. True, he had not come to +claim fulfilment of that promise--and at times she scolded him soundly +in the secrecy of her own mind for his negligence through all these +years--but she was young, with no desire for a decisive step, and while +she chafed under his apparent neglect she felt a sort of tingling dread +of the day when he should neglect her no longer. One thing she knew; +he had implanted in her soul a fine contempt for men of the set which +Carlton typified. They would have thought Dave ignorant; but she knew +that if Dave and Carlton were thrown into the wilderness on their own +resources Dave would thrive and Carlton would starve. Perhaps Dave's +education, although not recognized by any university save the +university of hard knocks, was the more real and valuable of the two. + +Notwithstanding her contempt for him, the girl found herself +encouraging Carlton's advances, or at least not meeting them with the +rebuffs which had been her habit toward all other suitors, and Mrs. +Hardy's hopes grew as the attachment apparently developed. But they +were soon to be shattered. + +Irene had gone with Carlton to the theatre; afterwards to supper. It +was long past midnight when she reached home; she knocked at her +mother's door and immediately entered. She was splendidly gowned, but +her hair was dishevelled and her cheeks were flushed, and she walked +unsteadily across the room. + +"What's the matter, Irene? What's the matter, child? Are you sick?" +cried her mother, springing from her bed. "Oh, dear me, and the doctor +is out!" + +"No, I'm not sick," said the girl, brutally. "I'm drunk!" + +"Oh, don't say that," said her mother, soothingly. "Proper people do +not become drunk. You may have had too much champagne, and to-morrow +you will have a headache--" + +"Mother! I have had too much champagne, but not as much as that +precious Carlton of yours had planned for. I just wanted to see how +despicable he was, and I floated down stream with him as far as I +dared. But just as the current got too swift I struck for shore. Oh, +we made a scene, all right, but nobody knew me there, so the family +name is safe and you can rest in peace. I called a taxi and when he +tried to follow me in I slapped him and kicked him. Kicked him, +mother. Dreadfully undignified, wasn't it? . . . And that's what you +want me to marry, in place of a man!" + +Mrs. Hardy was chattering with mortification and excitement. Her plans +had miscarried. Irene had misbehaved. Irene was a difficult, +headstrong child. It was useless to argue with her in her present +mood. It was useless to argue with her in any mood. No doubt Carlton +had been impetuous. Nevertheless, he stood high in his set, and his +father was something of a power in the financial world. As the wife of +such a man Irene might have a career before her--a career from which at +least some of the glory would reflect upon the silvering head of the +mother of Mrs. Carlton. And now Irene, by her folly and her +ungovernable temper, had spoiled all the carefully laid plans. Mrs. +Hardy was a very badly used woman. + +"Go to your room," she said, at length. "You are in no condition to +talk to-night. I must say it is a shame that you can't go out for an +evening without drinking too much and making a scene. . . . In a +public place, too. . . . What will Mr. Carlton think of you?" + +"If he remembers all I told him about himself he'll have enough to +think of," the girl blazed back. "You know--what I have told you--and +still _Mister_ Carlton stands as high in your sight as ever. _I_ am +the one to blame. Very well. I've tried your choice, and I've tried +my own. Now I am in a position to judge. There will be nothing to +talk about in the morning. Mention Carlton's name to me again and I +will give the whole incident to the papers. With photographs. And +names. Fancy the feature heading, 'Society girl, intoxicated, kicks +escort out of taxi.' Good night." + +But other matters were to demand the attention of mother and daughter +in the morning. While the scene was occurring in Mrs. Hardy's bed-room +her husband, clad in white, toiled in the operating room to save the +life of a fellow being. It was an emergency operation, performed by +artificial light, and without adequate assistance. There was a slip of +an instrument, but the surgeon toiled on; he could not, at that +juncture, pause; the life of the patient was at stake. When the +operation was finished he found his injury deeper than he supposed, and +Irene was summoned from her heavy sleep that morning to attend his +bedside. He talked to her as a philosopher; said his life's work was +done, and he was just as glad to go in the harness; the estate should +yield something, and there was his life insurance--a third would be for +her. And when Mrs. Hardy was not at his side he found opportunity to +whisper, "And if you really love that boy out west, _marry him_." + +The sudden bereavement wrought a reconciliation between Mrs. Hardy and +her daughter. Mrs. Hardy took her loss very much to heart. While +Irene grieved for her father, Mrs. Hardy grieved for herself. It was +awful to be left alone like this. There was something in her demeanour +that suggested that Andrew had been rather unkind in departing as he +did. And when the lawyers found that instead of a hundred thousand +dollars the estate would yield a bare third of that sum she spoke +openly of her husband's improvidence. He had enjoyed a handsome +income, upon which his family had lived in luxury. That it was unequal +to the strain of providing for them in that fashion and at the same +time accumulating a reserve for such an eventuality as had occurred was +a matter which his wife could scarcely overlook. + +About this time it came to the notice of Mrs. Hardy that when the late +Mr. Deware had departed this life Mrs. Deware, with her two daughters, +had gone on a trip to England to dull the poignancy of their +bereavement. The Dewares moved in the best circles, Mr. Deware having +amassed a considerable fortune in the brewing business. It was obvious +that whatever Mrs. Deware might do under such circumstances would be +correct. Upon arrival at this conclusion Mrs. Hardy lost no time in +buying two tickets for London. + +Her health, however, had suffered a severe shock, for beneath her +ostentation she felt as deep a regard for her late husband as was +possible in one who measured everything in life by various social +formulae. On the ocean voyage she contracted a cough, which the fogs +of London did little to dispel, and February found her again on the +Atlantic, with her mind occupied by more personal affairs than a seat +at the captain's table. The voyage was a particularly unhappy one, and +the widow's first concern upon reaching home was to consult a +specialist who had enjoyed a close professional acquaintanceship with +Dr. Hardy. The specialist gave her a careful, meditative, and solemn +examination. + +"Your condition is serious," he told her, "but not alarming. You must +have a drier climate, and, preferably, a higher altitude. Fortunately, +your heart is good, or I should have to keep you at sea level; that is, +I should have had to sacrifice your lungs for your heart." The doctor +spoke as though the sacrifice would have been all his, after the manner +of a specialist. "As it is, I am convinced that the conditions your +health demands are to be found in. . ." He named the former cow-town +from which Irene's fateful automobile journey had had its start, and +the young woman, who was present with her mother, felt herself go +suddenly pale with the thought of a great prospect. + +"Oh, I could never live there," Mrs. Hardy protested. "It is so crude. +Cow _punchers_, you know, and all that sort of thing." + +The specialist smiled. "You will probably not find it so crude, +although I daresay some of its customs may jar on you," he remarked, +dryly. "Still, I would recommend you to take your best gowns along. +And it is not a case of not being able to live there. It is a case of +not being able to live here. If you take my advice you should die of +old age, so far, at least, as your present ailment is concerned. If +you don't"--and he dropped his voice to just the correct note of +gravity, which pleased Mrs. Hardy very much--"if you don't, I can't +promise you a year." + +Confronted with such an alternative, the good lady had no option but to +suppress her repugnance toward cow punchers. Irene had expected +opposition born of a more subtle reason, but it soon became evident +that so deeply was her mother concerned with her own affairs that she +had quite failed to associate the proposed change with any possibility +of a re-opening of Irene's affair with the young rancher. It was years +since they had discussed him, and the probability was that, although +the incident remained in the back of Mrs. Hardy's memory, even his name +had been forgotten. + +Arrangements for the journey were made with the despatch which +characterized Mrs. Hardy. She was a stickler for precedent; any +departure from the beaten paths was in her decalogue the unpardonable +sin, but when she had arrived at a decision she was no trifler. She +accepted the situation with the resignation which she deemed to be +correct under such circumstances, but the boundless prairies were to +her so much desolation and ugliness. It was apparent that dwellers in +the little four-cornered houses of the plains must be sadly lacking in +any sense of the artistic, and as Mrs. Hardy gazed from the car window +she acquired a habit of making with her tongue a sound which, owing to +the limitations of the alphabet, cannot be represented to the reader, +but which Irene understood to be an expression of mingled surprise, +pity, and contempt. Irene gathered that her mother did not approve of +prairies. They were something new to her life, and it was greatly to +be suspected that they were improper. + +With very different emotions did the girl find herself speeding again +toward the scene of the first great event of her conscious life. For +her the boundlessness, the vastness, the immeasurable sweep of the eye, +suggested an environment out of which should grow a manhood and +womanhood that should weigh mightily in the scales of destiny of a +great nation; a manhood and womanhood defiant of the things that are, +eager for the adventure of life untrammeled by traditions. She had a +mental vision of the type which such a land must produce; her mind ran +to riots of daring as it fashioned a picture which should fairly +symbolize this people. . . . The day was drawing to a close, and a +prairie sunset glowed upon them in a flush of colouring that stirred +her artist soul. A cloudless sky, transparent as an ocean of glass; +fathomless, infinite, save when in the west inverted islands of gold +and brass and ruddy copper floated in a sea that gently deepened from +saffron to opal; and under that sky the yellow prairies; ever, forever, +and ever. . . . Up from the East came the night, and large, bright +stars stood out, and the click-clack of the car wheels came louder and +louder, and mimic car lamps raced along against the darkness outside. +And then the settlers' lights began to blink across the prairie, and +Irene's eyes were wet with an emotion she could not define; but she +knew her painting had missed something; it had been all outline and no +soul, and the prairies in the night are all soul and no outline; all +softness and vagueness and yearning unutterable. . . . + +"How tiresome it is," said her mother. "Ask the porter to make up the +berths." + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN + +Mrs. Hardy accepted the surroundings she found in the city that was to +be her home with not a little incredulity. For some days she treated +the city as a deep rascal which had disguised its true nature in order +to deceive her. She smiled at the ease with which she saw through all +disguises. One of these days the cloak of respectability would be +thrown off, and the shouting and shooting of the cow punchers would +proclaim the West as it really was. + +Very slowly it dawned upon Mrs. Hardy that this respectable, thriving +city, with its well dressed, properly mannered people, its public +spirit, its aggressiveness, its churches and theatres and schools, its +law and order--and its afternoon teas ("My dear, who would have thought +it possible?" She half expected a cowboy to ride in and overthrow the +china)--very slowly it dawned upon her that this, after all, was the +real West; sincere, earnest; crude, perhaps; bare, certainly; the scars +of its recent battle with the wilderness still fresh upon its person; +lacking the finish that only time can give to a landscape or a +civilization; but lacking also the mouldiness, the mustiness, the +insufferable artificiality of older communities. And the atmosphere! +Day after day brought its cloudless sky, the weather, for once, having +failed to observe the rule of contraries; evening after evening flooded +valley and hilltop with its deluge of golden glory; night after night a +crisp temperature sent her reaching for comforters. Sleep? She felt +that she had never slept before. Eat? Her appetite was insatiable; +all day long she lived in a semi-intoxication born of an unaccustomed +altitude. And, best of all, something had happened to her cough; she +did not know just what or when, but presently she discovered it was +gone. Even Mrs. Hardy, steeped for sixty years in a life of precedent +and rule and caste, began to catch the enthusiasm of a new land where +precedent and rule and caste are something of a handicap. + +"We must buy a home," she said to Irene. "We cannot afford to continue +living at an hotel, and we must have our own home. You must look up a +responsible dealer whose advice we can trust in a matter of this kind." + +And was it remarkable that Irene Hardy should think at once of the firm +of Conward & Elden? It was not. She had, indeed, been thinking of a +member of that firm ever since the decision to move to the West. She +had felt a peculiar hesitation about enquiring openly for Dave Elden, +but, upon meeting a newspaper woman in the person of Miss Morrison she +had voiced the great question with an apparent unconcern which did not +in the slightest mislead the acute Roberta. It is the business of +newspaper people to know things and people, and it seemed to Irene that +she could ask such a question of Miss Morrison in a sort of +professional way. But she had not been prepared for the reply. + +The fact is Irene had not been at all sure that she wanted to marry +Dave Elden. She wanted very much to meet him again; she was curious to +know how the years had fared with him, and her curiosity was not +unmixed with a finer sentiment; but she was not at all sure that she +should marry him. She had tried to picture him in the eye of her +imagination; she was sure he had acquired a modest education; he had +probably been reasonably successful in business, either as an employee, +or, in a small way, on his own account. She was moderately sure of all +this; but there were pessimistic moods in which she saw him slipping +back into the indifference of his old life soon after the inspiration +of her presence had been withdrawn; perhaps still living with his +bibulous father on the ranch in the foothills, or perhaps following the +profession of cow puncher, held in such contempt by her mother. And in +such moods she was sorry, but she knew she could never, never marry him. + +"What, Dave Elden, the millionaire?" Bert Morrison had said. +"Everybody knows him." And then the newspaper woman had gone on to +tell what a figure Dave was in the business life of the city, and to +declare that he might be equally prominent in the social life, did his +fancies lead him in that direction. "One of our biggest young men," +Bert Morrison had said. "Reserved, a little; likes his own company +best; but absolutely white." + +That gave a new turn to the situation. Irene had always wanted Dave to +be a success; suddenly she doubted whether she had wanted him to be so +big a success. And with that doubt came another and more disturbing +one, which, if it had ever before crossed her mind, had found no +harbourage there. She had doubted whether she should wish to marry +Dave; she had never allowed herself to doubt that Dave would wish to +marry her. Secretly, she had expected to rather dazzle him with her +ten years' development--with the culture and knowledge which study and +travel and life had added to the charm of her young girlhood; and +suddenly she realized that her lustre would shine but dimly in the +greater glory of his own. . . . She became conscious of a very great +desire to renew with Dave the intimacy of her girlhood. + +It was easy to locate the office of Conward & Elden; it stood on a +principal corner of a principal street, and the name was blazoned to +the wayfarer in great gilt letters. Thence she led her mother, and +found herself treading on the marble floors of the richly appointed +waiting room in a secret excitement which she could with difficulty +conceal. She was, indeed, very uncertain about the next +development. . . . Her mother had to be reckoned with. + +A young man asked courteously what could be done for them. "We want to +see the head of the firm," said Mrs. Hardy. "We want to buy a house." +It occurred to Irene that in some respects her mother was extremely +artless, but the issue was for the moment postponed. + +They were shown into Conward's office. Time had been when they would +have seen no further than a head salesman; but times were changing, and +real estate dealers were losing the hauteur of the days of their great +success. Conward gave them the welcome of a man who expects to make +money out of his visitors. He placed a very comfortable chair for Mrs. +Hardy; he adjusted the blinds to a nicety; he discarded his cigarette +and beamed upon them with as great a show of cordiality as his somewhat +beefy appearance would permit. The years had not been over kind to +Conward's person. His natural tendency to corpulence had been abetted +by excessive eating; his face was red and flabby, his lips had no more +colour than his face; and nature, in deciding to deprive him of a +portion of his hair, had very unkindly elected to take it in patches, +giving his head a sort of pinto effect. These imperfections were +quickly appraised by Irene, but his manner appealed to Mrs. Hardy, who +outlined her life history with considerable detail, dwelling more than +once upon the perfections of the late Dr. Hardy--which perfections she +now showed a disposition to magnify, as implying a certain distinction +unto herself--and ended with the confession that the West was not as +bad as she had feared, and anyway it was a case of living here or dying +elsewhere, so she would have to make the best of it. And here they +were. And might they see a house? + +Conward appeared to be reflecting. As a matter of fact, he saw in this +inexperienced buyer an opportunity to reduce his holdings in +anticipation of the impending crash. His difficulty was that he had no +key to the financial resources of his visitors. They had lived in good +circumstances; they were the family of a successful professional man, +but, as Conward well knew, many successful professional men had a +manner of living that galloped hard on the heels of their income. The +only thing was to throw out a feeler. + +"You are wanting a nice home, I take it, that can be bought at a +favourable price for cash. You would consider an investment of +say----." + +He paused, and Mrs. Hardy supplied the information for which he was +waiting. "About twenty-five thousand dollars," she said. + +"We can hardly invest that much," Irene interrupted, in a whisper. "We +must have something to live on." + +"People here live on the profits of their investments, do they not, Mr. +Conward?" Mrs. Hardy inquired. "I have been told that that is the way +they live, and they seem to live very well indeed." + +"Oh, certainly," Conward agreed, and he plunged into a mass of +incidents to show how profitable investments had been to other clients +of the firm. He emphasized particularly the desirability of buying +improved property--preferably residential property--and suddenly +recalled that he had something very choice in which they might be +interested. At this juncture Conward's mood of deliberation gave way +to one of briskness; he summoned a car, and in a few minutes his +clients were looking over the property which he had recommended. Mrs. +Hardy, who, during her husband's lifetime had never found it necessary +to bear financial responsibilities or make business decisions, was an +amateurish buyer, her tendency being alternately to excess of caution +on one side and recklessness on the other. Conward's manner pleased +her; the house he showed pleased her, and she was eager to have it over +with. But he was too shrewd to appear to encourage a hasty decision. +He realized at once that he had sold Mrs. Hardy, but Irene was a +customer calling for more tactful handling. Conward's eye had not +failed to appraise the charm of the young woman's appearance. He would +gladly have ingratiated himself with her, but he was conscious of a +force in her personality that held him aloof. And that consciousness +made him desire the more to gain her confidence. . . . However, this +was a business transaction. He did not seize upon Mrs. Hardy's remark +that the house seemed perfectly satisfactory; on the contrary, he +insisted on showing other houses, which he quoted at such impossible +figures that presently the old lady was in a feverish haste to make a +deposit lest some other buyer should forestall her. + +Back in Conward's office, while the agreement was being drawn, Irene +was possessed of a consuming desire to consult with Dave Elden. She +was uneasy about this transaction in which her mother proposed so +precipitately to invest the greater part of their little fortune. But +the more she thought over the situation the more its difficulties +became apparent. She had no personal knowledge or experience which +could be summoned for such an occasion. She would like to have asked +Dave's advice; instinctively she distrusted Conward. Yet, . . . . +Conward was Dave's partner. It was impossible to attribute honest +motives to one half of the firm and deny them to the other. And it was +unreasonable to expect that Dave's advice would conflict with +Conward's. And, in the event that an issue did arise between the two +partners, it was quite certain that her mother would side with Conward. +Meanwhile the agreement neared completion, and Mrs. Hardy had produced +her cheque book. + +Irene's excitement at length reached the point where she could no +longer remain silent. "I think I would hesitate, mother," she cried. +"If you buy this house we will have only a few thousand dollars left. +I am not thinking of myself. Your health may demand other +expenditures----" + +"My health was never better," Mrs. Hardy interrupted. "And I'm not +going to miss a chance like this, health or no health. You have heard +Mr. Conward tell how many people have grown wealthy buying property and +selling it again. And I will sell it again--when I get my price," she +ended, with a finality that suggested that large profits were already +assured. + +"It is as your mother says," Conward interjected. "There are many +rapid increases in value. I would not be surprised if you should be +offered an advance of ten thousand dollars on this place before Fall. +It is really a very exceptional investment." + +"There must be an end somewhere," Irene murmured, rather weakly. But +her mother was writing a cheque. "I shall give you five thousand +dollars now," she said, "and the balance when you give me the deed, or +whatever it is. That is the proper way, isn't it?" + +"Well, it's done," said Irene, with an uneasy laugh, which her +excitement pitched a little higher than she had intended. + +In an adjoining room Dave Elden heard that laugh, and it stirred some +remembrance in him. Instantly he connected it with Irene Hardy. The +truth was Irene Hardy had been in the background of his mind during +every waking hour since Bert Morrison had dropped her bombshell upon +him. How effectively she had dropped it! What a hit she had scored! +Dave had ricochetted ever since between amusement and chagrin at her +generalship. She had deliberately created for him opportunities--a +whole evening full of them--to confess about Irene Hardy, and when he +had refused to admit that he had anything to confess she had confounded +him with an incident that admitted no explanation. For a moment he had +stood speechless, overcome with the significance of what she had said; +the next, he reached out to detain her, but she was already on the +stairs of her apartment and waving him a laughing good-night. And now +that voice-- + +Dave had no plan. He simply walked into Conward's office. His eye +took in the little group, and the mind behind caught something of its +portent. Irene's beauty! What a quickening of the pulses was his as +he saw in this splendid woman the girl who had stirred and returned his +youthful passion! But Dave had poise. Upon a natural ability to take +care of himself in a physical sense, environment and training had +imposed a mental resourcefulness not easily taken at a disadvantage. +He walked straight to Irene. + +"I heard your voice," he said, in quiet tones that gave no hint of the +emotion beneath. "I am very glad to see you again." He took the hand +which she extended in a firm, warm grasp; there was nothing in it, as +Irene protested to herself, that was more than firm and warm, but it +set her finger-tips a-tingling. + +"My mother, Mr. Elden," she managed to say, and she hoped her voice was +as well controlled as his had been. Mrs. Hardy looked on the +clean-built young man with the dark eyes and the brown, smooth face, +but the name suggested nothing. "You remember," Irene went on. "I +told you of Mr. Elden. It was at his ranch we stayed when father was +hurt." + +"But I thought he was a cow _puncher_," exclaimed Mrs. Hardy, with no +abatement of the contempt which she always compressed into the one +western term which had smuggled into her vocabulary. + +"Times change quickly in the West, madam," said Dave. There was +nothing in his voice to suggest that he had caught the note in hers. +"Most of our business men--at least, those bred in the country--have +thrown a lasso in their day. You should hear them brag of their +steer-roping yet in the Ranchmen's Club." Irene's eyes danced. Dave +had already turned the tables; where her mother had implied contempt he +had set up a note of pride. It was a matter of pride among these +square-built, daring Western men that they had graduated into their +office chairs from the saddle and the out-of-doors. + +"Oh, I suppose," said her mother, for lack of a better answer. +"Everything is so absurd in the West. But you were good to my +daughter, and to poor, dear Andrew. If only he had been spared. Women +are so unused to these business responsibilities, Mr. Conward. It is +fortunate there are a few reliable firms upon which we can lean in our +inexperience." + +"Mother has bought a house," Irene explained to Dave. "We thought this +was a safe place to come----" + +A look on Elden's face caused her to pause. "Why, what is wrong?" she +said. + +Dave looked at Conward, at Mrs. Hardy, and at Irene. He was instantly +aware that Conward had "stung" them. It was common knowledge in inside +circles that the bottom was going out. The firm of Conward & Elden had +been scurrying for cover; as quietly and secretly as possible, to avoid +alarming the public, but scurrying for cover nevertheless. And Dave +had acquiesced in that policy. He had little stomach for it, but no +other course seemed possible. Conward, he knew, had no scruples. Bert +Morrison had been caught in his snare, and now this other and dearer +friend had proved a ready victim. As Conward was wont to say, business +is business. And he had acquiesced. His position was extremely +difficult. + +"I don't think I would be in a hurry to buy," he said, slowly turning +his eyes on his partner. "You would perhaps be wiser to rent a home +for awhile. Rents are becoming easier." + +"But I _have_ bought," said Mrs. Hardy, and there was triumph rather +than regret in her voice. "I have paid my deposit." + +"It is the policy of this firm," Elden continued, "not to force or take +advantage of hurried decisions. The fact that you have already made a +deposit does not alter that policy. I think I may speak for my partner +and the firm when I say that your deposit will be held to your credit +for thirty days, during which time it will constitute an option on the +property which you have selected. If, at the end of that time, you are +still of your present mind, the transaction can go through as now +planned; and if you have changed your mind your deposit will be +returned." + +Conward shifted under Dave's direct eye. He preferred to look at Mrs. +Hardy. "What Mr. Elden has told you about the policy of the firm is +quite true," he managed to say. "But, as it happens, this transaction +is not with Conward & Elden, but with me personally. I find it +necessary to dispose of the property which I have just sold to you at +such an exceptional price"--he was looking at Mrs. Hardy--"I find it +necessary for financial reasons to dispose of it, and naturally I +cannot run a chance of having my plans overturned by any possible +change of mind on your part. Not that I think you will change your +mind," he hurried to add. "I think you are already convinced that it +is a very good buy indeed." + +"I am entirely satisfied," said Mrs. Hardy. "The fact that Mr. Elden +wants to get the property back makes me more satisfied," she added, +with the peculiarly irritating laugh of a woman who thinks she is +extraordinarily shrewd, and is only very silly. + +"The agreement is signed?" said Dave. He walked to the desk and picked +up the documents, and the cheque that lay upon them. His eye ran down +the familiar contract. "This agreement is in the name of Conward & +Elden," he said. "This cheque is payable to Conward & Elden." + +He was addressing Conward. Conward's livid face had become white, and +it was with difficulty he controlled his anger. "They are all printed +that way," he explained. "I am going to have them endorsed over to me." + +"You are _not_," said Dave. "You are charging this woman twenty-five +thousand dollars for a house that won't bring twenty thousand on the +open market to-day, and by Fall won't bring ten thousand. The firm of +Conward & Elden will have nothing to do with that transaction. It +won't even endorse it over." + +A fire was burning in the grate. Dave walked to it, and very slowly +and deliberately thrust the agreement and the cheque into the flame. +For a moment the printed letters stood out after the body of the paper +was consumed; then all fell to ashes. + +"Well, if that doesn't beat all!" Mrs. Hardy ejaculated. "Are all cow +_punchers_ so discourteous?" + +"I mean no discourtesy," said Dave. "And I hope you will let me say +now, what I should have said before, that it was with the deepest +regret I learned from your conversation of the death of Dr. Hardy. He +was a gentleman who commanded my respect, as he must have commanded the +respect of all who knew him. If my behaviour has seemed abrupt I +assure you I have only sought to serve Dr. Hardy's widow--and his +daughter." + +"It is a peculiar service," Mrs. Hardy answered curtly. She felt she +had a grievance against Dave. He had not lived down to her conception +of what a raw Western youth should be. Even the act of burning the +agreement and the cheque, dramatic though it was, had a poise to it +that seemed inappropriate. Dave should have snatched the papers--it +would have been better had the partners fought over them--he should +have crumpled them in rage and consigned them to the fire with curses. +Mrs. Hardy felt that in such conduct Dave would have been running true +to form. His assumption of the manners of a gentleman annoyed her +exceedingly. + +"I can only apologize for my partner's behaviour," said Conward. "It +need not, however, affect the transaction in the slightest degree. A +new agreement will be drawn at once--an agreement in which the firm of +Conward & Elden will not be concerned." + +"That will be more satisfactory," said Mrs. Hardy. She intended the +remark for Dave's ears, but he had moved to a corner of the room and +was conversing in low tones with Irene. + +"I am sorry I had to make your mother's acquaintance under +circumstances which, I fear, she will not even try to understand," he +had said to Irene. "I am sure she will not credit me with unselfish +motives." + +"Oh, Dave--Mr. Elden, I mean--that is--you don't know how proud--you +don't know how much of a _man_ you made me feel you are." + +She was flushed and excited. "Perhaps I shouldn't talk like this. +Perhaps----" + +"It all depends on one thing," Dave interrupted. + +"What is that?" + +"It all depends on whether we are Miss Hardy and Mr. Elden, or whether +we are still Reenie and Dave." + +Her bright eyes had fallen to the floor, and he could see the tremor of +her fingers as they rested on the back of a chair. She did not answer +him directly. But in a moment she spoke. + +"Mother will buy the house from Mr. Conward," she said. "She is like +that. And when we are settled you will come and see me, won't +you--Dave?" + + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN + +When the Hardys had gone Conward turned to Elden. "We had better try +and find out where we stand," he said, trying to speak dispassionately, +but there was a tremor in his voice. + +"I agree," returned Elden, who had no desire to evade the issue. "Do +you consider it fair to select inexperienced women for your victims?" + +Conward made a deprecating gesture. "There is nothing to be gained by +quarreling, Dave," he said. "Let us face the situation fairly. Let us +get at the facts. When we have agreed as to facts, then we may agree +as to procedure." + +"Shoot," said Dave. He stood with his shoulder toward Conward, +watching the dusk settling about the foothill city. The streets led +away into the gathering darkness, and the square brick blocks stood in +blue silhouette against a champagne sky. He became conscious of a +strange yearning for this young metropolis; a sort of parental brooding +over a boisterous, lovable, wayward youth. It was his city; no one +could claim it more than he. And it was a good city to look upon, and +to mingle in, and to dream about. + +"I think," said Conward, "we can agree that the boom is over. Booms +feed upon themselves, and eventually they eat themselves up. We have +done well, on paper. The thing now is to convert our paper into cash." + +Dave turned about. "You know I don't claim to be any great moralist, +Conward," he said, "and I have no pity for a gambler who deliberately +sits in and gets stung. Consequently I am not troubled with any +self-pity, nor any pity for you. And if you can get rid of our +holdings to other gamblers I have nothing to say. But if it is to be +loaded on to women who are investing the little savings of their +lives--women like Bert Morrison and Mrs. Hardy--then I am going to have +a good deal to say. And there is that man--what's his name?--Merton, I +think; a lunger if there ever was one; tuberculosis written all over +him; a widower, too, with a little boy, sent out here as his last +chance--you loaded him with stuff where he can't see the smoke of the +city, and you call it city property. That's what I want to talk +about," said Dave, with rising heat. "If business has to be done that +way, then I say, to hell with business!" + +"I asked you not to quarrel," Conward returned, with remarkable +composure. "I suggested that we get at the facts. That seems to be a +business suggestion. I think we are agreed that the boom is over. +Values are on the down grade. The boomsters are departing. They are +moving on to new fields, as we should have done a year or two ago, but +I confess I had a sort of sentiment for this place. Well--that is the +price of sentiment. It won't mix with business. Now, granting that +the boom is over, where do we stand? + +"We are rated as millionaires, but we haven't a thousand dollars in the +bank at this moment. This," he lifted Mrs. Hardy's cheque, "would have +seen us over next pay day, but you say the firm must have nothing to do +with it. And which is the more immoral--since you have spoken of +morality--to accept labour from clerks whom you can't pay, or to sell +property to women who say they want it and are satisfied with the +price? We make our income by selling property. As soon as the sales +stop, the income stops. Well, the sales have stopped. But the expense +goes on. We have literally thousands of unsettled contracts. We must +keep our staff together. We have debts to pay, and we owe it to our +creditors to make collections so that we can pay those debts, and we +can't make collections without staff. I sympathize with your feelings +on this matter, Dave, but what's a man to do? It's like war; we must +kill or be killed. Business is war, of a kind. Why, on the property +we are now holding the taxes alone will amount to twenty thousand +dollars a year. And I put it up to you; if we are going to stand on +sentiment, who's going to pay the taxes?" + +"I know; I know," said Dave, whose anger over the treatment of the +Hardys was already subsiding. "We are in the grip of the System. As +you have said, it is kill or be killed. Still--in war they don't +usually kill women and non-combatants. That is the point I'm trying to +make. I've no sentiment about others who are in the game as we are. +If you limit your operations to them----" + +"The trouble is, you can't. They're wise. They see the bottom going, +and they quit. Most of them have already moved on. A few firms, like +ourselves, will stay and try to fight it out; try, at least, to close +up with a clean sheet, if we must close up. But we can't wind up a +business without selling the stock on hand, and to whom are we to sell +it, if not to people who want it? That is what you seem to object to." + +"You place me in rather an unfair light," Dave protested. "What I +object to is taking the life savings of people--people of moderate +circumstances, mainly--in exchange for property which we know to be +worth next to nothing." + +"Yet you admit that we must clean up, don't you?" + +"Yes, I suppose so." + +"And there's no other way, Dave," said Conward, rising and placing an +arm on his partner's shoulder, "I sympathize with your point of view, +but, my boy, it's pure sentiment, and sentiment has no place in +business. And you remember the terms of our partnership, don't you?" + +Dave hesitated a few moments, as he threw his mind back over the years +that had gone by since the day when Conward proposed a partnership to +him. He saw again his little office where he ground out "stuff" for +_The Call_, the littered desk and floor, the cartoons on the walls, the +big shears, and the paste pot--yes, the paste pot, and the lock he had +installed to protect it, and his select file of time copy, from +depredation. And the smell of printer's ink; even yet, when business +took Dave into a printing office, the smell of ink brought back those +old, happy days. Happy days? When he worked more hours than a man +should work, for less salary than a man should get; when the glorious +out-of-doors called him and his soul rebelled against the despotism of +fate! Yes, surely they were happy days. He smiled a moment as he +thought of them; paused to dally with them on his way to an answer for +Conward; then skimmed quickly down the surface of events to this +present evening. More wonderful had the years been than any dream of +fiction; no wizard's wand had ever worked richer magic. . . . + +"You remember, don't you?" Conward repeated. + +"Oh, about the coal?" Dave laughed. The moment of reminiscence had +restored his good humour. "Yes, I suppose it was a bargain. You have +held me to it pretty well." + +"Let it remain a bargain to the end," said Conward. "It is the only +way we can finish up." + +Dave dropped the subject. There appeared to be nothing to gain from +pursuing it further. They were in the grip of a System--a System which +had found them poor, had suddenly made them wealthy, and now, with +equal suddenness, threatened to make them poor again. It was like +war--kill or be killed. It occurred to Dave that it was even worse +than war. War has in it the qualities of the heroic; splendid bravery; +immeasurable self-sacrifice; that broad spirit of devotion to a vague +ideal which, for lack of a better name, is called patriotism. This +System had none of that. It was more like assassination. . . . + +Night had settled when Dave left the office. The champagne sky had +deepened into a strip of copper; the silhouettes were soft and black; +street lights studded the bank of foothills to the west like setting +stars. Darkness had tucked the distance that lay between the city and +the Rockies in the lap of night, and the great ridge stood up close and +clear, prodding its jagged edge into the copper pennant of the day's +farewell. A soft wind blew from the south-west; June was in the air. +June, too, was in Dave's heart as he walked the few blocks to his +bachelor quarters. What of the drab injustice of business? Let him +forget that; now it was night . . . and she had called him Dave. He +climbed the steps to his room with energy and life tingling in his +limbs; then he stood in his window and for a long while watched the +traffic in the street below. That is, his eyes were directed to the +traffic, but what he saw was a merry girl in a brown sweater, showering +her glances of admiration upon a raw youth of the ranges whose highest +ambition was to break six bottles with six bullets. And she had even +held that to be a worthy ambition. She had said, "Perhaps the day is +coming when our country will want men who can shoot and ride more than +it will want lawyers or professors." He smiled at the recollection of +her words. The romantic days of youth! like the mirage of sunrise they +fade and are lost in the morning of life. . . . And their young +philosophies! The night they found the dead calf; he had propounded +the wisdom that it is always the innocent thing that suffers; that the +crittur that can't run gets caught. Well, that seemed to hold good. +Wasn't that what Conward had argued to him this very afternoon, and he +had found no answer? He wondered what Reenie's experience had +been. . . . And then the compact under the spruce trees. . . . "Come +to me--like that--" she had said, "and then--then we'll know." And +to-day she had called him Dave. + +He dressed with care. The Chinese boy was never more obsequious in his +attentions, and Dave never presented a more manly appearance. It was +not until he was about to leave his rooms that he remembered he must +dine alone; he had been dressing for her, unconsciously. The +realization brought him up with something of a shock. "This will never +do," he said, "I can't eat alone to-night. And I can't ask Reenie, so +soon after the incident with her mother. I know--Bert Morrison." He +reached for the telephone and rang her number. Had anyone charged Dave +with fickleness in his affections he would have laughed at the +absurdity. Had he not remained true to one great passion through the +dangerous decade of his life? A man always thinks of the decade just +ended as the dangerous decade. And Bert Morrison was a good friend. +As he waited at the telephone he recalled the impulse which had seized +him when they had last parted. But the recollection brought only a +glow of friendship for Bert. There was no hint of danger in it. + +Her number did not answer. He thought of Edith Duncan. But Edith +lived at home, and it was much too late to extend a formal dinner +invitation. There was nothing for it but to eat alone. He suddenly +became conscious of the great loneliness of his bachelor life. After +all, he was quite as much alone in the city as he had been in his +boyhood in the hills. He began to moralize on this subject of +loneliness. It was very evident to him now that his life had been +empty and shallow. It was rather evident that any single life is empty +and shallow. Nature had made no mistake in decreeing that humans +should live in pairs. Dave had never thought much on that point +before, but now it struck him as so obvious that none could fail to see +its logic. The charm of bachelorhood was a myth which only needed +contact with the gentle atmosphere of feminine affection to be exposed. + +The Chinese boy coughed deferentially, and Dave was recalled from his +reverie. He took his hat and coat and went into the street. It was +his custom to take his meals at a modest eating-place on a side avenue, +but to-night he directed his steps to the best hotel the city afforded. +There was no wisdom in dressing for an event unless he were going to +deflect his course somewhat from the daily routine. + +The dining hall was a blaze of light; the odour of early roses blended +with imported perfumes, and strains of sweet, subdued music trembled +through the room in accompaniment to the merry-making of the diners. +Dave paused for a moment, awaiting the beck of a waiter, but in that +moment his eye fell on Conward, seated at a table with Mrs. Hardy and +Irene. Conward had seen him, and was motioning to him to join them. +The situation was embarrassing, and yet delightful. He was glad he had +dressed for dinner. + +"Join us, Elden," Conward said, as he reached their table. "Just a +little dinner to celebrate to-day's transaction. You will not refuse +to share to that extent?" + +Dave looked at Mrs. Hardy. Had he been dealing with Conward and Mrs. +Hardy alone he would have excused himself, but he had to think of +Irene. That is, he had to justify her by being correct in his manners. +And as he looked from mother to daughter he realized that Irene had not +inherited all her beauty from her father. In their dinner gowns Mrs. +Hardy was sedate and even beautiful, and her daughter ravishing. Dave +thought he had not before seen so much womanly charm in any figure. + +"_Do_ join us," said Mrs. Hardy. It was evident to Mrs. Hardy that it +would be correct for her to support Mr. Conward's invitation. + +"You are very kind," said Dave, as he seated himself. "I had not hoped +for this pleasure." And yet the pleasure was not unmixed. He felt +that Conward had out-played him. It was Conward who had done the +gracious thing. And Dave could not prevent Conward doing the gracious +thing without himself being ungracious. + +He was aware of being under the close scrutiny of Mrs. Hardy. True, +Conward sought to monopolize her attention. He had an ingratiating way +with strangers; he struck a confidential note that quickly called forth +confidence in return, and Dave was chagrined to see that not only was +his partner creating the intended impression upon Mrs. Hardy, but his +sallies and witticisms were gradually winning response from Irene. And +the more he was annoyed at this turn of affairs the less was he able to +arrest it. As Conward's guest he could not quarrel, and his fear of +over-stepping the mark if he engaged in discussion induced a silence +which might easily have been mistaken for mental inanition. He +contented himself with being punctiliously correct in his table +etiquette. + +Perhaps he could have followed no wiser course, Dave's manners had an +effect upon Mrs. Hardy similar to that which she had experienced from +the decent civilization of the western city. To her it seemed +impossible that a raw youth, bred on the ranges--a cow puncher--could +conduct himself correctly in evening dress at a fashionable table. It +was more than impossible--it was heterodox; it was a defiance of all +the principles upon which caste is based, and to Mrs. Hardy caste was +the one safe line of demarkation between refinement and vulgarity. So +she noted Elden's correct deportment, even to--as it seemed to her--his +correct modesty in taking little part in the conversation, with a sense +that all this was a disguise, and that presently he would, +figuratively, burst forth from his linen and broadcloth and stand +revealed in schaps and bandana. But the meal progressed with no such +development, and Mrs. Hardy had a vague sense that this young man was +not dealing fairly with her. He was refusing to live up to her +preconceived ideas of what his part should be. Had Mrs. Hardy been +capable of analyzing her own emotions correctly, she would have known +that Dave was undermining her belief in caste, and without caste there +could be no civilization! But Mrs. Hardy was not a deep self-analyst. +Those who accept all distinctions as due to external causes have no +occasion to employ any deep mental subtlety in classifying their +acquaintances. So, as has been stated, the impression created upon her +mind by Elden's proper conduct was one of vague annoyance that proper +conduct should be found in one not reared within the charmed circle of +the _elite_. + +After dinner they sat in the lounge-room, and Conward beguiled the time +with stories of sudden wealth which had been practically forced upon +men who were now regarded as the business frame-work of the country. +As these worthies strolled through the richly furnished room leisurely +smoking their after-dinner cigars Conward would make a swift summary of +their rise from liveryman, cow puncher, clerk or labourer to their +present affluence, occasionally appealing to Dave to corroborate his +statements. It was particularly distasteful to Elden to be obliged to +add his word to Conward's in such matters, for although Conward +carefully refrained from making any direct reference to Mrs. Hardy's +purchase, the inference that great profits would accrue to her +therefrom was very obvious. + +A tall man passed by with a richly gowned woman on his arm. "Jim +Farley," Conward explained. "Plasterer by trade. Began dabbling in +real estate. Now rated as a millionaire." + +Conward paused to light another cigarette. "Interesting case, +Farley's," he continued, after a pause. "You remember it, Elden?" +Dave nodded. "Farley blew in here from Scotland, or some such place, +looking for work with his trowel. That was about the time of the +beginning of things, as things are reckoned here. Some unscrupulous +dealer learned that Farley had three hundred dollars--it goes to show +what has happened even when the motive of the seller could hardly be +endorsed as honest business. Well, this dealer learned that Farley had +three hundred dollars, and by means of much conviviality he induced him +to invest that amount in a pair of lots on a cut-bank in the most +outlandish place you can imagine. When Farley came to himself he was +so sick over it he moved on to the Coast, and took up his trade of +plastering. + +"Well, in a couple of years things had happened. The principal thing, +so far as Farley's fortunes were concerned, was the decision of a new +transcontinental railway to build into this centre. Now it so happened +that nature or geology or topography or whatever it is that controls +such matters had decreed that the railway must cross Farley's lots. +There was no other way in. It became the duty of Conward & Elden to +buy those lots. We ascertained his address and wired him an offer of +two thousand dollars. There was no time to lose, and we felt that that +offer would cinch it. But we had overlooked the fact that Farley was +Scotch. Did he accept our offer? He did not. He reasoned like this: +'If I am worth two thousand dollars I can afford a little holiday.' So +he threw up his job and in a couple of days he walked into our office. +Would he listen to reason? He would not. He knew that an eagle would +scarcely choose his property as a building site. He knew that whoever +was going to buy those lots was going to buy them because he had to +have them--because they were essential to some project. And he simply +sat tight. + +"To make the story short--how much do you think we paid for them? Ten +thousand dollars. Ten thousand dollars cash. And he made us pay the +cost of the transfer. You remember that, Elden? We laughed over it at +the time. Then he immediately re-invested his little fortune, and +to-day-- It's the story of hundreds." + +Elden was glad when Mrs. Hardy remembered that she must not remain up +late. Her physician had prescribed rest. Early to bed, you know. +Still, Mr. Conward's anecdotes were so refreshing, so suggestive of +that--what is it you call it?--that spirit of the West, etc. Dave had +opportunity for just a word with Irene before they left. + +"How did this happen--to-night?" he asked, with the calm assumption of +one who has a right to know. + +"Oh, Mr. Conward telephoned an invitation to mother," she explained. +"I was so glad you happened in. You have had wonderful experiences; it +must be inspiring--ennobling--to take such part in the building of a +new city; something that will be here forever as a monument to the men +of this generation. Mr. Conward is charming, isn't he?" + +Dave did not know whether the compliment to Conward was a personal +matter concerning his partner, or whether it was to be taken as a +courtesy to the firm. In either case he rather resented it. He +wondered what Irene would think of this "ennobling" business in the +drab days of disillusionment that must soon sweep down upon them. But +Irene apparently did not miss his answer. + +"We shall soon be settled," she said, as Mrs. Hardy and Conward were +seen approaching. "Then you will come and visit us?" + +"I will--Reenie," he whispered, and he was sure the colour that mounted +in her cheeks held no tinge of displeasure. + + + + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN + +Elden lost no time in making his first call upon the Hardys. He had +discussed the matter with Irene over the telephone. "We are hardly in +order yet," she had explained. "We are in a chaos of house-furnishing, +but you will be welcome. And there may be boxes to lift, and carpets +to lay, and heavy things to shove about." + +He found, however, that very fine order had already been established in +the Hardy home, or, at any rate, in that part of it available to +visitors. Mrs. Hardy would have barred, with her own robust body if +necessary, his admission into any such surroundings as Irene had +pictured. Irene received him cordially, but Mrs. Hardy evinced no more +warmth than propriety demanded. Elden, however, allowed himself no +annoyance over that. A very much greater grievance had been thrust +upon his mind. Conward had preceded him, and was already a guest of +the Hardys. + +Dave had accepted the fact of Conward's dinner party as a natural +enough occurrence, and after Irene's explanation he had dismissed it +from his mind. Conward's presence in the Hardy home was a more serious +matter. He knew Conward well enough to know that purpose always lay +behind his conduct, and during the small talk with which they whiled +away an hour his mind was reaching out acutely, exploring every nook of +possibility, to arrive, if it could, at some explanation of the sudden +interest which Conward was displaying in the Hardys. These +explanations narrowed down to two almost equally unpalatable. Conward +was deliberately setting about to capture the friendship, perhaps the +affection, of either Mrs. Hardy or Irene. Strangely enough, Elden was +more irritated by the former alternative than by the latter. He felt +that if Conward's purposes were directed towards Irene that was at +least fair warfare; he could not bring himself to think similarly of a +suit that involved Mrs. Hardy. Perhaps this attitude was due to +subconscious recognition of the fact that he had much more to fear from +Conward as a suitor for the hand of Mrs. Hardy than as a rival for that +of Irene. On the latter score he had no misgivings; he was confident +of his ability to worst any adversary in that field, and competition +would lend a piquancy to his courtship not altogether without +advantages; but he had no such confidence in the case of an assault +upon the heart of the elder woman. He could not become Conward's rival +in such a case, and, repugnant as the idea was to him, he felt no +assurance that such a match might not develop. And Conward, as a +prospective father-in-law, was a more grievous menace to his peace of +mind than Conward as a defeated rival. + +The more he contemplated this aspect of the case the less he liked it. +He would not do Conward the compliment of supposing that he had, or +might develop, a genuine attachment for Mrs. Hardy. It was true that +Mrs. Hardy, notwithstanding her years and her eccentricities, had a +certain stateliness of manner through which at times protruded a +reckless frankness that lent a unique charm to her personality, but it +was impossible to suppose that Conward had been captivated by these +interesting qualities. To Conward the affair could be nothing more +than an adventure, but it would give him a position of a sort of +semi-paternal authority over both Irene and Elden. Fortunately for his +train of thought, which was floundering into more and more difficult +travel, the prospect of having to appeal to Conward for the honour of +Irene's hand in marriage touched Dave's sense of humour, and he +suddenly burst into inappropriate laughter in the course of Mrs. +Hardy's panegyric upon the life and morals of her late husband. + +Mrs. Hardy contracted her eyebrows. + +"I beg your pardon," said Dave. "I have to confess I allowed my wits +to go rambling, and they stumbled upon a--upon a very amusing +absurdity." Elden's mind was engaged with Mrs. Hardy and Conward, and, +unintentionally, he allowed his eyes to embrace them both in his +remark. One more astute than Mrs. Hardy might have had a glimmer of +the absurdity which had provoked Dave's untimely mirth, but she was a +woman who took herself with much seriousness. If Conward guessed +anything he concealed his intuition behind a mask of polite attention. + +Mrs. Hardy addressed a severe gaze at Elden. "You should keep your +wits better in hand, young man. When you find them rambling it might +be well to--ah--_lasso_ them. Ha, ha, Mr. Conward. That's the word, +is it not? _Lasso_ them." This unexpected witticism on Mrs. Hardy's +part had the fortunate effect of restoring that lady's good humour, and +Elden found an easy way out of the situation by joining in the general +laughter. + +"I fear a thought would be a somewhat elusive thing to get a rope on," +he ventured. + +"But if it could be done, Dave would do it," Irene interjected. "You +remember----" + +"Dave?" said Mrs. Hardy, sharply. "You mean Mr. Elden." + +The colour rose in the young woman's cheeks, but she stood by her guns. +"He was Dave in those days," she said. "It would be impossible to +think of a _mister_ galloping about over the foothills, swinging his +lariat, or smashing bottles with his six-shooter. Mister fits in with +the conventions; with tailors and perfume and evening dress, but it +doesn't seem to have any place in the foothills." + +"You're right," Conward agreed. "Mister has no place on horseback. If +you were to go out on the ranges and begin mistering the cow-punchers, +like as not they'd lead you into camp at a rope-end. No man really +makes much of a hit in this country until everybody calls him by his +first name." + +"Well, Mr. Elden seems to have made a hit, as you call it, with some of +his acquaintances," said Mrs. Hardy, with a touch of acidity. "I +think, Irene, you would do well to remember that we are not out on the +ranges, and that Mr. Elden no longer pursues his living with a lariat." + +"It may be a point of view I have acquired in the West," Irene +persisted. "But I think it a greater courtesy to address a man by his +Christian name than by any artificial title. It is something like +admitting a guest into the kitchen--a privilege not extended to the +casual visitor. It seems like taking him into the family----" + +"Merciful Heaven!" exclaimed Mrs. Hardy. "Have we come to that?" + +Irene's cheeks and eyes grew brighter still. "Oh, I didn't mean that," +she protested. "I was--I was employing a figure of speech." + +So the talk drifted on, sometimes safely, sometimes through tortuous +channels that threatened at any moment to over-turn their little shell +of convention. But no such catastrophe occurred, and when, at length, +Mrs. Hardy began to show signs of weariness, Irene served coffee and +cake, and the two men, taking that as an intimation that their welcome +had run down, but would re-wind itself if not too continually drawn +upon, left the house together. On their way they agreed that it was a +very beautiful night. + +Dave turned the situation over in his mind with some impatience. Irene +had now been in the city for several weeks, and he had had opportunity +for scarce a dozen personal words with her. Was he to be baulked by +such an insufferable chaperonage as it seemed the purpose of Mrs. Hardy +and Conward to establish over his love affair? No. In the act of +undressing he told himself No, suiting to the word such vigour of +behaviour that in the morning he found his shoes at opposite corners of +the room. No! He who, as a boy, had not hesitated to assert a sort of +proprietorship over Irene, would not hesitate now-- He was keyed to +the heroic. + +Several days passed without any word from Irene, and he had almost made +up his mind to attempt another telephone appointment, when he met her, +quite accidentally, in the street. It was a beautiful afternoon; warm, +but not hot, with a fresh breeze from the mountains flowing through the +unclouded heavens, and a radiant sun pouring down upon all. But Irene +looked more radiant still. She had been shopping, she said. The duty +of household purchases fell mainly upon her. Her mother rested in the +afternoons---- + +"How about a cup of tea?" said Dave. "And a thin sandwich? And a +delicate morsel of cake? One can always count on thin sandwiches and +delicate morsels of cake. Their function is purely a social one, +having no relation to the physical requirements." + +"I should be very glad," said Irene. + +They found a quiet tea-room. When they were seated Dave, without +preliminaries, plunged into the subject nearest his heart. + +"I have been wanting an opportunity to talk to you--wanting it for +weeks," he said. "But it always seemed----" + +"Always seemed that you were thwarted," Irene completed his thought. +"You didn't disguise your annoyance very well the other night." + +"Do you blame me for being annoyed?" + +"No. But I rather blame you for showing it. You see, I was annoyed +too." + +"Then you had nothing to do with--with bringing about the situation +that existed?" + +"Certainly not. Surely you do not think that I would--that I would----" + +"I beg your pardon, Reenie," said Dave, contritely. "I should have +known better. But it seemed such a strange coincidence." + +She was toying with her cup, and for once her eyes avoided him. "You +should hardly think, Dave," she ventured,--"you should hardly conclude +that--what has been, you know, gives you the right--entitles you----" + +"To a monopoly of your attentions. Perhaps not. But it gives me the +right to a fair chance to win a monopoly of your attentions." He was +speaking low and earnestly, and his voice had a deep, rich timbre in it +that thrilled and almost frightened her. She could not resent his +straightforwardness. She felt that he was already asserting his claim +upon her, and there was something tender and delightful in the sense of +being claimed by such a man. + +"I must have a fair chance to win that monopoly," he repeated. "How +did it happen that Conward was present?" + +"I don't know. It just happened. A little after you telephoned me he +called up and asked for mother, and the next I knew she said he was +coming up to spend the evening. And then I said you were coming." + +"And what did she say?" + +Irene hesitated. "Please don't make me tell you," she whispered at +length. + +"Don't hesitate from any fear of hurting me," he said, with a laugh. +"I know I have failed to make a hit with your mother. On your account +I could wish I had been more successful, but perhaps she will be fairer +when she knows me better. What did she say?" + +"She just said, 'That cow _puncher_.' And I just told her that you +were the man who put the punch in the Conward & Elden firm--you see I +am learning your slang--and that everybody says so, and a few more +things I told her, too." + +But Dave had dropped into a sudden reverie. It was not so remarkable +as it seemed that Conward should have telephoned Mrs. Hardy almost +immediately after he had used the line. Conward's telephone and Dave's +were on the same circuit; it was a simple matter for Conward, if he had +happened to lift the receiver during Dave's conversation with Irene, to +overhear all that was said. That might happen accidentally; at least, +it might begin innocently enough. The fact that Conward had acted upon +the information indicated two things; first, that he had no very +troublesome sense of honour--which Dave had long suspected--and second, +that he had deliberately planned a confliction with Dave's visit to the +Hardy home. This indicated a policy of some kind; a scheme deeper than +Dave was as yet able to fathom. He would at least guard against any +further eavesdropping on his telephone. + +He took a card from his pocket, and made some figures on it. "If you +should have occasion to call me at the office at any time, please use +that number, and ask for me," he said. "It is the accountant's number. +'There's a reason.'" + +It flattered his masculine authority that she put the card in her purse +without comment. She did not ask him to explain. Dave knew that when +a woman no longer asks for explanations she pays man her highest +compliment. + +The cups were empty; the sandwiches and cake were gone, but they +lingered on. + +"I have been wondering," Dave ventured at length, "just where I +stand--with you. You remember our agreement?" + +She averted her eyes, but her voice was steady. "You have observed the +terms?" she said. + +"Yes--in all essential matters. I come to you now--in accordance with +those terms. You said that we would know. Now _I_ know; know as I +have always known since those wonderful days in the foothills; those +days from which I date my existence. Anything worth while that has +ripened in my life was sown by your smile and your confidence and your +strange pride in me, back in those sunny days. And I would repay it +all--and at the same time double my debt--by returning it to you, if I +may." + +"I realize that I owe you an answer, now, Dave," she said, frankly. +"And I find it very hard to make that answer. Marriage means so much +more to a woman than it does to a man. I know you don't think so, but +it does. Man, after the honeymoon, returns to his first love--his +day's work. But woman cannot go back. . . . Don't misunderstand me, +Dave. I would be ashamed to say I doubt myself, or that I don't know +my mind, but you and I are no longer boy and girl. We are man and +woman now. And I just want time--just want time to be _sure_ +that--that----" + +"I suppose you are right," he answered. "I will not try to hurry your +decision. I will only try to give you an opportunity to know--to be +sure, as you said. Then, when you are sure, you will speak. I will +not re-open the subject." + +His words had something of the ring of an ultimatum, but no endearments +that his lips might have uttered could have gripped her heart so +surely. She knew they were the words of a man in deadly earnest, a man +who had himself in hand, a man who made love with the same serious +purpose as he had employed in the other projects of his successful +life. She raised her eyes to his fine face. Decision was stamped all +over it; from the firm jaw to the steady eyes that met her own. +Suddenly she began to tremble. It was not fear. Afterwards she knew +it to have been pride--pride in his great masterly manfulness; in a +judgment so sure of itself that it dallied not a moment in stating the +terms upon which all future happiness might hang. For if Dave had +misread Irene's heart he had deliberately closed the only door through +which he might hope to approach it. But Irene instinctively knew that +he had not misread her heart; it seemed that this bold, daring +manoeuvre had captured the citadel at a stroke. Had it not been for +some strange sense of shame--some fear that too ready capitulation +might be mistaken for weakness--she would have surrendered then. + +"I think that is best," she managed so say. "We will let our +acquaintanceship ripen." + +He rose and helped her with her light wrap. His fingers touched her +hand, and it seemed to him the battle was won. . . . But he had +promised not to re-open the subject. + +In the street he said, "If you will wait a moment I will take you home +in my car." Their eyes met, and each of them knew what it meant. It +meant announcement to her mother that she had met Dave down town. It +meant, perhaps, a supposition on her mother's part that she had gone +down town for that purpose. It was far-reaching. But she said simply, +"I should enjoy driving home with you." + +On the way they planned that the following Sunday they would drive into +the foothills together. Of course they would ask Mrs. Hardy to +accompany them. Of course. But it might happen that Mrs. Hardy would +be indisposed. She was tired with the numerous duties incident to +settling in a new home. Irene was of the opinion that what her mother +needed now was rest. + +As it happened, Mrs. Hardy was at the gate. She greeted Dave cordially +enough; it was not possible for Mrs. Hardy to quite forget her +conventional training, just as it was not possible for her to quite +forget that Dave was a one-time cow puncher. Encouraged by her mood +Irene determined to settle the Sunday programme at once. + +"Dave was good enough to bring me up in his car," she said. "And just +think! He invites us to drive into the foothills with him next Sunday. +Will you come? It will be delightful. Or are you feeling----" + +"Mr. Elden is very kind," said Mrs. Hardy, with dignity. "I have no +doubt Mr. Conward will accompany us. He is to call this evening, and I +will ask him. . . . Yes, I think it very likely we will go." + + + + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN + +The summer wore on, and autumn followed on its heels. The processes +which had been discerned by Conward and other astute operators were now +apparent to the mob which forever follows in the wake of the +successful, but usually at such a distance as to be overwhelmed in the +receding flood. The forces which had built up fabulous fortunes were +now in reverse gear, and the same mechanism that had built up was now +tearing down. As the boom had fed upon itself, carrying prices to +heights justifiable only to the most insane optimism, so did the +subsequent depression bear down upon values until they reached depths +justifiable only to the most abandoned despondency. Building +operations came to a standstill. Carpenters, masons, brick-layers, +painters, plumbers, labourers found themselves out of employment. As, +in most instances, they had lived to the extent of their income in the +prosperous period, or had invested their surpluses in the all-alluring +real estate, they were promptly confronted with the necessity of +finding work; if not at home, elsewhere. Their exodus left vacant +houses; the reduced volume of trade necessary for a smaller and more +frugal population was speedily reflected in empty shops and office +buildings. With houses, shops, and office buildings empty or rented at +prices which did not pay interest on the investment there was no +inducement to build more houses, shops, or office buildings. With no +inducement to build houses, shops, or office buildings there was no +demand for vacant lots. With no demand for vacant lots, no value +attached to them. The rosy bubble, inflated with the vapours of +irresponsible speculation, had dissolved in thin air. + +It could not be called a collapse. There was no panic, no crash. +There was no wild rush to sell. One cannot sell without buyers, and +there were no buyers. A certain latent optimism, justified in part by +the undeniable natural advantages of the city, kept the flame of hope +alive in the hearts of investors, or, perhaps, suffered it to be +gradually diminished rather than extinguished by one icy blast of +despair. + +Mrs. Hardy was among the last to admit that she had bought on an ebbing +tide. She contended that her house was well worth the price she had +paid; what if speculation had come to a stop? So much the better; her +house was still worth its price. She would stand firm. It was not +until the Metfords, whose ostentation had brought them before her +notice, attempted to sell their home at a tremendous sacrifice, and had +found it impossible to get an offer, that Mrs. Hardy began seriously to +consider her predicament. Mrs. Metford had sold the car and discharged +the "chiffonier," and Mr. Metford had returned to his ancient and +honourable calling of coal freighter. + +Mrs. Hardy consulted Conward. It had grown to be her habit to consult +Conward on all matters in which she found an interest. Conward had +gone out of his way to make himself agreeable to Mrs. Hardy and her +daughter, with, in the case of the former, considerable success. His +status with Irene was not so well defined, but the frequency of his +visits to the Hardy home afforded the opportunity for an attachment to +be developed by insensible degrees, and the day was nearing when +Conward would wish to trade upon that attachment. + +"How is it, Mr. Conward," Mrs. Hardy said to him one evening over her +fancy work, for she practised an indefatigable industry in matters of +no importance,--"How is it that there is no demand for property? You +are a real estate expert; you should be able to answer that." + +"It is simple enough," Conward answered. "It is all a matter of +confidence. So long as confidence was maintained, prices continued to +advance. When confidence began to be shaken, prices hesitated. If +confidence should disappear, values would follow suit." + +"But why should confidence disappear? Isn't this city as good to-day +as it was a year ago? Doesn't it occupy the same site? Are not the +farms still producing?" + +"That's just it, dear Mrs. Hardy. Why, indeed? Simply because the +booster has given way to the calamity howler. Its psychological +explanation is simple enough. The world lives by faith. Without faith +there would be neither seed-time nor harvest. That is true of raising +cities, as well as raising crops. But there are always those who +ridicule faith; always were, always will be. And as soon as faith +disappears, things begin to sink. Just like John, or whoever it was, +on the water----" + +"Peter, I think," corrected Mrs. Hardy. "Yes, yes, I begin to +understand." + +"Well, it's just like that. I may be a little off colour on my +scripture, but I have the principle of it, and that's the main thing. +And as soon as a city loses faith it begins to sink, just like Peter in +the Red Sea." + +"I don't think it was the Red Sea," said Mrs. Hardy gently. "But that +is a matter of detail. As you say, the principle is the main thing. +So we owe all this--these empty houses and shops, unsalable property, +and everything, to those who have lost faith--or never had it. To men +like Mr. Elden, for instance. You remember how he tried to discourage +me from the very first--tried to break down my faith--that was it, Mr. +Conward--I see it all very plainly now--and he and others like him have +brought things to their present pass. Well, they have a great +responsibility." + +Conward, practised though he was in the arts of simulation, found +difficulty in maintaining a serious appearance. It had not occurred to +him that when a woman conceives a dislike for a man, her mind may lend +itself to processes of deductions that will ultimately saddle the +unfortunate offender with the responsibility for circumstances with +which he is not in the most remote manner connected. It was the most +natural thing in the world for a mind like Mrs. Hardy's, quite without +premeditated injustice, to find in Dave Elden the cause of effects as +far removed as was the collapse of the boom from the good advice he had +given her that day in Conward's office. Conward found the experience +an illuminating one. It was rich with hints of the possibilities that +might arise from apparently innocent sentences dropped at opportune +moments. It was proof that the danger of consequences lies, not in +wronging your neighbour, but in allowing your neighbour to suspect that +you wrong him. + +As a result of this discussion, Dave found himself rather less popular +with Mrs. Hardy than before. She treated him with distant civility, +showing such courtesies as convention demanded as an honour, not to +Elden, but to herself. Dave accepted her displeasure with a +light-heartedness that was extremely trying to the good woman's temper. +Had it not been for his desire to spare Irene any unhappiness, he would +have treated it with open flippancy. He was engaged in a much more +serious business than the cajolery of an old woman's whims. He was +engaged in the serious business of capturing the heart of Irene +Hardy--a task made none the easier by the self-imposed condition that +he must conduct no offensive, but must await with such patience as he +could command the voluntary capitulation of the besieged. On the +whole, he told himself he had no reason to be dissatisfied with the +progress of events. He and Irene often motored together, frequently +accompanied by Mrs. Hardy, sometimes by Conward as well, but +occasionally alone. And Irene made no secret of the fact that she +preferred the trips in which only she and Dave participated. On such +occasions the warm summer afternoons found them wandering far over the +prairies, without thought of the homeward trail until the setting sun +poured its ribbon of gold along the crest of the Rockies. The country, +with its long, rolling sweeps of prairie, its clusters of dark green +poplars; its rugged foothills from which grey roots of rock protruded, +and the blue background of the mountains, afforded a scene to charm her +artist soul, and daring and more daring were the splashes of colour +which she committed to canvas in her attempt to catch the moods of +light and shade that played over such a landscape. And if she did not +speak of love with her lips, she had eyes. . . . + +The gradual shrinkage of values to the vanishing point imposed upon +Dave many business duties which he would very gladly have evaded. The +office of Conward & Elden, which had once been besieged by customers +eager to buy, was now a centre of groups no less eager to sell; and +when they could not sell they contrived to lay the blame upon the firm +which had originally sold to them. Although, for the most part, these +were men and women who had bought purely from the gambler's motive, +they behaved toward the real estate dealer as though he had done them +an injustice when the finger of fortune turned up a loss instead of a +profit. For such people Dave had little sympathy, and if they +persisted in their murmurings he told them so with becoming frankness. +But there were cases that could not be turned away with a sharp answer. +Bert Morrison, for instance. Bert had never mentioned her "investment" +since the occasion already recorded; she greeted Dave with the +sociability due to their long-standing friendship; and her calm +avoidance of the subject hurt him more than the abuse of all his irate +patrons. Then there was Merton, the widower with the sick lungs and +the motherless boy, who had brought his little savings to the West in +the hope of husbanding out his life in the dry, clear atmosphere, and +saving his son from the white death that had already invaded their +little family. With a cruelty almost unbelievable, Conward had talked +this man into the purchase of property so far removed from the city as +to possess no value except as farm land; and the little savings, which +were to ward off sickness and death, or, if that could not be, minister +modest comfort in the declining hours of life, had been exchanged for +property which, even at the time of the transaction, was valueless and +unsalable. + +Merton had called on Dave with respect to his investment. Dave had at +first been disposed to tell him frankly that the property, for which he +had paid twenty dollars a foot, was barely worth that much an acre. +But a second look at the man changed his purpose. + +"I know you were stung, Merton," he said, "shamelessly stung. You are +one of those unsuspecting fellows who think everybody is going to play +fair with them. You belong to the class who keep all kinds of rogues +and scoundrels in easy circumstances. You might almost be charged with +being accessories. Now, just to show how I feel about it--how much did +you pay for these lots?" + +"Three thousand dollars. It was all I had." + +"Of course it was. If you had had more you would have paid more. I +suppose Conward justified himself with the argument that if he didn't +take your easy money some one else would, which is doubtless true. But +just to show how I feel about it--I'll buy those lots from you, for +three thousand dollars." + +"I can't do it, Mr. Elden; I can't do it," said Merton, and there was +moisture on his cheeks. "That would be charity--and I can't take it. +But I'm much obliged. It shows you're square, Mr. Elden, and I hold no +illwill to _you_." + +"Well, can I help you in some way you _will_ accept? I'm afraid--I +don't mean to be unkind, but we may as well be frank--I'm afraid you +won't need help very long." + +Merton answered as one who has made up his mind to the inevitable, and +Dave thought better of him. This little wreck of a man--this child in +business matters--could look death in the face without a quiver. + +"Not so long," he said. "I felt ever so much better when I came here +first; I thought I was really going to be well again. But when I found +what a mistake I had made I began to worry, not for myself, you know, +but the boy, and worry is just what my trouble lives on. I have been +working a little, and boarding out, and the boy is going to school. +But I can't do heavy work, and work of any kind is hard to get. I find +I can't keep going that way." + +Merton looked with dreamy eyes through the office window, while Dave +was turning over the hopelessness of his position, and inwardly cursing +a system which made such conditions possible. Society protects the +physically weak from the physically strong; the physical highwayman +usually gets his deserts; but the mental highwayman preys upon the weak +and the inexperienced and the unorganized, and Society votes him a good +citizen and a success. + +"I had a plan," Merton continued, half-apologetically, as though his +plan did him little credit; "I had a plan, but it can't be worked out. +I have been trying to raise a little money on my lots, but the mortgage +people just look at me." + +"What is your plan?" said Dave, kindly. "Any plan, no matter how bad, +is always better than no plan." + +"I thought," said Merton, timidly,--"I thought if I could build a +little shack on the lots I could live there with the boy and we could +raise a very fine garden. The soil is very fertile, and at least we +should not starve. And the gardening would be good for me, and I could +perhaps keep some chickens, and work out at odd jobs as well. But it +takes money to build even a very small shack." + +"How much money?" demanded Dave. + +"If I had a hundred dollars----" + +"Bring your title to me to-morrow; to me, personally, you understand. +I'll advance you five hundred dollars." + +Merton sprang up, and there was more enthusiasm in his eyes than had +seemed possible "You will? But I don't need that much----" + +"Then use the surplus to live on." + +So the Merton affair was straightened away in a manner which left Dave +more at peace with his conscience. But another event, much more +dramatic and far-reaching in its effects upon his life, was already +ripe for the enacting. + +Business conditions had necessitated unwonted economy in the office +affairs of Conward & Elden, as a result of which many old employees had +been laid off, and others had been replaced by cheaper and less +experienced labour. Stenographers who had been receiving a hundred +dollars a month could not readily bring themselves to accept fifty, and +some of them had to make way for new girls, fresh from the business +colleges. Such a new girl was Gladys Wardin; pretty, likeable, +inexperienced. Her country home had offered no answer to her +ambitions, and she had come to the city with the most dangerous +equipment a young woman can carry--an attractive face and an +unsophisticated confidence in the goodness of humanity. Conward had +been responsible for her position in the office, and Dave had given +little thought to her, except to note that she was a willing worker and +of comely appearance. + +Returning to the office one Saturday evening Dave found Miss Wardin +making up a bundle of paper, pencils, and carbon paper. She was +evidently in high spirits, and he smilingly asked if she intended +working at home over Sunday. + +"Oh, didn't Mr. Conward tell you?" she answered, as though surprised +that the good news had been kept a secret. "He is going to spend a day +or two at one of the mountain hotels, and I am to go along to do his +correspondence. Isn't it just lovely? I have so wanted to go to the +mountains, but never felt that I could afford it. And now I can +combine business with pleasure." + +The smile died out of Dave's eyes, and his face became more set and +stern than she had ever seen it. "Why, what's the matter, Mr. Elden?" +she exclaimed. "Is anything wrong?" + +He found it hard to meet her frank, unsuspecting eyes; hard to draw +back the curtains of the world so much that those eyes would never +again be quite so frank and unsuspecting. . . . "Miss Wardin," he +said, "did Conward tell you that?" + +"What? About going to the mountains? Of course. He said he was +taking some work with him, and he wondered if I would mind going along +to do it, and he would pay the expenses, and--and----" + +There was a quick hard catch in her voice, and she seized Elden's arm +violently. Her eyes were big and round; her pretty face had gone +suddenly white. + +"Oh, Mr. Elden, you don't think--you don't think that I--that he--you +wouldn't believe _that_?" + +"I think you are absolutely innocent," he said, gravely, "but--it's the +innocent thing that gets caught." Suddenly, even in that tense moment, +his mind leaped over the gulf of years to the night when he had said to +Irene Hardy, "I don't know nothin' about the justice of God. All I +know is the crittur 'at can't run gets caught." It was so of Irene's +pet; it was so of poor, tubercular Merton; it was to be so of pretty +Gladys Wardin---- + +But the girl had broken into violent tears. "Whatever shall I do--what +can I do?" she moaned. "Oh, why didn't somebody tell me? What _can_ I +do----" + +He let her passion run on for a few minutes, and then he sought, as +gently as he could, to win her back to some composure. "Some one _has_ +told you," he said,--"in time. You don't have to go. Don't be afraid +of anything Conward may do. _I_ will settle this score with him." + +She controlled herself, but when she spoke again her voice had fear and +shame in it. "I--I hate to tell you, Mr. Elden, but I must tell +you--I--I took--I let him give me some money--to buy things--he said +maybe I was short of money, and I would want to buy some new +clothes--and he would pay me extra, in advance--and he gave me fifty +dollars--and--and--_I've spent it_!" + +Elden swung on his heel and paced the length of the office in quick, +sharp strides. When he returned to where Miss Wardin stood, wrapped +about in her misery, his fists were clenched and the veins stood out on +the back of his hands. "Scoundrel," he muttered, "scoundrel. And I +have been tied to him. I have let him blind me; I have let him set the +standards; I have let him _weigh the coal_. Well, now I know him." +There was a menace in his last words that frightened even Gladys +Wardin, well though she knew the menace was not to her, but ranged in +her defence. + +"Here," he said, taking some bills from his pocket. "You must tell him +you can't go--tell him you _won't_ go; you must return his money; I +will lend you what you need. Don't be afraid; I will go with you----" + +"But I can't take _your_ money, either, Mr. Elden," she protested. "I +can't stay here any longer; I will have no job, and I can't pay you +back. You see I can't take it even from you. What a fool I was! For +a few clothes----" + +"You will continue to work--for me," he said. + +She shook her head. "No. I can't. I can't work anywhere near him." + +"You won't need to. The firm of Conward & Elden will be dissolved at +once. I have always felt that there was something false in +Conward--something that wouldn't stand test. I thought it was in his +business life; and yet that didn't quite seem to give the answer. Now +I know." + +There was the sound of a key in the street door, and Conward entered. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN + +Conward paused as he entered the room. He had evidently not expected +to find Elden there, but after a moment of hesitation he nodded +cordially to his partner. + +"Almost ready, Miss Wardin?" he asked, cheerily. "Our train goes +in----" He took his watch from his pocket and consulted it. + +Dave's eyes were fixed on the girl. He wondered whether, in this +testing moment, she would fight for herself or lean weakly on him as +her protector. Her answer reassured him. + +"It makes no difference when it goes, Mr. Conward. I'm not going on +it." Her voice trembled nervously, but there was no weakness in it. + +The money which Dave had given her was still crumpled in her hand. She +advanced to where Conward stood vaguely trying to sense the situation, +and held the bills before him. "Here is your money, Mr. Conward," she +said. + +"Why, what does this mean?" + +"Here is your money. Will you take it please?" + +"No, I won't take it, until you explain----" + +She opened her fingers, and the bills fell to the floor. "All right," +she said. + +Conward's eyes had shifted to Dave. "You are at the bottom of this, +Elden," he said. "What does it mean?" + +"It means, Conward," Dave answered, and there was steel in his +voice--"it means that after all these years I have discovered what a +cur you are--just in time to baulk you, at least in this instance." + +Conward flushed, but he maintained an attitude of composure. "You've +been drinking, Dave," he said. "I meant no harm to Miss Wardin." + +"Don't make me call you a liar as well as a cur." + +The word cut through Conward's mask of composure. "Now by God I won't +take that from any man," he shouted, and with a swing of his arms threw +his coat over his shoulders. Dave made no motion, and Conward slowly +brought his coat back to position. + +"I was right," said Dave, calmly. "I knew you wouldn't fight. You +think more of your skin than you do of your honour. Well--it's better +worth protection." + +"If this girl were not here," Conward protested. "I will not fight----" + +"Oh, I will leave," said Miss Wardin, with alacrity. "And I hope he +soaks you well," she shot back, as the door closed behind her. But by +this time Conward had assumed a superior attitude. "Dave," he said, "I +won't fight over a quarrel of this kind. But remember, there are some +things in which no man allows another to interfere. Least of all such +a man as you. There are ways of getting back, and I'll get back." + +"Why such a man as me? I know I haven't been much of a moralist in +business matters--I've been in the wrong company for that--but I draw +the line----" + +"Oh, you're fine stuff, all right. What would your friend Miss Hardy +think if I told her all I know?" + +"You know nothing that could affect Miss Hardy's opinion----" + +"No?" + +"No, you don't. You're not bluffing a tenderfoot now. I call you. If +you've any cards--play them." + +"It's too bad your memory is so poor," Conward sneered. "Why were your +lights off that night I passed your car? Oh, I guess you remember. +What will Miss Hardy think of that?" + +For a moment Dave was unable to follow Conward's thought. Then his +mind reached back to that night he drove into the country with Bert +Morrison, when on the brow of a hill he switched off his lights that +they might the better admire the majesty of the heavens. That Conward +should place an evil interpretation upon that incident was a thing so +monstrous, so altogether beyond argument, that Dave fell back upon the +basic human method reserved for such occasions. His fist leapt +forward, and Conward crumpled up before it. + +Conward lay stunned for a few minutes; then with returning +consciousness, he tried to sit up. Dave helped him to a chair. Blood +flowed down his face, and, as he began to realize what had occurred, it +was joined with tears of pain, rage, humiliation. + +"You got that one on me, Elden," he said, after awhile. "But it was a +coward's blow. You hit me when I wasn't looking. Very well. Two can +play at that game. I'll hit you when you're not looking . . . where +you don't expect it . . . where you can't hit back. You interfere with +me--you strike me--you that I took out of a thirty-dollar-a-week job +and made you all you are. I did it, Dave; gave you the money to start +with, coached you all the way. And you hit me . . . when I wasn't +looking." He spoke disjointedly; his throat was choked with +mortification and self-pity. "Very well. I know the stake you're +playing for. And--I'm going to spoil it." + +He turned his swollen, bloody face to Dave's, and hatred stood up in +his eyes as he uttered the threat. "I'll hit you, Dave," he repeated, +"where you can't hit back." + +"Thanks for the warning," said Elden. "So Irene Hardy is to be the +stake. All right; I'll sit in. And I'll win." + +"You'll think you've won," returned Conward, leeringly. "And then +you'll find out that you didn't. I'll present her to you, Dave, like +that." He lifted a burnt match from an ash tray and held it before him. + +Dave's impulse was to seize the thick, flabby throat in his hands and +choke it lifeless. With a resolute effort he turned to the telephone +and lifted the receiver. + +"Send a car and a doctor to Conward & Elden's office," he said, when he +had got the desired number. "Mr. Conward has been hurt; fell against a +desk, or something. Nothing serious, but may need a stitch or two." +Then, turning to Conward, "It will depend on you whether this affair +gets to the public. On you, and Miss Wardin. Make your own +explanations. And as soon as you are able to be about our partnership +will be dissolved." + +Conward was ready enough to adopt Dave's suggestion that their quarrel +should not come to the notice of the public, and Gladys Wardin +apparently kept her own counsel in the matter. In a time when firms +were going out of business without even the formality of an assignment, +and others were being absorbed by their competitors, the dissolution of +the Conward & Elden establishment occasioned no more than passing +notice. The explanation, "for business reasons," given to the +newspapers, seemed sufficient. Some few may have had surmises, but +they said nothing openly. Bert Morrison, for example, meeting Dave in +the street, congratulated him upon the change. "I knew you would find +him out some day;" she said. "Find what out?" Dave questioned, with +feigned surprise. "Oh, nothing," was her enigmatic answer, as she +changed the subject. + +Irene Hardy found herself in a position of increasing delicacy. Since +the day of their conversation in the tea-room Dave had been constant in +his attentions, but, true to his ultimatum, had uttered no word that +could in any way be construed to be more or less than Platonic. His +attitude vexed and pleased her. She was vexed that he should leave her +in a position where she must humiliate herself by taking the +initiative; she was pleased with his strength, with his daring, with +the superb self-control with which he carried out a difficult purpose. +Just how difficult was that purpose Irene was now experiencing in her +own person. She had now no doubt that she felt for Dave that +attachment without which ceremonies are without avail, and with which +ceremonies are but ceremonies. And yet she shrank from +surrender. . . . And she knew that some day she must surrender. + +The situation was complicated by conditions which involved her +mother--and Conward. Mrs. Hardy had never allowed herself to become +reconciled to Dave Elden. She refused to abandon her preconceived +ideas of the vulgarity which through life must accompany one born to +the lowly status of cow puncher. The fact that Dave, neither in manner +nor mind, gave any hint of that vulgarity which she chose to associate +with his early occupation, did not in the least ameliorate her +aversion. Mrs. Hardy, without knowing it, was as much a devotee of +caste as any Oriental. And Dave was born out of the caste. Nothing +could alter that fact. His assumption of the manners of a gentleman +merely aggravated his offence. + +It was also apparent that Conward's friendship for Mrs. Hardy did not +react to Dave's advantage. Conward was careful to drop no word in +Irene's hearing that could be taken as a direct reflection upon Dave, +but she was conscious of an influence, a magnetism, it almost seemed, +the whole tendency of which was to pull her away from Elden. She knew +there had been trouble between the two men, and that their formal +courtesy, when they met at her mother's house, was formal only; but +neither admitted her into the secret. Dave did not venture to speak of +the quarrel and Conward's threat, partly from a sense of delicacy; +partly from a curiously strained point of honour that that would be +taking an unfair advantage of Conward; but most, perhaps, because of +his complete assurance that Conward would never be able to carry his +threat into effect. He had absolutely no misgivings on that score. +Conward, on the other hand, knew that his standing with Irene would +not, as yet, justify him in playing any trump card. He realized that +the girl's affections were placed on Elden, but he trusted, by winning +for himself an intimate position in the family, to grow gradually into +more favourable relationship with her. Conward had a manner, a +mildness of voice, a confidential note in his words, which had not +failed him on previous occasions, and although he now stalked bigger +game than ever before he had no serious doubt of ultimate success. As +for Irene, a certain aversion which she had felt for Conward at first +did disappear under the influence of his presence in the household and +the courteous attentions, which, although directed to her mother, were +in some degree reflected upon herself. + +It would not be true to say that Irene's acquaintance with Conward made +it more difficult for her to accept the terms of Dave's ultimatum. She +regarded the two men from a totally different point of view, and there +seemed no reason why her vision of one should in any way obscure her +vision of the other. One was merely a friend of the family, to be +treated on grounds of cordial good-fellowship; the other was her +prospective husband. It was no consideration for Conward that sealed +her lips. There was another matter, however, which bore heavily upon +her pride, and strewed her path with difficulties. + +Mrs. Hardy had invested practically all her little fortune in her +house. The small sum which had been saved from that unfortunate +investment had been eaten up in the cost of furnishing and maintaining +the home. Dr. Hardy, in addition to his good name, had left his +daughter some few thousand dollars of life insurance, and this was the +capital which was now supplying their daily needs. It, too, would soon +be exhausted, and Irene was confronted with the serious business of +finding a means of livelihood for herself and her mother. + +She discussed her problem with Bert Morrison, with whom she had formed +a considerable friendship. She wondered whether she might be able to +get a position on one of the newspapers. + +"Don't think of it," said Bert. "If you want to keep a sane, sweet +outlook on humanity, don't examine it too closely. That's what we have +to do in the newspaper game, and that's why we're all cynics. +Shakespeare said 'All the world's a stage,' and the same might have +been said of the press. The show looks pretty good from the pit, but +when you get behind the scenes and see the make-up, and all the strings +that are pulled--and who pulls them--well, it makes you suspicious of +everything. You no longer accept a surface view; you are always +looking for the hidden motive below. Keep out of it." + +"But I must earn a living," Irene protested, "and I'm not a +stenographer, nor much of anything else. I wasn't brought up to be +useful, except with a view to superintending a household--not +supporting it." + +"Ever contemplate marriage?" said Miss Morrison, with disconcerting +frankness. + +The colour rose in Irene's cheeks, but she knew that her friend was +discussing a serious matter seriously. "Why, yes," she admitted. "I +have contemplated it; in fact, I am contemplating it. That's one of +the reasons I want to start earning my living. When I marry I want to +marry as a matter of choice--not because it's the only way out." + +"Now you're talking," said Bert. "And most of us girls who marry as a +matter of choice--don't marry. Perhaps I'm too cynical. I suppose +there are some men who would make good husbands--if you could find +them. But I've seen a few, the rough and the smooth, and I've only +known one man from whom a proposal would set me thinking. And he'll +never propose to me--not now. Not since Miss Hardy came west." + +"Oh," said Irene, slowly. "I'm--I'm so sorry." . . . + +"It's all right," said Bert, looking out of the window. "Just another +of life's little bumps. We get used to them--in time. But you want a +job. Let me see; you draw, don't you?" + +"Just for pastime. I can't earn a living that way." + +"I'm not so sure. Perhaps not with art in the abstract. You must +commercialize it. Don't shy at that word. Believe me, all art is +pretty well commercialized in these times. Our literary men are +writing advertisements instead of poetry and getting more for it. And +if you, on the one hand, can make a picture of the Rockies, which you +can't sell, and on the other can make a picture of a pair of shoes, +which you can sell, which, as a woman of good sense, in need of the +simoleons, are you going to do? You're going to draw the shoes--and +the pay cheque. Now I think I can get you started that way, on +catalogue work and ad. cuts. Try your pencil on something--anything at +all--and bring down a few samples." + +So Irene's little studio room began to take on a practical purpose. It +was work which called for form and proportion rather than colour, and +in these Irene excelled. She soon found herself with as much as she +could do, in addition to the duties of the household, as maids were +luxuries which could no longer be afforded, and her mother seemed +unable to realize that they were not still living in the affluence of +Dr. Hardy's income. To Irene, therefore, fell the work of the house, +as well as its support. But her success in earning a living did not +seem in the slightest degree to clear the way for marriage. She could +not ask Dave to assume the support of her mother; particularly in view +of Mrs. Hardy's behaviour toward him, she could not ask that. She +sometimes wondered if Conward-- For a long while she refused to +complete the thought, but at length, why not? Why shouldn't Conward +marry her mother? And what other purpose could he have in his +continuous visits to their home? Mrs. Hardy, although no longer young, +had by ho means surrendered all the attractions of her sex, and Conward +was slipping by the period where a young girl would be his natural +mate. If they should marry--Irene was no plotter, but it did seem that +such a match would clear the way for all concerned. She was surprised, +when she turned it over in her mind, to realize that Conward had won +for himself such a place in her regard that she could contemplate such +a consummation as very much to be desired. Subconsciously, rather than +from specific motive, she assumed a still more friendly attitude toward +him. + +Bert Morrison's confession had, however, set up another very insistent +train of thought in Irene's mind. She realized that Bert, with all her +show of cynicism and masculinity, was really a very womanly young +woman, with just the training and the insight into life that would make +her almost irresistible should she enter the matrimonial market. And +Bert and Dave were already good friends; very good friends indeed, as +Irene suspected from fragments of conversation which either of them +dropped from time to time. Although she never doubted the singleness +of Dave's devotion she sometimes suspected that in Bert Morrison's +presence he felt a more frank comradeship than in hers. And it was +preposterous that he should not know that Bert might be won for the +winning. And meantime. . . . + +Another winter wore away; another spring came rushing from the mountain +passes; another summer was upon them, and still Irene Hardy had not +surrendered. A thousand times she told herself it was impossible, with +her mother to think of-- And always she ended in indignation over her +treatment of Dave. It was outrageous to keep him waiting. And +somewhere back of her self-indignation flitted the form--the now +seductive form--of Bert Morrison. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN + +Irene Hardy chose to be frank with herself over the situation. She had +not doubted the sincerity of her attachment for Dave Elden; but, had +she experienced such a doubt, the entry of Bert Morrison into the drama +would have forever removed it. Indeed, now that she knew that Dave's +suit would be regarded with favour by another woman--an accomplished, +clever, experienced woman,--she was very much more eager to monopolize +it to herself. And in fairness she admitted that things could not +continue as they were. The menace of Bert Morrison was static, so to +speak. With fine self-abnegation Bert was standing aside. But how +long would she continue to stand aside? Irene was old enough to know +that the ramparts of friendship are a poor defence when the artillery +of passion is brought to bear; indeed, it is usually through those very +ramparts that the assault is effected. And if she continued to trifle +with Dave Elden-- + +Yes, _trifle_. She would be frank. She would not spare herself. She +had been trifling with him. Rather than accept the terms which her own +attitude had made necessary--rather than tell him with her lips what +she felt in her heart--she had trifled away all these months, almost +these years. . . . She would lay her false pride aside. In the purity +of her womanhood, which he could not misunderstand, she would divest +herself of all convention and tell him frankly that--that-- + +She was not sure what she would tell, or how she would tell it. She +was sure only that she would make him know. At the very next +opportunity. . . . + +It came on a fine summer's evening in late July, while Dave and Irene +drifted in his car over the rich ripening prairies. Everywhere were +fields of dark green wheat, already beginning to glimmer with the gold +of harvest; everywhere were herds of sleek cattle sighing and blowing +contentedly in the cool evening air. Away to the west lay the +mountains, blue and soft as a pillow of velvet for the head of the +dying day; overhead, inverted islands of brass and copper floated +lazily in an inverted sea of azure and opal; up from the southwest came +the breath of the far Pacific, mild, and soft, and gentle. + +"We started at the wrong end in our nation building," Dave was saying. +"We started to build cities, leaving the country to take care of +itself. We are finding out how wrong we were. Depend upon it, where +there is a prosperous country the cities will take care of themselves. +We have been putting the cart before the horse--" + +But Irene's eyes were on the sunset; on the slowly fading colours of +the cloudlands overhead. Something of that colour played across her +fine face, mellowing, softening, drawing as it seemed the very soul to +cheeks and lips and eyes. Dave paused in his speech to regard her, and +her beauty rushed upon him, engulfed him, overwhelmed him in such a +poignancy of tenderness that it seemed for a moment all his resolves +must be swept away and he must storm the citadel that would not +surrender to siege. . . . Only action could hold him resolute; he +pressed down the accelerator until the steel lungs of his motor were +drinking power to their utmost capacity and the car roared furiously +down the stretches of the country road. + +It was dusk when he had burnt out his violence, and, chastened and +spent, he turned the machine to hum back gently to the forgotten city. +Irene, by some fine telepathy, had followed vaguely the course of his +emotions; had followed them in delicious excitement, and fear, and +hope. She sensed in some subtle feminine way the impulse that had sent +him roaring into the distances; she watched his powerful hand on the +wheel; his clear, steady eye; the minute accuracy with which he +controlled his flying motor; and she prayed--and did not know what or +why she prayed. But a colour not all of the dying sunlight lit her +cheek as she guessed--she feared--she hoped--that she had prayed that +he might forget his fine resolves--that his heart might at last +out-rule his head-- + +In the deepening darkness her fingers found his arm. The motion of the +car masked the violence of her trembling, but for a time the pounding +of her heart would not allow her speech. + +"Dave," she said at length, "I want to tell you that I think you--that +we--that I--oh! I've been very selfish and proud--" + +Her fingers had followed his arm to the shoulder, and the car had idled +to a standstill. "I have fought as long as I can, Dave." She raised +her eyes full to his, and felt them glowing upon her in the dusk. "I +have fought as long as I can," she said, "and I--I always wanted to--to +lose, you know; and now--I surrender." . . . + + +Elden lost no time in facing the unpleasant task of an interview with +Mrs. Hardy. It was even less pleasant than he expected. + +"Irene is of age," said Mrs. Hardy, bluntly. "If she will she will. +But I must tell you plainly that I will do all I can to dissuade her. +Ungrateful child!" she exclaimed, in an outburst of temper, "after all +these years to throw herself away in an infatuation for a cow +_puncher_." + +The thorn of Mrs. Hardy's distress, revealed as it was in those last +contemptuous words, struck Dave as so ridiculous that he laughed +outright. It was the second occasion upon which his sense of humour +had suffered an inopportune reaction in her presence. + +"Yes, laugh at me," she said, bitterly. "Laugh at her mother, an old +woman now, alone in the world--the mother that risked her life for the +child you are taking with a laugh--" + +"I beg your pardon," said Dave. "I was not laughing at you, but at the +very great aversion in which you hold anyone who has at one time +followed the profession of a cowboy. As one who was born practically +with a lariat in his hand I claim the liberty of being amused at that +aversion. I've known many of the cow punching trade, and a good few +others, and while the boys are frequently rough they are generally +white--a great deal whiter than their critics--and with sounder respect +for a good woman than I have found in circles that consider themselves +superior. So if you ask me to apologize for the class from which I +come I have only a laugh for your answer. But when you say I have +taken your child thoughtlessly, there you do me an injustice. And when +you speak of being left alone in the world you do both Irene and me an +injustice. And when you call yourself an old woman you do us all an +injustice--" + +"You may spare your compliments," said Mrs. Hardy, tartly. "I have no +relish for them. And as for your defence of cow _punchers_, I prefer +gentlemen. Why Irene should wish to throw herself away when there are +men like Mr. Conward--" + +"Conward!" interrupted Dave. + +"He has the manners of a gentleman," she said, in a tone intended to be +crushing. + +"And the morals of a coyote," Dave returned, hotly. + +"O-o-o-h," said Mrs. Hardy, in a low, shocked cry. That Elden should +speak of Conward with such disdain seemed to her little less than +sacrilege. Then, gathering herself together with some dignity, "If you +cannot speak respectfully of Mr. Conward you will please leave the +house. I shall not forbid you to see Irene; I know that would be +useless. But please do not trouble me with your presence." + +When Dave had gone Mrs. Hardy, very angry with him, and almost equally +angry with herself owing to a vague conviction that she had had if +anything the worse of the interview, hurried to the telephone. She +rang up Conward's number. + +"Oh, Mr. Conward," she said. "You know who is speaking? Yes. You +must come up to-night. I do want to talk with you. I--I've been +insulted--in my own house. By that--that Elden. It's all very +terrible. I can't tell you over the telephone." + +Conward called early in the evening. Irene met him at the door. He +greeted her even more cordially than usual, dropping into that soft, +confidential note which he had found so potent in capturing such +affections as his heart, in a somewhat varied experience, had desired. +But there was no time for conversation. Mrs. Hardy had heard the bell, +and bustled into the room. She had not yet recovered from her +agitation, and made no effort to conceal it. + +"Come into my sitting-room, Mr. Conward. I am so glad you have come. +Really, I am so upset. It is such a comfort to have some one you can +depend on--some one whose advice one can seek, on occasions like this. +I never thought--" + +Mrs. Hardy had been fingering her handkerchief, which she now pressed +to her eyes. Conward laid a soothing hand on her shoulder. "There, +there," he said. "You must control yourself. Tell me. It will +relieve you, and perhaps I can help." + +"Oh, I'm sure you can," she returned. "It's all over Irene and +that--that--I _will_ say it--that cow _puncher_. To think it would +have come to this! Mr. Conward, you are not a mother, so you can't +understand. Ungrateful girl! But I blame _him_. And the Doctor. I +never wanted him to come west. It was that fool trip, in that fool +motor--" + +Conward smiled to himself over her unaccustomed violence. Mrs. Hardy +must be deeply moved when she forgot to be correct. He had readily +surmised the occasion of her distress. It needed no words from Mrs. +Hardy to tell him that Irene and Dave were engaged. He had expected it +for some time, and the information was not altogether distasteful to +him. He had come somewhat under the spell of Irene's attractiveness, +but he had no deep attachment for her. He was not aware that he had +ever had an abiding attachment for any woman. Attachments were things +which he put on and off as readily as a change of clothes. He planned +to hit Dave through Irene, but he planned that when he struck it should +be a death blow. Their engagement would lend a sharper edge to his +shaft. + +It may as well be set down that for Mrs. Hardy Conward had no regard +whatever. Even while he shaped soft words for her ear he held her in +contempt. To him she was merely a silly old woman. From the day he +had first seen Mrs. Hardy his attitude toward her had been one of +subtle flattery; partly because it pleased his whim, and partly because +on that same day he had seen Irene, and he was shrewd enough to know +that his approach to the girl's affections must be made by way of the +acquaintanceship which he would establish under the guise of friendship +for her mother. Since his trouble with Dave, Conward had a double +purpose in developing that acquaintanceship. He had no compunctions as +to his method of attack. While Dave was manfully laying siege to the +front gate, Conward proposed to burglarize the home through the back +door of family intimacy. And now that Dave seemed to have won the +prize, Conward realized that his own position was more secure than +ever. Had he not been called in consultation by the girl's mother? +Were not the inner affairs of the family now laid open before him? Did +not his position as her mother's advisor permit him to assume toward +Irene an attitude which, in a sense, was more intimate than even Dave's +could be? He turned these matters over quickly in his mind, and +congratulated himself upon the wisdom of his tactics. + +"It's very dreadful," Mrs. Hardy was saying, between dabbings of her +perfumed handkerchief on eyes that bore witness to the genuineness of +her distress. "Irene is not an ordinary girl. She has in her +qualities that justified me in hoping that--that she would do--very +differently from this. You have been a good friend, Mr. Conward. Need +I conceal from you, Mr. Conward, from you, of all men, what have been +my hopes for Irene?" + +Conward's heart leapt at the confession. He had secretly entertained +some doubt as to Mrs. Hardy's purpose in opening her home to him as she +had done; absurd as the hypothesis seemed, still there was the +hypothesis that Mrs. Hardy saw in Conward a possible comfort to her +declining days. He had no doubt that her vanity was equal to that +supposition, but he had done her less than justice in supposing that +she had had any directly personal ambitions. Her ambitions were for +Irene. From her point of view it seemed to Mrs. Hardy that almost +anything would be better than that Irene should marry a man who had +sprung from the low estate which Elden not only confessed, but boasted. +She had hoped that by bringing Conward into the house, by bringing +Irene under the influence of a close family acquaintanceship with him, +that that young lady might be led to see the folly of the road she was +choosing. But now her clever purpose had come to nought, and in her +vexation she did not hesitate to humble herself before Conward by +confessing, in words that he could not misunderstand, that she had +hoped that he would be the successful suitor for Irene. And Conward's +heart leapt at the confession. He was sufficiently schooled in the +affairs of life to appreciate the advantage of open alliance with Mrs. +Hardy in the short, sharp battle that lay before him. + +"And I suppose I need not conceal from you," he answered, "what my +hopes have been. Those hopes have grown as my acquaintance with you +has grown. It is reasonably safe to judge a daughter by her mother, +and by that standard Irene is one of the most adorable of young women." + +"I _have_ been called attractive in my day," confessed Mrs. Hardy, +warming at once to his flattery. + +"Have been?" said Conward. "Say rather you are. If I had not been +rendered, perhaps, a little partial by my admiration of Irene, I--well, +one can scarcely give his heart in two places, you know. And my deep +regard for you, Mrs. Hardy--my desire that you shall be spared +this--ah--threatened humiliation, will justify me in using heroic +measures to bring this unfortunate affair to a close. You may trust +me, Mrs. Hardy." + +"I was sure of that," she returned, already much comforted. "I was +sure of your sympathy, and that you would find a way." + +"I shall need your co-operation," he warned her. "Irene is--you will +forgive me, Mrs. Hardy, but Irene is, if I may say it, somewhat +headstrong. She is--" + +"She is her father over again," Mrs. Hardy interrupted. "I told him he +should not attempt that crazy trip of his without me along, but he +would go. And this is what he has brought upon me, and he not here to +share it." Mrs. Hardy's tone conveyed very plainly her grievance over +the doctor's behaviour in evading the consequences of the situation +which his headstrong folly had created. + +"She is set in her own mind," Conward continued. "We must not openly +oppose her. You must appear to be resigned, even to the extent of +treating Elden with such consideration as you can. To argue with +Irene, to attempt to persuade her, or to order Elden off the place, +would only deepen their attachment. Lovers are that way, Mrs. Hardy. +We must adopt other tactics." + +"You are very clever," said Mrs. Hardy. "You have been a student of +human nature." + +Conward smiled pleasurably. Little as he valued Mrs. Hardy's opinion, +her words of praise fell very gratefully upon him. Flatterers are +seldom proof against their own poison. "Yes, I have studied human +nature," he admitted. "The most interesting--and the most +profitable--of all studies. And I know that young couples in love are +not governed by the ordinary laws of reason. That is why it is useless +to argue with Irene--sensible girl though she is--on a subject like +this. We must reach her some other way. + +"The way that occurs to me is to create distrust. Love is either +absurdly trustful or absurdly suspicious. There is no middle course, +no balanced judgment. Everything is in extremes. Everything is seen +through a magnifying lens, or missed altogether. In the trustfulness +of love little virtues are magnified to angelic qualities, and vices +are quite unseen. But change that trust to suspicion, and a hidden, +sinister meaning is found behind the simplest word or act." + +Conward had risen and was walking about the room. He was conscious of +being regarded as a man of very deep insight, and the consciousness +pleased him. + +"We must cause Irene to distrust Elden--to see him in his true light," +he continued. "That may be possible. But if it should fail we must +take another course, which I hesitate to mention to you, but which may +be necessary if we are to save her from this fatal infatuation. If our +efforts to cause Irene to see Elden in his true light were to fail, and +she were to discover those efforts, she would be more set in his favour +than ever. So we must plan two campaigns; one, which I have already +suggested, and one, if that should fail, to cause Elden to distrust +Irene. No, no," he said, raising his hand toward Mrs. Hardy, who had +started from her seat,--"there must be no vestige of reason, except +that the end justifies the means. It is a case of saving Irene, even +if we must pain her--and you--in the saving." + +"It's very dreadful," Mrs. Hardy repeated. "But you are very thorough; +you leave nothing to chance. I suppose that is the way with all big +business men." + +"You can trust me," Conward assured her. "There is no time to be lost, +and I must plan my campaigns at once." + + + + +CHAPTER NINETEEN + +Conward paused to speak to Irene before leaving the house. + +"I owe you my good wishes," he said. "And I give them most frankly, +although, perhaps, with more difficulty than you suppose." + +"You are very good, Mr. Conward," she acknowledged. + +"I could not wish you anything but happiness," he returned. "And had I +been so fortunate as Elden, in making your acquaintance first, I might +have hoped to contribute to your happiness more directly than I can +under the present circumstances." He was speaking in his low, sedulous +notes, and his words sent the girl's blood rushing in a strange mixture +of gratification and anger. The tribute he implied--that he himself +would have been glad to have been her suitor--was skilfully planned to +appeal to her vanity, and her anger was due to its success. She told +herself she should not listen to such words; she should hate to hear +such words. And yet she listened to them, and was not sure that she +hated them. She could only say, "You are very good, Mr. Conward." + +He pressed her hand at the door, and again that strange mixture of +emotions surged through her. + +Conward proceeded to the business section of the town, well pleased +with the evening's events. He found his way impeded by crowds in front +of the newspaper offices. He had paid little attention to the progress +of the war scare, attributing it to the skilful publicity of interests +connected with the manufacture of armaments. To the last he had not +believed that war was possible. "Nobody wants to fight," he had +assured his business acquaintances. "Even the armament people don't +want to fight. All they want is to frighten more money out of the +taxpayers of Europe." To Conward this explanation seemed very +complete. It covered the whole ground and left nothing to be said. + +But to-night he was aware of a keener tension in the crowd atmosphere. +They were good natured crowds, to be sure; laughing, and cheering, and +making sallies of heavy wit; but they were in some way more intense +than he had ever seen before. There was no fear of war; there was, +rather, an adventurous spirit which seemed to fear that the affair +would blow over, as had so many affairs in the past, and all the +excitement go for nothing. That war, if it came to war, could last, no +one dreamed; it would be a matter of a few weeks, a few months, at the +most, until a thoroughly whipped Germany would retire behind the Rhine +to plan ways of raising the indemnity which outraged civilization would +demand. Conward elbowed his way through the crowds, smiling, in his +superior knowledge, over their excitement. Newspapers must have +headlines. + +At his office he used a telephone. Then he walked to a restaurant, +where, after a few minutes, he was joined by a young woman. They took +a table in a box. Supper was disposed of, and the young woman began to +grow impatient. + +"Well, you brought me here," she said at last. "You've fed me, and you +don't feed anybody, Conward, without a purpose. What's the +consideration?" + +"Yes, I have a purpose," he admitted. "I'm pulling off a little joke, +and I want you to help me." + +"You're some joker," she returned. "Who have you got it in for?" + +"You know Elden--Dave Elden?" + +"Sure. I've known him ever since that jolt put him out of business up +in your rooms, ever so many years ago. He was too rural for that +mixture. Still, Elden has lots of friends--decent friends, I mean." + +"I'm rather sorry you know him," said Conward. "But--what's more to +the point--does he know you?" + +"Not he. I guess he had no memory the next morning, and would have +made a point of forgetting me, even if he had." + +"That's all right, then. Now I want you to get him down to your place +some night to be agreed upon--I'll fix the date later--and keep him +there until I call for him, with his _fiancée_." + +"Some joke," she said, and there was disgust in her voice. "Who is it +on: Elden, me, or the girl?" + +"Never mind who it's on," Conward returned. "I'm paying for it. +Here's something on account, and if you make a good job of it, I won't +be stingy." + +He handed her a bill, which she kissed and put in her purse. "I need +the money, Conward, or I wouldn't take it. Say, don't you know you're +wasting your time in this one-horse town? You ought to get into the +big league. Your jokes would sure make a hit." + +This part of his trap set, Conward awaited a suitable opportunity to +spring it. In the meantime he took Mrs. Hardy partially into his +confidence. He allowed her to believe, however, that Elden's habits +would stand correction, and he had merely arranged to trap him in one +of his favorite haunts. She was very much shocked, and thought it was +very dreadful, but of course we must save Irene. Mr. Conward was very +clever. That's what came of being a man of experience,--and judgment, +Mr. Conward, and some knowledge of the world. + +But concerning another part of his programme Conward was even less +frank with Mrs. Hardy. He was clever enough to know that he must +observe certain limitations. + +At length all his plans appeared to be complete. The city was in a +tumult of excitement over the war, but for Conward a deeper interest +centred in the plot he was hatching under the unsuspecting noses of +Irene and Elden. If he could trap Dave the rest would be easy. If he +failed in this he had another plan to give failure at least the +appearance of success. The fact that the nation was now at war +probably had an influence in speeding up the plot. Everything was +under high tension; powerful currents of thought were bearing the +masses along unaccustomed channels; society itself was in a state of +flux. If he were to strike at all let the blow fall at once. + +On this early August night he ascertained that Dave was working alone +in his office. Then he called a number on a telephone. + +"This is the night," he explained. "You will find him alone in his +office. I will be waiting to hear from you at----"--he quoted Mrs. +Hardy's telephone number. Then he drove his car to the Hardy home, +exchanged a few words with Irene, and sat down to a hand of cribbage +with her mother. + +Poring over his correspondence, Dave tried to abstract his mind from +the tumultuous doings of these last days. Office organization had been +paralyzed; stenographers and clerks were incapable with excitement. It +was as though some great excursion had been announced; something +wonderful and novel, which divorced the interest from the dull routine +of business. And Dave, with his ear cocked for the cry of the latest +extra, spent the evening hours in a valiant effort at concentration. + +Suddenly he heard a knock at the door; not a business man's knock; not +an office girl's knock; a hesitating, timid, apologetic knock. + +"Come in," he called. No one entered, but presently he heard the knock +again. He arose and walked to the door. Outside stood a young woman. +She looked up shyly, her face half concealed beneath a broad hat. + +"If you please," she said, "excuse me, but--you are Mr. Elden, aren't +you?" + +"Yes; can I help you in any way?" + +The woman tittered a moment, but resumed soberly, "You will wonder at +me coming to you, but I'm from the country. Did you think that?" + +"I suspected it," said Dave, with a smile. "You knocked----" He +paused. + +"Yes?" + +"Like a country girl," he said, boldly. + +She tittered again. "Well, I'm lost," she confessed. "I got off the +train a short time ago. My aunt was to meet me, but there are such +crowds in the street--I must have missed her. And I saw your name on +the window, and I had heard of you. So I just thought I'd ask--if you +wouldn't mind--showing me to this address." + +She fumbled in her pocket, and Dave invited her into the office. There +she produced a torn piece of paper with an address. + +"Why, that's just a few blocks," said Dave. "I'll walk around with +you." He turned for his hat, but at that moment there was another +timid knock on the door. He opened it. A boy of eight or ten years +stood outside. + +"Can I come in?" the lad ventured. + +"Why, of course you can. What is it, son?" + +"Are you Mr. Elden?" + +"Yes." + +The lad looked shyly about the office. It was evident he was impressed +with its magnificence. Suddenly he pulled off his hat, disclosing a +shock of brown hair. + +"Are you Mr. Elden that sells lots?" + +"Yes. Or, rather, I _did_ sell lots, but not many of late. Were you +thinking of buying a few lots?" + +"Did you sell lots to my father?" + +"Well, if I knew your father's name perhaps I could tell you. Who is +your father?" + +"He's Mr. Merton. I'm his son. And he said to me, before he got so +bad, he said, 'There's just one honest man in this city, and that's Mr. +Elden.' Is that you, Mr. Elden?" + +"Well, I hope it is, but I won't claim such a distinction. I remember +your father very well. Did he send you to me?" + +"No sir. He's too sick. He don't know anybody now. He didn't know me +to-night." The boy's voice went thick, and he stopped and swallowed. +"And then I remembered what he said about you, and I just came. Was +that all right, Mr. Elden?" + +"You say your father is very sick?" + +"He don't know anybody." + +"Have you help--a doctor--a nurse?" + +"No sir. We haven't any money. My father spent it all for the lots +that he bought from you." + +Dave winced. Then, turning to the young woman, "I'm afraid this is a +more urgent case than yours. I'll call a taxi to take you to your +address." + +To his surprise his visitor broke out in a ribald laugh. She had +seated herself on a desk, and was swinging one foot jauntily. + +"It's all off," she said. "Say, Dave, you couldn't lose me in this +burg. You don't remember me, do you? Well, all the better. I'm +rather glad I broke down on this job. I used to be something of an +actress, and I'd have put it over if it hadn't been for the kid. The +fact is, Dave," she continued, "I was sent up here to decoy you. It +wasn't fair fighting, and I didn't like it, but money has been mighty +slow of late. I wonder--how much you'd give to know who sent me?" + +Dave pulled some bills from his pocket and held them before her. She +took them from his hand. + +"Conward," she said. + +Dave's blood went to his head. "The scoundrel!" he cried. "The low +down dog! There's more in this than appears on the surface." + +"Sure there is," she said. "There's another woman. There always is." + +Elden walked to his desk. From a drawer he took a revolver; toyed with +it a moment in his hands; broke it open, crammed it full of cartridges +and thrust it in his pocket. + +The girl watched him with friendly interest. "Believe me, Dave," she +said, "if Conward turns up missing I won't know a thing--not a d---- +thing." + +For a moment he stood irresolute. He could only guess what Conward's +plan had been, but that it had been diabolical and cowardly, and that +it concerned Irene, he had no doubt. His impulse was to immediately +confront Conward, force a confession, and deal with him as the occasion +might seem to require. But his eye fell on the boy, with his shock of +brown hair and wistful, half-frightened face. + +"I'll go with you first," he said, with quick decision. Then to the +girl, "Sorry I must turn you out, but this case is urgent." + +"That's all right," she said. Suddenly there was a little catch in her +voice. "I'm used to being turned out." + +He shot a sharp glance at her. Her face was laughing. "You're too +decent for your job," he said, abruptly. + +"Thanks, Dave," she answered, and he saw her eyes glisten. "That +helps--some." And before he knew it she was into the street. + +"All right, son," said Dave, taking up the matter now in hand. "What's +your name--your first name?" + +"Charlie." + +"And your address?" + +The boy mentioned a distant subdivision. + +"That _is_ out, isn't it? Well, we'll take the car. We'll run right +out and see what is to be done. I guess I'd better call a doctor at +once." + +He went to the telephone and gave some directions. Then he and the boy +walked to a garage, and in a few moments were humming along the +by-streets into the country. Dave had already become engrossed in his +errand of mercy, and his rage at Conward, if not forgotten, was +temporarily dismissed from his mind. He chatted with the boy as he +drove. + +"You go to school?" + +"Not this year. Father has been too sick. Of course, this is +holidays, and he says he'll be all right before they're over." + +Dave smiled grimly. "The incurable optimism of it," he murmured to +himself. Then outwardly, "Of course he will. We'll fix him up in no +time with a good doctor and a good nurse." + +They drove on through the calm night, leaving the city streets behind +and following what was little more than a country trail. This was +crossed in every direction, and at every possible angle, by just such +other country trails, unravelling themselves into the darkness. Here +and there they bumped over pieces of graded street, infinitely rougher +than the natural prairie; once Dave dropped his front wheels into a +collapsing water trench; once he just grazed an isolated hydrant. The +city lights were cut off by a shoulder of foothill; only their dull +glow hung in the distant sky. + +"And this is one of our 'choice residential subdivisions,'" said Dave +to himself, as with Charlie's guidance and his own in-born sense of +location he threaded his way through the maze of diverging trails. +"Fine business; fine business." + +As the journey continued the sense of self-reproach which had been +static in him for many months became more insistent, and he found +himself repeating the ironical phrase, "Fine business, fine business. +Yes, I let Conward 'weigh the coal' all right." The intrusion of +Conward into his mind sent the blood to his head, but at that moment +his reflections were cut short by the boy. + +"We will have to get out here," he said. "The bridge is down." + +Investigation proved him to be right. A bridge over a small stream had +collapsed, and was slowly disintegrating amid its own wreckage. Dave +explored the stream bottom, getting muddy boots for his pains. Then he +ran the car a little to one side of the road, locked the switch, and +walked on with the boy. + +"Pretty lonely out here, isn't it?" he ventured. + +"Oh, no. There is a street light we can see in a little while; it is +behind the hill now. We see it from the corner of our shack. It's +very cheery." + +"Fine business," Dave repeated to himself. "And this is how our big +success was made. Well, the 'success' has vanished as quickly as it +came. I suppose there is a Law somewhere that is not mocked." + +They were passing through a settlement of crude houses, dimly visible +in the starlight and by occasional yellow blurs from their windows. +Before one of the meanest of these the boy at last stopped. The upper +hinge of the door was broken, and a feeble light struggled through the +space where it gaped outward. Charlie pulled the door open, and Dave +entered. At first his eyes could not take in the dim outlines before +him; he was conscious of a very small and stuffy room, with a peculiar +odour which he attributed to an oil lamp burning on a box. He walked +over and turned the lamp up, but the oil was consumed; a red, sullen, +smoking wick was its only response. Then he felt in his pocket, and +struck a match. + +The light revealed the dinginess of the little room. There was a bed, +covered with musty, ragged clothing; a table, littered with broken and +dirty dishes and pieces of stale food; a stove, cracked and greasy, and +one or two bare boxes serving as articles of furniture. But it was to +the bed Dave turned, and, with another match, bent over the shrunken +form that lay almost concealed amid the coarse coverings. He brought +his face down close, then straightened up and steadied himself for a +moment. + +"He'll soon be well, don't you think, Mister? He said he would be well +when the holidays----" But Dave's expression stopped the boy, whose +own face went suddenly wild with fear. + +"He is well now, Charlie," he said, as steadily as he could. "It is +all holidays now for him." + +The match had burnt out, and the room was in utter darkness. Dave +heard the child drawing his feet slowly across the floor, then suddenly +whimpering like a thing that had been mortally hurt. He groped toward +him, and at length his fingers found his shock of hair. He drew the +boy slowly into his arms; then very, very tight. . . . After all, they +were orphans together. + +"You will come with me," he said, at length. "I will see that you are +provided for. The doctor will soon be here, or we will meet him on the +way, and he will make the arrangements for--the arrangements that have +to be made, you know." + +They retraced their steps toward the town, meeting the doctor at the +broken bridge. Dave exchanged a few words with him in low tones, and +they passed on. Soon they were swinging again through the city +streets, this time through the busy thoroughfares, which were almost +blocked with tense, excited crowds about the bulletin boards. Even +with the developments of the evening pressing heavily upon his mind, +Dave could not resist the temptation to stop and listen for a moment to +bulletins being read through a megaphone. + +"The Kaiser has stripped off his British regalia," said the announcer. +"He says he will never again wear a British uniform." + +A chuckle of derisive laughter ran through the mob; then some one +struck up a well-known refrain,--"What the hell do we care?" Up and +down the street voices caught up the chorus. . . . Within a year the +bones of many in that thoughtless crowd, bleaching on the fields of +Flanders, showed how much they cared. + +Dave literally pressed his machine through the throng, which opened +slowly to let it pass, and immediately filled up the wake behind. Then +he drove direct to the Hardy home. + +After some delay Irene met him at the door, and Dave explained the +situation in a few words. "We must take care of him, Reenie," he said. +"I feel a personal responsibility." + +"Of course we will take him," she answered. "He will live here until +we have a--some place of our own." Her face was bright with something +which must be tenderness. "Bring him upstairs. We will allot him a +room, and introduce him, first, to--the bath-room. And tomorrow we +shall have an excursion down town, and some new clothes for +Charlie--Elden." + +As they moved up the stairs Conward, who had been in another room in +conversation with Mrs. Hardy, followed them unseen. The evening had +been interminable for Conward. For three hours he had waited word that +his victim had been trapped, and for three hours no word had come. He +had smoked numberless cigarettes, and nibbled impatiently at his nails, +and tried to appear at ease before Mrs. Hardy. If his plans had +miscarried; if Dave had discovered the plot; well---- And here at +length was Dave, engrossed in a very different matter. Conward +followed them up the stairs. + +Irene and Dave chatted with the boy for a few moments, trying to make +him feel at home in his strange surroundings; then Irene turned to some +arrangements for his comfort, and Dave started down stairs. In the +passage he was met by Conward. Conward seemed at last to have dropped +the mask; he leered insolently, triumphantly, in Dave's face. + +"What are you doing here?" Dave demanded, as he felt his head beginning +to swim in anger. + +Conward leered only the more offensively, and walked down the stairs +beside him. At the foot he coolly lit another cigarette. If he was +conscious of the hate in Dave's eyes he hid his emotions under a mask +of insolence. He held the match before him and calmly watched it burn +out. Then he extended it toward Dave. + +"You remember our wager, Elden. I present you with--a burnt-out match." + +"You liar!" cried Dave. "You infamous liar!" + +"Ask _her_," Conward replied. "She will deny it, of course. All women +do." + +Dave felt his muscles tighten, and knew that in a moment he would tear +his victim to pieces. As his clenched fist came to the side of his +body it struck something hard. His revolver! He had forgotten; he was +not in the habit of carrying it. In an instant he had Conward covered. + +Dave did not press the trigger at once. He took a fierce delight in +torturing the man who had wrecked his life,--even while he told himself +he could not believe his boast. Now he watched the colour fade from +Conward's cheek; the eyes stand out in his face; the livid blotches +more livid still; the cigarette drop from his nerveless lips. + +"You are a brave man, Conward," he said, and there was the rasp of hate +and contempt in his voice. "You are a very brave man." + +Mrs. Hardy, sensing something wrong, came out from her sitting-room. +With a little cry she swooned away. + +Conward tried to speak, but words stuck in his throat. With a dry +tongue he licked his drier lips. + +"Do you believe in hell, Conward?" Dave continued. "I've always had +some doubt myself, but in thirty seconds--_you'll know_." + +Irene, attracted by her mother's cry, appeared on the stairway. For a +moment her eyes refused to grasp the scene before them; Conward +cowering, terror-stricken; Dave fierce, steely, implacable, with his +revolver lined on Conward's brain. Through some strange whim of her +mind her thought in that instant flew back to the bottles on the posts +of the Elden ranch, and Dave breaking five out of six on the gallop. +Then, suddenly, she became aware of one thing only. A tragedy was +being enacted before her eyes, and Dave would be held responsible. In +a moment every impulse within her beat forth in a wild frenzy to save +him from such a consequence. + +"Oh, don't, Dave, don't, don't shoot him," she cried, flying down the +remaining steps. Before Dave could grasp her purpose she was upon him; +had clutched his revolver; had wrapped her arms about his. "Don't, +don't, Dave," she pleaded. "For my sake, don't do--_that_." + +Her words were tragically unfortunate. For a moment Dave stood as one +paralyzed; then his heart dried up within him. + +"So that's the way of it," he said, as he broke her grip, and the +horror in his own eyes would not let him read the sudden horror in +hers. "All right; take it," and he placed the revolver in her hand. +"You should know what to do with it." And before she could stop him he +had walked out of the house. + +She rushed to the gate, but already the roar of his motor was lost in +the hum of the city's traffic. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY + +When Dave sprang into his car he gave the motor a full head and drove +through the city streets in a fury of recklessness. His mind was +numbed; it was incapable of assorting thoughts and placing them in +proper relationship to each other. His muscles guided the machine +apparently without any mental impulse. He rode it as he had ridden +unbroken bronchos in his far-away boyhood. Only this difference; then +he had no sense of danger; now he knew the danger, and defied it. If +he killed himself, so much the better; if he killed others, so much the +better still. The world was a place without purpose; a chaos of blind, +impotent, struggling creatures, who struggled only because they did not +know they were blind and impotent. Life was a farce and death a big +bluff set up that men might take the farce seriously. + +He was soon out of the city, roaring through the still Autumn night +with undiminished speed. Over tortuous country roads, across sudden +bridges, along slippery hillsides, through black bluffs of +scrub-land--in some strange way he tried to drown the uproar in his +soul in the frenzy of the steel that quivered beneath him. On and on, +into the night. Bright stars gleamed overhead; a soft breeze pressed +against his face; it was such a night as he had driven, a year ago, +with Bert Morrison. Was that only a year ago? And what had happened? +Where had he been? Oh, to bring the boy--Charlie, the boy. When was +that? Under the calm heaven his mind was already attempting to +establish a sequence; to set its outraged home again in order. + +Suddenly the car skidded on a slippery hillside, turned from the road, +plowed through a clump of scrub, ricochetted against a dark +obstruction, poised a moment on two wheels, turned around and stopped. +The shock brought Dave to his senses; he got out and walked about the +car, feeling the tires with his hands in the darkness. He could +appraise no serious damage. Then he sat on the running board and +stared for a long while into the darkness. "No use being a damned +fool, anyway, Dave," he said to himself, at length. "I got it--where I +didn't expect it--but I guess that's the way with every one. The +troubles we expect, don't happen, and then the trouble that we didn't +expect gets us when we're not watching." He tried to philosophize; to +get a fresh grip on himself. "Where are we, anyway?" he continued. +"This country looks familiar." He got up again and walked about, +finding his way back to the road. He went along it a little way. +Vague impressions suggested that he should know the spot, and yet he +could not identify it. Listen! There was a sound of water. There was +a sighing of the wind in trees; a very low sighing, rather a +whispering, of a gentle wind in trees. The place seemed alive with +spirits; spirits tapping on the door of some long sealed chamber of his +memory. + +Then, with a sudden shock, it came to him. It was the hillside on +which Dr. Hardy had come to grief; the hillside on which he had first +seen her bright face, her wonderful eyes---- A poignancy of grief +engulfed him, sweeping away his cheap philosophies. Here she stood, +young and clean and entrancing, thrust before him in an instant out of +the wonderful days of the past. And would she always follow him thus; +would she stand at every road corner, every street corner, on every +prairie hill, in every office hour; must he catch her fragrance in +every breeze; see the glint of her hair in every sunbeam; meet her eyes +for ever--soft eyes now veiled in tears and flashing glimpses of what +might have been? With an unutterable sinking he knew that that was so; +that the world was not big enough to hide him from Irene Hardy. There +was no way out. + +He started his motor and, even in his despair, felt a thrill of pride +as the faithful gears engaged, and the car climbed back to its place on +the trail. Was all faithfulness, then, in things of steel and iron, +and none in flesh and blood? He followed the trail. Why stop now? +The long-forgotten ranch buildings lay across the stream and behind the +tongue of spruce trees, unless some wandering foothill fire had +destroyed them. He forded the stream without difficulty. That was +where he had carried her out. . . . He felt his way slowly along the +old fence. That was where she had set up bottles for his marksmanship. +. . . He stopped where the straggling gate should be, and walked +carefully into the yard. That was where she had first called him Dave. +. . . Then he found the doorstep, and sat down to wait. + +When the sun was well up he rose and walked about. His lips were +parched; he found himself nibbling them with his teeth, so he went to +the stream. He was thirsty, but he drank only a mouthful; the water +was flat and insipid. . . . The old cabin was in better repair than he +would have thought. He sprung the door open. It was musty and strung +with cobwebs; that was the room she had occupied. He did not go in, +but sat down and tried to think. + +Later he walked up the canyon. He must have walked swiftly, for the +sun was not yet at the meridian when he found himself at the little +nook in the rock where he and Irene had sat that afternoon when they +had first laid their hearts open to each other. He tried to recall +that long-forgotten conversation, lacerating himself with the pain of +its tenderness. Suddenly one remark stood up in his memory. "The day +is coming," she had said, "when our country will want men who can shoot +and ride." And he had said, "Well, when it does, it can call on me." +And to-day the country did want men who could shoot and ride, and he +had flown into the foothills to nurse a broken heart. . . . Broken +hearts can fight as well as whole ones. Better, perhaps, because they +don't care. He felt his frame straighten as this thought sank home. +He could be of some use yet. At any rate, there was a way out. + +Some whim led him through the grove of spruce trees on his way back to +the ranch. Here, in an open space, he looked about, kicking in the dry +grass. At length his toe disturbed a few bleached bones, and he stood +and looked with unseeing eyes far across the shimmering valley. + +"Brownie," he said at length. "Brownie." The whole scene came back +upon him; the moonlight, and Irene's distress, and the little bleeding +body. And he had said he didn't know anything about the justice of +God; all he knew was the crittur that couldn't run was the one that got +caught. . . . And he had said that was life. . . . He had said it was +only nature. + +And then they had stood among the trees and beneath the white moon and +pledged their faith. . . . + +Again his head went up, and the old light flashed in his eyes. "The +first thing is to kill the wolf," he said aloud. "No other innocent +shall fall to his fangs. Then--my country." + +Darkness had again fallen before Dave found his car threading the +streets of the city, still feverish with its new-born excitement of +war. He returned his car to the garage; an attendant looked up +curiously,--it was evident from his glance that Dave had already been +missed--but no words were exchanged. He stood for a moment in the +street collecting his thoughts and rehearsing his resolves. He was +amazed to find that, even in his bitterness, the city reached a +thousand hands to him--hands of habit, and association, and custom of +mind--all urging him back into the old groove; all saying, "The routine +is the thing; be a spoke in the wheel; go 'round with the rest of us." + +"No," he reminded himself. "No, I can't do that. I have business on +hand. First--to kill the wolf." + +He remembered that he had given his revolver to Irene. And suddenly +she sat with him again at the tea table. . . . Where was he? Yes, he +had given his revolver to Irene. Well, there was another in his rooms. +First to kill the wolf. + +In the hallway of the block in which he had his bachelor apartments +Dave almost collided with a woman. He drew back, and the light fell on +his face, but hers was in the shadow. And then he heard her voice. +"Oh, Dave, I'm so glad--why, what has happened?" The last words ran +into a little treble of pain as she noted his haggard face; he had not +eaten for twenty-four hours, nor slept for thirty-six. + +"You--Edith," he managed to say. "Whatever----" + +She came toward him and placed her hands on his. "I've been here a +hundred times--ever since morning--ever since Bert Morrison called up +to say you had disappeared--that there was some mystery. There isn't, +is there, Dave? You're all right, Dave, aren't you, Dave?" + +"I guess I'm all right," he managed to answer, "but I got a job on--an +important job on. I must get it done. There is not time----" + +But her woman's intuition had gone far below his idle words. "There is +something wrong, Dave," she said. "You never looked like this before. +Tell me what it is. Tell me, Dave; not that I want to know, for +knowing's sake, but just that I--perhaps I--can help." + +Dave was silent for a moment, watching her. She had changed her +position, and he could see her face. Suddenly it occurred to him that +Edith Duncan was beautiful. If she had not quite the fine features of +Irene, she had a certain softness of expression, a certain mellowness, +even tenderness, of lip and eye; a certain womanly delicacy---- + +"Edith," he said, "you're white. Why is it that the woman a man loves +will fail him, and the woman he only likes--stays true?" + +"Oh!" she cried, and he could not guess the depths from which her cry +was wrung. . . . "I should not have asked you, Dave," she said. "I'm +sorry." + +They stood a moment, neither wishing to move away. "You said you had +something must be done at once," she reminded him at length. + +"Yes," he answered. "I have to kill a man. Then I'm going to join up +with the army." + +Her hands were again upon him. "But you mustn't, Dave," she pleaded. +"No matter--no matter _what_--you mustn't do that. That is the one +thing you must not do." + +"Edith, you are not a man. You don't understand. That is the one +thing I must do." + +"But you can't fight for your country, then. You will only increase +its troubles in these troubled times. Don't think I'm pleading for +_him_, Dave, but for you, for the sake of us--for the sake of +those--who care." + +He took her hands in his and raised them to his shoulders and drew her +face close to his. Then, speaking very slowly, and with each word by +itself, "Do you really care?" he said. + +"Oh, Dave!" + +"Then come to my room and talk to me. Talk to me! Talk to me! For +God's sake talk to me. I must talk to some one." + +She followed him. Inside the room he had himself under control again. +The street lights flooded through the windows, so he did not press the +switch. He motioned her to a chair. + +And then he told her the story, all he knew. + +When he had finished she arose and walked to one of the windows and +stood looking with unseeing eyes upon the street. For the second time +in his life Dave Elden had laid his heart bare to her, and again after +all these years he still talked as friend to friend. That was it. She +was under no delusion. Dave's eyes were as blind to her love as they +had been that night when he had first told her of Irene Hardy. And she +could not tell him. Most of all, she could not tell him now. . . . +Yes, she was very sure of that. If she should tell him now--if she +should let him know--he would turn to her in his grief. He would be +clay in her hands. And afterwards he would despise her for having +taken advantage of his hour of weakness. She had waited all these +years, and still she must wait. + +Dave's eyes were upon her form, silhouetted against the window. It +occurred to him that in form Edith was very much like Irene. He +recalled that in those dead past days when they used to ride together +Edith had reminded him of Irene. When she stood silent so long he +spoke again. + +"I'm afraid I haven't played a very heroic part," he said, somewhat +shamefacedly. "I should have buried my secret in my heart; buried it +even from you; perhaps most of all from you. I should have faced the +world with a smile, as one who rises above the slings and arrows of +outrageous fortune. People do that kind of thing in books; perhaps +some do in real life. I suppose you can't tell from the outside what +may be carried within--even by your closest friend. But--you can +advise me, Edith. I will value whatever you say." + +She trembled until she thought he must see her, and she feared to trust +her voice, but she could delay a reply no longer. + +"You are right, Dave," she said at length. "You never can tell what +other people are carrying; perhaps, even, as you say, your closest +friends. The first thing is to get rid of the idea that your +experience is unique; that your lot is harder than that of other +people. It may be different, but it is not harder. When you get that +point of view you will be able to pass sane judgments. + +"'And when you can pass sane judgment you may see that the evidence is +not, even at the worst, very conclusive. Why should you take Conward's +word in such a matter as this?" + +"I didn't take Conward's word. That's why I didn't kill him at once. +It wasn't his word--it was the insult--that cut. But she tried to save +him. She threw herself upon me. She would have taken the bullet +herself rather than let it find him. That was what--that was what----" + +"I know, Dave." She had to hold herself in check lest the tenderness +that welled within her, and would shape words of endearing sympathy in +her mind, should find utterance in speech. "I know, Dave," she said. +"The next thing then is to make sure in your own mind whether you ever +really loved Irene Hardy." + +He sprang to his feet. "Loved Irene!" he exclaimed, and she was in a +turmoil of fear and hope that he would approach her. But he paced his +own side of the room. + +"Edith," he said, "there is no way of explaining this. You can't +understand. I know you have given yourself up to a life of service, +and I honour you very much, and all that, but there are some things you +won't be able to understand. You can't understand just how much I +loved Irene." + +"I think I can," she answered, quietly. "You have kept your love +faithful and single for a dozen years, and I--I think I can understand. +But that isn't why I asked. Because if you loved Irene a week ago you +love her to-night." + +"Have you never known of love being turned to hate?" + +"No. Other impulses may be, but not love. Love can no more turn to +hate than sunlight can turn to darkness. Believe me, Dave, if you hate +Irene now you never loved her. Listen: + +"'Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, +_endureth_ all things!'" + +"Not all things, Edith; not all things." + +"It says _all_ things." + +Dave was silent for some time. When he spoke again she caught a +different sound in his voice; a tone as though his soul in those few +moments had gone through a life-time of experience. + +"Edith," he said, "when you repeated those words I knew you had +something that I have not. I knew it, not by the words, but by the way +you said them. You made me feel that you were not setting a higher +standard for me than you would accept for yourself. You made me _know_ +that in your own life, if you loved, you would be ready to endure all +things. Tell me, Edith, how may this thing be done?" + +She trembled with delight at the new tone in his voice, for she knew +that in that hour Dave had crossed a boundary of his life and entered +into a new and richer field of existence. She knew that for him life +would never again be the empty, flippant, selfish, irresponsible thing +which in the past he had called life. He was already beginning to +taste of that wine of compensation provided for those who pass through +the valley of sorrow. + +"In your case," she said, "the course is simple. It is just a case of +forgiving." + +He gazed for a time into the street, while thoughts of bitterness and +revenge fought for domination of his mind. "Edith," he said at length, +"must I--forgive?" + +"I do not say you must," she answered. "I merely say if you are wise +you will. Forgiveness is the balm of our moral life, by which we keep +the wounds of the soul from festering and poisoning the spirit. +Nothing, it seems to me, is so much misunderstood as forgiveness. The +popular idea is that the whole benefit of forgiveness is to the person +who is forgiven. Really, there is a very much greater benefit to the +person who forgives. The one who is forgiven may merely escape +punishment, but the one who forgives experiences a positive spiritual +expansion. Believe me, Dave, it is the only philosophy which rings +true under the most critical tests; which is absolutely dependable in +every emergency." + +"Is that Christianity?" he ventured. + +"It is one side of Christianity. The other side is service. If you +are willing to forgive and ready to serve I don't think you need worry +much over the details of your creed. Creeds, after all, are not +expressed in words, but in lives. When you know how a man lives you +know what he believes--always." + +"Suppose I forgive--what then?" + +"Service. You are needed right now, Dave--forgive my frankness--your +country needs you right now. You have the qualities which make you +extremely valuable. You must dismiss this grievance from your mind, at +least dismiss your resentment over it, and then place yourself at the +disposal of your country. The way is so clear that it cannot be +misunderstood." + +"That is what I had been thinking of," he said. "At least that part +about serving my country, although I don't think my motives were as +high as you would make them. But the war can't last. It'll be all +over before I can take a hand. Civilization has gone too far for such +a thing as this to last. It is unbelievable." + +"I'm not so sure," she answered, gravely. "Of course, I know nothing +about Germany. But I do know something about our own people. I know +how selfish and individualistic and sordid and money-grabbing we have +been; how slothful and incompetent and self-satisfied we have been, and +I fear it will take a long war and sacrifices and tragedies altogether +beyond our present imagination to make us unselfish and public-spirited +and clean and generous; it will take the strain and emergency of war to +make us vigorous and efficient; it will take the sting of many defeats +to impose that humility which will be the beginning of our +regeneration. I am not worrying about the defeat of Germany. If our +civilization is better than that of Germany we shall win, ultimately, +and if our civilization is worse than that of Germany we shall be +defeated, ultimately,--and we shall deserve to be defeated. But I +rather think that neither of these alternatives will be the result. I +rather think that the test of war will show that there are elements in +German civilization which are better than ours, and elements in our +civilization which are better than theirs, and that the good elements +will survive and form the basis of a new civilization better than +either." + +"If that is so," Dave replied, "if this war is but the working out of +immutable law which proposes to put all the elements of civilization to +the supreme test and retain only those which are justifiable by that +test, why should I--or any one else--fight? And," he added as an +after-thought, "what about that principle of forgiveness?" + +"We must fight," she answered, "because it is the law that we must +fight; because it is only by fighting that we can justify the +principles for which we fight. If we hold our principles as being not +worth fighting for the new civilization will throw those principles in +the discard. And that, too, covers the question of forgiveness. +Forgiveness, in fact, does not enter into the consideration at all. We +must fight, not because we hate Germany, but because we love certain +principles which Germany is endeavouring to overthrow. The impulse +must be love, not hate." + +She had turned and faced him while she spoke, and he felt himself +strangely carried away by the earnestness and fervour of her argument. +What a wonderful woman she was! How she had stripped the issue of the +detail and circumstance which was confusing even statesmen, and laid it +before him in positive terms which he could find no argument to +dispute! And how in his hour of distress, when he stood on the verge +of utter recklessness and indifference, she had infused into him a +strange and new ambition--an ambition which deepened and enriched every +phase of life, and yet which held life itself less worthy than its own +attainment! And as he looked at her he again thought of Irene, and +suddenly he felt himself engulfed in a great tenderness, and he knew +that even yet---- + +"What am I to do?" he said. "I am willing to accept your philosophy. +I admit that mine has broken down, and I am willing to try yours. What +am I to do?" + +In the darkness of her own shadow she set her teeth for that answer. +It was to be the crowning act of her self-renunciation, and it strained +every fibre of her resolution. She could not allow him to stay where +he was, even in uniform. The danger was two-fold. In a moment of +weakness he would probably shoot Conward, and in a moment of weakness +she would probably disclose her love. And if Dave should ever marry +her he must win her first. + +"You had better go overseas and enlist in England," she told him +calmly, although her nails were biting her palms. "You will get +quicker action that way. And when you come back you must see Irene, +and you must learn from your own heart whether you really loved her or +not. And if you find you did not, then--then you will be free +to--to--to think of some other woman." + +"I am afraid I shall never care to think of any other woman," he +answered. "Except you. But some way you're different. I don't think +of you as a woman, you know; not really, in a way. I can't explain it, +Edith, but you're something more--something better than all that." + +"I assure you I am very much a woman--" + +But he had sprung to his feet. "Edith, I can never thank you enough +for what you have said to me to-night. You have put some spirit back +into my body. I am going to follow your advice. There's a train east +in two hours and I'm going on it. Fortunately my property, or most of +it, has dissolved the way it came. I must pack a few things, and have +a bath and shave and dress." + +She moved toward him with extended hand. "Good-bye, Dave," she said. + +He held her hand fast in his. "Good-bye, Edith. I can never forget--I +can never repay--all you have been. It may sound foolish to you after +all I have said, but I sometimes wonder if--if I had not met +Irene--if----" He paused and went hot with embarrassment. What would +she think of him? An hour ago he had been ready to kill or be killed +in grief over his frustrated love, and already he was practically +making love to her. Had he brought her to his rooms for this? What a +hypocrite he was! + +"Forgive me, Edith," he said, as he released her. "I am not quite +myself. . . . I hold you in very high respect as one of God's good +women. Good-bye." + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE + +When Irene Hardy pursued Dave from the house the roar of his motor car +was already drowned in the hum of the city streets. Hatless she ran +the length of a full block; then, realizing the futility of such a +chase, returned with almost equal haste to her home. She burst in and +discovered Conward holding a bottle of smelling salts to the nose of +her mother, who had sufficiently recovered to sit upright in her chair. + +"What is the meaning of this?" she demanded of Conward. "Why did he +threaten to shoot, and why did he leave as he did? You know; tell me." + +"I am sure I wish I could tell you," said Conward, with all his +accustomed suavity. In truth Conward, having somewhat recovered from +his fright, was in rather good spirits. Things had gone better than he +had dared to hope. Elden was eliminated, for the present at any rate, +and now was the time to win Irene. Not just now, perhaps, but soon, +when the shock of her interrupted passion turned her to him for +companionship. + +She stood before him, flushed and vibrating, and with flashing eyes. +"You're lying, Conward," she said, deliberately. "First you lied to +him and now you lie to me. There can be no other explanation. Where +is that gun? He said I would know what to do with it." + +"I have it," said Conward, partly carried off his feet by her violence. +"I will keep it until you are a little more reasonable, and, perhaps, a +little more respectful." + +"Irene," said Mrs. Hardy, sharply, "what way is that to speak to Mr. +Conward? You are out of your head, child. Such a scene, Mr. Conward. +Such a scene in my house! That cow _puncher_! I always knew it would +come out some time. It is breeding that tells, Mr. Conward. Oh, if +the papers should learn of this!" + +"That's all you think of," Irene retorted. "A scene, and the papers. +You don't trouble to even wonder what was the occasion of the scene. +You and this--this _biped_, are at the bottom of it. You have been +planning to force me along a course I will not go, and you have done +something, something horrible--I don't know what--to cause Dave to act +as he did. But I'm going to know. I'm going to find out. You're +afraid of the papers. I'm not. I'll give the whole story to them +to-morrow. I'll tell that you insulted him, Conward, and how you stood +there, a grinning, gaping coward under the muzzle of his gun. How I +wish I had a photograph of it," she exclaimed, with a little hysterical +laugh. "It would look fine on the front page." She broke into peals +of laughter and rushed up the stairs. + +In the morning she was very sober and pale, and marks of distress and +sleeplessness were furrowed in her face. She greeted her mother with +cold civility, and left her breakfast untouched. She gave part of her +morning to Charlie; it was saving balm to her to have some one upon +whom she could pour affection. Then she went to the telephone. She +called Dave's office; nothing was known of Mr. Elden; he had been +working there last night; he was not down yet. She called his +apartments; there was no answer. Then, with a bright thought, she +called the garage. Mr. Elden's car was out; had not been in at all +during the night. Then she tried a new number. + +"Hello, is that the office of _The Call_? Will you let me speak to----" + +Her mother interrupted almost frantically. "Irene, you are not going +to tell the papers? You mustn't do that. Think of what it means--the +disgrace--a shooting affair, almost, in our home. Think of me, your +mother----" + +"I'll think of you on one consideration--that you explain what happened +last night, and tell me where Dave Elden is." + +"I can't explain. I don't know. And I don't know----" + +"And you don't want to know. And you don't care, so long as you can +keep it out of the papers. I do. I'm going to find out the facts +about this, if every paper in the country should print them. Hello? +Yes, I want to speak to Miss Morrison." + +In a few words she explained Dave's sudden disappearance, stripping the +incident of all but vital facts. Bert Morrison was all sympathy. +"It's a big story, you know," she said, "but we won't think of it that +way. Not a line, so far as I am concerned. Edith Duncan is the girl +we need. A sort of adopted sister to Dave. She may know more than any +of us." + +But Edith knew absolutely nothing; nothing, except that her own heart +was thrown into a turmoil of emotions. She spent the day and the +evening down town, rotating about the points where Dave might likely be +found. And the next morning she called on Irene Hardy. + +In spite of all her efforts at self-control she trembled as she pressed +the bell; trembled violently as she waited for the door to open. She +had never met Irene Hardy; it was going to be a strange experience, +introducing herself to the woman who had been preferred over her, and +who had, apparently, proven so unworthy of that preference. She had +difficult things to say, and even while she said them she must fight a +battle to the death with the jealousy of her natural womanhood. And +she must be very, very careful that in saying things which were hard to +say she did not say hard things. And, most difficult of all, she must +try to pave the way to a reconciliation between Dave and the woman who +stood between her and happiness. + +Irene attended the door, as was her custom. Her eyes took in Edith's +face and figure with mild surprise; Edith was conscious of the process +of a quick intellect endeavouring to classify her;--solicitor, music +teacher, business girl? And in that moment of pause she saw Irene's +eyes, and a strange commotion of feeling surged through her. There was +something in those eyes that suggested to Edith a new side to Dave's +nature; it was as though the blind had suddenly been drawn from strange +chambers of his soul. So this was the woman Dave had chosen to love. +No; one does not choose whom one will love; one loves without choosing. +Edith was conscious of that; she knew that in her own life. And even +as she looked this first time upon Irene she became aware of a subtle +attraction gathering about her; she felt something of that power which +had held Dave to a single course through all these years. And suddenly +a great new truth was born in Edith Duncan. Suddenly she realized that +if the steel at any time prove unfaithful to the magnet the fault lies +not in the steel, but in the magnet. What a change of view, what a +reversion of all accepted things, came with the realization of that +truth which roots down into the bedrock of all nature! . . . + +"Won't you come in?" Irene was saying. Her voice was sweet and +musical, but there was a note of sadness in it which set responsive +chords atremble all through Edith's heart. Must she love this woman? +Must she, in spite of herself, love this, of all women? + +"I am Edith Duncan," she managed to say. "I--I think I have something +to say that may interest you." + +There was a quick leap in Irene's eyes; the leap of that intuitive +feminine sense of danger which so seldom errs in dealing with its own +sex, and is yet so unreliable a defence from the dangers of the other. +Mrs. Hardy was in the living-room. "Won't you come up to my work +shop?" Irene answered without change of voice, and they ascended the +stairs together. + +"I draw a little," Irene was saying, talking fast. "Oh yes, I have +quite commercialized my art, such as it is. I draw pictures of shoes, +and shirt waists, and other women's wear which really belong to the +field of a feminine artist. But I haven't lost my soul altogether. I +daub in colour a little--yes, daub, that's the word. But it keeps +one's soul alive. You will hardly recognize that," she said, +indicating an easel, "but here is the original." She ran up the blind +of the window which looked from the room out to the westward, and far +over the brown shoulders of the foothills rose the Rockies, majestic, +calm, imperturbable, their white summits flashing in the blaze of +autumn sunshine. "No warfare there," Irene went on. "No plotting, no +cruelty, no cowardice, no misunderstanding. And to think that they +will stand there forever; forever, as we know time; when our city, our +civilization, the very memory of our age shall have gone out. I never +look at them without feeling how--how--how----" + +She trembled, and her voice choked; she put out her arm to a chair. +When she turned her face there were tears on it. . . . "Tell +me,--Edith," she said. . . . "You know" . . . + +"I know some things," Edith managed to say. "I know, _now_, that I do +not know all. Dave and I are old friends--my father took a liking to +him and he used often to be in our house--he made him think of our own +boy that was killed and would have been just his age--and we got to +know each other very well and he told me about you, long ago. And last +night I found him at his rooms, almost mad, and swearing to shoot +Conward. And then he told me that--that----" + +"Yes? Yes? What did he tell you? I am not afraid----" + +Edith turned her eyes to where the white crests of the mountains cut +like a crumpled keel through a sea of infinite blue. "He told me he +saw Conward here . . . upstairs . . . and Conward made a boast . . . +and he would have shot him but you rushed upon him and begged him not +to. He said you would have taken the bullet yourself rather than it +should find Conward." + +"Oh, oh," the girl cried, in the pain of one mortally hurt. "How could +he think that? I didn't care for him--for Conward--but for Dave. I +knew there had been a quarrel--I didn't know why--and I knew if Dave +shot him--and he _can_ shoot--I've seen him break six bottles out of +six on the gallop--it wasn't self-defence--whatever it was he couldn't +plead that--and they'd hang him, and that was all I saw, Edith, that +was all I saw, and I would--yes I _would_ rather have taken the bullet +myself than that that should happen----" + +"You poor girl!" said Edith. "You poor girl," and her arms found the +other's neck. "You have been hurt, hurt." And then, under her breath, +"More than me." + +. . . "What has he done?" + +"He talked his problems over with me, and after he had talked awhile he +became more reasonable. He had already been convinced that he should +offer his services to his country, in these times. And I think I +persuaded him that it was better to leave vengeance where it belonged. +He said he couldn't remain here, and he has already left for England. +I am afraid I encouraged him to leave at once. You see, I didn't +understand." + +Irene had taken a chair, and for some minutes she sat in silence. "I +don't blame you," she said at length. "You gave him good advice. And +I don't blame him, although he might have been less ready to jump at +conclusions. There remains only one thing for me to do." + +"What?" said Edith, after a moment's hesitation. + +"Follow him! I shall follow him, and make him understand. If he must +go into battle--with all that that means--he must go in knowing the +truth. You have been very kind, Miss Duncan. You have gone out of +your way to do me a great service, and you have shown more kindness +than I have any right to claim from a stranger. . . . I feel, too, the +call for vengeance," she exclaimed, springing to her feet, "but first I +must find Dave. I shall follow him at once. I shall readily locate +him in some way through the military service. Everything is organized; +they will be able to find his name." + +She accompanied her visitor to the door. They shook hands and looked +for a moment in each other's eyes. And then Edith burst away and +hurried down the street. + + +Irene had searched London for two weeks. The confidence of her earlier +inquiries had diminished with each successive blind trail, which, +promising results at first, led her into a maze of confusion and +disappointment. The organization of the military service commanded +less enthusiasm than she had felt a month before. She saw it +struggling with the apparently impossible; it was as though she, in her +little studio, had been suddenly called upon to paint all the portraits +in the world . . . In some degree she understood the difficulties. In +equal degree she sympathized with those who were striving to overcome +them and she hung on from day to day in her search with a dogged +determination which set its teeth against admitting that the search was +hopeless. Her little store of money was fast dwindling away; she +looked into the face of every man in uniform with a pathetic +earnestness that more than once caused her to be misunderstood. + +At last one great fear had settled on her heart. It came upon her +first suddenly on shipboard; she had resolutely thrown it out of her +mind; but it had been knocking ever since for admittance, and more than +once she had almost let it in. Suppose Dave should not enlist under +his right name? In such a case her chance of finding him was the mere +freak of accidental meeting; a chance not to be banked upon in a +country already swarming with its citizen soldiery. . . . And yet +there was nothing to do but keep on. + +She had sought a park bench where groups of soldiers were continually +moving by. The lights shone on their faces, and her own tired eyes +followed them incessantly. Always her ear was alert for a voice that +should set her heart a-pounding, and more than once she had thought she +heard that, voice; more than a score of times she had thought she had +seen that figure with its stride of self-reliance, with strength +bulging in every muscle. And always it had been to learn that she had +been mistaken; always it had been to feel the heart sink just a little +lower than before. And still she kept on. There was nothing to do but +keep on. + +Often she wondered how he would receive her. That cold look which had +frozen his features when she seized the revolver in his hand; would it +still sit there, too distant and detached to be even scornful? Would +she have it to break down; must she, with the fire of her own +affection, thaw out an entrance through his icy aloofness? What cost +of humiliation would be the price, and would even any price be +accepted? She could not know; she could only hope and pray and go on. + +As she turned her eyes to follow a group of men in uniform she became +aware of a soldier sitting alone in the shadow a short distance away. +Some quality about him caught her attention; his face was not +discernible, and his figure was too much in the shadow to more than +suggest its outline, but she found herself regarding him with an +intentness that set her pulses racing. Some strange attraction raised +her from her seat; she took a step toward him, then steadied herself. +Should she dare risk it again? And yet there was something. . . . She +had a sudden plan. She would make no inquiry, no apology; she would +walk near by and call him by name. If that name meant nothing to him +he would not even notice her presence, but if it should be---- + +She was within three paces. Still she could discern nothing +definitely, but her pulses were raging more wildly than ever. They had +deceived her before; could it be that they were deceiving her again? + +"Dave," she said. + +He turned quickly in his seat; the light fell on her face and he saw +her; he was on his feet and had taken a step toward her. Then he +stopped, and she saw his features harden as they had on that dreadful +occasion which now seemed so long ago. Would he turn on his heel? If +he did she must rush upon him. She must tell him now, she must plead +with him, reason with him, prevail upon him at all costs. + +"Well?" he said. His voice was mechanical, but in it was something +which quickened her hope; something which suggested that he was making +it mechanical because he dared not let it express the human emotion +which was struggling for utterance. + +"Let me talk to you, Dave," she pleaded. "I have followed you around +the world for this. Let me talk. I can explain everything." + +He stood still so long that she wondered if he never would speak. She +dared not reach her hands to him, she could only stand and wait. + +"Irene," he said, "why did you follow me here?" + +"There is only one answer, Dave. Because I love you, and would follow +you anywhere. No one can stop me doing that; no one, Dave--except you." + +[Illustration: "There is only one answer, Dave. Because I love you."] + +And again he stood, and she knew that he was turning over in his mind +things weightier than life and death, and that when he spoke again his +course would be set. Then, in the partial shadow, she saw his arms +slowly extend; they rose, wide and strong, and extended toward her. +There was a quick step, and they met about her, and the world swooned +and went by. . . . + +"I can explain everything," she said, when she could talk. + +"You need explain nothing," he returned. "I have lived the torments of +the damned. Edith Duncan was right; she said if it were real love it +would never give up. 'Endureth all things,' she said. 'All things,' +she said. . . . There is no limit." + +She caressed his cheeks with her fingers, and knew by the touch that +they were brown again as they had been in those great days of the +foothills. "But I must tell you, dear," she said, "so that you may +understand." And then she patched together the story, from what she +knew, and from what Edith Duncan had told her, and Dave filled in what +neither had known, including the incident earlier on that fateful +evening. She could see his jaws harden as they pieced the plot +together, and she knew what he was thinking. + +"Your country needs you more," she whispered. "It is better that way. +And what a man you are in uniform! I think I see you smashing heads +instead of bottles. Six out of six, Dave! It's awful, but you must do +it. Already we know what has happened in Belgium. You will forget +your own wrongs in the greater wrongs of others. . . . And I shall +join the service as a nurse. My father was a doctor, and I can soon +pick it up." + +She chatted on, but he had become suddenly grave. "I don't think that +is your course, Irene," he said. "This is going to be a bigger job +than it looked. The Government will get soldiers and nurses; the +popular imagination turns to such things. But it will be neither +soldiers nor nurses that will win the war. I feel sure of that now. +It has come to me, perhaps as a kind of presentiment, but I feel +absolutely sure. The determining factor will be food. The world's +margin is narrow enough in normal times, and now we are plunged into +the abnormal. Millions of men will be taken from production and turned +to purposes of destruction. They will be taken from offices, where +they need little food, and put in the trenches, where they need much +food. Countries will be devastated; armies will retreat, destroying +all food as they go. Ships will go down with cargoes of wheat; +incendiary fires will swallow warehouses of food. I do not regret my +decision, I believe my place is in the trenches; but those less fit for +the fight than I must, in some form or other, produce food. That +includes the women; it includes you." + +"Me? But what can I do?" + +"Since I left home I've thought a good deal of the old ranch. I +despised it in those prosperous days--those days we thought we were +prosperous--but the prosperity is gone and the ranch remains. It still +lies out there, just as it did when you and your father motored down +that afternoon a dozen years ago. I think you'll have to go back +there, Reenie. I think you'll have to take the boy Charlie, and what +other help you can get, and go back to the old ranch and raise +something for the soldiers to eat. You can do it. There are good men +to be had; men who can't very well carry a rifle, but can drive a plow. +And believe me, Reenie, it's the plow that's going to win. Go back and +put them at it. Think of every furrow as another trench in the +defences which shall save your home from the fate of Belgium's homes. +It's not as easy as going to the front; it hasn't got the heroic ring +to it, and I suppose there are many who will commercialize it. Let +them. We shall need their profits after the war to pay our debts. But +it's the thing that must be done. And you'll do it, won't you?" + +"I'll do what ever needs to be done, Dave. I'd rather be by your side, +or as near as may be, but if you say that my duty lies back on the old +ranch I shall go back to the old ranch and raise food for my soldier. +And when it's all over we shall ride those old hillsides again. . . . +Up the canyon, you remember, Dave? The little niche in the wall of the +canyon, and all the silence and the sunlight? . . . Forever. . . ." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +Any philosophy which accepts the principle that the great, +over-shadowing events of life are subject to an intelligent controlling +influence must of necessity grant that the same principle applies to +the most commonplace and every-day experiences. It is impossible to +believe that the World War, for example, has a definite place in the +eternal scheme of the universe without believing the same of the +apparently most trivial incident in the life of Kaiser Wilhelm, Lloyd +George, or Woodrow Wilson, or, for that matter, of the humblest soldier +in the ranks. The course of the greatest stream of events may well be +deflected by incidents so commonplace as to quite escape the notice of +the casual observer. + +Some such thought as this comforted me--or, at least, would have +comforted me, had I thought it--when a leaking gasoline tank left me, +literally as well as figuratively, high and dry in the foothills. The +sun of an August afternoon blazed its glory from a cloudless sky; far +across the shimmering hills copper-colored patches of ripening wheat +stood out ruddy and glowing like twentieth century armour on the brown +breast of the prairie; low in a valley to the left a ribbon of +silver-green mountain water threaded its way through fringes of spruce +and cottonwood, while on the uplands beyond sleek steers drowsed in the +sunshine, and far to the westward the Rockies slept unconcerned in +their draperies of afternoon purple. All these scenes the eye took in +without enthusiasm, almost without approval; and then fell on the +whitewashed ranch buildings almost in the shadow underneath. And in +these days a ranch--almost any ranch--means gasoline. + +I soon was at the door. The walls had been recently white-washed; +there were new shingles of red cedar on the roof; flowers bloomed by +the path that led down to the corrals. My knock attracted a little +chap of two-and-a-half or three years; his stout hands shoved the +screen back, and I found myself ushered into his company. There +evidently was no one else about, so I visited, and we talked on those +things which are of importance in the world of three-year-olds. + +"Muvver's don to the wiver," he confided. "She tum back pwetty soon." + +"And Father?" I asked. "Where is he?" + +Into the dark eyes came a deeper look; they suddenly shone with the +spirituality of a life only three years removed from the infinite. By +what instruction, I afterwards wondered, by what almost divine charm +had she been able to instil into his young mind the honour and the +glory and the pride of it? For there was pride, and something more +than pride; adoration, perhaps, in his words as he straightened up and +said in perfect English, "My father was a soldier. He was killed at +Courcelette." + +I looked in his little, sunburned face; in his dark, proud eyes; and +presently a strange mist enveloped the room. How many little faces, +how many pairs of eyes! It was just fading away when a step sounded on +the walk, and I arose as she reached the door. + +"The Man of the House has made me at home," I managed to say. "I am +shipwrecked on the hill, for a little gasoline." + +"There is plenty out in the field, where the tractor is," she replied. +"You will find it without difficulty. Or if you care to wait here, +Charlie may be along presently." + +Her voice had sweet, modulated tones, with just that touch of pathos +which only the Angel of Suffering knows how to add. And her face was +fair, and gentle, and a little sad, and very sweet. + +"He has told me," I said. There seemed no reason why I should not say +it. She had entered into the sisterhood--that universal sisterhood of +suffering which the world has known in these long, lonely years. . . . +And it was between us, for we were all in the family. There was no +occasion to scrape acquaintance by slow, conventional thrust and parry. + +"Yes," she said, sitting down, and motioning me to a chair. "I was +bitter at first. I was dreadfully bitter at first. But gradually I +got a different view of it. Gradually I came to feel and know that all +we can feel and know here is on the surface; on the outside, as you +might say, and we can't know the purpose until we are inside. It is as +though life were a riddle, and the key is hidden, and the door behind +which the key is hidden is called Death. And I don't believe it's all +for nothing; I won't believe it's all for nothing. If I believed it +was all for nothing I would quit; we would all quit. + +"Then there is the suffering," she continued, after a pause. "I don't +know why there should be suffering, but I know if there were no +suffering there would be no kindness. It is not until you are +hit--hard hit--that you begin to think of other people. Until then all +is selfishness. But we women--we women of the war--we have nothing +left to be selfish for. But we have the whole world to be unselfish +for. It's all different, and it can never go back. We won't let it go +back. We've paid too much to let it go back." + +It was hard to find a reply. "I think I knew your husband, a little," +I ventured. "He was a--a man." + +"He was all that," she said. She arose and stood for a moment in an +attitude of hesitation; her fingers went to her lips as though +enjoining caution. Then, with quick decision, she went into an inner +room, from which she returned with a letter. + +"If you knew him you may care to read this," she said. "It's very +personal, and yet, some way, everything is impersonal now, in a sense. +There has been such a common cause, and such a wave of common +suffering, that it seems to flood out over the individual and embrace +us all. Individualism is gone. It's the community now; the state; +mankind, if you like, above everything. I suppose, so far as German +kultur stands for that, it has been imposed upon the world. . . . So +this is really, in a sense, your letter as well as mine." + +I took it and read: + + +I have had many letters to write since my service began as a nurse in +the war, but never have I approached the task with such mixed emotions. +The pain I must give you I would gladly bear myself if I could; but it +is not all pain; underneath it, running through it in some way I cannot +explain, is a note so much deeper than pain that it must be joy. + +You will already have been advised that David Elden was among those who +fell at Courcelette. It is trite to say that you have the sympathy of +a grateful nation. How grateful the nation really is we shall know by +its treatment of the heroes who survive the war, and of the dependents +of those who have crossed over. But nothing can rob you of the +knowledge that he played a man's part. Nothing can debar you from that +universal fellowship of sympathy which is springing up wherever manhood +is valued at its worth. + +A new Order has been born into the world; the Order of Suffering. Not +that it is new, either; it has been with us since the first mother went +into the shadow for her first child; but always suffering has been +incidental; a matter of the individual; a thing to be escaped if +possible. But now it is universal, a thing not to be escaped, but to +be accepted, readily, bravely, even gladly. And all who so accept it +enter into the new Order, and wear its insignia, which is unselfishness +and sympathy and service. And in that Order you shall not be least, +measured by either your sacrifice or the spirit in which you accept it. + +But you are yearning for his last word; for some voice that will seem +to you now almost a voice out of the grave, and I am happy to be able +to bring you that word. It was something more than chance that guided +me that night, as it is every night. + +We were well behind the line of actual fighting, but still in the +danger zone of artillery fire. Night had settled in; all was darkness +save for occasional distant flares. I had become detached from my +party in moving to another station; lost, if you like, yet not lost; +never have I gone so directly to so great a destination. While trying +to get my location I became aware of a presence; it will sound strange +to you, but I became intensely aware of _your_ presence. Of course I +knew it could not be you, in the flesh, but you it seemed to be, +nevertheless. I moved as though led by an invisible hand, and +presently I found a bit of shattered wall. In the gloom I could just +discern the form of a man lying in the shelter of the wall--if you +could call it shelter--it rose scarce a foot above the ground. + +I knelt beside him and turned my torch on to his face. It was pale +even through the brown skin; the eyes were closed; the hair was wet and +plastered on the forehead; there were smears of blood in it and on his +cheeks. As my light fell on his lips they framed a smile. + +"Reenie," he said. "It was good of you to come. I knew you would +come." + +"I am here, Dave," I answered, and I think you will forgive me the +impersonation. "Now let me find out where you are hurt, and we'll fix +you up, and get you moved presently." + +He opened his eyes and looked at me with the strange look of a man +whose thread of consciousness is half unravelled. "Oh, it's you, +Edith," he said, when he had taken me in. "Funny, I thought it was +Irene. I must have been dreaming." + +I questioned him again about his wound, and began feeling his hair. +"It's not there," he said. "Guess I got it all over my hands. They +got me this time. Shrapnel, in the body. Don't waste time on me. +Some other fellow may have a chance." + +I found, with a little examination, that the case was as bad as he +supposed. Fortunately, the wound had induced a local paralysis, and he +was not suffering to any great degree. I placed my hand in his and +felt his grip tighten on it. + +"I'm going to stay till it's over, Dave. We'll see it out together." + +"That's decent," he answered, and then was still for quite a time. + +"I've often wondered what was on the other side," he said at length. +"I shall know presently." + +"You are not afraid?" I whispered. + +"No. Only sort of--curious. And--reverent. I guess it's +reverent. . . You know I haven't been much on religion. Never seemed +to get the formula. What is the formula? I mean the key--the thing +that gives it all in one word?" + +"In one word--sacrifice." + +"I walked out of church once because of some doctrine about sacrifice," +he continued. "I couldn't go it. . . And yet--there may be something +in it. It's sacrifice here, Edith. War is sacrifice. Sacrifice for +other people. It's not all on the surface. There's something deeper +than we know." + +"'He that loseth his life shall find it,'" I quoted. + +He did not answer, but I could see his lips smiling again. His breath +was more labored. A few drops of rain fell, and some of them spattered +on his face. + +Presently he chuckled. It was an eerie sensation, out on that broad +plain of death, alone by the side of this man who was already far into +the shadow,--to hear him chuckle. + +"That splash of water--you remember--it made me think of the time we +pulled the old car into the stream, and the harness broke, or +something, and I had to carry you. You remember that, Reenie?" I +could only say "Yes," and press his hand. His mind was back on the +old, old trails. + +He became suddenly sober. "And when Brownie was killed," he went on, +"I said it was the innocent thing that got caught. Perhaps I was +right. But perhaps it's best to get caught. Not for the getting +caught, but for the--the compensations. It's the innocent men that are +getting killed. And perhaps it's best. Perhaps there are +compensations worth while." + +His voice was weaker, and I had to lean close to catch his words. + +"I'm going--out," he said. "Kiss me, Reenie." + +And then I kissed him--for you. + +Suddenly he sat up. + +"The mountains!" he exclaimed, and his voice was a-thrill with the +pride of his old hills. "See, the moonlight--on the mountains!" + +Then his strength, which seemed to have gathered itself for this one +last vision of the place of his boyhood, gave way, and he fell back. +And he did not speak any more. + +And what can I add? Dear, it is not defeat. It is promise. It is +hope. + +Some day we shall know. But until then we shall go on. It is woman's +bit to carry on. But not in despondency; not in bitterness; not in +anger or despair. _He_ didn't go out that way. He was reverent--and a +little curious, and he went out with a smile. And we shall go on, and +carry his smile and his confidence through the valley of our sacrifice. +What am I doing, speaking of _our_ sacrifice? + +I salute you, sister in the Order of Suffering--and of hope. + +EDITH DUNCAN. + + +I handed the letter back to her, and for a time I had no words. "Won't +you let me tell the story?" I said at length. "The world is full of +sorrow, and it needs voices to give that sorrow words, and perhaps turn +it into hope--as this letter does." + +She hesitated, and I realized then how much I had asked. "It is the +story of my life--my soul," she said. "Yet, if it would help----" + +"Without names," I hastened to explain. "Without real names of places +or people." + + +And so, in that little white-washed home, where the brown hills rise +around and the placid mountains look down from the distance, and a +tongue of spruce trees beyond the stream stands sentinel against the +open prairie, she is carrying on, not in despondency and bitterness, +but in service and in hope. And so her sisters, all this world over, +must carry on, until their sweetness and their sacrifice shall fill up +and flood over all the valleys of hate. . . . And if you should chance +that way, and if you should win the confidence of young Three-year-old, +he may stand for you and say, with his voice filled with the honour and +the glory and the pride of it, + +"My father was a soldier. He was killed at Courcelette." + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cow Puncher, by Robert J. C. 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C. Stead + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Cow Puncher + +Author: Robert J. C. Stead + +Release Date: September 4, 2006 [EBook #19173] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COW PUNCHER *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<A NAME="img-front"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="The Cow Puncher" BORDER="2" WIDTH="390" HEIGHT="559"> +<H3> +[Frontispiece: The Cow Puncher] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +The Cow Puncher +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +By +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +ROBERT J. C. STEAD +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Author of "The Homesteaders," "Kitchener and Other Poems," "The Bail +Jumper," "Songs of the Prairie," "Prairie Born," "The Empire Builders," +etc. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +TORONTO +<BR> +THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY +<BR> +LIMITED +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +Copyright Canada, 1918 +<BR> +THE MUSSON BOOK CO., LIMITED +<BR> +Publishers ———— TORONTO +</H5> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<BR> + +<TABLE WIDTH="100%"> +<TR> +<TD><A HREF="#chap01"> CHAPTER I </A></TD> +<TD><A HREF="#chap02"> CHAPTER II </A></TD> +<TD><A HREF="#chap03"> CHAPTER III </A></TD> +<TD><A HREF="#chap04"> CHAPTER IV </A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD><A HREF="#chap05"> CHAPTER V </A></TD> +<TD><A HREF="#chap06"> CHAPTER VI </A></TD> +<TD><A HREF="#chap07"> CHAPTER VII </A></TD> +<TD><A HREF="#chap08"> CHAPTER VIII </A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD><A HREF="#chap09"> CHAPTER IX </A></TD> +<TD><A HREF="#chap10"> CHAPTER X </A></TD> +<TD><A HREF="#chap11"> CHAPTER XI </A></TD> +<TD><A HREF="#chap12"> CHAPTER XII </A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD><A HREF="#chap13"> CHAPTER XIII </A></TD> +<TD><A HREF="#chap14"> CHAPTER XIV </A></TD> +<TD><A HREF="#chap15"> CHAPTER XV </A></TD> +<TD><A HREF="#chap16"> CHAPTER XVI </A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD><A HREF="#chap17"> CHAPTER XVII </A></TD> +<TD><A HREF="#chap18"> CHAPTER XVIII </A></TD> +<TD><A HREF="#chap19"> CHAPTER XIX </A></TD> +<TD><A HREF="#chap20"> CHAPTER XX </A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD><A HREF="#chap21"> CHAPTER XXI </A></TD> +<TD><A HREF="#chap22"> CHAPTER XXII </A></TD> +<TD> </TD> +<TD> </TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-front"> +The Cow Puncher . . . . . . <I>Frontispiece</I> +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-037"> +These long rides afforded her many side-lights on the remarkable nature +of her escort. +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-139"> +"You aren't talking to-day … what's wrong?" +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-335"> +"There is only one answer, Dave. Because I love you." +</A> +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THE COW PUNCHER +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER ONE +</H3> + +<P> +The shadows of the spruce trees fell north-eastward, pointing long, +cool fingers across belts of undulating prairie, or leaning lazily +against the brown foothills. Like an incandescent globe the afternoon +sun hung in the bowl of a cloudless heaven, filmy with heat, but the +hot rays were met by the high altitude of the ranch country and lost +their force like a blow half struck. And among the spruce trees it was +cool and green, and clear blue water rippled over beds of shining +gravel. +</P> + +<P> +The ranch buildings lay a little to the rear, as though the trees stood +sentinel between them and the prairies. The house was of round +straight logs; the shingles of the squat roof were cupped and blistered +with the suns of many summers. Refuse loitered about the open door; +many empty tins; a leaky barrel, with missing hoops; boxes, harness, +tangled bits of wire. Once there had been a fence; a sort of picket +fence of little saplings, but wild bronchos had kicked it to pieces and +range steers had straggled unscarred across its scattered remnants. +</P> + +<P> +Forward, and to the left, was the corral; mill slabs on end, or fences +of lodge-pole pine; a corner somewhat covered in, offering vague +protection from the weather. The upper poles were worn thin with the +cribbing of many horses. +</P> + +<P> +The sunlight bathed the scene; nursed it in a soft, warm silence. The +desertion seemed absolute; the silence was the silence of the unspoken +places. But suddenly it was broken by a stamping in the covered part +of the corral, and a man's voice saying, "Hip, there; whoa, you cayuse; +get under your saddle! Sleepin' against a post all day, you +sloppy-eye. Hip, come to it!" +</P> + +<P> +Horse and rider dashed into the sunlight. The boy—for he was no more +than a boy—sat the beast as though born to it, his lithe frame taking +every motion of his mount as softly as a good boat rides the sea. His +red shirt and thick hairy schaps could not disguise the lean +muscularity of his figure; the broad felt hat, and the revolver at his +belt, gave just the touch of romance. With a yell at his horse he +snatched the hat from his head, turning to the sun a smooth, brown face +and a mane of dark hair, and slapped the horse across the flank with +his crumpled headgear. At the signal the animal sprang into the air, +then dashed at a gallop down the roadway, bearing the boy as +unconcerned as a flower on its stem. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly he brought his horse to a stop; swung about, and rode back at +a gentle canter. A few yards from the house he again spurred him to a +gallop, and, leaning far down by the animal's side, deftly picked a +bottle from among the grass. Then he circled about, repeating this +operation as often as his eye fell on a bottle, until he had +half-a-dozen; then down the road again, carefully setting a bottle on +each post of the fence that skirted it to the right. +</P> + +<P> +Again he came back to the house, but, when he turned, his eye was on +the row of posts, and his right hand lay on the grip of his revolver. +Again his sharp yell broke the silence and the horse dashed forward as +though shot from a gun. Down the road they went until within a rod of +the first bottle; then there was a flash in the sunlight, and to the +clatter of the horse's hoofs came the crack-crack of the revolver. Two +bottles shivered to fragments, but four remained intact, and the boy +rode back, muttering and disappointed. +</P> + +<P> +He reasoned with his horse as he rode. "'Taint no use, you ol' +slop-eye; a fellow can't get the bede if he ain't got the fillin'; +cooked meals an' decent chuck. I could plug 'em six out o' six—you +know that, you ol' flop-ears; don't you argue about it, neither—when +I'm right inside my belt I smash 'em six out o' six, but I ain't right, +an' you know it. You don't know nothin' about it; you never had a +father, leastways, you never had to be responsible for one.… +Well, it's comin' to a finish—a damn lame finish, you know that. You +know—" +</P> + +<P> +But he had reloaded his revolver and set up two more bottles. This +time he broke four, and was better pleased with himself. As he rode +back his soliloquy was broken by a strange sound from beyond the belt +of trees. The horse pricked up his ears, and the boy turned in the +saddle to listen. +</P> + +<P> +"Jumpin' crickets, what's loose?" he ejaculated. He knew every sound +of the foothill country, but this was strange to him. A kind of snort, +a sort of hiss; mechanical in its regularity, startling in its +strangeness, it came across the valley with the unbroken rhythm of a +watch-tick. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I guess it won't eat us," he ventured at last. "We'll just run +it down and perhaps poke a hole in it." So saying, he cantered along +the road which skirted the spruce trees, crossed the little stream and +swung up the hill on the farther side. +</P> + +<P> +He was half way up when a turn in the road brought him into sudden +sight of the strange visitor. It was the first he had seen, but he +knew it at once, for the fame of the automobile, then in its +single-cylinder stage, had already spread into the farthest ranching +country. The horse was less well informed. Whether or not in that +moment he recognized the great rival of his race must be left to some +analyst of horse character, but he bucked and kicked in rage and +terror. But the boy was conscious not so much of the horse as of two +bright eyes turned on him in frank and surprised admiration. +</P> + +<P> +"What horsemanship!" she exclaimed, but the words had scarce left her +lips when they were followed by a cry of alarm. For the car had taken +a sudden turn from the road and plunged into a growth of young poplars +that fringed the hillside. The oldish man at the wheel gave it a +violent wrench, but left his motor in gear, and the car half slid, half +plowed its way into semi-vertical position among the young trees. The +two occupants were thrown from their seat; the girl fell clear, but her +father was less fortunate. +</P> + +<P> +In an instant the boy had flung himself from his horse, dropping the +reins to the ground, and the animal, although snorting and shivering, +had no thought of disgracing his training by breaking his parole. With +quick, ungainly strides the boy brought himself to the upturned +machine. It was curious that he should appear to such disadvantage on +his feet. In the saddle he was grace personified. +</P> + +<P> +For a moment he looked somewhat stupidly upon the wreck. Had it been a +horse or a steer he would have known the procedure, but this experience +was new to his life. Besides, there were strangers here. He had no +fear of strangers when they wore schaps and coloured handkerchiefs, but +a girl in a brown sweater and an oldish man with a white collar were +creatures to be approached with caution. The oldish man was lying on +the ground, with a leg pinned under the car, and Brown Sweater raised +his head against her knee and pressed his cheeks with small white +fingers and looked at the boy with bright grey eyes and said, "Well, +aren't you going to do anything?" +</P> + +<P> +That brought him back. "Sure," he said, springing to her side. "Whada +ye' want me to do?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am afraid my leg is broken," said the man, speaking calmly +notwithstanding his pain. "Can you get the jack out of the tool box +and raise the car?" +</P> + +<P> +The girl pointed to the box, and in a moment he had the jack in his +hand. But it was a new tool to him and he fumbled with it stupidly. +The handle would not fit, and when it did fit it operated the wrong way. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, let me have it," she cried, impatiently. In a moment she had it +set under the frame of the car and was plying the handle up and down +with rapid strokes. The machine began to groan with the pressure, and +the boy looked on, helpless and mortified. He was beginning to realize +that there were more things in the world than riding a horse, and +shooting bottles. He felt a sudden desire to be of great service. And +just now he could be of no service whatever. +</P> + +<P> +But the foot of the jack began to sink in the soft earth, and the girl +looked up helplessly. "It won't lift it," she said. "What shall we +do?" +</P> + +<P> +It was his chance. He was eighteen, and his wild, open life had given +him muscles of steel. "Here," he said, roughly, "move his leg when I +get it clear." He turned his back to the machine and crouched down +until he could get his hands under the steel frame. Then he lifted. +The car was in a somewhat poised position, and he was able to swing it +up far enough to release the injured leg. +</P> + +<P> +"Very good, my boy," said the man. "That was a wonderful lift. The +leg is broken—compound. Can you get some way of moving me to shelter? +I will pay you well." +</P> + +<P> +The last words were unfortunate. Hospitality in the ranching country +is not bought and sold. +</P> + +<P> +"You can't pay me nothin'," he said rudely. "But I can bring a light +wagon, if you can ride in that, and put you up at the ranch. The old +man's soused," he added, as an afterthought, "but it's better than +sleepin' out. I won't be long." +</P> + +<P> +He was back at his horse, and in a moment they heard the clatter of +hoofs galloping down the hillside. +</P> + +<P> +The girl sat on the ground and rested her father's head in her lap. +Tears made her bright eyes brighter still. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't cry, Reenie," he said, gently. "We are very lucky to be so +close to help. Of course, I'll be laid up for awhile, but it will give +you a chance to see ranch life as it really is"—He winced with pain, +but continued, "I fancy we shall find it plain and unveneered. What a +horseman! If I could run an automobile like he does a horse we should +not be here. Did you notice that I didn't release the clutch? Just +ambled into this predicament—embraced it, I might say." +</P> + +<P> +"He's strong," she said. "But he's rude." +</P> + +<P> +"The best fields for muscle are often poor schools for manners," he +answered. "But manners are no substitute for hospitality, and he seems +to have that, all right. It is something that belongs to the open +country, the big, open country. In cities they <I>entertain</I>, but in the +ranching country they, why, there isn't any word for it, but you will +see for yourself." +</P> + +<P> +He was soon back with a wagon and a stretcher. He avoided the eyes of +his guests, but quickly and gently enough he placed the injured man on +the stretcher. "I guess you'll have to take the feet," he said. The +words were for the girl, although he did not look at her. "I could +hustle him myself, but it might hurt 'im." +</P> + +<P> +But the injured man interrupted. "I beg your pardon," he said, "that I +did not introduce my daughter. I am Doctor Hardy—this is my daughter, +Irene, Mr.——?" +</P> + +<P> +"They don't call me mister," said the boy. "Misters is scarce in these +woods. My name is Elden—Dave Elden." +</P> + +<P> +He was for dropping it at that, but the girl came up with extended +hand. He took it shyly, but it made him curiously bold. "I'm glad to +meet you, Mr. Elden," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm glad to meet you, too," he answered. "Misses is scarcer than +misters in this neck o' the woods." +</P> + +<P> +Carefully they lifted the injured man into the wagon, and Dave drove to +the ranch building with an unwonted caution that must have caused +strange misgivings in the hearts of his team. +</P> + +<P> +"It ain't much of a place," he said, as they pulled up at the door. "I +guess you can see that for yourself," he added, with a grin. "You see, +there's just Dad and me, and he's soused most of the time, and I handle +a lasso better'n a scrubbin' brush." He was already losing his +shyness. "Now, you take the feet again. Steady, don't break any more +bones. Look out for that barrel hoop. This way, now." +</P> + +<P> +He led into the old ranch house, kicking the door wider open with his +heel as he passed. A musty smell fell on the senses of the girl as she +entered, and she was conscious of the buzzing of innumerable flies. A +partition from east to west divided the house, and another partition +from north to south divided the northern half. In the north-east room +they set the stretcher on the floor. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," Said the boy, "I'm goin' for the doctor. It's forty miles to +town, and it'll likely be mornin' before I'm back, but I'll sure burn +the trail. You'll have to make the best of it," he continued, +impersonally addressing the much-spotted window. "There's grub in the +house, and you won't starve—that is, if you can cook." (This was +evidently for Irene. There was a note in it that suggested the girl +might have her limitations.) "Dig in to anythin' in sight. And I hope +your father's leg won't hurt very much." Irene wondered afterwards why +the hope concerning her father should have been expressed to her. Did +he already feel—what was it?—better acquainted with her? +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I'll stand it," said Doctor Hardy, with some cheerfulness. "We +medical men become accustomed to suffering—in other people. You are +very kind. My daughter may remain in this room, I suppose? There is +no one else?" +</P> + +<P> +"No one but the old man," he answered. "He's asleep in the next room, +safe till mornin'. I'll be back by that time. That's my bed," +indicating a corner. "Make yourselves at home." He lounged through +the door and they heard his spurs clanking across the hard earth. +</P> + +<P> +The girl's first thought was to assure as much comfort for her father +as the circumstances would permit. She removed his boot and stocking, +and, under his direction, slit the leg of his trousers above the +injury. It was bleeding a little. In the large room of the house she +found a pail with water, and she bathed the wound, wiping it with her +handkerchief, and mingling a tear or two with the warm blood that +dripped from it. +</P> + +<P> +"You're good stuff," her father said, pressing the fingers of her +unoccupied hand. "Now, if you could find a clean cloth to bandage it—" +</P> + +<P> +She looked about the place, somewhat hopelessly. Her expedition to the +main part of the house, when she had found the water pail, had not +reassured her as to the housekeeping of the Eldens. Her father read +her perplexity. +</P> + +<P> +"It seems as though you would be in charge here for awhile, Reenie," he +said, "so you will save time by getting acquainted at once with your +equipment. Look the house over and see what you have to work with." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I can commence here," she answered. "This is Dave's room. I +suppose I should say Mr. Elden's, but—what was it he said about +'mistering'? It would be splendid if it were cleaned up," she +continued, with kindling enthusiasm. "These bare logs, bare floors, +bare rafters—we've got back to essentials, anyway. And that's his +bed." She surveyed a framework of spruce poles, on which lay an old +straw mattress and some very grey blankets. "I suppose he is very +tired when he goes to bed," she said, drolly, as though that could be +the only explanation of sleep amid such surroundings. "And the walls +give one a clue to the artistic side of his nature." A poster +advertising a summer fair, with a prodigious bull occupying the centre +of the picture, hung on one wall, and across from it a lithograph of a +young woman, with very bright clothing and very alabaster skin and very +decollete costume tendered a brand of beer with the assurance that it +goes to the spot. "I ought to drape it," she said, and the curl on her +lip showed smooth white teeth. +</P> + +<P> +"I was forgetting I have to find a bandage for you," she suddenly +remembered. "There's his trunk; it might produce something, but we +will save it for a last resort. Now I will explore this main room, +which I suppose is the kitchen, dining room, living room, everything." +</P> + +<P> +In the south end of the larger room stood a fireplace, crudely made of +slabs of native rock. The fires of many winters had crumbled the rock, +so that it had fallen in in places, and was no longer employed for its +original purpose. A very rusty and greasy stove now occupied the space +immediately in front of the fireplace, the stove-pipe leading into the +ample but tottering chimney. Near the stove was a bench supporting a +tin wash-basin, a wooden pail, and certain fragments of soap—evidently +all the equipment necessary for the simple ablutions of the Elden +household. The remnant of a grain bag, with many evidences of use and +abuse, performed the functions of towel, and a broken piece of +looking-glass gave the faintest intimation that a strain of fundamental +relationship links the sexes. By the western wall was a table, with +numerous dishes; and to the wall itself had been nailed wooden +boxes—salmon and tomato cases—now containing an assortment of +culinary supplies. A partially used sack of flour, and another of +rolled oats, leaned against the wall, and a trap-door in the floor gave +promise of further resources beneath. There was a window in the east +and another in the west, both open and unscreened; myriads of flies +gave the only touch of life to the dismal scene. +</P> + +<P> +Irene looked it all over, then leaned against the window sill and +laughed. Her father had brought her west for holidays with the promise +of changed surroundings and new experiences, but he had promised her no +such delight as this. With the Elden kitchen still photographed in her +mind she called up the picture of her own city home; the green lawn, +faultlessly trimmed by a time-serving gardener; the floral borders, the +hedges; the two stately trees; the neat walk, the wide verandah, the +dim, mysterious hall; the rooms, heavily shaded to save the rich +carpets; the order, the precision, the fixedness, the this-sits-here +and that-stands-thereness—the flatness and emptiness and formality of +it all, and she turned again to the Elden kitchen and laughed—a soft, +rippling, irrepressible laugh, as irrepressible as the laughter of the +mountain stream amid the evergreens. Then she thought of her mother; +prim, sedate, conventional, correct—"Always be correct, my dear; there +is a right way and a wrong way, and a well-bred person always chooses +the right"—and her eyes sobered a trifle, then flashed in brighter +merriment as they pictured her mother amid these surroundings. +</P> + +<P> +"She would be so shocked, oh, dreadfully shocked," she rippled to +herself. "I am quite sure she would never approve of Father breaking +his leg with such consequences. It wasn't the correct thing—very +commonplace, I should say—and think of Irene! Why, the child—she's +but a child, Andrew, a very beautiful child, but with just a little +weakness for the—ah—unconventional—she must be restrained—she needs +her mother's guidance to protect her from the suggestion of +maybe—shall I say?—vulgarity. That's a very dreadful word. Think of +all the vulgar people there are in the world.… And here is dear +little Irene right in the midst of it, and—horrors—revelling in it." +</P> + +<P> +Then she looked again from the open window, this time with eyes that +saw the vista of valley and woodland and foothill that stretched down +into the opening prairie. Suddenly she realized that she was looking +down upon a picture—one of Nature's obscure masterpieces—painted in +brown and green and saffron against an opal canvas. It was beautiful, +not with the majesty of the great mountains, nor the solemnity of the +great plains, but with that nearer, more intimate relationship which is +the peculiar property of the foothill country. Here was neither the +flatness that, with a change of mood, could become in a moment +desolation, nor the aloofness of eternal rocks towering into cold +space, but the friendship of hills that could be climbed, and trees +that lisped in the light wind, and water that babbled playfully over +gravel ridges gleaming in the August sunshine. The girl drew a great +breath of the pure air and was about to dream a new day-dream when the +voice of her father brought her to earth. +</P> + +<P> +"Can't you find anything that will do for a bandage?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh you dear Daddykins," she replied, her voice tremulous with +self-reproach. "I had forgotten. There was a spell, or something; it +just came down upon me in the window. That's a good idea, blaming +one's negligence on a spell. I must remember that. But the bandage? +Dear, no; the only cloth I see is the kitchen towel, and I can't +recommend it. But what a goose I am! Our grips are in the car, or +under it, or somewhere. I'll be back in a jiffy." And she was off at +a sharp trot down the trail along which she had so recently come in +Dave Elden's wagon. +</P> + +<P> +At the little stream she paused. A single log was the only bridge, and +although the water was not deep it ran swiftly, and still with the +coldness of its glacier source. She ventured along the log, but near +the centre she was seized with an acute sense of her temerity. Perhaps +she had been foolish in attempting this passage without the aid of a +stick. A stick, which could be shoved against the gravel below that +blue water, would have been a very practical aid. Suddenly, the +waverings of the mind were transmuted to the body. She felt an +impetuous desire to fall upstream, which she resisted so successfully +that she promptly fell down stream. The water was deeper than it +looked, and colder than it looked, and when she scrambled up the +farther bank she was a very wet young woman indeed. She was conscious +of a deep annoyance toward young Elden. A fine bridge, that! She +would tell him—but this thought died at its birth with the +consciousness that Elden would be amused over the incident, and would +be at little pains to disguise his merriment. And then she laughed, +and ran along up the road. +</P> + +<P> +The grips were duly found, and Irene congratulated herself that she and +her father were in the habit of traveling with equipment for over +night. She had even a spare skirt along, with which she was able to +disguise her mishap at the stream, although she took the precaution not +to make the change until she was safe back over the narrow bridge. And +this time she used a stick. Arrived at the house, she deftly wrapped a +bandage about her father's injury, and set to work at the preparation +of supper—a task not strange to her, as her mother considered it +correct that her daughter should have a working knowledge of kitchen +affairs. Her equipment was meagre, and she spent more time scouring +than cooking, but her heart beat high with the spirit of adventure. +</P> + +<P> +Once, during the evening, she took a glance into the other room. It +was even less inviting than Dave's, with walls bare of any adornment, +save dirty garments that hung from nails driven in the logs. On the +rude bed lay an old man; she could see only part of his face; a grey +moustache drooping over an open mouth, and a florid cheek turned to the +glow of the setting sun. On a chair beside the bed sat a bottle, and +the room reeked with the smell of breath charged with alcohol. She +gently closed the door, and busied herself through the long evening +with reforms in the kitchen, and with little ministrations designed to +relieve the sufferings of her father. +</P> + +<P> +The sun sank behind the Rockies, and a darkness, soft and mystical and +silent, stole up the valley, hushing even the noiseless day. Presently +the glow of the rising moon burst in ruddy effulgence over the +foothills to the east, first with the effect of fire upon their crests, +and then as a great, slowly-whitening ball soaring high into the +fathomless heaven. The girl stood framed in the open window, and the +moonlight painted her face to the purest ivory, and toyed with the rich +brown fastness of her hair, and gleamed from a single ornament at her +throat. And she thought of the young horseman galloping to town; +wondered if he had yet set out on his homeward journey, and the eerie +depths of the valley communicated to her a fantastic admiration for his +skill and bravery. She was under the spell. She was in a new world, +where were manhood, and silence, and the realities of being; and +moonlight, and great gulfs of shadow between the hills, and large, +friendly stars, and soft breezes pushing this way and that without +definite direction, and strange, quiet noises from out of the depths, +and the incense of the evergreens, and a young horseman galloping into +the night. And conventions had been swept away, and it was correct to +live, and to live! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER TWO +</H3> + + +<P> +The first flush of dawn was mellowing the eastern sky when the girl was +awakened from uneasy sleep by sounds in the yard in front of the ranch +house. She had spent most of the night by her father's side, and +although he had at last prevailed upon her to seek some rest for +herself, she had done so under protest and without undressing. Now, +after the first dazed moment of returning consciousness, she was on her +feet and through the door. +</P> + +<P> +The stars were still shining brightly through the cold air. In the +faint light she could distinguish a team and wagon, and men unhitching. +She approached, and, in a voice that sounded strangely distant in the +vastness of the calm night, called, "Is that you, Dave?" +</P> + +<P> +And in a moment she wondered how she had dared call him Dave. But she +soon had other cause for wonder, for the boy replied from near beside +her, in that tone of friendly confidence which springs so spontaneously +in the darkness, "Yes, Reenie, and the doctor, too. We'll have Mr. +Hardy fixed up in no time. How did he stand the night?" +</P> + +<P> +How dared he call her Reenie? A flush of resentment rose in her breast +only to be submerged in the sudden remembrance that she had first +called him Dave. That surely gave him the right to address her as he +had done. But with this thought came recognition of the curious fact +that Dave had not presumed upon her frankness; that it was not by her +word that he would attempt to justify his. Indeed, she was convinced +that he would have called her Reenie anyway,—just as she had called +him Dave, without premeditation or intention. Then she remembered she +was in the ranch country, in the foothills, where the conventions—the +conventions she hated—had not yet become rooted, and where the souls +of men and women stood bare in the clear light of frank acceptance of +the fact. It would be idle—dangerous—to trifle with this boy by any +attempt at concealment or deception. And what were conventions but a +recognized formula of concealment and deception? +</P> + +<P> +She could see his form now, as he led the horses toward the corral. +How straight he was, and how bravely his footsteps fell on the hard +earth! The poetry of his motion reached her through the darkness. She +heard the harness jingle as the horses rubbed between the posts of the +corral gate. +</P> + +<P> +"He's a wonderful boy," said the doctor, of whose presence she had been +unconscious. "Cat's eyes. Full gallop through the dark; side hills, +mountain streams, up and down; break-neck. Well, here we are." The +doctor breathed deeply, as though this last fact were one to occasion +some wonderment. "Your brother tells me you have an injured man here; +accident; stranger, I believe? Well, shall we go in?" +</P> + +<P> +Brother! But why should she explain? Dave hadn't bothered. Why +hadn't he? He had told about the stranger; why had he not told about +both strangers? Why had he ignored her altogether? This time came +another flush, born of that keen womanly intuition which understands. +</P> + +<P> +With a commonplace she led the doctor into the house and to the bedside +of her father. She was struck by the change in attitude of the +visiting physician when he learned that his patient was of his own +profession. It was like the meeting of brothers in a secret order. +There was an exchange of technical terms that might have served as +password or sign into some fine fraternity, and the setting of the limb +was accompanied by a running fire of professional comment as effective +upon the nerves of the sufferer as an opiate. +</P> + +<P> +When the operation was completed the girl turned her attention to the +kitchen, where she found Dave, sweating in vicarious suffering. He had +helped to draw the limb into place, and it had been his first close +contact with human pain. It was different from branding calves, and he +had slipped out of the room as soon as possible. The morning sun was +now pouring through the window, and the distraught look on the boy's +face touched her even more than the frankness of the words spoken in +the darkness. She suddenly remembered that he had been up all +night—for her. She would not deceive herself with the thought that it +was for her father's sake Dave had galloped to town, found a doctor, +secured a fresh team and driven back along the little-used foothill +trails. She recalled the doctor's terse description of that journey. +No doubt Dave would have done it all for her father, had her father +been there alone, but as things were she had a deep conviction that he +had done it for her. And it was with a greater effort than seemed +reasonable that she laid her fingers on his arm and said, "Thank you, +Dave." +</P> + +<P> +"What for?" he asked, and she could not doubt the genuineness of his +question. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, for bringing the doctor, and all that. Driving all night on +those awful roads. We fell off them in day time. I am sure I +can't—Father won't be able to—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, shucks," he interrupted, with a manner which, on the previous +afternoon, she would have called rudeness. "That's nothin'. But say, +I brought home some grub. The chuck here was pretty tame; guess you +found that out last night." He looked about the room, and she knew +that he was taking note of her house-cleaning, but he made no remark on +the subject. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, let's get breakfast," she said, after a moment's pause, and for +lack of other conversation. "You must be hungry." +</P> + +<P> +Dave's purchases had been liberal. They included fresh meat and +vegetables, canned goods, coffee, rice and raisins. He laid the last +three items on the table with a great dissembling of indifference, for +he was immensely proud of them. They were unwonted items on the Elden +bill of fare; he had bought them especially for her. From somewhere +the knowledge had been borne in upon him that city people frequently +drink coffee for breakfast, and the rice and raisins were an +inspiration quite his own. He would see what she could do with them. +But she busied herself at the breakfast without a thought of the +epoch-marking nature of these purchases. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you milk?" she asked, presently. +</P> + +<P> +"Milk what?" he demanded, pausing with stove-lid and lifter raised in +his hand, in the half-completed act of putting wood on the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"Dave!" she cried. "Put that lid down. Look at the smoke." A blue +cloud was curling under the rafters. "Yes," he said, with great +composure. "It always does that in this country." +</P> + +<P> +She shot a quick glance at him. Was he making fun of her? No; plainly +not; he was just making fun <I>with</I> her; he had a vein of humor. And a +little before she had found his face drawn in sympathy for her father. +Perhaps for her.… He was not all on the surface. +</P> + +<P> +He completed his operation at the stove and returned the lid to its +place with no lack of deliberation. He was evidently waiting for her +to speak again, but she worked on in silence. +</P> + +<P> +"What did you say about milking?" he ventured at length. +</P> + +<P> +"I asked you if you milked," she said, with an attempt at curtness. +"And you answered, 'Milk what?' as though that were clever. And we +need milk for breakfast." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I was serious enough," he said. "There isn't a cow within +twenty miles." +</P> + +<P> +"No cows? Why, I thought this was the ranching country?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sure thing. We sell beef and buy milk. Let me show you." +</P> + +<P> +He approached a packing-case on the wall, walking softly and extending +his hands as though to touch it gently, and murmuring, "So boss; so +boss," as he went. From the box he removed a tin of condensed milk, +which he set on the table. In his pocket he found a nail, and with a +hammer quickly made two holes in the tin. +</P> + +<P> +"Milkin' is finished," he announced. +</P> + +<P> +At this juncture the doctor, who had been resting in the room with his +patient, entered the kitchen. During the setting of the limb he had +gradually become aware of the position of Irene in the household, but +had that not been so, one glance at the boy and girl as they now stood +in the bright morning sunshine, he with his big, wiry frame, his brown +face, his dark eyes, his black hair; she, round and knit and smooth, +with the pink shining through her fair skin and the light of youth +dancing in her grey eyes and the light of day glancing on her brown +hair, must have told him they had sprung from widely separated stock. +For one perilous moment he was about to apologize for the mistake made +in the darkness, but some wise instinct closed his lips. But he +wondered why she had not corrected him. +</P> + +<P> +They were seated at breakfast when the senior Elden made his +appearance. He had slept off his debauch and was as sober as a man in +the throes of alcoholic appetite may be. He was only partially +dressed; his face had the peculiar bulginess of the hard drinker; his +eyes were watery and shifty, and several days' growth of beard, with +patchy grey and black spots, gave a stucco effect to his countenance. +His moustache drooped over a partly open mouth; the top of his large +head was bald, and the hair that hung about his ears was much darker +than his moustache. Seeing the strangers, he hesitated in his lurch +toward the water pail, steadied himself on wide-spread feet, very flat +on the floor, and waved his right hand slowly in the air. Whether this +was to be understood as a form of salutation or a gesture of defiance +was a matter of interpretation. +</P> + +<P> +"Vishitors," said the old man, at length. "Alwaysh welcome, m'sure. +'Sh scush me." He made his uncertain way to the water bench, took a +great drink, and set about washing his face and hands, while the +breakfast proceeded in silence. As his preparations neared completion +Irene set a place at the table. +</P> + +<P> +"Won't you sit down here, Mr. Elden?" she said. There had been no +introductions. Dave ate on in silence. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you," said the old man, and there was something in his voice +which may have been emotion, or may have been the huskiness of the +heavy drinker's throat. The girl gave it the former explanation. +Perhaps it was his unintended tribute to that touch of womanly +attentiveness to which his old heart still beat response. As he took +the proffered chair she saw in this old man shreds of dignity which the +less refined eye of his son had not distinguished. To Dave, his father +was an affliction to be borne; an unfair load on a boy who had done +nothing to deserve this punishment. The miseries associated with his +parentage had gone far to make him sour and moody. Irene at first had +thought him rude and gloomy; flashes of humor had modified that +opinion, but she had not yet learned that his disposition was naturally +a buoyant one, weighed down by an environment which had made it soggy +and unresponsive. In years to come she was to know what unguessed +depths of character were to be revealed when that stoic nature was +cross-sectioned by the blade of a keen and defiant passion. This +morning she foresaw nothing of those future revelations, but in the old +man her instinct detected qualities which perhaps were awaiting only +some touch of sympathetic understanding to flash forth even yet like +that burst of sunset radiance which sometimes marks the close of a +leaden day. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Elden promptly engaged the doctor in conversation, and in a few +moments had gleaned the main facts in connection with the accident and +the father and daughter which it had brought so involuntarily under his +roof. He was quite sober now, and his speech, although slovenly, was +not indelicate. He was still able to pay to woman that respect which +curbs the coarseness of a tongue for years subjected to little +discipline. +</P> + +<P> +After breakfast Irene attended to the wants of her father, and by this +time the visiting doctor was manifesting impatience to be away. Other +fees were calling him, and he assured Doctor Hardy, what the latter +quite well knew, that nothing more could be done for him at present. +He would come again at any time if summoned by the young man, or if his +professional duties should bring him into the neighborhood of the Elden +ranch. But Dave declared with prompt finality that the horses must +rest until after noon, and the doctor, willy-nilly, spent the morning +rambling in the foothills. Meanwhile the girl busied herself with work +about the house, in which she was effecting a rapid transformation. +</P> + +<P> +After the mid-day dinner Dave harnessed the team for the journey to +town, but before leaving inquired of Irene if there were any special +purchases, either personal or for the use of the house, which she would +recommend. With some diffidence she mentioned one that was uppermost +in her thoughts: soap, both laundry and toilet. Dr. Hardy had no +hesitation in calling for a box of his favorite cigars and some new +magazines, and took occasion to press into the boy's hand a bill out of +all proportion to the value of the supplies requested. There was an +argument in the yard, which the girl did not fully hear, between father +and son, but she gathered that the old man insisted on going to town, +and, failing that, that Dave should replenish his stock of whiskey, to +neither of which would the young man consent. It was evident that Dave +was the responsible person in the affairs of the Elden ranch. +</P> + +<P> +The day was introductory to others that were to follow. Dave returned +the next afternoon, riding his own horse, and heavily laden with +cigars, magazines, soap, and with a soft little package which proved to +be a sponge, which he had bought on his own initiative, and which he +tendered to Irene. She took it with slowly rising color, and with a +strange misgiving whether this was a bona fide contribution to the +toilet equipment of the house, or a quiet satire designed to offset the +effect of the appeal for soap. +</P> + +<P> +The following day it was decided that the automobile, which since the +accident had lain upturned by the roadway, should be brought to the +ranch buildings. Dave harnessed his team, and, instead of riding one +of the horses, walked behind, driving by the reins, and accompanied by +the girl, who had proclaimed her ability to steer the car. When they +reached the stream she hesitated, remembering her mishap, but the boy +slipped his unoccupied hand firmly under her arm, and they walked the +log in safety. It seemed to Irene that he continued his assistance +when it was no longer needed, but she accepted the courtesy without +remark. +</P> + +<P> +With the aid of the team and Dave's lariat the car was soon righted, +and was found to be none the worse for its deflection from the beaten +track. Irene presided at the steering wheel, watching the road with +great intentness, and turning the wheel too far on each occasion, which +gave to her course a somewhat wavy or undulating order, such as is +found in bread knives, or perhaps a better figure would be to compare +it to that rolling motion affected by fancy skaters. However, the mean +of her direction corresponded with the mean of the trail, and all went +merrily until the stream was approached. Here was a rather steep +descent, and the car showed a sudden purpose to engage the horses in a +contest of speed. The animals were suspicious enough at best of their +strange wagon, and had no thought of allowing it to assume the +initiative. Now, Irene knew perfectly well where the brake was, and +how to use it. In fact, there were two brakes, operated by different +members, and perhaps it was this duplication, intended to insure +safety, that was responsible for her undoing. Her first impulse was to +use the emergency, but to do so she must remove her hand from the +steering wheel, where it was very fully occupied. She did start to put +this impulse into effect, but an unusually violent deflection caused +her to reconsider that intention. She determined to use the foot +brake, a feat which was accomplished, under normal conditions, by +pressing one foot firmly against a contraption somewhere beneath the +steering post. She shot a quick glance downward, and to her alarm +discovered not one, but three contraptions, all apparently designed to +receive the pressure of a foot—if one could reach them—and as similar +as the steps of a stair. This involved a further hesitation, and in +automobiling he who hesitates invites a series of rapid experiences. +By this time all Irene's attention was required to bring the car to +some unanimity of direction. It was quite evident that it was running +away. It was quite evident that the horses were running away. The +situation assumed the qualities of a race, and the only matter of grave +doubt related to its termination. Dave, still holding fast to the +reins, ran beside the car with prodigious strides which enabled him to +bring but little restraint upon the team, and Irene held to the +steering wheel with a grip of desperation. +</P> + +<P> +Then they struck the water. It was not more than two feet deep, but +the extra resistance it caused, and the extra alarm it excited in the +horses, resulted in the breaking of the lariat. Dave still clung fast +to his team, and, now that the terrifying rival no longer pursued them, +they were soon brought to a standstill. Having pacified them he tied +them to a post and returned to the stream. The car sat in the middle; +the girl had put her feet on the seat beside her, and the swift water +flowed by a few inches below. She was laughing merrily when Dave, very +wet in parts, appeared on the bank. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm not wet, except for a little splashing," she said, "and you +are. Does anything occur to you?" Without reply he walked stolidly +into the cold water, took her in his arms, and carried her ashore. The +lariat was soon repaired and the car hauled to the ranch buildings +without further mishap. +</P> + +<P> +Later in the day he said to her, "Can you ride?" +</P> + +<P> +"Some," she answered. "I have ridden city horses, but don't know about +these ranch animals. You know, a city horse has to do as he is told, +but a ranch horse seems to do pretty much as he likes. But I would +like to try—if I had a saddle." +</P> + +<P> +"I have an extra saddle," he said. "But it's a man's.… They all +ride that way here." +</P> + +<P> +She made no answer, and the subject was dropped for the time. But the +next morning she saw Dave ride away, leading a horse by his side. He +did not return until evening, but when he came the idle horse carried a +saddle. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a strad-legger," he said when he drew up beside Irene, "but it's +a girl's. I couldn't find anythin' else in the whole diggin's." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure it will do—splendidly—if I can just stick on," she replied. +But another problem was already in her mind. It apparently had not +occurred to Dave that women require special clothing for riding, +especially if it's a "strad-legger." She opened her lips to mention +this, then closed them again. He had been to enough trouble on her +account. He had already spent a whole day scouring the country for a +saddle.… She would manage some way. +</P> + +<P> +Late that night she was busy with scissors and needle. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER THREE +</H3> + + +<P> +Dr. Hardy recovered from his injuries as rapidly as could be expected, +and, while he chafed somewhat over spending his holidays under such +circumstances, the time passed not unhappily. Had he sought the world +over for a haven from the intrusion of business or professional cares +he could have found it nowhere in greater perfection than in the +foothill country centering about the Elden ranch. Here was an Arcadia +where one might well return to the simple life; a little bay of still +water sheltered from the onrushing tide of affairs by the warm brown +prairies and the white-bosomed mountains towering through their +draperies of blue-purple mist. It was life as far removed from his +accustomed circles as if he had been suddenly spirited to a different +planet. It was life without the contact of life, without the crowd and +jostle and haste and gaiety and despair that are called life; but the +doctor wondered if, after all, it did not come nearer to filling the +measure of experience—which is life. +</P> + +<P> +A considerable acquaintanceship had sprung up between him and the +senior Elden. The rancher had come from the East forty years before, +but in turning over their memories the two men found many links of +association; third persons known to them both; places, even streets and +houses common to their feet in early manhood; events of local history +which each could recall, although from different angles. And Elden's +life in the West had been a treasury of experience, in which he now +dipped for the first time in years, regaling his guest with tales of +the open range long before barbed wire had stuck its poisoned fang into +the heart of the ranchman; tales of horse-stealing and cattle-rustling, +with glimpses of sudden justice unrecorded in the official documents of +the territory; of whiskey-running and excess and all those large +adventures that drink the red blood of the wilderness. In his grizzled +head and stooping frame he carried more experiences than would fill a +dozen well-rounded city lives, and he had the story-teller's art which +scorns to spoil dramatic effect by a too strict adherence to fact. But +over one phase of his life he kept the curtain resolutely down. No ray +of conversation would he admit into the more personal affairs of his +heart, or of the woman who had been his wife, and even when the talk +turned on the boy he quickly withdrew it to another topic, as though +the subject were dangerous or distasteful. But once, after a long +silence following such a diversion, had he betrayed himself into a +whispered remark, an outburst of feeling rather than a communication. +"I've been alone so much," he said. "It seems I have never been +anything but alone. And—sooner or later—it gets you—it gets you." +</P> + +<P> +"You have the boy," ventured the doctor. +</P> + +<P> +"No," he answered, almost fiercely. "That would be different, I could +stand it then. But I haven't got him, and I can't get him. He +despises me because—because I take too much at times." He paused as +though wondering whether to proceed with this unwonted confidence, but +the ache in his heart insisted on its right to human sympathy. "No, it +ain't that," he continued. "He despises me because he thinks I wasn't +fair to his mother. He can't understand. He doesn't know yet that +there's things—pulls and tugs of life, that lead a man as helpless as +a steer chokin' in his lasso. I was like that. I wanted to be good to +her, to be close to her. Then I took to booze, as natural as a steer +under the brandin' iron roars to drown his hurt. But the boy don't +understand." The old man got up and stood at the western window, +watching the gold of approaching sunset gather on the mountains.… +"He despises me." Then, after a long silence, "No matter. I despise +myself." +</P> + +<P> +The doctor approached and placed a hand on his shoulder. But Elden was +himself again. The curtains of his life, which he had drawn apart for +a moment, he whipped together again rudely, almost viciously, and +covered his confusion by plunging into a tale of how he had led a breed +suspected of cattle rustling on a little canter of ten miles with a +rope about his neck and the other end tied to the saddle. "He ran +well," said the old man, chuckling still at the reminiscence. "And it +was lucky he did. It was a strong rope." +</P> + +<P> +The morning after Dave had brought in the borrowed saddle Irene +appeared in a sort of bloomer suit, somewhat wonderfully contrived from +the spare skirt to which allusion has been made, and announced a +willingness to risk life and limb on any horse that Dave might select +for that purpose. He provided her with a dependable mount, and their +first journey, taken somewhat gingerly along the principal trail, was +accomplished without incident. It was the fore-runner of many others, +plunging deeper and deeper into the fastnesses of the foothills, and +even into the passes of the very mountains themselves. These long +rides through the almost untracked wilderness, frequently along paths +on which the element of danger was by no means a mere fancy, and into +regions where the girl's sense of distance and direction were totally +confused, afforded her many side-lights on the remarkable nature of her +escort. His patience was infinite, and, although there were no silk +trappings to his courtesy, it was a very genuine and manly deference he +paid her. She was quite sure that he would at any moment give his life +if needed to defend her from injury—and accept the transaction as a +matter of course. His physical endurance was inexhaustible, and his +knowledge of prairie and foothill seemed to her almost uncanny. When +she had been utterly lost for hours he would suddenly swing their +horses' heads about and guide them home with the accuracy of the wild +goose on its nights to the nesting grounds. He read every sign of +footprint, leaf, water, and sky with unfailing insight. He had no +knowledge of books, and she had at first thought him ignorant, but as +the days went by she had found in him a mine of wisdom which shamed her +ready-made education. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-037"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-037.jpg" ALT="These long rides afforded her many side-lights on the remarkable nature of her escort." BORDER="2" WIDTH="368" HEIGHT="536"> +<H3> +[Illustration: These long rides afforded her many side-lights <BR> +on the remarkable nature of her escort.] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +After such a ride they one day dismounted in a grassy opening among the +trees that bordered a mountain canyon. The waters of ages had +chiselled a sharp passage through the rock, and the green stream now +swirled in its rapid course a hundred feet below. Fragments of rock, +loosened by the sun and wind and frost of centuries, had fallen from +time to time, leaving sheltered nooks and shelves in the walls of the +canyon. In one of these crevices they found a flat stone that gave +comfortable seating, and here they rested while the horses browsed +their afternoon meal on the grass above. Little irregular bits of +stone had broken off the parent rock, and for awhile they amused +themselves with tossing these into the water. But both were conscious +of a gradually increasing tension in the atmosphere. For days the boy +had been moody. It was evident he was harbouring something that was +calling through his nature for expression, and Irene knew that this +afternoon he would talk of more than trees and rocks and footprints of +the wild things of the forest. +</P> + +<P> +"Your father is gettin' along well," he said at length. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she answered. "He has had a good holiday, even with his broken +leg. He is looking ever so much better." +</P> + +<P> +"You will be goin' away before long," he continued. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she answered, soberly, and waited. +</P> + +<P> +"Things about here ain't goin' to be the same after you're gone," he +went on. He was avoiding her eyes and industriously throwing bits of +crumbled rock into the canyon. He wore no coat, and the neck of his +shirt was open, for the day was warm. Had he caught her side-long +glances even his slow, self-deprecating mind must have read their +admiration. But he kept his eyes fixed on the green water. +</P> + +<P> +"You see," he said, "before you came it was different. I didn't know +what I was missin', an' so it didn't matter. Not but what I was +dog-sick of it at times, but still I thought I was livin',—thought +this was life, and, of course, now I know it ain't. At least, it won't +be after you're gone." +</P> + +<P> +"That's strange," she said, not in direct answer to his remark, but as +a soliloquy on it as she turned it over in her mind. "This life, now, +seems empty to you. All my old life seems empty to me. This seems to +me the real life, out here in the foothills, with the trees, and the +mountains, and—and our horses, you know." +</P> + +<P> +She might have ended the sentence in a way that would have come much +closer to him, and been much truer, but conventionality had been bred +into her for generations and she did not find it possible yet freely to +speak the truth. Indeed, as she thought of her position here it seemed +to her she had become shamelessly unconventional. She thought of her +mother, careful, correct,—"Always be correct, my dear,"—and wondered +what she would say could she see her only child on these wild, +unchaperoned rides and in these strange confidences where she was a +girl and Dave was a boy and all the artificialities with which society +aims to protect itself had been stripped away. There was a dash of +adventure which added to the relish of the situation. +</P> + +<P> +"It's such a wonderful life," she continued. "One gets so strong and +happy in it." +</P> + +<P> +"You'd soon get sick of it," he said. "We don't see nothin'. We don't +learn nothin'. Reenie, I'm eighteen, an' I bet you could read an' +write better'n me when you was six." +</P> + +<P> +"Did you never go to school?" she asked, in genuine surprise. She knew +his speech was ungrammatical, but thought that due to careless training +rather than to no training at all. +</P> + +<P> +"Where'd I go to school?" he demanded bitterly. "There ain't a school +within forty miles. Guess I wouldn't have went if I could," he added +as an afterthought, wishing to be quite honest in the matter. "School +didn't seem to cut no figure—until jus' lately." +</P> + +<P> +"But you have learned—some?" she continued. +</P> + +<P> +"Some. When I was a little kid my father used to work with me at +times. He learned me to read a little, an' to write my name, an' a +little more. But things didn't go right between him an' mother, an' he +got to drinkin' more an' more, an' just makin' hell of it. We used to +have a mighty fine herd of steers here, but it's all shot to pieces. +We don't put up hardly no hay, an' in a bad winter they die like +rabbits. When we sell a bunch the old man'll stay in town for a month +or more, blowin' the coin and leavin' the debts go. But I've been +fixin' him this year or two. I sneak a couple of steers away now an' +then, an' with the money I keep our grocery bills paid up, an' have a +little to rattle in my jeans. My credit's good at any store in town," +and Irene thrilled to the note of pride in his voice as he said this. +The boy had real quality in him. "But I'm sick of it all," he +continued. "Sick of it, an' I wanna get out." +</P> + +<P> +"You think you are not educated," she answered, trying to meet his +outburst as tactfully as possible. "Perhaps you are not, the way we +think of it in the city. But I guess there's a good many things you +can't learn out of books, and I guess you could show the city boys a +good many things they don't know, and never will know." +</P> + +<P> +For the first time he looked her straight in the face. His dark eyes +met her grey ones, and demanded truth. "Irene," he said, "do you mean +that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sure I do," she answered. "College courses, and all that kind of +thing; they're good stuff, all right, but they make some awful nice +boys—real live boys, you know—into some awful dead ones. Either they +get the highbrow, and become bores, or the swelled head, and become +cads. Not all, you know, but lots of them. And then when they get out +they have to start learning the real things of life—things that you +have been learning here for ever so long. My father says about the +best education is to learn to live within your income, pay your debts, +and give the other fellow a chance to do the same. They don't all +learn that in college. So when they get out they have to go and work +for somebody who has learned it, like you have. Then there's the +things you do, just like you were born to it, that they couldn't do to +save their lives. Why, I've seen you smash six bottles at a stretch, +you going full gallop, and whooping and shooting so we could hardly +tell which was which. And ride—you could make more money riding for +city people to look at than most of those learned fellows, with letters +after their names like the tail of a kite, will ever see. But I +wouldn't like you to make it that way. There's more useful things to +do." +</P> + +<P> +He was comforted by this speech, but he referred to his accomplishments +modestly. "Ridin' an' shootin' ain't nothin'," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not so sure," she answered. "Father says the day is coming when +our country will want men who can shoot and ride more than it will want +lawyers or professors." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, when it does, it can call on me," he said, and there was the +pride in his voice which comes to a boy who feels that in some way he +can take a man's place in the world. "Them is two things I sure can +do." +</P> + +<P> +Years later she was to think of her remark and his answer, consecrated +then in clean red blood. +</P> + +<P> +They talked of many things that afternoon, and when at last the +lengthening shadows warned them it was time to be on the way they rode +long distances in silence. Both felt a sense which neither ventured to +express, that they had travelled very close in the world of their hopes +and sorrows and desires. Perhaps, as they rode along the foothill +trail, they were still journeying together down the long, strange +trails of the future; dim, visionary, exquisite trails; rough, hard, +cruel trails hidden in the merciful mirage of their young hopefulness. +</P> + +<P> +The shadows had deepened into darkness, and the infinite silence of the +hills hung about them as they dropped from their saddles at the Elden +door. A light shone from within, and Dr. Hardy, who was now able to +move about with the aid of a home-made crutch, could be seen setting +the table, while Mr. Elden stirred a composition on the stove. They +chatted as they worked, and there was something of the joy of little +children in their companionship. The young folks watched for a moment +through the window, and in Dave's heart some long-forgotten emotion +moved momentarily at the sight of the good fellowship prevailing in the +old house. Irene, too, was thinking; glimpses of her own butlered +home, and then this background of primal simplicity, where the old +cow-man cooked the meals and the famous specialist set the plates on +the bare board table, and then back of it all her mother, sedate and +correct, and very much shocked over this mingling of the classes. But +the girl's reverie was cut short by a sudden affectionate licking of +her fingers, and glancing downward she found Brownie, adopted early in +her visit at the Eldens', expressing its fondness in the only fashion +at its command. +</P> + +<P> +The calf had been an incident in her ranch experience. It was a late +comer, quite unable to keep pace with the earlier fruits of the herd, +and had the additional misfortune to be born of an ambitious mother, +who had no thought of allowing her domestic duties to impair her social +relationships with the matrons and males of her immediate set. She had +no place for old-fashioned notions; she was determined to keep up with +the herd and the calf might fare as best it could. So they rambled +from day to day; she swaggering along with the set, but turning now and +then to send an impatient moo toward the small brown body stuck on four +long, ungainly legs,—legs which had an unfortunate habit of folding +up, after the fashion of a jack knife, upon unforeseen occasions, and +precipitating the owner in a huddled mass on the ground. At rare +times, when heaven must have stooped close about the herd, the mother +instinct would assert itself, and the cow would return to her +offspring, licking it lavishly and encouraging it with mooings of deep +affection, but such periods of bliss were of short duration. The lure +of "the life" was too great for her; she felt herself born for more +important roles than mere motherhood, and she would presently rush away +to her favourite circle, leaving her begotten to such fates as might +befall. +</P> + +<P> +It was on such an occasion, when left far behind, that one of the +ungainly legs found its way into a badger hole. The collapse was +harder and more complete than usual, and the little sufferer would have +died there had he not been found by Dave and Irene in the course of +their rides. Dave, after a moment's examination, drew his revolver, +but Irene pled for the life of the unfortunate. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, don't kill it, Dave," she cried. "You couldn't kill it! Let's +get the wagon and take it home. It'll get all right, won't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Never be worth a——," said Dave, checking his vocabulary in the nick +of time. "Once they begin to give trouble you might's well knock 'em +on the head." +</P> + +<P> +"But it's cruel," she protested. "Just to kill it because it's hurt." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know about the cruel," he answered. "You see, they're all +raised, every one of 'em, to be killed, anyway. Jus' like people, I +guess. Sooner or later. But if your heart's set on this little +crittur, we'll save it's long as we can." +</P> + +<P> +So the calf was taken home and became Irene's special care. The mother +was captured and tied up in the corral, and the calf, although lame, +began to thrive and wax strong. It would gallop in its ungainly way +about the yard, in its exuberation of youthful innocence, while the +mother pined for the latest scandal from the great fields over the +hills. +</P> + +<P> +"Brownie, we'll call it," said Irene, "on account of its colour." +</P> + +<P> +"All right," said Dave, "on account of your sweater. That'll sort o' +show the connection." +</P> + +<P> +So this night she rubbed its nose, and scratched its forehead, and then +reproved its affection, which had a habit of running to extremes. And +the mother cow mooed from the corral, and Brownie forgot his +benefactress and ambled away at the call of the blood. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you youngsters must have this country pretty well explored," +said Dr. Hardy, as they entered the house. "Where was it today: the +prairies, the foothills, or the real fellows behind?" +</P> + +<P> +"The canyon, up the river," said Irene, drawing off her sweater. +"What's the eats? Gee, I'm hungry. Getting pretty supple, Daddykins, +aren't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, an' I'm sorry for it, Miss," said the old rancher. "Not wishin' +him any harm, or you neither. We was jus' talkin' it over, an' your +father thinks he's spry enough for the road again. Ain't ever goin' to +be like it use to be after he's gone, an' you." +</P> + +<P> +So the afternoon's conversations in the canyon and the cabin had been +on the same theme, although prompted by very different emotions. Yet +the girl wondered whether the loneliness in the old man's heart, which +cried out to his own sex, might not bear some relationship to a +strange, new sense she herself was experiencing; a sense which reminded +her that she was incomplete—and alone. And it called across the +barrier of sex for completion. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll be sorry to go," said the doctor. "That's what I've been saying +all day, and thinking, too. If misfortunes can be lucky, ours was one +of that kind. I don't know when I've enjoyed a holiday so much. What +do you say, girl?" he asked, as he rested an arm on her round, firm +shoulder and looked with fatherly fondness into the fine brown of her +face. +</P> + +<P> +"I've never known anything like it," she answered. "It's wonderful. +It's life." Then with a sudden little scream she exclaimed, "Oh, +Daddy, why can't you sell your practice and buy a ranch? Wouldn't that +be wonderful?" +</P> + +<P> +"Your mother might not see it that way," he replied, and her eyes fell. +Yes, that was the obstacle. She would have to go back to the city, and +talk by rule, and dress by rule, and behave by rule, and be correct. +She wondered how often her father had turned from the path of the true +adventure because her mother "might not see it that way." +</P> + +<P> +"It's been a good time," the doctor continued, when they had commenced +supper, "but I've already overstayed my holiday. Well, I had good +excuse. I feel that I can travel now, and my leg will be pretty strong +by the time I am back East. If Dave will oblige us by going to town +to-morrow and bringing back someone who can drive a car we will be able +to start the following morning. I will just take the car to town and +either sell it there or ship it." +</P> + +<P> +The following morning found Dave early on the trail, leading a saddled +horse by his side. The hours were leaden for the girl all that day, +and looking into the future she saw the spectre of her life shadowed +down the years by an unutterable loneliness. How could she ever drop +it all—all this wild freedom, this boundless health, this great +outdoors, this life, life, how could she drop it all and go back into +the little circle where convention fenced out the tiniest alien +streamlet, although the circle itself might lie deep in mire? And how +would she give up this boy who had grown so imperceptibly but so +intimately into the very soul of her being; give him up with all his +strength, and virility, and—yes, and coarseness, if you will—but +sincerity too; an essential man, as God made him, in exchange for a +machine-made counterfeit with the stamp of Society? Deeply did she +ponder these questions, and as the day wore on she found herself +possessed of a steadily growing determination that she would not follow +the beaten trail, let the by-paths lead where they might. +</P> + +<P> +Darkness, save for a white moon, had settled over the foothills when +the boy returned with another young man. The stranger ate a ravenous +supper, but was not too occupied to assay conversation with Irene. +Indeed, from their meeting at the doorway his eyes scarcely left her. +He chose to call her cook. +</P> + +<P> +"Swell pancakes, cook," was his opening remark. "Can you find another +for yours truly?" +</P> + +<P> +She refilled his plate without answer. +</P> + +<P> +"Used to know a girl mighty like you," he went on. "Waitress in the +Royal Edward. Gee, but she was swell! A pippin! Class! Say, she had +'em all guessing. Had me guessing myself for awhile. But just for +awhile." He voiced these remarks with an air of intense self-approval +more offensive than the words. +</P> + +<P> +Irene felt the colour rise about her neck and cheeks and run like an +over-flowing stream into her ears and about her hair. It was evident +that, for a second time, Dave had chosen to say nothing to strangers +about her presence at the ranch. But that was not what brought the +colour. She was addressed as a menial, as a hired helper in the Elden +household! Her own honesty told her that even that was not what +brought the colour. It was not even the man's insolent familiarity; it +was his assumption that his familiarity would not be resented. Her +father and Mr. Elden were in Dave's room; Dave had stopped eating and +she saw the veins rising in his clenched fists. But the challenge was +to her, and she would accept it; she felt no need of his protection. +</P> + +<P> +"Fill your stomach," she said, passing more pancakes; "your head is +hopeless." +</P> + +<P> +He attempted a laugh, but the meal was finished in silence. The +stranger lit a cigarette, and Irene went to the door with Dave. An +over-lace of silver moonlight draped the familiar objects near at hand +and faded into the dark, vague lingerie of night where the spruce trees +cut their black wedge along the valley. +</P> + +<P> +"Come for a walk," he whispered. "The horses are tired, so let's +walk.… It's our last chance." +</P> + +<P> +She ran for her sweater and rejoined him in a moment. They walked in +silence down a path through the fragrant trees, but Dave turned from +time to time to catch a glimpse of her face, white and fine as ivory in +the soft light. He had much to say; he felt that the ages could not +utter all he had to say to-night, but he was tongue-tied under the +spell of her beauty. +</P> + +<P> +"You squelched him, all right," he broke out at length. +</P> + +<P> +"Just in time, too, I think," she replied. "I was watching your hands." +</P> + +<P> +He smiled a quiet but very confident smile. "Reenie," he said, "that +fellow makes me sick. All the way out he talked about girls. If it +hadn't been that I was makin' the trip for your father I'd 'a' licked +him on the road, sure. He's a city chap, an' wears a white collar, but +he ain't fit to speak your name. Another minute an' I'd 'a' had 'im by +the neck." He seized a spruce limb that stuck across their path. It +was the size of a stout stick but he snapped it with a turn of his +wrist. It was very tough; it oozed sticky stuff where he broke it. +"His neck," he said, between his teeth. "Jus' like that." +</P> + +<P> +They reached an open space. Something black—or was it red?—lay on +the ground. Dave bent over it a moment, then looked up to her white, +clear face, whiter and clearer than ever since witnessing the strength +of his hate. +</P> + +<P> +"It's Brownie," he said, as calmly as he could. "Half et up. Wolves, +I guess." +</P> + +<P> +He saw her eyes grow slowly larger in the moonlight. Without a word +she sank to her knees. He saw her fingers about her head, burrowing in +her hair. Then she looked up, over the black trees, to the sky with +its white moon and its few great stars. +</P> + +<P> +"The poor, poor thing," she breathed. "The poor, innocent thing. Why +did it have to die?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's always the innocent things 'at suffers," he answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Always the innocent things," she repeated mechanically. "Always—" +</P> + +<P> +She sprang to her feet and faced him. "Then what about the justice of +God?" she demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"I don' know nothin' about the justice of God," he answered, bitterly. +"All I know is the crittur 't can't run gets caught." +</P> + +<P> +There was a long pause. "It doesn't seem right," she said at length. +</P> + +<P> +"It ain't right," he agreed. "But I guess it's life. I see it here on +the prairies with every living thing. Everything is a victim, some way +or other. Even the wolves 'at tore this little beast 'll go down to +some rancher's rifle, maybe, although they were only doing what nature +said … I guess it's the same way in the cities; the innocent bein' +hunted, an' the innocenter they are the easier they're caught. An' +then the wolves beggin' off, an' sayin' it was only nature." +</P> + +<P> +The girl had no answer. No one had ever talked to her like this. What +did this country boy know? And yet it was plain he did know. He had +lived among the fundamentals. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess I was like that, some," he went on. "I've been caught. I +guess a baby ain't responsible for anything, is it? I didn't pick my +father or my mother, did I? But I got to bear it." +</P> + +<P> +There was something near a break in his voice on the last words. She +felt she must speak. +</P> + +<P> +"I think your father is a wonderful old man," she said, "and your +mother must have been wonderful, too. You should be proud of them +both." +</P> + +<P> +"Reenie, do you mean that?" he demanded. His eyes were looking +straight into hers. Once before he had faced her with that question, +and she had not forgotten. +</P> + +<P> +"Absolutely," she answered. "Absolutely, I mean it." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I'm goin' to say some more things to you," he went on, rapidly. +"Things 'at I didn't know whether to say or not, but now they've got to +be said, whatever happens. Reenie, I haven't ever been to school, or +learned lots of things I should 'a' learned, but I ain't a fool, +neither. I know 'at when you're home you live thousands of miles from +me, but I know 'at in your mind you live further away than that. I +know it's like all the prairies an' all the oceans were between us. +But I know, too, that people cross prairies an' oceans, an' I'm wantin' +to cross. I know it takes time, an' I'll be a slow traveller, but I'm +a mighty persistent crittur when I start out. I didn't learn to break +all those bottles in a day. Well, I can learn other things, too, an' I +will, if only it will take me across. I'm goin' to leave this old +ranch, someway, jus' as soon as it can be arranged. I'm goin' to town, +an' work. I'm strong; I can get pretty good wages. I've been thinkin' +it all over, and was askin' some questions in town to-day. I can work +days and go to school nights. An' I'll do it if—if it'll get me +across. You know what I mean. I ain't askin' no pledges, Reenie, but +what's the chance? I know I don't talk right, an' I don't eat +right—you tried not to notice, but you couldn't help—but Reenie, I +think right, an' I guess with a girl like you that counts more than +eatin' and talkin'." +</P> + +<P> +She had thought she could say yes or no to any question he could ask, +but as he poured forth these plain passionate words she found herself +enveloped in a flame that found no expression in speech. She had no +words. She was glad when he went on. +</P> + +<P> +"I know I'm only a boy, an' you're only a girl. That's why I don' ask +no pledge. I leave you free, only I want you to stay free until I have +my chance. Will you promise that?" +</P> + +<P> +She tried to pull herself together. "You know I've had a good time +with you, Dave," she said, "and I've gone with you everywhere, like I +would not have gone with any other boy I ever knew, and I've talked and +let you talk about things I never talked about before, and I believe +you're true and clean, and—and—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he said. "What's your answer?" +</P> + +<P> +"I know you're true and clean," she repeated. "Come to me—like +that—when I'm a woman and you're a man, and then—then we'll know." +</P> + +<P> +He was tall and straight, and his shadow fell across her face, as +though even the moon must not see. "Reenie," he said, "kiss me." +</P> + +<P> +For one moment she thought of her mother. She knew she stood at the +parting of the ways; that all life for her was being moulded in that +moment. Then she put both her arms about his neck and drew his lips to +hers. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER FOUR +</H3> + + +<P> +Dave's opportunity came sooner than he expected. After the departure +of the Hardys things at the old ranch were as both father and son had +predicted, very different. They found themselves on a sort of good +behaviour; a behaviour which, unhappily excited in each other grave +suspicions as to purpose. Between these two men rude courtesies or +considerations of any kind had been so long forgotten that attempts to +reintroduce them resulted in a sort of estrangement more dangerous than +the old open hostility. The tension steadily increased, and both +looked forward to the moment when something must give way. +</P> + +<P> +For several weeks the old man remained entirely sober, but the call of +the appetite in him grew more and more insistent as the days went by, +and at last came the morning when Dave awoke to find him gone. He +needed no second guess; the craving had become irresistible and his +father had ridden to town for the means to satisfy it. The passing +days did not bring his return, but this occasioned no anxiety to Dave. +In the course of a carouse his father frequently remained away for +weeks at a stretch, and at such times it was Dave's custom to visit the +boys on a ranch a dozen miles over the foothills to the southward. +These boys had a sister, and what was more natural than that Dave +should drown his loneliness in such company? +</P> + +<P> +But this time he did not ride southward over the hills. He moped +around the ranch buildings, sat moodily by the little stream, casting +pebbles in the water, or rode over the old trails on which she had so +often been his companion. The season was bright with all the glory of +the foothill September; the silver dome of heaven, cloudless morning +and noon, ripened with the dying day into seas of gold on which floated +cloud-islands of purple and amethyst, and through the immeasurable +silence of the night moon and stars bathed the deep valleys in +celestial effulgence. But in the heart of the boy was neither sun, nor +moon, nor stars, but only the black gulfs of loneliness from which his +light had gone out. +</P> + +<P> +Then the old man's horse came home. Dave saw it coming up the trail, +not running wildly, but with nervous gallop and many sidelong turnings +of the head. As the boy watched he found a strange emptiness possess +him; his body seemed a phantom on which his head hung over-heavy. He +spoke to the horse, which pulled up, snorting, before him; noted the +wet neck and flanks, and at last the broken stirrup. Then, slowly and +methodically, and still with that strange sensation of emptiness, he +saddled his own horse and set out on the search.… +</P> + +<P> +After the last rites had been paid to the old rancher Dave set about at +once to wind up his affairs, and it was not until then that he +discovered how deeply his father had been involved. The selling of the +cattle and the various effects realized only enough to discharge the +liabilities, and when this had been done Dave found himself with a +considerable area of unmarketable land, a considerable bundle of paid +bills, and his horse, saddle and revolver. He rode his horse to town, +carrying a few articles of wear with him. It was only after a stiff +fight he could bring himself to part with his one companion. The last +miles into town were ridden very slowly, with the boy frequently +leaning forward and stroking the horse's neck and ears. +</P> + +<P> +"Tough doin's, ol' Slop-eye," he would say. "Tough doin's. But it's +got to be done. I can't keep you in town; 't ain't like out on the old +ranch. An' I got a bigger job now than ever you an' me stood in on, +an' we've stood in on some big ones, too, ain't we? But that's gone +an' done; that old life's all busted, all of a sudden, like a bottle. +Busted an' run out. I got a big job on now, an' you can't take no +part. You jus' got to get out. You're done, see?" He sold horse and +saddle for sixty dollars and took a room at a cheap hotel until he +should find work and still cheaper lodgings. +</P> + +<P> +In the evening he walked through the streets of the little cow-town. +It was not altogether new to him; he had frequently visited it for +business or pleasure, but he had never felt the sense of strangeness +which oppressed him this night. In the past he had always been in the +town as a visitor; his roots were still in the ranch; he could afford +to notice the ways of the town, and smile to himself a whimsical smile +and go on. But now he was throwing in his lot with the town; he was +going to be one of it, and it stretched no arms of welcome to him. It +snubbed him with its indifference.… He became aware that he was +very lonely. He became aware that the gathering twilight in the great +hills had never seemed so vague and empty as the dusk of this strange +town. He realized that he had but one friend in the world; but one, +and of her he knew not so much as her address.… He began to +wonder whether he really had a friend at all; whether the girl would +not discard him when he was of no further use just as he had discarded +his faithful old horse. Tears of loneliness and remorse gathered in +his eyes, and a mist not of the twilight blurred the street lamps now +glimmering from their poles. He felt that he had treated the horse +very shabbily indeed. He wanted old Slop-eye back again. He suddenly +wanted him with a terrific longing; wanted him more than anything else +in the world. For a moment he forgot the girl, and all his +homesickness centred about the beast which had been so long his +companion and servant and friend. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll buy him back in the mornin', I will, sure as hell," he said in a +sudden gust of emotion. "We got to stick together. I didn't play fair +with him, but I'll buy him back. Perhaps I can get a job for him, too, +pullin' a light wagon, or somethin'." +</P> + +<P> +The resolution to "play fair" with Slop-eye gradually restored his +cheerfulness, and he walked slowly back to the hotel, looking in at +many window displays as he went. Half shyly he paused before a window +of women's wear; fine, filmy things, soft and elusive, and, he +supposed, very expensive. He wondered if Reenie bought clothes like +that to wear in her city home. And then he began to look for a brown +sweater, and to move from window to window. And presently he found +himself at his hotel. +</P> + +<P> +The men's sitting room now presented a much more animated picture than +when he had registered earlier in the evening. It was filled with +ranchers, cowboys, and cattlemen of all degree; breeders, buyers, +traders, owners and wage-earners, with a sprinkling of townspeople and +others not directly engaged in some phase of the cattle business. The +room was strong with smoke and language and expectoration and +goodfellowship, to which the maudlin carousal of the line-up at the bar +furnished appropriate accompaniment. Through the smoke he could see +another room farther back, in which were a number of pool tables; loud +voices and loud laughter and occasional awe-inspiring rips of profanity +betokened deep interest in the game, and he allowed himself to drift in +that direction. Soon he was in a group watching a gaudily dressed +individual doing a sort of sleight-of-hand trick with three cards on a +table. +</P> + +<P> +"Smooth guy that," said some one at his side. The remark was evidently +intended for Dave, and he turned toward the speaker. He was a man +somewhat smaller than Dave; two or three years older; well dressed in +town clothes; with a rather puffy face and a gold filled tooth from +which a corner had been broken as though to accommodate the cigarette +which hung there. He blew a slow double stream of smoke from his +nostrils and repeated, "Smooth guy that." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Dave. Then, as it was apparent the stranger was inclined +to be friendly, he continued, "What's the idea?" +</P> + +<P> +The stranger nudged him gently. "Come out of the bunch," he said, in a +low voice. When they had moved a little apart he went on, in a +confidential tone: "He has a little trick with three cards that brings +him in the easy coin. He's smooth as grease, but the thing's simple. +Oh, it's awful simple. It's out of date with the circuses in the +States—that was where I got wise to it—but it seems to get 'em here. +Now you watch him for a minute," and they watched through an opening in +the crowd about his table. The player held three cards; two red ones +and a black. He passed them about rapidly over the table, occasionally +turning his hand sideways so that the on-lookers could see the position +of the cards. Then he suddenly threw them, face down, on the table, +each card by itself. +</P> + +<P> +"The trick is to locate the black card," Dave's companion explained. +"It's easy enough if you just keep your eye on the card, but the +trouble with these rubes is they name the card and then start to get +out their money, and while they're fumbling for it he makes a change so +quick they never see it. There's just one way to beat him. Get up +close, but don't say you're going to play; just pretend you're getting +interested. Then when you're dead sure of a card, crack your fist down +on it. Glue yourself right to it, and get out your money with the +other hand. When he sees you do that he'll try to bluff you; say you +ain't in on it, but you just tell him that don't go, this is an open +game and he's got to come through, and the crowd'll back you up. I +stuck him one—a whole hundred first crack—and then he barred me. +Watch him." +</P> + +<P> +Dave watched. Saw the black card go down at one corner of the board; +saw a bystander fumbling for a five dollar bill; saw the bill laid on +the card; saw it turned up—and it was red. +</P> + +<P> +"That <I>is</I> smooth," he said. "I'd 'a' sworn that was the black card." +</P> + +<P> +"So it was—when you saw it," his companion explained. "But you were +just like the sucker that played him. You couldn't help glancing at +the jay getting out his money, and it was in that instant the trick was +done. He's too quick for the eye, but that's how he does it." +</P> + +<P> +Dave became interested. He saw two or three others lose fives and +tens. Then his companion pinched his arm. "Watch that new guy," he +whispered. "Watch him. He's wise." +</P> + +<P> +A new player had approached. He stood near the table for some minutes, +apparently looking on casually; then his left fist came down on one of +the cards. "A hundred on this one," he said, and began thumbing out a +roll with his other hand. +</P> + +<P> +"You ain't playin'," said the dealer. "You ain't in on this." +</P> + +<P> +"Ain't I? What do you say, fellows?" turning to the crowd. "Am I in +or not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sure you're in," they exclaimed. "Sure you're in," repeated a big +fellow, lounging forward. "If this guy ain't in we clean you out, see?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's on me," said the dealer, with an ugly smile. "Well, if I must +pay, I pay. Turn 'er up." +</P> + +<P> +It was black. The dealer paid out a hundred dollars to the new player, +who quickly disappeared in the crowd. +</P> + +<P> +Dave had made his decision. It was plain his companion's tip was +straight. There was just one way to beat this game, but it was simple +enough when you knew how. He sidled close to the table, making great +pretense of indifference, but watching the cards closely with his keen +black eyes. The dealer showed his hand, made a few quick passes, and +the black card flew out to the right. This was Dave's chance. He +pounced on it with his left hand, while his other plunged into his +pocket. +</P> + +<P> +"Sixty dollars on this one," he cried, and there was the triumphant +note in his voice of the man who knows he has beaten the other at his +own game. +</P> + +<P> +"You ain't playin'," said the dealer. "You ain't in on this." +</P> + +<P> +"That don't go," said Dave, very quietly. "You're playin' a public +game here, an' I choose to play with you, this once. Sixty dollars on +this card." He was fumbling his money on the table. +</P> + +<P> +"You ain't playin'," repeated the dealer. "You're a butt-in. You +ain't in this game at all." +</P> + +<P> +"Sure he's in," said the crowd. +</P> + +<P> +"Sure he's in," repeated the big fellow who had interfered before. +"He's a stranger here, but you play with him or you don't play no more +in this joint, see?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's hittin' me twice in the same spot, an' hittin' me hard," whined +the dealer, "but you got it on me. Turn 'er up." +</P> + +<P> +The card was red. +</P> + +<P> +Dave looked at it stupidly. It was a moment or two before he realized +that his money was gone. Then, regardless of those about, he rushed +through the crowd, flinging by-standers right and left, and plunged +into the night. +</P> + +<P> +He walked down a street until it lost itself on the prairie; then he +followed a prairie trail far into the country. The air was cold and a +few drops of rain were flying in it, but he was unconscious of the +weather. He was in a rage, through and through. More than once his +hand went to his revolver, and he half turned on his heel to retrace +his steps, but his better judgment led him on to fight it out with +himself. Slop-eye was now a dream, a memory, gone—gone. Everything +was gone; only his revolver and a few cents remained. He gripped the +revolver again. With that he was supreme. No man in all that town of +men, schooled in the ways of the West, was more than his equal while +that grip lay in his palm. At the point of that muzzle he could demand +his money back—and get it. +</P> + +<P> +Then he laughed. Hollow and empty it sounded in the night air, but it +was a laugh, and it saved his spirit. "Why, you fool," he chuckled. +"You came to town for to learn somethin', didn't you? Well, you're +learnin'. Sixty dollars a throw. Education comes high, don't it? But +you shouldn't kick. He didn't coax you in, an' gave you every chance +to back away. You butted in and got stung. Perhaps you've learned +somethin' worth sixty dollars." +</P> + +<P> +With these more philosophical thoughts he turned townward again, and as +he tramped along his light heartedness re-asserted itself. His sense +of fairness made him feel that he had no grievance against the card +sharper, and in his innocence of the ways of the game it never occurred +to him that the friendly stranger who had showed him how to play it, +and the big fellow who insisted on his being "in", and the other player +who had won a hundred dollars a few minutes before, were all partners +with the sharper and probably at this moment were dividing his sixty +dollars—the price of old Slop-eye—between them. +</P> + +<P> +Early next morning he was awake and astir. The recollection of his +loss sent a sudden pang through his morning spirits, but he tried to +close his mind to it. "No use worryin' over that," he said, jingling +the few coins that now represented his wealth. "That's over and gone. +I traded sixty dollars for my first lesson. Maybe it was a bad trade, +but anyway, I ain't goin' to squeal." He turned that thought over in +his mind. It suddenly occurred to him that it expressed a principle +which he might very well weave into his new life. "If I can jus' get +that idea, an' live up to it," he said, "never to squeal, no matter +what hits me, nor how, I guess it's worth sixty dollars." He whistled +as he finished dressing, ate his breakfast cheerfully, and set out in +search of employment. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER FIVE +</H3> + + +<P> +Almost the first person he met was the stranger who had schooled him in +the gambling game the night before. He greeted Dave cordially; his +voice had a soft, sedulous, almost feminine quality which Dave had not +noticed in their whispered conversation in the pool room. There was +something attractive about his personality; something which invited +friendship and even confidence, and yet beneath these emotions Dave +felt a sense of distrust, as though part of his nature rebelled against +the acquaintanceship. +</P> + +<P> +"That was the rottenest luck you had last night," the stranger was +saying. "I never saw the beat of it. I knew you were wrong the moment +you had your hand down, but I couldn't butt in then. I was hoping +you'd stay and raise him next time; you might have got your money back +that way." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don't mind the money," said Dave, cheerfully. "I don't want it +back. In fact, I figure it was pretty well spent." +</P> + +<P> +"Lots more where it came from, eh?" laughed the other. "You're from +the ranches, I see, and I suppose the price of a steer or two doesn't +worry you a hair's worth." +</P> + +<P> +"<I>From</I> is right," Dave replied. "I'm from them, an' I'm not goin' +back. As for money—well, I spent my last nickle for breakfast, so +I've got to line up a job before noon." +</P> + +<P> +The stranger extended his hand. "Shake," he said. "I like you. +You're no squealer, anyway. My name is Conward. Yours?" +</P> + +<P> +Dave told his name, and shook hands. Conward offered his cigarette +box, and the two smoked for a few moments in silence. +</P> + +<P> +"What kind of a job do you want?" Conward asked at length. +</P> + +<P> +"Any kind that pays a wage," said Dave. "If I don't like it I'll chuck +it as soon as I can afford t' be partic'lar, but just now I've got to +get a grub-stake." +</P> + +<P> +"I know the fellow that runs an employment agency down here," Conward +answered. "Let's go down. Perhaps I can put you in right." +</P> + +<P> +Conward spoke to the manager of the employment agency and introduced +Dave. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing very choice on tap to-day," said the employment man. "You can +handle horses, I suppose?" +</P> + +<P> +"I guess I can," said Dave. "Some." +</P> + +<P> +"I can place you delivering coal. Thirty dollars a month, and you +board with the boss." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll take it," said Dave. +</P> + +<P> +The boss proved to be one Thomas Metford. He owned half a dozen teams +and was engaged in the cartage business, specializing on coal. He was +a man of big frame, big head, and a vocabulary appropriate to the +purposes to which he applied it. Among his other possessions were a +wife, numerous children, and a house and barn, in which he boarded his +beasts of burden, including in the term his horses, his men, and his +wife, in the order of their valuation. The children were a by-product, +valueless until such time as they also would be able to work. +</P> + +<P> +Dave's duties were simple enough. He had to drive a wagon to a coal +yard, where a very superior young man, with a collar, would express +surprise that he had been so long gone, and tell him to back in under +chute number so-and-so. It appeared to be always a matter of great +distress to this young man that Dave did not know which chute to back +under until he was told. Having backed into position, a door was +opened. There was a fiction that the coal in the bin should then run +into the wagon box, but, as Dave at once discovered, this was merely a +fiction. Aside from a few accommodating lumps near the door the coal +had to be shovelled. When the box was judged to be full the wagon was +driven on to the scales. If the load were too heavy some of it had to +be thrown off, while the young man with the collar passed remarks +appropriate to the occasion. If the load were too light less distress +was experienced. Then Dave had to drive to an address that was given +him, shovel the coal down a chute located in the most inaccessible +position the premises afforded, and return to the coal yard, where the +young man with the collar would facetiously inquire whether Mrs. Blank +had invited him in to afternoon tea, or if he had been waiting for a +change in the weather. +</P> + +<P> +Conditions in the boarding-house had the value of distracting Dave's +attention from the unpleasantness of his work. Mrs. Metford, +handicapped by her numerous offspring, embittered by the regular +recurrence of her contributions to the State, and disheartened by +drudgery and overwork, had long ago ceased to place any store on +personal appearance or even cleanliness. As Dave watched her slovenly +shuffle to and from the kitchen, preceded and pursued by young Metfords +in all degrees of childish innocence, his mind flew back to dim +recollections of his own mother, and the quiet, noiseless order of +their home. Even in the latter days, when he and his father had been +anything but model housekeepers, they had never known such squalor as +this. +</P> + +<P> +Metford's attitude toward his wife fluctuated from course humour to +brutality, but there was left in the woman no spark of spirit to +resist. With neither tongue nor eye did she make any response, and her +shufflings back and forth were neither hastened nor delayed by the +pleasure of her lord. Her bearing was that of one who has suffered +until the senses are numb, who has drunk the last dregs of bitterness, +for whom no possible change of condition can be worse. Her +indifference was tragic. +</P> + +<P> +The sleeping accommodations had the virtue of simplicity. The Metford +tribe was housed in a lean-to which supported one wall of the kitchen, +and the eight boarders slept upstairs over the main part of the house. +The room was not large, but it had four corners, and in each corner +stood a cheap iron bed with baggy springs and musty mattress. The +ceiling, none too high at any part, sloped at the walls almost to the +edges of the beds. One table and wash basin had to serve for the eight +lodgers; those who were impatient for their turn might omit their +ablutions altogether or perform them in the horse-trough at the barn. +</P> + +<P> +All Metford's employees, with the exception of Dave, were foreigners, +more or less inconversant with the English language. Somewhat to his +surprise, they maintained an attitude of superiority toward him, +carrying on their conversations in a strange tongue, and allowing him +little part in their common life. Dave's spirit, which had always been +accustomed to receive and be received on a basis of absolute equality, +rebelled violently against the intangible wall of exclusion which his +fellow workers built about themselves, and as they had shown no desire +for his company, he retaliated by showing still less for theirs, with +the result that he found himself very much alone and apart from the +life of his new surroundings. +</P> + +<P> +His work and supper were over by seven o'clock each evening, and now +was the opportunity for him to begin the schooling for which he had +left the ranch. But he developed a sudden disinclination to make the +start; he was tired in the evening, and he found it much more to his +liking to stroll down town, smoke cigarettes on the street corners, or +engage in an occasional game of pool. In this way the weeks went by, +and when his month with Metford was up he had neglected to find another +position, so he continued where he was. He was being gradually and +unconsciously submerged in an inertia which, however much it might hate +its present surroundings, had not the spirit to seek a more favourable +environment. +</P> + +<P> +So the fall and winter drifted along; Dave had made few acquaintances +and no friends, if we except Conward, whom he frequently met in the +pool rooms, and for whom he had developed a sort of attachment. His +first underlying sense of distrust had been lulled by closer +acquaintanceship; Conward's mild manner and quiet, seductive voice +invited friendship, and it became a customary thing for the two to play +for small stakes, which Dave won as often as he lost. +</P> + +<P> +One Saturday evening as Dave was on the way to their accustomed resort +he fell in with Conward on the street. "Hello, old man," said Conward, +cheerily, "I was just looking for you. Got two tickets for the show +to-night. Some swell dames in the chorus. Come along. There'll be +doings." +</P> + +<P> +There were two theatres in the town, one of which played to the better +class residents. In it anything of a risque nature had to be presented +with certain trimmings which allowed it to be classified as "art," but +in the other house no such restrictions existed. It was to the latter +that Conward led. Dave had been there before, in the cheap upper +gallery, but Conward's tickets admitted to the best seats in the house. +Dave had adopted town ways to the point where he changed his clothes +and put on a white collar Saturday evenings, and he found himself amid +the gay rustle and perfumes of the orchestra floor with a very pleasant +sense of being somebody among other somebodies. The orchestra played a +swinging air, to which his foot kept tap, and presently the curtain +went up and the show was on with a rush of girls and colour. +</P> + +<P> +It was an entirely new experience. From the upper gallery the actors +and actresses always seemed more or less impersonal and abstract, but +here they were living, palpitating human beings, almost within hand +reach, certainly within eye reach, as Dave presently discovered. There +was a trooping of girls about the stage, with singing and rippling +laughter and sweet, clear voices; then a sudden change of formation +flung a line of girls right across behind the footlights, where they +tripped merrily through motions of mingled grace and acrobatics. Dave +found himself regarding the young woman immediately before him; all in +white she was, with some scintillating material that sparkled in the +glare of the spot-light; then suddenly she was in orange, and pink, and +purple, and mauve, and back again in white. And although she performed +the various steps with smiling abandon, there was in her dress and +manner a modesty which fascinated the boy with a subtlety which a more +reckless appearance would have at once defeated. +</P> + +<P> +And then Dave looked in her face. It was a pretty face, +notwithstanding its grease-paint, and it smiled right into his eyes. +His heart thumped between his shoulders as though it would drive all +the air from his lungs. She smiled at him—for him! Now they were +away again; there were gyrations about the stage, he almost lost her in +the maze; a young man in fine clothes rushed in, and was apparently +being mobbed by the girls, and said some lines in a rapid voice which +Dave's ear had not been trained to catch; and then he danced about with +one of them—with the very one—with his one! My, how nimble she was! +He wondered if she knew the young man very well. They seemed very +friendly. But he supposed she had to do that anyway; it was part of +her job; it was all in the play. Certainly the young man was very +clever, but he didn't like his looks. Certainly he could dance very +well. "I could make him dance different to the tune of a six-shooter," +Dave said to himself, and then flushed a little. That was silly. The +young man was paid to do this, too. Still it looked like a very good +job. It looked like a very much better job than shovelling coal for +Metford. +</P> + +<P> +Then there was a sudden break-away in the dance, and the girl +disappeared behind a forest, and the mobbing of the young man +recommenced. Dave supposed she had gone to rest; dancing like that +must be hard on the wind. He found little to interest him now in what +was going on on the stage. It seemed rather foolish. They were just +capering around and being foolish. They were a lot of second-raters. +And the young man—it was plain he didn't care a whit for them; he was +just doing it because he had to. There was a vacant seat in front. He +wished the girl behind the forest would come down and rest there. Then +she could see the show herself. Then she could see— +</P> + +<P> +But there was a whirr from the forest, and the girl re-appeared, this +time all in red, but not nearly so much in red as she had previously +been in white. My, what a quick change she had made! And how her +skirt stood out like a rim when she whirled herself! And the young man +left all the rest and went to dance with her again. Dave was not +altogether pleased with that turn of events. But presently the dance +broke up, and they were flung again in line across the stage. And +there she was, all in red—no, not all in red, but certainly not in any +other colour—right before him. And then she looked down and smiled +again at him. And he smiled back. And then he looked at Conward and +saw him smiling, too. And then he felt a very distressing uncertainty, +which brought the colour slowly to his face. He resolved to say +nothing, but watch. And his observations convinced him that the smiles +had been for Conward, not for him. And then he lost interest in the +play. +</P> + +<P> +They hustled into their overcoats to the playing of the National +Anthem. "Hurry," said Conward, "let's get out quick. Ain't she some +dame? There—through the side exit—the stage door is that way. She +promised to have her chum with her—they'll be waiting if we don't +hurry." +</P> + +<P> +Conward steered him to the stage entrance, where a little group was +already congregated. In a moment the girl appeared, handsomely dressed +in furs. Dave would not have known her, but Conward recognized her at +once, and stepped forward. With her was another girl, also from the +chorus, but Dave could not recall her part. He was suddenly aware of +being introduced. +</P> + +<P> +"This is my friend Belton," Conward was saying. Dave was about to +correct him when Conward managed to whisper, "Whist! Your stage name. +Mine's Elward. Don't forget." +</P> + +<P> +Conward took the first girl by the arm, and Dave found himself +following rapidly with the other. They cut through certain side +streets, up a stairway, and into a dark hall. Conward was rattling +keys and swearing amiably in his soft voice. Presently a door opened; +Conward pressed a button, and they found themselves in a small but +comfortably furnished room—evidently bachelor apartments. +</P> + +<P> +The girls threw off their wraps and sauntered about the place, +commenting freely on the furnishings and decorations, while Conward +started a gas grate and put some water to boil. +</P> + +<P> +"Sorry I've nothing for you to eat," he said, "but I've some good +medicine for the thirst." +</P> + +<P> +"Eating's poor business when there's a thirst to be quenched," said one +of the girls, with a yawn. "And believe me, I've a long one." +</P> + +<P> +Conward pulled a table into the centre of the room, set chairs about, +and produced glasses and a bottle. Dave experienced a sudden feeling +as of a poor swimmer beyond his depth. He had never drunk, not even +beer, not so much from principles of abstinence as from disgust over +his father's drunkenness and enmity towards the means of it.… +</P> + +<P> +The glasses were filled and raised. "Ho!" said Conward. +</P> + +<P> +"Here's looking!" said one of the girls. Dave still hesitated, but the +other girl clinked her glass against his. "Here's looking at you," she +said, and she appeared to lay special emphasis on the last two words. +Certainly her eyes were on Dave's as she raised her glass to her lips. +And under the spell of those eyes he raised his glass and drained it. +</P> + +<P> +Other glasses were filled and drained. The three were chattering away, +but Dave was but vaguely conscious of their talk, and could weave no +connected meaning into it. His head was buzzing with a pleasant dreamy +sensation. A very grateful warmth surrounded him, and with it came a +disposition to go to sleep. He probably would have gone to sleep had +his eye not fallen on a picture on the wall, It was a picture of a girl +pointing her finger at him. He suspected that she was pointing it at +him, and as he looked more closely he became very sure of it… No +girl could point her finger at him. He arose and made a lunge across +the room. He missed her, and with difficulty retraced his steps to the +table to make a fresh start. +</P> + +<P> +"She's makin' fun of me," he said, "an' I don't stand for that. Nobody +can do that with me. Nobody—see? I don't 'low it." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you don't," laughed one of the girls, running into a corner and +pointing a finger at him. "You don't?" +</P> + +<P> +He turned his attention to her, steadying himself very carefully before +he attempted an advance. Then, with wide-stretched arms, he bore down +cautiously upon her. When he had her almost within reach she darted +along the edge of the room. He attempted a sudden change in direction, +which ended disastrously, and he found himself very much sprawled out +upon the floor. He was aware of laughter, but what cared he? He was +disposed to sleep. What better place to sleep than this? What better +time to sleep than this? In a moment he was lost to all +consciousness.… +</P> + +<P> +It was later in the night when he felt himself being dragged into a +sitting posture. He remonstrated in a mumbling voice. "'S too early," +he said. "Altogether too early. Early. Whew! Watch 'er spin. Jus' +his job. Paid for it, ain't he?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I ain't paid for this," said Conward, rather roughly, "and you +got to pull yourself together. Here, take a little of this; it'll put +some gimp into you." He pressed a glass to his lips, and Dave +swallowed. +</P> + +<P> +"Where am I?" he said, blinking at the light. +</P> + +<P> +He rose uncertainly to his feet and stared about the room in returning +consciousness. +</P> + +<P> +"Where's the girls?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Gone," said Conward, sulkily. "Couldn't expect 'em to stick around +all night to say good bye, could you, and you sleeping off your drunk?" +</P> + +<P> +Dave raised his hand to his head. A sense of disgrace was already upon +him. Then he suddenly turned in anger on Conward. +</P> + +<P> +"You put this up on me," he cried. "You made a fool of me. I've a +mind to bash your skull in for you." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't be silly," Conward retorted. "I didn't enjoy it any more than +you did—introducing you as my friend, and then have you go out like +that. Why didn't you tip me? I didn't know it would put you to sleep." +</P> + +<P> +"Neither did I," said Dave. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, the next thing is to get you home. Can you walk?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sure." Dave started for the door, but his course suddenly veered, and +he found himself leaning over a chair. Conward helped him into his +overcoat, and half led, half shoved him to his boarding house. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER SIX +</H3> + + +<P> +Elden awoke Sunday morning with a feeling that his head had been +boiled. Also he had a prodigious thirst, which he slacked +[Transcriber's note: slaked?] at the water pitcher. It was the +practice of Metford's gang to select one of their number to care for +all the horses on Sundays, while the others enjoyed the luxury of their +one day of leisure. In consequence of this custom the room was still +full of snoring sleepers, and the air was very close and foul. +</P> + +<P> +Dave sat down by the little table that fronted the open window and +rested his head on his hands. It was early spring; the snow was gone; +dazzling sunshine bathed the prairies in the distance, and near at hand +were the twitter of birds and the ripple of water. It was a day to be +alive and about. +</P> + +<P> +But the young man's thoughts were not of the sunshine, nor the fields, +nor the water. He was recalling, with considerable effort, the events +of the previous night; piecing them together in impossible ways; +re-assorting them until they offered some sequence. The anger he had +felt toward Conward had subsided, but the sting of shame rankled in his +heart. He had no doubt that he had furnished the occasion for much +merriment upon the part of the young women, in which, quite probably, +Conward had joined. +</P> + +<P> +"Fool," he said to himself. And because he could think of no more +specific expression to suit his feelings, and because expression of any +kind brought a sort of relief, he kept on repeating the word, "Fool, +fool, fool!" And as his self-condemnation gradually won him back to a +sense of perspective he became aware of the danger of his position. He +went over the events of the recent months, and tried to be rational. +He had left his ranch home to better himself, to learn things, to rise +to be somebody. He had worked harder than ever before, at more +disagreeable employment; he had lived in conditions that were almost +nauseating, and what had he learned? That you can't beat a card man at +his own game, price sixty dollars, and that the gallery seats are +cheaper, and sometimes safer, than the orchestra. +</P> + +<P> +Then all of a sudden he thought of Reenie. He had not thought of her +much of late; he had been so busy in the days, and so tired at nights, +that he had not thought of her much. True, she was always in the back +of his mind; in his subconscious mind, perhaps, but he seemed to have +put her away, like his skill with revolver and lasso. Now she burst +upon him again with all that beauty and charm which had so magnetised +him in those glad, golden days, and the frank cleanness of her girlhood +made him disgusted and ashamed. It was to fit himself for her that he +had come to town, and what sort of mess was he making of it? He was +going down instead of up. He had squandered his little money, and now +he was squandering his life. He had been drunk… +</P> + +<P> +Dave's nature was one in which emotions were accelerated with their own +intensity. When he was miserable his misery left no place in his soul +for any ray of sunshine. It fed on itself, and grew to amazing +proportions. It spread out from its original cause and enveloped his +whole life. It tinctured all his relationships, past, present and +future. When a cloud of gloom settled upon him he felt that it would +never lift, but became heavier and heavier until he was crushed under +its weight. And the sudden manner in which Reenie had now invaded his +consciousness intensified the blackness in which he was submerged, as +lightning darkens the storm. He saw her on that last night, with the +moonlight wooing her white face, until his own body had eclipsed it in +a warmer passion, and he heard her words, "I know you are true and +clean." +</P> + +<P> +True and clean. "Yes, thank God, I am still that!" he cried, springing +suddenly to his feet and commencing to dress. "I've been spattered, +but nothing that won't wash off. Perhaps," and he stopped as the great +thought struck him, "perhaps it was the luckiest thing in the world +that the booze did put me out last night… It'll wash off." +</P> + +<P> +There was considerable comfort in this thought. He had wasted some +precious months, but he had not gone too far, and there was still time +to turn back. But he must begin work at once on the serious business +of life. With this resolve his spirits returned with a rush, and he +found himself whistling as he completed his toilet. There was no +breakfast for the late sleepers Sunday mornings, and he went at once +into the warm air outside. The sunshine fondled his body, his limbs, +his face; the spring ozone was in his lungs; it was good to be alive. +Alive—for a purpose. Well, he would start at once; how could he begin +a life of purpose to-day? He was quite set on the necessity of doing +something, but quite at sea as to what that something should be. It +occurred to him for the first time that society had been much more +generous in supplying facilities for a boy to go down hill than to go +up. +</P> + +<P> +He became aware of a bell ringing. At first the sound had fallen only +on his subconsciousness, but gradually he became aware of it, as one +being slowly recalled from sleep. Then he remembered that it was +Sunday, and that was a church bell. He had often heard them on +Sundays. He was about to dismiss the matter when a strange impulse +came into his mind. Why not go to church? He had never been in +church, and he felt that the surroundings of the pool hall would be +much more congenial. He had little stomach for church. What if the +rest of the gang should learn he had been at church? +</P> + +<P> +"I believe you're afraid to go," he said to himself. That settled it. +In a few minutes he was at the church door, where an oldish man, after +surveying him somewhat dubiously, gave him a formal handshake and +passed him into the hands of an usher. The usher led him down an aisle +and crowded him into a small pew with several others. There were many +unoccupied pews, so Dave concluded it must be a church policy to fill +them full as far as they went. He also observed that the building was +filling up from the rear, notwithstanding the efforts of the ushers to +cajole the people farther down the aisles. Dave reflected that the +custom here was quite different from the theatre, especially the "rush" +gallery, where every one scrambled for the front seats. +</P> + +<P> +He was very conscious of being observed, and there was an atmosphere of +formality and, as it seemed to him, of strained goodness that made him +uncomfortable. But presently the organ commenced and diverted his +interest from himself. It was very wonderful. His position commanded +a view of the organist, and Dave marvelled at the manner in which that +gentleman's feet hopped about, and how his hands flourished up and +down, and occasionally jumped from the keyboard altogether to jerk out +a piece of the machine. +</P> + +<P> +Then the choir filed in. They were all dressed alike, and the men had +on a kind of gown. Dave thought that was very silly. By some mental +freak he found himself picturing a man with a gown roping a steer, and +it was only by a sudden tightening of his jaws that he prevented an +explosion of amusement. He was still feeling very happy over this when +a tall man entered from a side door and ascended the steps to the +pulpit. He moved very solemnly, and, when he sat down, rested his head +on his hand for a minute. Then he looked over the audience, and Dave +thought that his expression was one of approval. Then he looked at the +ceiling. +</P> + +<P> +"He feels safe in his seat," thought Dave. "No buckin' in this bunch. +Well—" +</P> + +<P> +The organ had broken forth in a great burst of sound and every one was +standing up. Dave did so too, belatedly. Then everybody sang. They +seemed to know just what to sing. It was all new to Dave, but it +sounded all right. It made him feel just like the sunshine did after +the stuffy room. Then they all sat down. Dave was becoming more +alert, and was not caught napping in this movement. +</P> + +<P> +There was a short prayer, which Dave did not understand, and more +singing by everybody, and then the ushers came around for the +collection. Dave did not know how much to put on the plate, but he +supposed a good seat like this in the theatre would cost a dollar, so +he put on that amount. He noticed that his neighbour on one side put +on a nickel, and on the other side nothing at all. He began to think +he must have made a mistake. All this time the organ was playing +boisterously, but suddenly it dropped to a low, meditative theme, and +Dave began to fear it would stop altogether. But no; a young woman was +standing up in the choir; she was pretty, with quite a different air +and a finer comeliness than that of the theatre girls of the night +before. In some vague way she seemed reminiscent of Reenie Hardy. +Dave's introspection was not deep enough to know that any fine girl +would remind him of Reenie Hardy. +</P> + +<P> +Then she began to sing, and he felt again that the sunshine was playing +about him, but this time he heard the birds, too, and the ripple of the +distant water, and the stir of the spruce trees, and he could see the +lattice of sunlight through their dark leaves playing on the brown +grass, and there was a smell of distant wood smoke, and the glow of +dying coals… He was swaying gently in his seat, held in the thrall +of her voice, and suddenly he was glad he had put a dollar on the +plate. He could not follow all the words, but it was something about a +land where the sun would never go down. Well—no doubt the preacher +would tell them more about it. +</P> + +<P> +Then there was a long prayer by the preacher. He began by addressing +the Deity as all mighty and all knowing, and then spent many minutes in +drawing His attention to details which had evidently escaped His +notice, and in offering suggestions for the better government of the +universe. He dwelt on the humility and penitence of the congregation, +including himself, and at this point Dave's unorthodox ear began to +detect a false note. He looked about from preacher to congregation, +and saw no evidence of penitence or humility. "If God is all-knowin'," +said Dave to himself, "that preacher is goin' to get in wrong. Why, he +couldn't put over that humility bunk on me." +</P> + +<P> +At length it seemed that the sermon was really going to commence, but a +well dressed man came down the aisle and read a long financial +statement. Dave gathered from it that the Lord was pretty hard pressed +for ready cash. "No wonder," thought he, "if they all give nickels and +nothin's. Pretty well dressed bunch, too." +</P> + +<P> +Finally the preacher took the meeting in hand again, and announced his +text, but Dave soon forgot it in trying to follow the sermon. It was +an orthodox exposition of the doctrine of the atonement. Dave would +not have known it by that name, and there were many expressions which +he could not understand, but out of a maze of phrases he found himself +being slowly shocked into an attitude of uncompromising hostility. +There was no doubt about it; the preacher was declaring that an +innocent One had been murdered that the guilty might go free. This was +bad enough, but when the speaker went on to say that this was God's +plan; that there had to be a sacrifice, and that no other sacrifice was +sufficient to appease the wrath of Jehovah directed toward those whom +He had created, Dave found himself boiling with indignation. If this +was Christianity he would have none of it. His instruction in religion +had been of the most meagre nature, but he had imbibed some conception +of a Father who was love, and this doctrine of the sacrifice of the +innocent crashed through all his slender framework of belief. Had he +been told of a love which remained steadfast to its ideals even at the +cost of Calvary his manliness would have responded as to the touch of a +kindred spirit, but the attempt to fit that willing sacrifice into a +dogmatic creed left him adrift and rudderless. Suddenly from somewhere +in his memory came the words, "Then what becomes of the justice of +God?" It was Reenie Hardy who had asked that question. And he +recalled his answer, "I don't know nothin' about the justice of God. +All I know is the crittur 'at can't run gets caught." Was he then in +sympathy with this doctrine of cruelty, without knowing it? No. No! +Reenie Hardy had believed in justice, and he would believe in the same. +He rose from his seat and walked down the aisle and out of the +building, oblivious to the eyes that followed him. +</P> + +<P> +His feet led him to the river, running brown with the mud of spring. +He sat on the gravel, in the warm sunshine, and tossed pebbles into the +swift-flowing water… He had determined on a new road, but how was +he to find the road? Environment had never been kind to him, and he +was just beginning to realize its power in shaping his destinies. He +was dissatisfied, but he did not know where to find satisfaction; he +was bewildered, and nowhere was a clear path before him. He was +lonely. He knew a room where a little game would be in progress; he +arose, brushed the gravel-dust from his Sunday clothes, and wended his +way down town. +</P> + +<P> +A crowd was entering the theatre which he had attended the night +before. He looked at it wonderingly, as by statute the theatres were +closed on Sundays. Still, it was evident something was going on, and +he went in with the others. No tickets were required, and an usher +showed him to a good seat. +</P> + +<P> +It was not long before Dave realized that he was in a Socialist +meeting. He knew rather less of Socialism than he did of Christianity, +but the atmosphere of the place appealed to him. They were mostly men +in working clothes, with tobacco or beer on their breaths, and in their +loud whisperings he caught familiar profanities which made him feel at +home. When the speaker said something to their liking, they applauded +him; when he crossed them they denounced him openly. Interruptions +were frequent, and sometimes violent, but Dave admired the spirit of +fair play which gave every man a chance to speak his mind. Through it +all he gathered that there were two great forces in the world; Capital +and Labour, and that Capital was a selfish monster with a strangle-hold +on Labour and choking him to death. No, not quite to death, either, +for Capital needed Labour, and therefore only choked him until he was +half dead. Also, there were two classes of people in the world; the +Masters and the Slaves. Dave was a Slave. He had never known it +before, but the speaker made it quite apparent. +</P> + +<P> +"But I'm not a slave," said Dave, suddenly springing to his feet. "I +can quit my job to-morrow, and tell my boss to go to hell." +</P> + +<P> +There were boos and cat-calls, but at last the man on the platform made +himself heard. +</P> + +<P> +"And what will you do, my friend, after you have quit your job?" he +asked, quite courteously. +</P> + +<P> +"Get another one," said Dave, without scenting the trap. "There's lots +of jobs." +</P> + +<P> +"That is, you would get another master," said the Socialist. "You +would still have a master. And as long as you have a master, you are a +slave." And Dave sat down, confused and wondering. +</P> + +<P> +After the main address there was a sort of free-for-all. Half a dozen +sprang to their feet, each seeking to out-talk his neighbour, and it +was with difficulty the chairman obtained order and established a +sequence of events. An old man in the gallery read loudly from Victor +Hugo while a speaker in the orchestra declaimed on Single Tax. Finally +the old man was silenced, and Dave began to learn that all the economic +diseases to which society is heir might be healed by a potion +compounded by Henry George. Another in the audience started to speak +of the failure of the established system of marriage, embellishing his +argument with more than one local incident of a salacious nature, but +he was at last required to give place to a woman who had a more +personal grievance to present. +</P> + +<P> +"You talk about your masters and your slaves, and your taxes and your +marriages," she cried in a shrill voice that penetrated every corner of +the building. "I can tell you something about masters and slaves. I'm +hearing everywhere that what this country wants is population; that is +the talk of the politician, and the learned men, that are supposed to +know. Now, what is the country doing for those that bring the +population—not from the slums of Europe, that is not what I'm +asking—but for those that bring the native-born population—the only +population that doesn't have to be naturalized? I'm the mother of six, +and what has the country done for me, but leave me at the mercy of +those who charge more for an hour's attendance than my old man can save +from a month's drudgery? And then, with my health broken down—in the +service of the State—I have to go to the hospital, and they tell me I +must have an operation, and I wake up with a horrid pain and a bill for +a hundred and fifty dollars. All done in an hour, or less, and that's +the bill, or part of it, for the hospital dues and the extras and +etceteras are still to come. Masters and slaves! More than I can save +in a year, or two years, and no one to say whether the work was needed +or not, or whether it was well done or not. When my kitchen pipes are +plugged a plumber fixes them and charges me a dollar, and if he doesn't +do it right he has to do it over again, but when the human pipes go +wrong the man-plumber charges a hundred and fifty dollars, and if he +doesn't do it right he collects just the same, and the undertaker adds +another hundred. Now I don't know whether this comes under the head of +Capital or Labour or Single Tax, but I do know it is outrageous +extortion—extortion of blood money, imposed by the wealthy and +prosperous on the poor and the sick and the unfortunate, and while the +State clamours for population it does not raise a finger to protect +those who are bringing the native-born." +</P> + +<P> +During this philippic Dave had turned toward the woman; her thin face +still wore marks of refinement and even his uncultured ear recognized a +use of English that indicated a fair degree of education. But she was +broken; crushed with the joint cares of motherhood and poverty, and +desperate at the injustices of a system that capitalized her +sacrifices. He had heard much talk of slaves, but here, he felt, he +saw one, not in the healthy, well fed men with their deep mutterings +against employers, but in this haggard woman from whose life the lamp +of joy had gone out in the bitterness of suffering and physical +exhaustion. +</P> + +<P> +He spent the rest of the day alone, thinking. He was not yet sure of +any road, but he knew that his mind had been made to think, and that +his life was bigger that night than it had been in the morning. He +might not find the right road at once, but he could at least leave the +old one. He felt a strange hunger to understand all that had been +said. He felt, also, a tremendous sense of his own ignorance; +tremendous, but not crushing; a realization that the world was full of +things to be learned; problems to be faced; conclusions to be studied +out, and underneath was a sense almost of exaltation that he should +take some part in the studies and perhaps aid in the solutions. It was +his first glimpse into the world of reason, and it charmed and invited +him. He would follow. +</P> + +<P> +He went early to bed, thinking over all he had heard. His mind was +full, but it was happy, and, in some strange way, fixed. Even the +morning service came back with a sense of worthwhileness as he recalled +it in the semi-consciousness of approaching sleep… The music had +been good. It had made him think of spring and the deep woods … +and water … and wood smoke… +</P> + +<P> +It was about a far away land … and Reenie Hardy. She was very like +Reenie Hardy… +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER SEVEN +</H3> + + +<P> +Fortunate Fate, or whatever good angel it is that sometimes drops +unexpected favours, designed that young Elden should the following day +deliver coal at the home of Mr. Melvin Duncan. Mr. Duncan, tall, +quiet, and forty-five, was at work in his garden as Dave turned the +team in the lane and backed them up the long, narrow drive connecting +with the family coal-chute. As the heavy wagon moved straight to its +objective Mr. Duncan looked on with approval that heightened into +admiration. Dave shovelled his load without remark, but as he stood +for a moment at the finish wiping the sweat from his coal-grimed face +Mr. Duncan engaged him in conversation. +</P> + +<P> +"You handle a team like you were born to it," he said. "Where did you +get the knack?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I came up on a ranch," said Dave. "I've lived with horses ever +since I could remember." +</P> + +<P> +"You're a rancher, eh?" queried the older man. "Well, there's nothing +like the range and the open country. If I could handle horses like you +there isn't anything would hold me in town. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don' know," Dave answered. "You get mighty sick of it." +</P> + +<P> +"Did you get sick of it?" +</P> + +<P> +Elden shot a keen glance at him. The conversation was becoming +personal. Yet there was in Mr. Duncan's manner a certain kindliness, a +certain appeal of sincere personality, that disarmed suspicion. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I got sick of it," he said. "I lived on that ranch eighteen +years, and never was inside school or church. Wouldn't that make you +sick?… So I beat it for town." +</P> + +<P> +"And I suppose you are attending church regularly now, and night +school, too?" +</P> + +<P> +Dave's quick temper fired up in resentment, but again the kindliness of +the man's manner disarmed him. He was silent for a moment, and then he +said, "No, I ain't. That's what makes me sick now. I came in here +intendin' to get an education, an' I've never even got a start at it, +excep' for some things perhaps wasn't worth the money. There always +seems to be somethin' else—in ahead." +</P> + +<P> +"There always will be," said Mr. Duncan, "until you start." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose so," said Dave, wearily, and took up the reins. +</P> + +<P> +But Mr. Duncan persisted. "You're not in such a hurry with that team," +he said. "Even if you are late—even if you should lose your job over +it—that's nothing to settling this matter of getting started with an +education." +</P> + +<P> +"But how's it to be done?" Dave questioned, with returning interest. +"Schools an' books cost money, an' I never save a dollar." +</P> + +<P> +"And never will," said Mr. Duncan, "until you start. But I think I see +a plan that might help, and if it appeals to you it will also be a +great convenience to me. My wife likes to go driving Sundays, and +sometimes on weekday evenings, but I have so many things on hand I find +it hard to get out with her. My daughter used to drive, but these +new-fangled automobiles are turning the world upside down—and many a +buggy with it. They're just numerous enough to be dangerous. If there +were more or less they would be all right, but just now every horse is +suspicious of them. Well—as I saw you driving in here I said to +myself, 'There's the man for that job of mine, if I can get him,' but +I'm not rich, and I couldn't pay you regular wages. But if I could +square the account by helping with your studies a couple of nights a +week—I used to teach school, and haven't altogether forgotten—why, +that would be just what I want. What do you say?" +</P> + +<P> +"I never saw anything on four feet I couldn't drive," said Dave, "an' +if you're willing to take a chance, I am. When do we start?" +</P> + +<P> +"First lesson to-night. Second lesson Thursday night. First drive +Sunday." Mr. Duncan did not explain that he wanted to know the boy +better before the drives were commenced, and he felt that two nights +together would satisfy him whether he had found the right man. +</P> + +<P> +Dave hurried back to the coal-yard and completed the day's work in high +spirits. It seemed he was at last started on a road that might lead +somewhere. After supper he surprised his fellow labourers by changing +to his Sunday clothes and starting down a street leading into the +residential part of the town. There were speculations that he had +"seen a skirt." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Duncan met him at the door and showed him into the living-room. +Mrs. Duncan, plump, motherly, lovable in the mature womanliness of +forty, greeted him cordially. She was sorry Edith was out; Edith had a +tennis engagement. She was apparently deeply interested in the young +man who was to be her coachman. Dave had never been in a home like +this, and his eyes, unaccustomed to comfortable furnishings, appraised +them as luxury. There were a piano and a phonograph; leather chairs; a +fireplace with polished bricks that shone with the glow of burning +coal; thick carpets, springy to the foot; painted pictures looking down +out of gilt frames. And Mr. Duncan had said he was not rich! And +there was more than that; there was an air, a spirit, an atmosphere +that Dave could feel although he could not define it; a sense that +everything was all right. He soon found himself talking with Mrs. +Duncan about horses, and then about his old life on the ranch, and then +about coming to town. Almost, before he knew it, he had told her about +Reenie Hardy, but he had checked himself in time. And Mrs. Duncan had +noticed it, without comment, and realized that her guest was not a boy, +but a man. +</P> + +<P> +Then Mr. Duncan talked about gardening, and from that to Dave's skill +in backing his team to the coal-chute, and from that to coal itself. +Dave had shovelled coal all winter, but he had not thought about coal, +except as something to be shovelled and shovelled. And as Mr. Duncan +explained to him the wonderful provisions of nature; how she had stored +away in the undiscovered lands billions of tons of coal, holding them +in reserve until the world's supply of timber for fuel should be +nearing exhaustion, and as he told of the immeasurable wealth of this +great new land in coal resources, and of how the wheels of the world, +traffic and industry, and science, even, were dependent upon coal and +the man who handled coal, Dave felt his breast rising with a sense of +the dignity of his calling. It was no longer dirty and grimy; it was +part of the world; it was essential to progress and happiness—more +essential than gold, or diamonds, or all the beautiful things in the +store windows. And he had had to do with this wonderful substance all +winter, and not until to-night had it fired the divine spark of his +imagination. The time ticked on, and although he was eager to be at +work he almost dreaded the moment when Mr. Duncan should mention his +lesson. But before that moment came there was a ripple of laughter at +the door, and a girl in tennis costume, and a young man a little older +than Dave, entered. +</P> + +<P> +"Edith," said Mrs. Duncan. Dave arose to shake hands, but then his +eyes fell full on her face. "Oh, I know you," he exclaimed. "I heard +you sing yesterday." +</P> + +<P> +Slowly he felt the colour coming to his cheeks. Had he been too +familiar? Should he have held that back? What would she think? But +then he felt her hand in his, and he knew it was all right. +</P> + +<P> +"And I know you," she was saying. "I saw you—" she stopped, and it +was her turn to feel the rising colour. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I know what you saw," he took up her thought. "You saw me get up +and go out of church because I wouldn't sit and listen to a man say +that God punished the innocent to let the guilty go free. And I +won't." There was a moment's silence following this outburst, and Mr. +Duncan made a new appraisal of his pupil. Then it was time to +introduce Mr. Allan Forsyth. Mr. Forsyth shook hands heartily, but +Dave was conscious of being caught in one quick glance which embraced +him from head to heel. And the glance was satisfied—self-satisfied. +It was such a glance as Dave might give a horse, when he would say, "A +good horse, but I can handle him." It was evident from that glance +that Forsyth had no fear of rivalry from that quarter. And having no +fear he could afford to be friendly. +</P> + +<P> +Dave had no distinct remembrance of what happened just after that, but +he was conscious of an overwhelming desire to hear Miss Duncan sing. +How like Reenie she was! And just as he was beginning to think Mr. +Duncan must surely have forgotten his lesson, he heard her asking him +if she should sing. And then he saw Forsyth at the piano—why couldn't +he leave her to do it herself, the butt-in?—and then he heard her +fine, silvery voice rising in the notes of that song about the land +where the sun should never go down… And suddenly he knew how +lonely, how terribly, terribly lonely he was. And he sat with head +bowed that they might not know… +</P> + +<P> +And then there were other songs, and at last Mrs. Duncan, who had +slipped away unnoticed, returned with a silver teapot, and cups of +delicate china, and sandwiches and cake, and they sat about and ate and +drank and talked and laughed. And Edith refilled his cup and sat down +beside him, leaving that Forsyth quite on the opposite side of the +room. And suddenly he was very, very happy. And when he looked at his +watch it was eleven o'clock! +</P> + +<P> +"I guess we didn't get any lesson to-night," he said, as he shook hands +with Mr. Duncan at the sidewalk. +</P> + +<P> +"I am not so sure," replied his tutor. "The first thing for you to +learn is that all learning does not come from books. A good listener +can learn as much as a good reader—if he listens to the right kind of +people." And as Dave walked home the thought deepened in him that it +really had been a lesson, and that Mr. Duncan had intended it that way. +And he wondered what remarkable fortune had been his. The air was full +of the perfume of balm-o'-gilead, and his feet were light with the joy +of youth. And he thought much of Edith, and of Reenie Hardy. +</P> + +<P> +In subsequent lessons Dave was rapidly initiated into many matters +besides parlour manners and conversation. Mr. Duncan placed the first +and greatest emphasis upon learning to write, and to write well. They +had many philosophic discussions, in which the elder man sought to lead +the younger to the acceptance of truths that would not fail him in the +strain of later life, and when a conclusion had been agreed upon, it +was Mr. Duncan's habit to embody it in a copy for Dave's writing +lesson. One evening they had a long talk on success, and Mr. Duncan +had gradually stripped the glamour from wealth and fame and social +position. "The only thing worth while," he said, "is to give +happiness. The man who contributes to the happiness of the world is a +success, and the man who does not contribute to the happiness of the +world is a failure, no matter what his wealth or position. Every man +who lives long enough, and has brains enough, comes to know this in +time. And those who have not brains enough to know it, are the +greatest failures of all, because they think they have attained +success, and they have only been buncoed with a counterfeit." +</P> + +<P> +"But a man who has money is in a position to give more happiness than +one who hasn't," objected Dave. "Think of all the things a man with a +million dollars can do to make people happy—like paying for libraries, +and giving excursions to poor children, and things like that. So, in +order to make people happy, wouldn't the first step be to make money, +so it could be spent in that way?" +</P> + +<P> +"That is a good thought," agreed Mr. Duncan, "but not a conclusive one. +In reckoning the happiness a man gives we must, of course, subtract the +unhappiness he occasions. He may make a great sum of money, and use +much of it in creating happiness, but if in the making of the money he +used methods that resulted in unhappiness, we must subtract the +unhappiness first before we can give him any credit for the happiness +he has created. And I am disposed to think that many a philanthropist, +if weighed in that balance, would be found to have a debit side bigger +than his credit. No matter how much wealth a man may amass, or how +wisely he may distribute it, we cannot credit him with success if he +has oppressed the hireling or dealt unfairly with his competitors or +the public. Such a man is not a success; he is a failure. In his own +soul he knows he is a failure, that is, provided he still has a soul, +and if not, as I said before, he is a greater failure still." +</P> + +<P> +Out of this discussion Mr. Duncan evolved the copy line, "The success +of a life is in direct proportion to its net contribution to human +happiness," and Dave sat writing it far into the night. +</P> + +<P> +As soon as Dave had learned to read a little Mr. Duncan took him one +day to the public library, and the young man groped in amazement up and +down the great rows of books. Presently a strange sense of +inadequateness came over him. "I can never read all of those books, +nor half of them," he said. "I suppose one must read them in order to +be well informed." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Duncan appeared to change the subject. +</P> + +<P> +"You like fruit?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, of course. Why—" +</P> + +<P> +"When you go into a fruit store do you stand and say, 'I can never eat +all of that fruit; crates and crates of it, and carloads more in the +warehouse?' Of course you don't. You eat enough for the good of your +system, and let it go at that. Now, just apply the same sense to your +reading. Read enough to keep your mind fresh, and alert, and vigorous; +give it one new thought to wrestle with every day, and let the rest +go… Oh, I know that there is a certain school which holds that +unless you have read this author or that author, or this book or that +book, you are hopelessly uninformed or behind the times. That's +literary snobbery. Let them talk. A mind that consumes more than it +can assimilate is morally on a par with a stomach that swallows more +than it can digest. Gluttons, both of them. Read as much as you can +think about, and no more. The trouble with many of our people is that +they do not read to think, but to save themselves the trouble of +thinking. The mind, left to itself, insists upon activity. So they +chloroform it." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Duncan also took occasion to speak with Dave about his religious +views. He did not forget Dave's explanation of why he went out of the +church. "I sympathize with your point of view a great deal," he said, +"but don't be too sweeping in your conclusions. The church is too +fussy over details; too anxious to fit the mind of man—which is his +link with the Infinite—into some narrow, soul-crushing creed; too +insistent upon the form of belief and not nearly insistent enough upon +conduct. It makes me think of a man who was trying to sell me an +automobile the other day. He was explaining all about the trimmings; +the cushions and the lights and the horn and all that sort of stuff, +and when he was through I said, 'Now tell me something about the motor. +I want to know about the thing that makes the wheels go round. If it's +no good I guess the trimmings are only fit for junk.' Well, that's the +way with the church. The motor that has kept it running for nineteen +centuries is the doctrine of love; love of man to man, love of man to +God, love of God to man. Nothing about wrath—that's only a +back-fire—but love. Without that motor all the trimmings are junk. +Each sect has its own trimmings, but they all profess to use the same +motor… Still, the motor is all right, even if it is neglected and +abused. I don't think you'll find a better, and you must have power of +some kind." +</P> + +<P> +"What about Socialism?" asked Dave. +</P> + +<P> +"Very good, insofar as it is constructive. But there is a destructive +brand of Socialism which seizes the fancy of disappointed and +disgruntled men and women, and bids them destroy. There is a basic +quality in all human nature which clamours for destruction. You see it +in the child pulling his toys to pieces, or in the mob wrecking +buildings. Destruction is easy and passionate, but construction +demands skill and patience." +</P> + +<P> +"I have been at some of their meetings," said Dave. "They lay great +stress on the war between Labour and Capital—" +</P> + +<P> +"Between husband and wife in the family of production," interrupted Mr. +Duncan. "Nothing is to be gained by that quarrel. I admit the husband +has been overbearing, offensive, brutal, perhaps; but the wife has been +slovenly, inefficient, shallow. Neither has yet been brought to +realize how hopeless is the case of one without the other. And I don't +think they will learn that by quarreling. What they need is not hard +words, but mutual respect and sympathy, and an honest conception of +what constitutes success. Doctrines and policies are helpful to the +extent to which they cause men to think, either directly, or by +creating environment conducive to thought; but they will never bring +the golden age of happiness. That can come only through the +destruction of selfishness, which can be destroyed only by the power of +love. That is why I emphasized the motor, in our talk about the +church. It is our only chance." +</P> + +<P> +Dave's talks with Mr. Duncan became almost nightly occurrences, either +at the Duncan home, or when he drove the family—for the master of the +house often accompanied them—or when they met down town, as frequently +happened. And the boy was not slow to realize the broad nature of the +task to which Mr. Duncan had set himself. His education was to be +built of every knowledge and experience that could go into the rounding +of a well-developed life. +</P> + +<P> +The climax seemed to be reached when Mr. Duncan invited Dave to +accompany him to a dinner at which a noted thinker, just crossing the +continent, had consented to speak. +</P> + +<P> +"It will be evening dress," said Mr. Duncan. "I suppose you are hardly +fitted out that way?" +</P> + +<P> +"I guess not," said Dave, smiling broadly. He recalled the half +humorous sarcasm with which the Metford gang referred to any who might +be seen abroad in their "Hereford fronts." He had a sudden vision of +himself running the gauntlet of the ridicule. +</P> + +<P> +But Mr. Duncan was continuing. "I think I can fix you up," he said. +"We must be pretty nearly of a size, and I have a spare suit." And +almost before he knew it it was arranged that Dave should attend the +dinner. +</P> + +<P> +It was an eventful night for him. His shyness soon wore off, for +during these months he had been learning to accept any new experience +gladly. "Life is made up of experience," his teacher had said, +"therefore welcome every opportunity to broaden your life by travelling +in new tracks. There are just two restrictions—the injurious and the +immoral. You must grow by experience, but be sure you grow the right +way. Only a fool must personally seize the red iron to see if it will +burn… But most of us are fools." And as he sat among this company +of the best minds of the town he felt that a new and very real world +was opening before him. His good clothes seemed to work up in some way +through his sub-consciousness and give him a sense of capability. He +was in the mental atmosphere of men who did things, and by conforming +to their customs he had brought his mind into harmony with theirs, so +that it could receive suggestions, and—who knows?—return suggestions. +And he was made to think, think, think. +</P> + +<P> +As he walked home with Mr. Duncan under the stars he spoke of the +subtle sense of well-being and ability which came with good clothes. +"I don't mind confessing I have always had something like contempt for +stylish dressing," he said. "Now I almost feel that there's something +to it." +</P> + +<P> +"There is some good quality in everything that survives," said Mr. +Duncan. "Otherwise it would not survive. That doesn't mean, of +course, that the good qualities outweigh the bad, but the good must be +there. Take the use of liquor, for instance; perhaps the greatest +source of misery we have. Yet it touches a quality in man's life: +sociability, conviviality, if you like; but a quality that has virtue +in it none the less. And the errors of sex are so often linked with +love that one can scarcely say where virtue ceases and where vice +begins. I know convention placards them plainly enough, but convention +does not make virtue vice, nor vice virtue. There are deeper laws down +beneath, and sometimes they may set at defiance all accepted codes. +</P> + +<P> +"Yet I would not quarrel with the accepted codes—until I knew I had +something better. Accepted codes represent man's net progress through +experience to truth. The code, for instance, 'Thou shalt not kill;' we +accept it in general, but not completely. The State does not hesitate +to kill in self-defence, or even to carry out purposes which have no +relation to defence. And shall we not allow similar exceptions to the +other codes? And yet, although we may find our codes are not +infallible, are they not still the best guides we have? +</P> + +<P> +"To return to clothes. Clothes won't make you, but they will help you +to make yourself. Only, don't become a clothes-tippler. You can run +to intoxication on fine raiment as well as on fine wines. It has +virtue in it, but just beyond the virtue lies the vice." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER EIGHT +</H3> + + +<P> +The summer was not far gone when Dave, through an introduction +furnished by Mr. Duncan, got a new job. It was in the warehouse of a +wholesale grocery, trundling cases and sacks of merchandise. It was +cleaner than handling coal, and the surroundings were more congenial, +and the wages were better—fifty dollars a month, to begin. +</P> + +<P> +"The first thing is to get out of the dead-line," said Mr. Duncan. "I +am not hoping that you will have found destiny in a wholesale +warehouse, but you must get out of the dead-line. As long as you +shovel coal, you will shovel coal. And you are not capable of anything +better until you think you are." +</P> + +<P> +"But I've liked it pretty well," said Dave. "As long as I was just +working for my wages it was dull going, but it was different after I +got to see that even shovelling coal was worth while. I suppose it is +the same with groceries, or whatever one does. As soon as you begin to +study what you handle the work loses its drudgery. It isn't a man's +job that makes him sick of his job; it's what he thinks of his job." +</P> + +<P> +A light of satisfaction was in his teacher's eyes as Dave made this +answer. Mr. Duncan had realized that he was starting late with this +pupil, and if there were any short-cuts to education he must find them. +So he had set out deliberately to instil the idea that education is not +a matter of schools and colleges, or courses of reading, or formulae of +any kind, but a matter of the five senses applied to every experience +of life. And he knew that nothing was coarse or common that passed +through Dave's hands. Coal had ceased to be a smutty mineral, and had +taken on talismanic qualities unguessed by the mere animal workman; and +sugar, and coffee, and beans, and rice, and spices, each would open its +own wonderful world before this young and fertile mind. As an heritage +from his boyhood on the ranges Dave had astonishingly alert senses; his +sight, his hearing, his sense of smell and of touch were vastly more +acute than those of the average university graduate… And if that +were true might it not fairly be said that Dave was already the better +educated of the two, even if he, as yet, knew nothing of the classics? +</P> + +<P> +As Dave parted from the Metford gang he felt that he knew what Mr. +Duncan had meant by the dead-line. These were men who would always +shovel coal, because they aspired to nothing better. There was no atom +of snobbery in Dave's nature; he knew perfectly well that shovelling +coal was quite as honourable and respectable a means of livelihood as +managing a bank, but the man who was content to shovel coal was on the +dead-line… And, by the same logic, the man who was content to +manage a bank was on the dead-line. That was a new and somewhat +startling aspect of life. He must discuss it with Mr. Duncan. +</P> + +<P> +Dave's energy and enthusiasm in the warehouse soon brought him +promotion from truck hand to shipping clerk, with an advance in wages +to sixty-five dollars a month. He was prepared to remain in this +position for some time, as he knew that promotion depends on many +things besides ability. Mr. Duncan had warned him against the delusion +that man is entirely master of his destiny. "Life, my boy," he had +said, "is fifty per cent. environment and forty per cent. heredity. +The other ten per cent. is yours. But that ten per cent. is like the +steering gear in an automobile; it's only a small part of the +mechanism, but it directs the course of the whole machine. Get a good +grip on the part of your life you can control, and don't worry over the +rest." +</P> + +<P> +To economize both time and money Dave took his lunch with him and ate +it in the warehouse. He had also become possessed of a pocket +encyclopaedia and it was his habit to employ the minutes saved by +eating lunch in the warehouse in reading from his encyclopaedia. It +chanced one day that as he was reading in the noon hour Mr. Trapper, +the head of the firm, came through the warehouse. Dave knew him but +little; he thought of him as a stern, unapproachable man, and avoided +him as much as possible. But this time Mr. Trapper was upon him before +he was seen. +</P> + +<P> +"What are you reading?" he demanded. "Yellow backed nonsense?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, sir," said Dave, rising and extending his arm with the book. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, what's this?" queried Mr. Trapper, in some surprise. +"Tea—tea—oh, I see, it's an encyclopaedia. What is the idea, young +man?" +</P> + +<P> +"I always like to read up about the stuff we are handling," said Dave. +"It's interesting to know all about it; where it comes from, how it is +grown, what it is used for; the different qualities, and so forth." +</P> + +<P> +"H'm," said Mr. Trapper, returning the book. "No doubt." And he +walked on without further comment. But that afternoon he had something +to say to his manager. +</P> + +<P> +"That young fellow on the shipping desk—Elden, I think his name is. +How do you find him?" +</P> + +<P> +"Very satisfactory, sir. Punctual, dependable, and accurate." +</P> + +<P> +"Watch him," said Mr. Trapper. +</P> + +<P> +The manager swung around in his chair. "Why, what do you mean? You +haven't occasion to suspect—?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Trapper's customary sternness slowly relaxed, until there was the +suggestion of a smile about the corners of his mouth, and rather more +than a suggestion in the twinkle in his eye. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know what I caught that young fellow doing during noon hour?" +he asked. "Reading up the encyclopaedia on tea. Tea, mind you. Said +he made a practice of reading up on the stuff we are handling. <I>We</I>, +mind you. Found it very interesting to know where it came from, and +all about it. I've been in the grocery business for pretty close to +forty years, and I've seen many an employee spend his noon hour in the +pool rooms, or in some other little back room, or just smoking, but +this is the first one I ever caught reading up the business in an +encyclopaedia. Never read it that way myself. Well—you watch him. +I'd risk a ten-spot that he knows more about tea this minute than half +of our travellers." +</P> + +<P> +But Dave was not to continue in the grocery trade, despite his reading +of the encyclopaedia, A few evenings later he was engaged in reading in +the public library; not an encyclopaedia, but Shakespeare. The +encyclopaedia was for such time as he could save from business hours, +but for his evening reading Mr. Duncan had directed him into the realm +of fiction and poetry, and he was now feeling his way through Hamlet. +From the loneliness of his boyhood he had developed the habit of +talking aloud to himself, and in abstracted moments he read in an +audible whisper which impressed the substance more deeply on his mind, +but made him unpopular in the public reading rooms. It was well known +among the patrons of the rooms that he read Hamlet. This fact, +however, may not have been altogether to Dave's disadvantage. On the +evening in question an elderly man engaged him in conversation. +</P> + +<P> +"You are a Shakespearean student, I see?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not exactly. I read a little in the evenings. But I haven't gone far +enough to call myself a student." +</P> + +<P> +"I have seen you here different times. Are you well acquainted with +the town?" +</P> + +<P> +"Pretty well," said Dave, scenting that there might be a purpose in the +questioning. +</P> + +<P> +"Working now?" +</P> + +<P> +Dave told him where he was employed. +</P> + +<P> +"I am the editor of <I>The Call</I>," said the elderly man. "We need +another man on the street; a reporter, you know. We pay twenty-five +dollars a week for such a position. If you are interested you might +call at the office tomorrow." +</P> + +<P> +Dave hurried with his problem to Mr. Duncan. "I think I'd like the +work," he said, "but I am not sure whether I can do it. My writing is +rather—wonderful." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Duncan turned the matter over in his mind. "Yes," he said at +length, "but I notice you are beginning to use the typewriter. When +you learn that God gave you ten fingers, not two, you may make a +typist. And there is nothing more worth while than being able to +express yourself in English. They'll teach you that on a newspaper. I +think I'd take it. +</P> + +<P> +"Not on account of the money," he continued, after a little. "You +would probably soon be earning more in the wholesale business. +Newspaper men are about the worst paid of all professions. But it's +the best training in the world, not for itself, but as a step to +something else. I have often wondered why editors, who are forever +setting every other phase of the world's work to rights, are content to +train up so many thousands of bright young men—and then pass them +along into other businesses where they are better paid. But the +training is worth while, and it's the training you want. Take it." +</P> + +<P> +Dave explained his disadvantages to the editor of <I>The Call</I>. "I +didn't want you to think," he said with great frankness, "that because +I was reading Shakespeare I was a master of English. And I guess if I +were to write up stuff in Hamlet's language I'd get canned for it." +</P> + +<P> +"We'd probably have a deputation from the Moral Reform League," said +the editor, with a dry smile. "Just the same, if you know Shakespeare +you know English, and we'll soon break you into the newspaper style." +</P> + +<P> +So, almost before he knew it, Dave was on the staff of <I>The Call</I>. His +beat comprised the police court, fire department, hotels, and general +pick-ups. And the very first day, as though to afford fuel for his +genius, a small fire occurred in a clothing store. +</P> + +<P> +"'S good for two sticks—about four inches," said the editor, when Dave +had given him the main facts. "Write your story to fit." +</P> + +<P> +Dave suddenly realized that, although he had been a persistent reader +of newspapers during the recent months, he had scarcely the remotest +idea of how many words went to a column, or to an inch. It was a piece +of information needed at once, so he set about to count the words in a +column. Then he wrote his story to fit. He had already learned that +everything in a newspaper office, from a wedding to a ball game, is "a +story." When he turned his in it looked like this: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +The fire bell was heard ringing this morning about ten o'clock, and +soon after crowds were seen wending their way to the Great West +Clothing Store. There was a heavy black smoke coming from the back end +of the store. The firemen were late in getting there, and before they +arrived a man had got badly choked by trying to go into the store. +Presently the engine came up and before long water was being applied in +great quantities, and soon the fire was under control. Part of the +roof fell in, and the building is pretty badly ruined. Some of the +contents may be fit for sale. It seems too bad that the fire engine +should have been so long in coming, as without doubt if it had got +there promptly the fire could have been put out before much damage +occurred. However, it might have been worse, as it was a frame +building, in a row of other frame buildings, and if the fire had once +got beyond control much damage might have been done. Nobody seems to +know how the fire started. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +It was with much quiet excitement that he awaited the appearance of the +evening edition. He had a strange eagerness to see his contribution in +print; a manifestation, no doubt, of that peculiar trait in human +nature which fills the editorial waste basket with unaccepted +contributions. At last he found it, but it read like this: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Fire this morning gutted the Great West Clothing Store with a loss of +$8,000.00 of which $4,000.00 is covered by insurance in the Occidental. +Frank Beecher, proprietor of the store, was overcome by smoke, and is +in the city hospital. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Smoke was first seen issuing from the back of the store by Fred Grant, +a delivery man for the Imperial Laundry, who turned in an alarm at +10.08. Owing to the fire team colliding with a dray owned by Sheppard +& Co. some minutes of delay occurred. During this period the building, +which was of frame, burned fiercely. It was almost completely +destroyed, although some of the stock may be salable. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Beecher rushed into the back room for certain papers, where he was +found by Fireman Carey in an unconscious condition. He is recovering, +and is already planning to rebuild. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Dave read the account with a sinking heart. By the time he reached the +end it seemed his heart could sink no further. He found that the +editor had not left the office, so he approached him with as much +spirit as he could command. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess you won't need me any more," he said. "I'm sorry I made a +mess of that fire story." +</P> + +<P> +There was a kind twinkle in the chief's eye as he answered, "Nonsense. +Of course we need you. You have merely made the mistake every one else +makes, in supposing you could write for a newspaper without training. +We will give you the training—and pay you while you learn. The only +man we can't use is the man who won't learn. Now let me give you a few +pointers," and the editor got up from his desk and held the paper with +the fire story before him. "In the first place, don't start a story +with 'the,' at least, not more than once or twice a week. In the +second place, get the meat into the first paragraph. Seventy-five per +cent. of the readers never go further than the first paragraph; give +them the raw facts there; if they want the trimmings they will go down +for them. That is where a magazine story is exactly opposite to a +newspaper story; a newspaper story shows its hand in the first +paragraph, a magazine story in the last. +</P> + +<P> +"Then, get the facts. Nobody cares whether the fire bell rang or not, +but they do care about the man who was suffocated; who he was, what he +was doing there, what became of him. Revel in names. Get the names of +everybody, and get them right. The closest tight-wad in the town will +buy a paper if it has his name in it. Every story, no matter how +short, is good for a number of names. In your copy as you turned it +in"—the editor picked it up from his desk; he had evidently saved it +for such an occasion as this—"the only name you had was that of the +clothing store. I had one of the other boys get to work on the +telephone, and you see he got the name of the proprietor; of the +insurance company, with the amount of the insurance; of the man who +turned in the alarm; of the owner of the dray team that obstructed the +engine, and of the firemen who carried Beecher to safety. Every one of +these people, with their families, their cousins, and their aunts, +become especially interested in the story the moment their names are +introduced. +</P> + +<P> +"Next, remember that it is not the business of a reporter to pass +editorial comment. It may have been too bad that the fire engine was +delayed, but that is a matter for the editor to decide. The business +of the reporter is to find out why it was delayed, and state the facts, +without regrets or opinions. You must learn to hold the mirror up to +nature without making faces in it. You know what I mean—keep your own +reflection out of the picture. If you think the incident calls for an +expression of opinion by the paper, write an editorial and submit it to +me. But remember that the editorial and news columns of a paper should +be as distinct as the two sides of a fence." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you very much," said Dave, slowly, when it was plain the editor +had finished. "I think I begin to see. But there's one thing I don't +understand. Why did you not mention the origin of the fire?" +</P> + +<P> +A flicker of amusement—or was it confession?—ran across the chief's +face as he answered, "Because we don't know what started it—and +Beecher is one of our best advertisers. To say the origin of the fire +is unknown always leaves a smack of suspicion. It is like the almost +imperceptible shrug of the shoulder at the mention of a woman's name. +You can't get away from it. And it is the advertiser who keeps the +paper alive… I know it's not idealism, but idealism doesn't pay +wages and paper bills, and as long as readers demand papers for less +than it costs to print them they will have to take second place to the +advertiser." +</P> + +<P> +"Then all reports are to be coloured to suit the advertiser?" demanded +Dave. +</P> + +<P> +"No. Where a principle is involved—and we have principles, even in +these degenerate days—we stand by the principle, even if we lose the +patronage. Our notions of what is for the public good have cost us a +lot of money at times. You see, the exploiter is always ready to pay +his servants, which is more than can be said of the public. But where +no real principle is involved we try to be friendly to our friends." +</P> + +<P> +With these fresh viewpoints on his profession Dave entered upon his +work the following day chastened but determined. Almost immediately he +found the need of acquaintanceships. The isolation of his boyhood had +bred in him qualities of aloofness which had now to be overcome. He +was not naturally a good "mixer;" he preferred his own company, but his +own company would not bring him much news. So he set about +deliberately to cultivate acquaintance with the members of the police +force and the fire brigade, and the clerks in the hotels. And he had +in his character a quality of sincerity which gave him almost instant +admission into their friendships. He had not suspected the charm of +his own personality, and its discovery, feeding upon his new-born +enthusiasm for friendships, still further enriched the charm. +</P> + +<P> +As his acquaintance with the work of the police force increased Dave +found his attitude toward moral principles in need of frequent +re-adjustment. By no means a Puritan, he had, nevertheless, two +sterling qualities which so far had saved him from any very serious +misstep. He practised absolute honesty in all his relationships. His +father, drunken although he was in his later years, had never quite +lost his sense of commercial uprightness, and Dave had inherited the +quality in full degree. And Reenie Hardy had come into his life just +when he needed a girl like Reenie Hardy to come into his life … He +often thought of Reenie Hardy, and of her compact with him, and +wondered what the end would be. And meanwhile he found the need of +frequent readjustments. He became aware of the fact that in every +community there are two communities; one on the surface, respectable, +discreet, conventional; and one beneath the surface, to which these +terms would not apply. He found that the province of the police was +not to enforce morality, but to prevent immorality becoming obnoxious. +Anything, almost, might go on so long as its effects were confined to +the voluntary participants. Underneath the sham of good behaviour was +a world, known to the police and the newspaper men and a few others, +which refused to accept standard conventions and lived according to its +own impulse. And this world included so-called best citizens, of both +sexes. And they <I>were</I> good citizens. It seemed the community had two +natures; a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on a community basis. +Splendid qualities; large heartedness, generosity, were mingled and +streaked through degrees of selfishness and lust running down into +positive crime… And the wonder was not what the papers printed, +but what they left untold… And he was glad he had met Reenie +Hardy. She was an anchor about his soul… And Edith Duncan. +</P> + +<P> +One morning, as he sat with Carson of <I>The Times</I> at the reporters' +table in the police court, listening absently to the clerk calling a +list of names, his companion, with a grimace, intimated that there was +something beneath the surface. "Pure fiction," he whispered, as the +list was completed. "It would do you good to know who they are. +Shining lights, every one of them. And when they are lit up they can't +be kept under a bushel. The police just had to do something. They +won't be here—not one of them. Their lawyer will plead guilty, and +pay the fines, and every one will be sorry—they were caught. Even his +nibs on the bench isn't twice as happy. It was by good luck he wasn't +with the bunch himself." +</P> + +<P> +It turned out as Carson predicted. One of the leading lawyers of the +city addressed the Court, expressing the regret of his clients that +their behaviour had necessitated interference by the police. He was +full of suave assurances that no disrespect to the law, nor annoyance +to any member of the community, was intended, and he pleaded feelingly +for as great leniency as the court might consider consistent with the +offence. The minimum fine was imposed, and the lawyer withdrew, +bearing with him the double happiness of having earned a good fee and +having saved a number of his personal friends from a public exposure +which would have been, at least, embarrassing. As the lawyer passed +the reporters' table Dave felt something pressed into his hand, and +heard the whispered words, "Split it." +</P> + +<P> +In his hand was a ten dollar bill. "What's the idea?" said Dave to +Carson, when the session was over. +</P> + +<P> +"The idea is that I get five," said Carson, "and both of us forget it. +Cheap skate, he might have made it twenty. Of course the names were +bogus, but they couldn't risk mention, even with that precaution. Easy +picking, isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"It doesn't look quite right," Dave faltered. "I'm here to get the +news—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, can that. You know we don't publish all the news. Why, man, we'd +wreck society, or the ship of state, or whatever it is we are all +floating on, if we did that. We'd have every lawyer in this burg busy +in a week, and they're making too much money already. What the world +doesn't know the world doesn't grieve over. And the joke of it is, +everybody thinks he's putting it over somebody else, and while he's +busy thinking that somebody else is putting it over him. So they're +about even in the finish. Besides, if you talk about principle, +doesn't the Bible say to do unto others as you would that they should +do unto you? How would you feel in their position? +</P> + +<P> +"I tell you," said Carson, warming up to his subject, "this is an +intricate game, this life business. Pretty seedy in spots, but, after +all, most people are merely victims of circumstances. And if +circumstances place a five-spot in your hand to-day, accept what the +gods bring you. To-morrow they will take it away. +</P> + +<P> +"See this suit," he continued, indicating his attire, which greatly +out-classed Dave's. "A friend gave me that. I get all my suits that +way. When a scrap occurs in a bar-room; a booze riot, or knifing, or +something goes wrong upstairs, I just mention that it took place in 'a +down town hotel.' Then I order myself a suit, or something of that +kind, and have the tailor send his bill to the proprietor of the joint. +He pays. If he doesn't, next time I name his tavern right in the +story." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you call that graft?" asked Dave. +</P> + +<P> +"Graft? Nonsense! Merely an exchange of courtesies… There are +others, too. You'll get wise to them in time." +</P> + +<P> +But Dave was by no means satisfied with Carson's philosophy. He went +to his editor with the five dollar bill and the police court incident. +"What shall I do about it?" he demanded. +</P> + +<P> +He fancied there was a note of impatience in the editor's reply. "Give +the money to the Salvation Army," he said, "and forget about the rest. +Isn't it Kipling who says 'There comes a night when the best gets +tight,' and so on? We could tell the story, but what good would it do? +And let me tell you, Elden, there are mighty few, men or women, who +have gone half way through life without something they'd like to +forget. Why not let them forget it? You're young yet, and perhaps you +don't see it that way, but you'll be older. There's a verse by +somebody runs like this: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Don't take the defensive by saying<BR> + "I told only just what was true,"<BR> +For there's more at that game might be playing<BR> + If the truth were all told about you."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"That may be bad poetry, but it's good journalistic ethics." +</P> + +<P> +But after Dave had gone the editor called his business manager. "I +guess we'll have to raise Elden to thirty dollars a week," said he. +"He's so honest he embarrasses me, and I guess I need that kind of +embarrassment, or I wouldn't be embarrassed." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER NINE +</H3> + + +<P> +While the gradually deepening current of Dave's life flowed through the +channels of coal heaver, freight hustler, shipping clerk, and reporter, +its waters were sweetened by the intimate relationship which developed +between him and the members of the Duncan household. He continued his +studies under Mr. Duncan's directions; two, three, or even four nights +in the week found him at work in the comfortable den, or, during the +warm weather, on the screened porch that overlooked the family garden. +His duties as reporter frequently called for attendance at public +meetings devoted to all conceivable purposes, and he was at first +disposed to feel unkindly toward these interruptions in his regular +studies. He raised the point with Mr. Duncan. +</P> + +<P> +"One thing I have been trying to drill into you," said his tutor, "is +that education is not a thing of books or studies or formulae of any +kind. It is the whole world; particularly the world of thought, +feeling, and expression. It is not a flower in the garden of life; it +is the garden itself, with its flowers, and its perfumes, and its +sunshine and rain. Yes, and its weeds, and droughts, and insects and +worms. There is a phase of education in the public meeting, whether +its purpose be to discuss the municipal tax rate or the flora of the +Rockies. You can't afford to miss any subject; but still less can you +afford to miss the audiences that are interested in any subject. They +are deeper than any book. There are all kinds of audiences. There is +the violent audience, and the mysterious audience, and the sentimental +audience, and the destructive audience, and the whimsical audience, and +the hysterical audience,—and every other kind. And the funny thing is +that they are all made up of much the same people. Take a sentimental +audience, for instance; a few passes, and you have an hysterical +audience. It is a difference of moods. We don't think enough about +moods. We are all subject to moods, and yet we judge a new +acquaintance by the mood he happens to be in—and the mood we happen to +be in—at the time of making the acquaintanceship. Another day, in +other moods, he would make a quite different impression—if the +impression already made could be effaced. I have a theory that the +world's sorrow is largely a matter of moods. I don't deny the sorrow, +nor the need for sorrow, nor the reality of it, but I do believe there +is a mood of happiness which even the deepest sorrows cannot suppress. +And the more you study people the more you will understand moods, and, +perhaps, be master of your own. And the man who can, by force of his +own will, determine the mood in which he will live, is master of the +world." +</P> + +<P> +So Dave came to realize that every incident in the reportorial round +was to be assimilated for its educational value, and this lent a zest +to his work which it could not otherwise have had. But the attraction +of the Duncan household grew upon him, and many an hour he spent under +its hospitable roof. Mrs. Duncan, motherly, and yet not too +motherly—she might almost have been an older sister—appealed to the +young man as an ideal of womanhood. Her soft, well modulated voice +seemed to him to express the perfect harmony of the perfect home, and +underneath its even tones he caught glimpses of a reserve of power and +judgment not easily unbalanced. She was a woman to whom men might +carry their ambitions, and women their hopes, and little children their +wonderings, and all be assured of sympathetic audience and wise +counsel. And as Dave's eyes would follow her healthy, handsome figure +as it moved noiselessly about in her domestic duties, or as he caught +the flush of beauty that still bloomed in her thoughtful face, or as at +rarer intervals he plunged into the honest depths of her frank grey +eyes, the tragedy of his own orphaned life bore down upon him and he +rebelled that he had been denied the start which such a mother could +have given him. +</P> + +<P> +"I am twenty years behind myself," he would reflect, with a grim smile. +"Never mind. I will do three men's work for the next ten, and then we +will be even." +</P> + +<P> +And there was Edith,—Edith, who had held him rapture-bound on that +first Sunday in church—Edith, who had burst so unexpectedly upon his +life that first evening in her father's home. He had not allowed +himself any foolishness about Edith. It was evident that Edith was +pre-empted, just as he was pre-empted, and the part of honour in his +friend's house was to recognize the <I>status quo</I>… Still, Mr. Allan +Forsyth was unnecessarily self-assured. He might have made it less +evident that he was within the enchanted circle, while Dave remained +outside. His complacence irritated Dave almost into rivalry. But the +boon camaraderie of Edith herself checked any adventure of that kind. +She checked it in two ways; by her own frank acceptance of him much as +she would have accepted a brother in the household, and by her uncanny +and unconscious knack of reminding him in almost every word and gesture +of Reenie Hardy. She was of about the same figure as Reenie Hardy; a +little slighter, perhaps; and about the same age; and she had the same +quick, frank eyes. And she sang wonderfully. He had never heard +Reenie sing, but in some strange way he had formed a deep conviction +that she would sing much as Edith sang. He was not yet psychologist +enough to know that his admiration for Edith was the reflex action to +his love for the girl who had so wonderfully invaded his foothill life +and so wonderfully changed the current of his destinies. In love, as +in religion, man is forever setting up idols to represent his +ideals… And forever finding feet of clay. +</P> + +<P> +Dave was not long in discovering that his engagement as coachman was a +device, born of Mr. Duncan's kindness, to enable him to accept +instruction without feeling under obligation for it. When he made this +discovery, he smiled quietly to himself, and pretended not to have made +it. Two things were apparent after their first drive; that nothing was +further from the minds of Mr. Duncan's bays than anything which called +for so much exertion as a runaway, and that, even had they been so +disposed, Edith was entirely competent to manage them. The girl had +not lived in the foothill town since childhood without becoming +something of a horse-woman. But Dave pretended not to know that he was +a supernumerary. To have acted otherwise would have seemed ungrateful +to Mr. Duncan. And presently the drives began to have a strange +attraction of themselves. +</P> + +<P> +When they drove in the two-seated buggy on Sunday afternoons the party +usually comprised Mrs. Duncan and Edith, young Forsyth and Dave. Mr. +Duncan was interested in certain Sunday afternoon meetings. It was +Mrs. Duncan's custom to sit in the rear seat, for its better riding +qualities, and it had a knack of falling about that Edith would ride in +the front seat with the driver. She caused Forsyth to ride with her +mother, ostensibly as a courtesy to that young gentleman,—a courtesy +which, it may be conjectured, was not fully appreciated. At first he +accepted it with the good nature of one who feels his position secure, +but gradually that good nature gave way to a certain testiness of +spirit which he could not entirely conceal. It became evident that he +would have preferred other ways of spending the Sunday afternoons. The +parks, for instance, or quiet walks through the cottonwoods by the +river… +</P> + +<P> +The crisis was precipitated one fine Sunday in September, in the first +year of Dave's newspaper experience. Dave called early, and found +Edith in a riding habit. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother is 'indisposed,' as they say in the society page," she +explained. "In other words, she doesn't wish to be bothered. So I +thought we would ride to-day." +</P> + +<P> +"But there are only two horses," said Dave. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" queried the girl, and there was a note in her voice that +sounded strange to him. Then, after a pause in which the colour slowly +rose to her cheeks, "There are only two of us." +</P> + +<P> +"But Mr. Forsyth?" +</P> + +<P> +"He is not here. He may not come. Will you saddle the horses and let +us get away?" +</P> + +<P> +It was evident to Dave that, for some reason, Edith wished to evade +Forsyth this afternoon. A lover's quarrel, no doubt. That she had a +preference for him, and was revealing it with the utmost frankness, +never occurred to his sturdy, honest mind. One of the delights of his +companionship with Edith had been that it was a real companionship. +None of the limitations occasioned by any sex consciousness had +narrowed the sphere of the frank friendship he felt for her. She was +to him almost as another man, yet in no sense masculine. It seemed +rather that her femininity was of such purity that, like the atmosphere +he breathed, it surrounded him, flooded him without exciting +consciousness of its existence. Save for a certain tender delicacy +which her womanhood inspired, he came and went with her as he might +have done with a man chum of his own age. And when she preferred to +ride <I>without</I> Forsyth it did not occur to Elden that she preferred to +ride <I>with</I> him. +</P> + +<P> +They were soon in the country, and Edith, leading, swung from the road +to a bridle trail that followed the winding of the river. As her +graceful figure drifted on ahead it seemed more than ever reminiscent +of Reenie Hardy. What rides they had had on those foothill trails! +What dippings into the great canyons! What adventures into the spruce +forests! And how long ago it all seemed. That was before he started +on the paper; before he had been in the grocery business, or in the +coal business; back in the long, long past on the ranch in the days +before his father died. Life—how it goes! And had it brought to her +as many changes as to him? And had it, perhaps, brought to her one +change it had not brought to him—a change in the anchor about which +her heart's affection clung? This girl, riding ahead, suggestive in +every curve and pose of Reenie Hardy… His eyes were burning with +loneliness. +</P> + +<P> +He knew he was dull that day, and Edith was particularly charming and +vivacious. She coaxed him into conversation a dozen times, but he +answered absent-mindedly. At length she leapt from her horse and +seated herself, facing the river, on a fallen log. Without looking +back she indicated with her hand the space beside her, and Dave +followed and sat down. For a time they watched the swift water in +silence; blue-green where the current ran deeply; tinged with brown +glow in the shallows from the gravel underneath. +</P> + +<P> +"You aren't talking to-day," she said at length. "You don't quite do +yourself justice. What's wrong?" +</P> + +<A NAME="img-139"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-139.jpg" ALT=""You aren't talking to-day … what's wrong?"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="368" HEIGHT="525"> +<H3> +[Illustration: "You aren't talking to-day … what's wrong?"] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +"Oh, nothing," he answered with a laugh, pulling himself together. +"This September weather always gets me. I guess I have a streak of +Indian; it comes of being brought up on the ranges. And in September, +after the first frosts have touched the foliage—" He paused, as +though it was not necessary to say more. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I know," she said quietly. Then, with a queer little note of +confidence, "Don't apologize for it, Dave." +</P> + +<P> +"Apologize?" and his form straightened. "Certainly not… One +doesn't apologize for nature, does he? … But it comes back in +September." He smiled, and she thought the subconscious in him was +calling up the smell of fire in dry grass, or perhaps even the rumble +of buffalo over the hills. And he knew he smiled because he had so +completely misled her. +</P> + +<P> +Presently she took out a pocket volume. "Will you read?" she said. +Strangely enough he opened it at the lines: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Oh, you will never hide your soul from me;<BR> +I've seen the jewels flash, and know 'tis there<BR> +Muffle it as you will."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +…It was dusk when they started homeward. +</P> + +<P> +Forsyth was waiting for her. Dave scented stormy weather and excused +himself early. +</P> + +<P> +"What does this mean?" demanded Forsyth, angrily, as soon as Dave had +gone. "Do you think I'll take second place to that—that coal heaver?" +</P> + +<P> +She straightened, and her bright eyes were charged with a blaze which +would have astonished Dave, who had known her only in her milder moods. +But she tried to speak without passion. +</P> + +<P> +"That is not to his discredit," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Straight from the corrals into good society," Forsyth sneered. +</P> + +<P> +Then she made no pretense of composure. "If you have nothing more to +urge against Mr. Elden, perhaps you will go." +</P> + +<P> +Forsyth took his hat. At the door he paused and turned, but she was +already ostensibly interested in a magazine. He went out into the +night. +</P> + +<P> +The week was a busy one with Dave, and he had no opportunity to visit +the Duncans. Friday Edith called him on the telephone. She asked an +inconsequential question about something which had appeared in the +paper, and from that the talk drifted on until it turned on the point +of their expedition of the previous Sunday. Dave never could account +quite clearly how it happened, but when he hung up the receiver he knew +he had asked her to ride with him again on Sunday, and she had +accepted. He had ridden with her before, of course, but he had never +<I>asked</I> her before. He had been a sort of honoured employee, whose +business it was to comply with her wishes. But this time she would +ride at his request. He felt that a subtle change had come over their +relationship. +</P> + +<P> +He was at the Duncan house earlier than usual Sunday afternoon, but not +too early for Edith. She was dressed for the occasion; she seemed more +fetching than he had ever seen her. There was the blush of health—or +was it altogether the blush of health?—on her cheeks, and a light in +her eyes such as he had seen more than once on those last rides with +Reenie Hardy. And across her saddle she threw a brown sweater. +</P> + +<P> +She led the way over the path followed the Sunday before until again +they sat by the rushing water. Dave had again been filled with a sense +of Reenie Hardy, and his conversation was disjointed and uninteresting. +She tried unsuccessfully to draw him out with questions about himself; +then took the more astute tack of speaking of her own past life. It +had begun in an eastern city, ever so many years ago. +</P> + +<P> +Chivalry could not allow that to pass. "Oh, not so very many," said +Dave. +</P> + +<P> +"How many?" she teased. "Guess." +</P> + +<P> +He looked judicially on her bright face; it was a good face to look +upon. Perhaps his eyes said as much. +</P> + +<P> +"Nineteen," he hazarded. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, more than that." +</P> + +<P> +"Twenty-one?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, less than that." And their first confidence was established. +</P> + +<P> +"Twenty," thought Dave to himself. "Reenie must be about twenty now." +</P> + +<P> +"And I was five when—when Jack died," she went on. "Jack was my +brother, you know. He was seven, and a great boy for his daddy. Most +boys run to their mother with their hurts, but Jack was different. +When father was at the office Jack would save up his little hurts until +evening… Well, we were playing, and I stood on the car tracks, +signalling the motorman, to make him ring his bell. On came the car, +with the bell clanging, and the man in blue looking very cross. Jack +must have thought I was waiting too long, for he suddenly rushed on the +track to pull me off." She stopped, and sat looking at the rushing +water. +</P> + +<P> +"I heard him cry, 'Oh Daddy, Daddy,' above the screech of the brakes," +she continued, in a dry voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Sorrow is a strange thing," she went on, after a pause. "I don't +pretend to understand, but it seems to have its place in life. I fancy +this would soon be a pretty degenerate world if there were no sorrow in +it. I have been told that sometimes fruit trees refuse to bear until +they have met with adversity. Then the gardener bores a hole in them, +or something like that, and, behold, next season they bear. Sounds +silly, but they say it's a fact. I guess it's natural law. Well—" +She paused again, and when she spoke it was in a lower, more +confidential note. +</P> + +<P> +"I shouldn't tell you this, Dave. I shouldn't know it myself. But +before that things hadn't been, well, just as good as they might in our +home… They've been different since." +</P> + +<P> +The shock of her words brought him upright. To him it seemed that Mr. +and Mrs. Duncan were the ideal father and mother. It was impossible to +associate them with a home where things "hadn't been just as good as +they might." But her half confession left no room for remark. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother told me," she went on, after a long silence, and without +looking at him. "A few years ago, 'If some one had only told me, when +I was your age,' she said." +</P> + +<P> +"Why do you tell me this?" he suddenly demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you ever feel that you just had to tell <I>someone</I>?" +</P> + +<P> +It was his turn to pause. "Yes," he confessed, at length. +</P> + +<P> +"Then tell me." +</P> + +<P> +So he led her down through the tragedy of his youth and the lonely +rudderless course of his boyhood. She followed sympathetically to the +day when Dr. Hardy and his daughter Irene became guests at the Elden +ranch. And then her interest manifested something deeper than +sympathy. But he had become engrossed in his narrative… The +September day had drawn to a close, and the dusk was thick about them, +ere he reached the end. But before the end he stopped. Should he tell +her all? Why not? She had opened her life to him. So he told her of +that last evening with Irene, and the compact under the trees and the +moon. Her hand had fallen into his as they talked, but here he felt it +slowly withdrawn. But he was fired with the flame of love which had +sprung up in the breath of his reminiscence… And Edith was his +friend and his chum. +</P> + +<P> +"And you have been true?" she said, but her voice was distant and +strained. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"And you are waiting for her?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I am waiting… It must be so." … +</P> + +<P> +"It is cold," she said. "Let us go home." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER TEN +</H3> + + +<P> +Whatever the effect of this conversation had been upon Edith she +concealed it carefully, and Dave counted it one of the fortunate events +of his life. It had sealed to him a new friendship, a confidence to +support him in days of stress. He had been working under the spur of +his passion for Irene, but now this was to be supplemented by the +friendship of Edith. That it was more than friendship on her part did +not occur to him at all, but he knew she was interested in him, and he +was doubly determined that he would justify her interest and +confidence. He threw himself into the columns of <I>The Call</I> with +greater vigour than ever. +</P> + +<P> +But just at this time another incident occurred which was to turn the +flood of his life into strange channels. Dave had been promoted to the +distinction of a private office—a little six-by-six "box stall," as +the sports editor described it—but none the less a distinction shared +only with the managing editor and Bert Morrison, compiler of the +woman's page. Her name was Roberta, but she was masculine to the tips, +and everybody called her Bert. The remainder of the staff occupied a +big, dingy room, with walls pasted with specimen headings, comic +cartoons, and racy pictures, and floor carpeted deeply with exchanges. +Dave, however, had established some sort of order in his den, and had +installed at his own cost a spring lock to prevent depredations upon +his paste pot or sudden raids upon his select file of time copy. +</P> + +<P> +Into this sanctuary one afternoon in October came Conward. It was such +an afternoon as to set every office-worker at war with the gods; the +glories of the foothill October are known only in the foothill country, +and Dave, married though he was to his work, felt the call of the +sunshine and the open spaces. This was a time for fallen leaves and +brown grass and splashes of colour everywhere—nature's autumn colours, +bright, glorious, unsubdued. Only Dave knew how his blood leaped to +that suggestion. But the world must go on. +</P> + +<P> +Conward's habitual cigarette hung from its accustomed short tooth, and +his round, florid face seemed puffier than usual. His aversion to any +exercise more vigorous than offered by a billiard cue was beginning to +reflect itself in a premature rotundity of figure. But his soft, +sedulous voice had not lost the note of friendly confidence which had +attracted Dave, perhaps against his better judgment, on the night of +their first meeting. +</P> + +<P> +"'Lo, Dave," he said. "Alone?" +</P> + +<P> +"Almost," said Dave, without looking up from his typewriter. Then, +turning, he kicked the door shut with his heel and said, "Shoot." +</P> + +<P> +"This strenuous life is spoiling your good manners, Dave, my boy," said +Conward, lazily exhaling a thin cloud of smoke. "If work made a man +rich you'd die a millionaire. But it isn't work that makes men rich. +Ever think of that?" +</P> + +<P> +"If a man does not become rich by work he has no right to become rich +at all," Dave retorted. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean by that word 'right,' Dave? Define it." +</P> + +<P> +"Haven't time. We go to press at four." +</P> + +<P> +"That's the trouble with fellows like you," Conward continued. "You +haven't time. You stick too close to your jobs. You never see the +better chances lying all around. Now suppose you let them go to press +without you to-day, and you listen to me for a while." +</P> + +<P> +Dave was about to throw him out when a gust of yearning for the open +spaces swept over him again. It was true enough. He was giving his +whole life to his paper. Promotion was slow, and there was no prospect +of a really big position at any time. He remembered Mr. Duncan's +remarks about newspaper training being the best preparation for +something else. With a sudden decision he closed his desk. "Shoot," +he said again, but this time with less impatience. +</P> + +<P> +"That's better," said Conward. "Have you ever thought of the future of +this town?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I can't say that I have. I've been busy with its present." +</P> + +<P> +"That's what I supposed. You've been too busy with the details of your +little job to give attention to bigger things. Now, let me pass you a +few pieces of information—things you must know, but you have never put +them together before. What are the natural elements which make a +country or city a desirable place to live? I'll tell you. Climate, +transportation, good water, variety of landscape, opportunity of +independence. Given these conditions, everything else can be added. +Now, our climate—of course it is misunderstood in the South and East, +but misunderstanding doesn't ruffle it. You and I know what it is. +This is a white man's climate. Follow our latitude into Europe if you +want to find the seats of power and success. London and Berlin are +north of us; Paris very little south." +</P> + +<P> +"Where did you get this stuff?" Dave interjected. "Sounds like the +prelude of an address before a boomsters' club." +</P> + +<P> +"I've been thinking, while you've been too busy to think," Conward +retorted. "Then there's transportation. This is one of the few +centres in America which has a north and south trade equal to its east +and west trade. We're on the cross-roads. Every settler who goes into +the North—and it is a mighty North—means more north and south trade. +The development of the Pacific Coast, the industrialization of Asia, +the opening of the Panama Canal—these mean east and west trade. Every +railway that taps this country must come to this city, because we have +the start, and are too big to be ignored." +</P> + +<P> +"'City' is good," said Dave. +</P> + +<P> +"All right. Scoff as much as you like. Have your joke before it turns +on you. There'll be a quarter of a million people here before you're +dead, if you play fair with the life insurance people." +</P> + +<P> +"Go on." +</P> + +<P> +"Then there's the soil—the richest soil in the world. Just dry enough +to keep it from leaching. Natural possibilities for irrigation +wherever necessary—" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not sure about it as a grain country," interrupted Dave, with a +touch of antagonism. +</P> + +<P> +"That is because you were brought up on a ranch, and are a rancher at +heart," Conward shot back. "No rancher is ever sure of any country +being a grain country. All he is sure of is that if the farmer comes +it is good-bye to the open range. Just as the fur-trader blackguarded +the climate to keep the stockman out, so is the stockman blackguarding +the climate to keep the farmer out. But they're coming. They can't be +stopped. It's only a case of education—of advertising. +</P> + +<P> +"I tell you, Dave, the movement is on now, and before long it'll hit us +like a tidal wave. I've been a bit of a gambler all my life, but this +is the biggest jack-pot ever was, and I'm going to sit in. How about +you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'd like to think it over. Promotion doesn't come very fast on this +job, that's sure." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and while you are thinking it over chances are slipping by. +Don't think it over—put it over. I tell you, Dave, there are big +things in the air. They are beginning to move already. Have you +noticed the strangers in town of late? That's the advance guard—" +</P> + +<P> +"Advance guard of a real estate boom?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hish! That's a bad word. Get away from it. Say 'Industrial +development.'" +</P> + +<P> +"All right,—industrial development. And do we have to have an advance +guard of strangers to bring about 'industrial development?'" +</P> + +<P> +"Sure. That's the only way. You never heard of the old-timers in a +town booming it—the term goes between us—did you? Never. The old +resident is always deader than the town, no matter how dead the town +may be. And this business is a science. The right gang can spring it +anywhere, and almost any time. +</P> + +<P> +"Let me elaborate. We'll say Alkali Lake is a railway station where +lots go begging at a hundred dollars each. In drops a well dressed +stranger—buys ten lots at a hundred and fifty each—and the old-timers +are chuckling over sticking him. But in drops another stranger and +buys a block of lots at two hundred each. Then the old timers begin to +wonder if they didn't sell too soon. By the time the fourth or fifth +stranger has dropped in they are dead sure of it, and they are trying +to buy their lots back. All sorts of rumours get started, nobody knows +how. New railways are coming, big factories are to be started, +minerals have been located, there's a secret war on between great +monied interests. The town council meets and changes the name to +Silver City—having regard, no doubt, to the alkali in the sleugh +water. The old-timers, and all that great, innocent public which is +forever hoping to get something for nothing, are now glad to buy the +lots at five hundred to ten thousand dollars each, and by the time +they've bought it up the gang moves on. It's the smoothest game in the +world, and every community will fall for it at least twice… Well, +they're here. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course, it's a little different in this case, because there really +is something in the way of natural advantages to support it. It's not +all hot air. That'll make the event just so much bigger. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, Dave, I've been dipping in a little already, and it struck me we +might work together on this deal. Your paper has considerable weight, +and if that weight falls the right way you won't find me stingy. For +instance, an item that this property"—he produced a slip with some +legal descriptions—"has been sold for ten thousand dollars to eastern +investors—very conservative investors from the East, don't forget +that—might help to turn another deal that's just hanging. Sorry to +keep you so long, but perhaps you can catch the press yet." And, with +one of his friendly mannerisms, Conward departed. +</P> + +<P> +Dave sat for some minutes in a quandary. He was discouraged with his +salary, or, rather, with the lack of prospect of any increase in his +salary. Conward's words had been very unsettling. They pulled in +opposite directions. They fired him with a new enthusiasm for his +city, and they intimated that a gang of professional land-gamblers was +soon to perpetrate an enormous theft, leaving the public holding the +sack. Still there must be a middle course somewhere. +</P> + +<P> +He walked to his little window and looked across the warm prairie. No +buildings cut his view from the brown hillsides where the lazy mists of +autumn beckoned to be out and free. It was a sleepy cow-town still, +and yet, as he now recalled, a new pulse had been throbbing its +arteries of late. The proportion of strangers—men in white collars +and street shoes—at the hotels was steadily growing. Rents were going +up. It was the first low wave—and Conward's ear had caught it… +</P> + +<P> +At any rate, he could use Conward's story about the land sale. That +was news—legitimate news. Of course, it might be a faked sale—faked +for its news value—but reporters are not paid for being detectives. +The rule was to publish the news while it was hot. Nothing is so +perishable as news. It must be used at once or discarded altogether… +The <I>Evening Call</I> carried a statement of Conward's sale, and on +that statement was hung a column story on the growing prosperity of the +city, and its assured future owing to its exceptional climate and +natural resources, combined with its commanding position on +transportation routes, both east and west and north and south. With +the industrialization of Asia and the settlement of the great +North—and how great is that North—etc., etc. +</P> + +<P> +During the following days Dave had a keener eye than usual for +evidences of 'industrial development.' He found them on every hand. +Old properties, long considered unsalable, were changing owners. +Handsomely furnished offices had been opened on principal corners for +the sale of city and country property. Hotels were crowded, bar-rooms +were jammed. The preponderance of the male population had never been +so pronounced, and every incoming train added to it. Money moved +easily; wages were stiffening; tradesmen were in demand. There was +material for many good stories in his investigations. He began writing +features on the city's prosperity and prospects. The rival paper did +the same, and there was soon started between them a competition of +optimism. The great word became "boost." It stood, apparently, for +any action or attitude that would increase prices. The virus was now +in the veins of the community; pulsing through every street and by-way +of the little city. Dave marvelled, and wondered how he had failed to +read these signs until Conward had laid their portent bare before him. +But as yet it was only his news sense that responded; his delight in +the strange and the sensational. He was not yet inoculated with the +poison of easy wealth. +</P> + +<P> +His nights were busy with his investigations, but on Sundays, as usual, +he went out to Duncans'. He had developed the habit of attending +morning service; he loved the music, and it was customary for Edith to +sing a morning solo. Her voice, which had enraptured him when they +first met, had developed wonderfully. It filled the morning air like +the clear tolling of silver bells. For its sake he gladly endured the +sermons, and even in the sermon he sometimes found common ground with +the preacher. They could meet on any faith that postulated the +brotherhood of man. But the reverend speaker touched such a subject +warily. It seemed to Dave he would gladly have gone further, but was +held in restraint by a sense of the orthodoxy of his congregation. Too +literal an interpretation of the brotherhood of man might carry the +taint of Socialism, and the congregation represented the wealth of the +city. It was safer to preach learnedly on abstractions of belief. +</P> + +<P> +This morning Edith had not been in her place, and the service was flat. +In the afternoon she was not at her home. Mrs. Duncan explained that +Edith had gone to visit a girl friend in the country; would be away for +some time. Dave felt a foolish annoyance that she should have left +town. She might at least have called him up. Why should she call him +up? Of course not. Still, the town was very empty. He drove with +Mrs. Duncan in the afternoon, and at night took a long walk by the +river. He had a vague but oppressive sense of loneliness. He had not +realized what part of his life these Sunday afternoons with Edith had +come to be. He had no man friends; his nature held him apart from his +own sex. And yet he had a strange capacity for making friends quickly, +if he tried. But he didn't try. He didn't feel the need. But he felt +lost without Edith. +</P> + +<P> +A few days later Conward strolled in, with the inevitable cigarette. +He smoked in silence until Dave completed a story. +</P> + +<P> +"Good stuff you're giving us," he commented, when the article was +finished. "Mighty good stuff." +</P> + +<P> +"Your tip put me on to a good lead all right," Dave acknowledged. "And +now <I>The Times</I> is chasing me hard. They had a story this morning that +the —— railway is buying a right-of-way up the river." +</P> + +<P> +"Remember what I told you the other day? Stories start from nowhere. +It's just like putting a match to tinder. Now we're off." +</P> + +<P> +Conward smoked a few minutes in silence, but Dave could not fail to see +the excitement under his calm exterior. He had, as he said, decided to +"sit in" in the biggest game ever played. The intoxication of sudden +wealth had already fired his blood. +</P> + +<P> +He slipped a bill to Dave. "For your services in that little +transaction," he explained. +</P> + +<P> +Elden held the bill in his fingers, gingerly, as though it might carry +infection, as in very truth it did. He realized that he stood at a +turning point—that everything the future held for him might rest on +his present decision. There remained in him not a little of the fine, +stern honour of the ranchmen of the open range; an honour curious, +sometimes terrible, in its interpretation of right and wrong, but a +fine, stern honour none the less. And he instinctively felt that to +accept this money would compromise him forever more. And yet—others +did it. He had no doubt of that. Conward would laugh at such +scruples. And Conward had more friends than he had. Everybody liked +Conward. It seemed to Dave that he, only, distrusted him. But that, +also, as Dave said to himself, lay in the point of view. He granted +that he had no more right to impose his standard of morals upon Conward +than the preacher had to impose an arbitrary belief upon him. And as +he turned the bill in his fingers he noticed that it was for one +hundred dollars. He had thought it was ten. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't take that much," he exclaimed. "It isn't fair." +</P> + +<P> +"Fair enough," said Conward, well pleased that Dave should be impressed +by his generosity. "Fair enough," he repeated. "It's just ten per +cent. of my profit." +</P> + +<P> +"You mean you made a thousand dollars on that deal?" +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly that. And that will look like a peanut to what we are going +to make later on." +</P> + +<P> +"We?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. You and me. We're going into partnership." +</P> + +<P> +"But I've nothing to invest. I've only a very little saved up." +</P> + +<P> +"Invest that hundred." +</P> + +<P> +Dave looked at Conward sharply. Was he trifling? No; his eyes were +frank and serious. +</P> + +<P> +"You mean it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course. Now, I'll put you on to something, and it's the biggest +thing that has been pulled off yet. There's a section of land lying +right against the city limits that is owned by a fellow over in +England; remittance man who fell heir to an estate and had to go home +to spend it. Well, he has been paying taxes ever since, and is tired +of the 'bally rawnch'; besides, he is busy keeping his property in +England reasonably well spent. I am arranging through a London office +to offer him ten dollars an acre, and I'll bet he jumps at it. I've +arranged for the necessary credits, but there will be some expenses for +cables, etc., and you can put your hundred into that. If we pull it +off—and we will pull it off—we start up in business as Conward & +Elden, or Elden & Conward, which ever sounds better. Boy, there's a +fortune in it." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you figure it's worth?" said Dave, trying to speak easily. +"Twenty-five dollars an acre?" +</P> + +<P> +"Twenty-five dollars an acre!" Conward shouted. "Dave, newspaper +routine has killed your imagination, little as one would expect such a +result, from some of the things the papers print. Twenty-five dollars +an acre! Listen! +</P> + +<P> +"The city boundaries are to be extended—probably will be by the time +this deal goes through. Then it is city property. A street railway +system is to be built, and we'll see that it runs through our land. We +may have to 'grease' somebody, but it's a poor engineer that saves on +grease. Then we'll survey that section into twenty-five foot lots—and +we'll sell them at two hundred dollars each for those nearest the city +down to one hundred for those farthest out—average one hundred and +fifty, total nine hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Allow say sixty +thousand for 'grease' and there is still nine hundred thousand, and +that doesn't count re-sale commissions. Dave, it's good for a cool +million. And that is just the beginning. It will give us a standing +that will make anything possible." +</P> + +<P> +Dave was doing rapid thinking. Suddenly he faced Conward, and their +eyes met. "Conward," he said, "why do you put this up to me?" +</P> + +<P> +"What d'ye mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"You don't need my little hundred to put this over. Why do you let me +in on it?" +</P> + +<P> +Conward smiled and breathed easily. There had been a moment of tension. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that's simple," he answered. "I figure this business is going to +be too big for me, and you are the partner I need. I figure we'll +travel well in double harness. I'm a good mixer—I know people—and +I've got ideas. And you're sound and honourable and people trust you." +</P> + +<P> +"Thanks," said Dave, dryly. +</P> + +<P> +"That's right," Conward continued. "We'll be a combination hard to +beat. You know the story about the brothers in the coal business?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"Jim and Fred were coal dealers, when a revival broke out in their +town, and Jim got religion. Then he tried to convert Fred; tried awful +hard to get Fred to at least go to the meetings. But Fred wouldn't +budge. Said it wasn't practicable. Jim argued and coaxed and prayed, +but without result. At last he put it up to Fred. +</P> + +<P> +"'Fred,' he said, 'why won't you come to our meetings?'" +</P> + +<P> +"'Well,' the brother answered, 'it was all right for you to get +religion. Sort o' lends respectability to the firm. But if I get it +too, who's going to weigh the coal?'" +</P> + +<P> +The two men laughed over the story, and yet it left an unpleasant +impression upon Dave. He had never felt sure of Conward, and now he +felt less sure than ever. But the lust of easy money was beginning to +stir within him. The bill in his hands represented more than three +weeks' wages. Conward was making money—making money fast, and surely +here was an opportunity such as comes once in a lifetime. A boy shoved +in his head and yelled for copy. Dave swore at him, impatiently. He +had never before realized how irksome the drudgery of his steady grind +had become. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll go you," he said to Conward at last. "I'll risk this hundred, +and a little more if necessary." +</P> + +<P> +"Good," said Conward, springing to his feet and taking Dave's hand in a +warm grasp. "Now we're away. But you better play safe. Stick to your +pay cheque here until we pull the deal through. There won't be much to +do until then, anyway, and you can help more by guiding the paper along +right lines." +</P> + +<P> +"It sounds like a fairy tale," Dave demurred, as though unwilling to +credit the possibilities Conward had outlined. "You're sure it can be +done?" +</P> + +<P> +"Done? Why, son, it has been done in all the big centres in the +States, and at many a place that'll never be a centre at all. And it +will be done here. Dave, bigger things than you dare to dream of are +looming up right ahead." +</P> + +<P> +Then Dave had a qualm. "If that section of land is worth close to a +million dollars," he said, "is it quite fair to take advantage of the +owner's absence and ignorance to buy it for a few thousand?" +</P> + +<P> +"Dave," said Conward, with an arm on his shoulder, "the respectability +of the firm is safe in your hands. But—<I>please</I> let me weigh the +coal." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER ELEVEN +</H3> + + +<P> +David Elden smoked his after-dinner cigar in his bachelor quarters. +The years had been good to the firm of Conward & Elden; good far beyond +the wildness of their first dreams. The transaction of the section +bought from the English absentee had been but the beginning of bigger +and more daring adventures. That section was now considered close-in +property, and lots which Conward & Elden had originally sold for two +hundred dollars each had since changed hands at more than a thousand. +The street railway ran far beyond it. Water mains, sewers, electric +lights, graded streets and concrete sidewalks had sprawled for miles +across the prairie. Conward, in that first wild prophecy of his, had +spoken of a city of a quarter of a million people; already more lots +had been sold than could be occupied by four times that population. +</P> + +<P> +It had been a very marvellous development; an enthusiasm which had +grown deeper and wilder until it swept along as an insane abandon, +bearing in its current the last vestiges of conservatism and caution. +For at last the old-timers, long alluded to as the "dead ones," had +come in. For years they had held back, scoffing, predicting disaster; +and while they held back venturesome youths had become millionaires. +One can stand that only so long, and at last the old-timers were buying +and selling and debauching with the others in the lust of easy money. +</P> + +<P> +Dave had often asked himself where it all would end. He traced it from +its beginning; from the day when he wrote his first "boost" story; from +the hundred-dollar bill that Conward had placed in his hands. It was a +simple course to trace; so simple now that he was amazed that only +Conward and a few shrewd others had seen it at that time. It had begun +with the prosperity of incoming money; the money of a little group of +speculators and adventurers and the others who hung on their train. +They had filled the few hotels and office buildings. Presently some +one began to build a new hotel. Labour was scarce and dear; +carpenters, masons, bricklayers, plumbers, plasterers, labourers, had +to be brought in from the outside. There was no place for them to +sleep; there was no place for them to eat; there were insufficient +stores to supply their wants. More hotels and shops and stores and +houses had to be built, and to build them more carpenters and masons +and bricklayers and plumbers and plasterers and painters had to be +brought from the outside. The thing grew upon itself. It was like a +fire starting slowly in the still prairie grass, which by its own heat +creates a breeze that in turn gives birth to a gale that whips it forth +in uncontrollable fury. Houses went up, blocks of them, streets of +them, miles of them, but they could not keep pace with the demand, for +every builder of a house must have a roof to sleep under. And there +were streets to build; streets to grade and fill and pave; ditches to +dig and sidewalks to lay and wires to string. And more houses had to +be built for the men who paved streets and dug ditches and laid +sidewalks and strung wires. And more stores and more hotels and more +churches and more schools and more places of amusement were needed. +And the fire fed on its own fury and spread to lengths undreamed by +those who first set the match to the dry grass. +</P> + +<P> +The process of speculation was as easily defined. The first buyers +were cautious; they looked over the vacant lots carefully; weighed +their advantages and disadvantages; the prospect of the city growing +this way or that. But scarcely had they bought when they sold again at +a profit, and were seized with a quick regret that they had not bought +more, or earlier. Soon the caution of the early transactions was +forgotten in the rush for more lots which, almost immediately, could be +re-sold at a profit. Judgment and discretion became handicaps in the +race; the successful man was he who threw all such qualities to the +winds. Fortunes were made; intrinsic values were lost sight of in the +glare of great and sudden profits. Prices mounted up and up, and when +calmer counsels held that they had reached their limits all such +counsels were abashed by prices soaring higher still. +</P> + +<P> +And the firm of Conward & Elden had profited not the least in these +wild years of gain-getting. Their mahogany finished first floor +quarters were the last word in office luxuriance. Conward's private +room might with credit have housed a premier or a president. Its +purpose was to be impressive, rather than to give any other service, as +Conward spent little of his time therein. On Dave fell the +responsibility of office management, and his room was fitted for +efficiency rather than luxury. It commanded a view of the long general +office where a battery of stenographers and clerks took care of the +detail of the business of Conward & Elden. And Dave had established +his ability as an office manager. His fairness, his fearlessness, his +impartiality, his courtesy, his even temper—save on rare and excusable +occasions—had won from the staff a loyalty which Conward, with all his +abilities as a good mixer, could never have commanded. +</P> + +<P> +He had prospered, of course. His statement to his banker ran into +seven figures. For years he had not known the experience of being +short of money for any personal purpose. Occasionally, at first, and +again of late, the firm had found it necessary to resort to high +finance. This was usually accomplished by getting a bank so deeply +involved in their speculations that, in moments of emergency, it dared +not desert them if it would. There are ways of doing that. And always +the daring of Conward and the organization of Elden had justified +themselves. Dave was still a young man, not yet in his thirties; he +was rated a millionaire; he had health, comeliness, and personality; he +commanded the respect of a wide circle of business men, and was +regarded as one of the matrimonial prizes of the city; his name had +been discussed for public office; he was a success. +</P> + +<P> +And yet this night, as he sat in his comfortable rooms and watched the +street lights come fluttering on as twilight silhouetted the great +hills to the west, he was not so sure of his success. A gas fire +burned in the grate, rippling in blue, sinuous waves, and radiating an +agreeable warmth on the May evening air. Dave finished his cigar and +stood by the window, where the street light now poured in, blending its +pale effulgence with the blue radiance from the grate. He was a man to +be admired. His frame a trifle stouter than when we last saw him, but +still supple and firm; the set of the shoulders, the taper of the body +to the waist, the keen but passive face, the poise of the whole figure +was that of one who, tasting of the goodness of life, had not +gormandized thereon. He was called a success, yet in the honesty of +his own soul he feared the coin did not ring true. Conward had +insisted more and more upon "weighing the coal." And Dave had +concerned himself less and less with the measure. That was what +worried him. He felt that the crude but honest conception of the +square deal which was the one valuable heritage of his childhood was +slipping away from him. He had little in common with Conward outside +of their business relationship. He suspected the man vaguely, but had +never found tangible ground for his suspicion. Dave did not drink, and +those confidences peculiar to a state of semi-intoxication were denied +him. He was afraid to drink, not with the fear of the craven, but with +the fear of a man who knows his enemy's advantage. He had suffered in +his own home, and he feared the enemy, and would make no truce. +Neither was he seduced by the vices which the possession of wealth made +easy to his hand. He counted more as a dream—a sort of supernalism +out of the past—that last night and that last compact with Irene +Hardy, but it had been anchorage for his soul on more than one +dangerous sea, and he would not give it up. Some time, he supposed, he +should take a wife, but until then that covenant, sealed by the +moonlight to the approving murmur of the spruce trees, should stand as +his one title of character against which no <I>caveat</I> might be +registered. +</P> + +<P> +He was turning this very matter over in his mind, and wondering what +the end would be, when a knock came at the door. +</P> + +<P> +"Come," he said, switching on the light… "Oh, it's you, Bert. I +am honoured. Sit down." +</P> + +<P> +The girl threw her coat over a chair and sank into another. Without +speaking she extended her shapely feet to the fire, but when its +soothing warmth had comforted her limbs she looked up and said, +</P> + +<P> +"Adam sure put it over on us, didn't he?" +</P> + +<P> +"Still nursing that grievance over your sex," laughed Dave. "I thought +you would outgrow it." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't blame him," continued the girl, ignoring his interruption. "I +am just getting back from forty-seven teas. Gabble, gabble, gabble. I +don't blame him. We deserve it." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you have had nothing to eat?" +</P> + +<P> +"Almost. Only insignificant indigestibles." +</P> + +<P> +Dave pressed a button, and a Chinese boy (all male Chinese are boys) +entered, bowing in that deference which is so potent to separate the +white man from his silver. The white man glories in being salaamed, +especially by an Oriental, who can grovel with a touch of art. And the +Oriental has not been slow to capitalize his master's vanity. +</P> + +<P> +"Bring something to eat. Go out for it, and be quick. For two." +</P> + +<P> +"Ice cleam? Toast? Tea—" +</P> + +<P> +"No! Something to eat! Soup, flied chicken, hot vegetables, dessert, +everything." +</P> + +<P> +"You've had your dinner, surely?" asked Bert. +</P> + +<P> +"Such a dinner as a man eats alone," he answered. "Now for something +real. You stick to the paper like the ink, don't you, Bert?" +</P> + +<P> +"Can't leave it. I hate it—and I love it. It's my poison and my +medicine. Most of all I hate the society twaddle. And, of course, +that's what I have to do." +</P> + +<P> +"And you write it up so gloriously," said Dave. "Enthusiasm in every +line of it." +</P> + +<P> +"You read it, then? I thought all men looked on the society page with +contempt." +</P> + +<P> +"They do. But they look on it just the same—long enough to see +whether their names appear among those present." +</P> + +<P> +"Or whose husband is out of town?" +</P> + +<P> +"You're growing more cynical all the time." +</P> + +<P> +"How can I help it, when I see both sides of the game? If I printed +half what I know I'd have every lawyer in this city busy +to-morrow—except those who skipped out over-night." +</P> + +<P> +"You know it," Dave agreed. "But here is dinner." The boy wheeled a +table between them, and there was a savoury smell of hot food. +</P> + +<P> +"A <I>recherché</I> repast," screamed Bert, half through her soup, with a +great burst of merriment. "Oh, I must tell you. You remember the +Metfords? You used to shovel coal for them. I know you're no snob, or +I wouldn't put it so brutally. Of course, they're rich. Sold the old +stable-yard for a quarter of a million, or thereabouts, and are now +living in style. Some style! When they have guests, as they nearly +always have—there'll be parasites as long as there's easy money—old +man Metford eats breakfast in evening dress. And she orders the +chiffonier to take the guests down to the <I>depôt</I> in their Packer. But +one thing has gone to her heart. She didn't realize in time that it +wasn't good form to be prolific. Now that she knows three is the limit +she has sent the other six to the country. But that isn't what I +started on. She called up this morning and gave me hell because I said +yesterday that she had served a <I>recherché</I> repast at some function +they pulled off the other night. 'See here, young woman,' she says, 'I +want you to understand there's none of that <I>recherché</I> stuff on my +table. Nothing short of champagne, every drop of it.' I just yelled." +</P> + +<P> +"Why didn't you print a retraction?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know." +</P> + +<P> +"I do. It's because, Miss Roberta, beneath your cynicism and your +assumption of masculinity, you are as sympathetic as a young mother. +It would be mean to put over anything like that, and you just can't do +it." +</P> + +<P> +"Nonsense. You see what I print at times—" +</P> + +<P> +"Bert," he said suddenly, "why don't you get married?" +</P> + +<P> +"Who, me?" Then she laughed. "I guess I'm too sympathetic. It would +be mean to put over anything like that on a man, and a girl wouldn't +have me." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, why don't you buy some real estate?" he continued, +jocularly. "Every man should have some dissipation—something to make +him forget his other troubles." +</P> + +<P> +"A little late in the meal for that word, isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +He stared a moment, and then sprang to his feet. "I beg your pardon. +What will you drink?" +</P> + +<P> +"What you drink." +</P> + +<P> +"But I drink coffee." +</P> + +<P> +"So do I… I may be mannish, Dave, but I don't think I'm a fool. I +can understand a man drinking, but not a woman. It's too +dangerous.… But I'll smoke a cigarette. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, as for real estate. The fact is, I <I>have</I> invested." +</P> + +<P> +A look came into his face which she did not understand. "With whom?" +he demanded, almost peremptorily. +</P> + +<P> +"With Conward & Elden," she answered, and the roguishness of her voice +suggested that her despised femininity lay not far from the surface. +"Were you about to be jealous?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why didn't you come to me?" She realized that he was in deep earnest. +</P> + +<P> +"I did," she answered, candidly. "At least, I asked for you, but you +were out of town, so Conward took me in hand, and I followed his +advice." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you trust Conward?" he demanded almost fiercely. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, he's good enough to be your partner, isn't he?" +</P> + +<P> +The thrust hurt more than she knew. He had his poise again. +</P> + +<P> +"Real estate is the only subject I would trust him on," she continued. +"I must say, Dave, that for a shrewd business man you are awfully dense +about Conward." +</P> + +<P> +He remained silent for a few moments. He decided not to follow her +lead. He knew that if she had anything explicit to say about Conward +she would say it when she felt the time to be opportune, and not until +then. He returned to the matter of her speculation. +</P> + +<P> +"How much did you invest?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not much. Just what I had." +</P> + +<P> +"You mean all your savings?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why not? It's all right, isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +He had risen and was standing again by the window. The long line of +lights stretched out until they became mere diamond points on the +velvet bosom of the night. Motor cars sped noiselessly to and fro, +save where, at the corner below, chauffeurs exercised their sirens. +But neither the lights, nor the night, nor the movement and noises of +the street had any part in the young man's consciousness. +</P> + +<P> +"It's all right, isn't it?" she repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid it isn't," he said at length, in a restrained voice. "I'm +afraid it isn't." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean?" she demanded. There was an accusation in her eyes +that was hard to face. +</P> + +<P> +"Bert," he continued, "did it ever occur to you that this thing must +have an end—that we can't go on forever lifting ourselves by our own +bootstraps? We have built a city here, a great and beautiful city, +almost as a wizard might build it by magic over night. There was room +for it here; there was occasion; there was justification. But there +was neither occasion nor justification for turning miles and miles of +prairie land into city lots—lots which in the nature of things cannot +possibly, in your time or mine, be required for city purposes. These +lots should be producing; wheat, oats, potatoes, cows, butter—that is +what we must build our city on. We have been considering the effect +rather than the cause. The cause is the country, the neglected +country, and until it overtakes the city we must stand still, if we do +not go back. Our prosperity has been built on borrowed money, and we +have forgotten that borrowed money must, sometime, be repaid. +Meanwhile, in the heart of the greatest agricultural country in the +world, we bring our potatoes across the American continent and our +butter across the Pacific ocean." +</P> + +<P> +He had spoken with effort, as one who makes a bitter confession, yet +tries to state the case fairly, without excuses and without violence. +</P> + +<P> +"You mean that the boom is about to burst?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Not exactly burst. It will not be so sudden as that. It will just +ooze away, like a toy balloon pricked with a pin." +</P> + +<P> +There was silence for some minutes. When she spoke at length it was +with a tinge of bitterness. +</P> + +<P> +"So you are unloading?" +</P> + +<P> +"The firm is. I beg you, Bert, to believe that if I had known your +intention I would have tried to dissuade you. I would have advised you +to keep your money in the bank until after the air cleared. Three per +cent. is small, but it is better than tax bills on unsalable property." +</P> + +<P> +"Why me particularly? I am only one of the great public. Why don't +you give your conclusions to the world? When you were convinced that a +period of inflation was about to occur you did not hesitate to say so. +If I remember you used <I>The Call</I> for that purpose. Now that you see +the reaction setting in, doesn't honesty suggest what your course +should be?" +</P> + +<P> +She had risen, and she, too, looked with unseeing eyes upon the busy +street. There was reproach in her voice, Dave thought, rather than +bitterness. +</P> + +<P> +He spread his hands. "What's the use? The harm is done. To predict a +collapse would be to precipitate a panic. It is as though we were +passengers on a boat at sea. You and I know the boat is sinking, but +the other passengers don't. They are making merry with champagne and +motor cars—if you can accept that figure—and revelry and easy money. +Why spoil their remaining few hours by telling them they are headed for +the bottom?… Besides, they are not deserving of sympathy, after +all. They are in the game because they wanted to make money without +earning it. Gamblers, every one of them. And the man or woman who +expects to get wealth without giving value shouldn't whine if, by a +turn of fate, he gives value without getting wealth." +</P> + +<P> +After a moment she placed her fingers on his arm. "Forgive me, Dave," +she said. "I didn't mean to whine." +</P> + +<P> +"You didn't whine," he returned, almost fiercely. "It's not in you. +You are too good a sport. But there will be lots of whining in the +coming months." Man-like it did not occur to Dave that in that moment +the girl had bid good-bye to her savings of a dozen years, and had +merely looked up and said, "Forgive me, Dave, I didn't mean to whine." +When he thought of it, long afterward, he had a sudden conviction that +if he had realized then just how much of a brick she was he would have +proposed to her on the spot… And she would have laughed, and said, +"Now, Dave, don't spoil our fun with anything like that." +</P> + +<P> +What she did do was to let her hand creep up his arm until she could +tap his cheek with her second finger. "Is this all the entertainment +you can think of to-night?" she bantered. +</P> + +<P> +He glanced at his watch. "It's late for a theatre," he said, "but we +can ride. Which do you say—auto or horse-back?" +</P> + +<P> +"I can't go horse-back in these clothes, and I don't want to change." +</P> + +<P> +Dave pressed a button, and the omnipresent Chinese "boy" stood before +him. "My car," he said. "The two-passenger car. I shall not want a +driver." Then, continuing to Miss Morrison, "You will need something +more than that coat. Let me see. My smoking jacket should fit." +</P> + +<P> +In a few minutes they were threading their way through the street +traffic in Dave's machine. Whatever had been his forecast of impending +disaster, the streets held little hint of it. They were congested with +traffic and building material. Although it was late at night the +imperious clamour of electric rivetters rattled down from steel +structures on every hand. Office blocks, with their rental space all +contracted months in advance, were being rushed to completion by the +aid of arc lights and double shifts. But presently the traffic +thinned, and the car hummed through long residential avenues of +comfortable homes. From a thousand unmasked windows came the glow of +light; here and there were the strains of music. On and on they sped, +until the city streets and the city lights fell behind, and the car was +swinging along a fine country road, through a land marked with streams +and bridges, and blocked out with fragrant bluffs of young poplars. +</P> + +<P> +At last, after an hour's steady driving in a delight of motion too keen +for conversation, they pulled up on the brow of a hill. A soft breeze +from the south-west, sensuous with the smell of spruce and +balm-o'-gilead, pressed, cool and gentle, against their faces, and far +to the south-east some settler's burning straw pile lay like an +orange-red coal on the lips of the prairie, from which she blew an +incense of ruddy gold and ochre, fan-shaped against the heavens. +Behind them, to the north, far-away city lights danced and sparkled in +the lap of the foot-hills, like diamonds strewn by some mighty and +profligate Croesus. Dave switched off his lights, the better to +appreciate the majesty of the night, and in the silence came the low +murmur of water. There were no words. They sat and breathed it. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly, from a sharp bend in the road, flashed the lights of an +approaching car. Dave was able to switch his own lights on again only +in time to avoid a collision. The on-coming car lurched and passed by +furiously, but not before Dave had recognized Conward as the driver. +Back on its trail of dust floated the ribald notes of half-intoxicated +women. +</P> + +<P> +"Close enough," said Dave, when the dust had settled. "Well, let us +jog back home." +</P> + +<P> +They took the return trip leisurely, drinking in the glories of the +night, and allowing time for the play of conversation. Bert Morrison +was a good conversationalist. Her points of interest were almost +infinite. And they were back among the street lights before they knew. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, we are nearly home," she exclaimed. "And, honest, Dave, I wanted +to ask you something. Why don't you get married?" +</P> + +<P> +"I guess I'm too sympathetic," he answered, after a moment's pause. +"And it wouldn't be fair—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, can that. It's been warmed over once already. Really, though, +why don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why should I?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why shouldn't you? It's natural. And you know you can't go on always +just putting it off. It leaves your life empty. To-night, when I +asked you if you had had dinner, you said, 'Such a meal as a man eats +alone.' That betrays the emptiness." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose it does. But I don't know many girls. I don't know any +girl very well, except you, and you wouldn't have me." +</P> + +<P> +"No, I wouldn't," she answered frankly. "I like you too well. But you +know other girls, and you could get to know more if you wanted to. +There's Edith Duncan, for instance." +</P> + +<P> +"Edith is a fine girl. The Duncans are wonderful people. I owe to +them almost everything. But as for marrying Edith—" +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know. I never thought of it that way. She's a fine girl." +</P> + +<P> +"None better," said Bert, with decision. "Dave, I'm not much on +orthodox religion, as you know, but that girl's got something on me. +She has a voice that would make her famous on the stage, but she uses +it all the time, as she says, 'in the service of the King!' I think +she's narrow on that point, but I know she's sincere. Edith has had a +great sorrow, and it makes her nobility stand out, pure and wonderful, +like a white gem in a black setting. It seems to be the law that one +must rub shoulders with sorrow before he really begins to live. And +any afternoon you can find her down in the children's ward, singing +with that wonderful voice to the little sick sufferers." +</P> + +<P> +"I know about her sorrow," said Dave, as though confessing a profound +secret. "She told me about her little brother being killed." +</P> + +<P> +It sprang to Bert's lips to say, "Oh, what's the use?" but she checked +herself. They were at the door of her boarding-house. As he helped +her to the sidewalk Dave stood for a moment with her hand in his. He +had long liked Bert Morrison, and to-night he was powerfully drawn +toward her. He knew—what she would have most strenuously denied—that +her masculinity was a sham. Her defiance of convention—rambling like +a fellow bachelor into his apartments—her occasional profanity and +occasional cigarette—these were but the cloak from which her own deep +womanhood was forever peering forth. He felt impelled to kiss her. He +wondered if she would be angry; if such a familiarity would obstruct +their growing friendship. He felt sure she would not be angry, but she +would probably think him foolish. And man cannot endure being thought +foolish by woman. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I almost forgot," she said as they parted, as though she really +had forgotten. "I was at a reception to-day when a beautiful woman +asked for you. Asked me if I had ever heard of Mr. David Elden. +</P> + +<P> +"'What, Dave Elden, the millionaire?' I said. 'Everybody knows him. +He's the beau of the town, or could be, if he wanted to.' Oh, I gave +you a good name, Dave." +</P> + +<P> +"Thanks, Bert. That was decent. Who was she?" +</P> + +<P> +"She said her name was Irene Hardy." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER TWELVE +</H3> + + +<P> +Upon the return of Irene Hardy to the East it had slowly become +apparent to her mother that things were not as they once had been. +There were various vague stirrings of uneasiness, but perhaps the most +alarming manifestation was the strange silence in which the girl +enveloped herself. It seemed as though she had left part of her nature +behind—had outgrown it, perhaps—and had created about herself an +atmosphere of reserve foreign to her earlier life. It seemed as though +the loneliness of the great plains had settled upon her. The old +virility had been sobered; the gaiety of her girlhood had ripened into +a poise more disturbing to Mrs. Hardy than any conventional excess +could have been. She sought her own company; she tolerated social +engagements in which she had previously found delight. And, most +sinister of all, she showed no disposition to encourage the attentions +which were ready enough in the offering. +</P> + +<P> +"Whatever has come over Irene?" said Mrs. Hardy to the doctor one +evening when their daughter had been particularly indifferent to a +theatre invitation. "She hasn't been the same since she came home. I +should not have let her go west alone." +</P> + +<P> +The doctor looked up mildly from his paper. It was the custom of the +doctor to look up mildly when Mrs. Hardy made a statement demanding +some form of recognition. From the wide initiation into domestic +affairs which his profession had given him, Dr. Hardy had long since +ceased to look for the absolute in woman. He had never looked for it +in man. He realized that in Mrs. Hardy he did not possess a perfect +mate, but he was equally convinced that in no other woman would he have +found a perfect mate, and he accepted his lot with the philosophy of +his sixty years. If Mrs. Hardy, in some respects, failed to measure up +to his standard of the ideal, he found it true nevertheless that she +had many admirable qualities. Granting that in his matrimonial +adventure he might possibly have done somewhat better, fairness +compelled the admission that he might also have done very much worse. +And being, as has been hinted, something of a philosopher, he had +sought, whenever possible, to harmonize his life with hers; and when +that was impossible, at least to keep what pressure he might upon the +soft pedal. So instead of reminding his wife that Irene had not been +alone when she went west he remarked, very mildly, that the girl was +growing older. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hardy found in this remark occasion to lay down the book she had +been holding, and to sit upright in a rigidity of intense disapproval. +Dr. Hardy was aware that this was entirely a theatrical attitude, +assumed for the purpose of imposing upon him a proper humility. He had +experienced it many, many times. And he knew that his statement, +notwithstanding its obviousness, was about to be challenged. +</P> + +<P> +"Dr. Hardy," said his wife, after the lapse of an appropriate period, +"do you consider that an intelligent remark?" +</P> + +<P> +"It has the advantage of truthfulness," returned the doctor, +complacently. "It is susceptible of demonstration." +</P> + +<P> +"I should think this is a matter of sufficient interest to the family +to be discussed seriously," retorted Mrs. Hardy, who had an unfortunate +habit of becoming exasperated by her husband's good humour. She had +none of his philosophy, and she mistook his even temper for +indifference. "Irene is our only child, and before your very eyes you +see her—you see her—" Mrs. Hardy's fears were too nebulous to enable +her to complete the sentence. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I see her," the doctor admitted. "That is, I did see her at +dinner. There is nothing alarming about that." Then, relenting, "But, +seriously, what reason have you for uneasiness about the child?" +</P> + +<P> +"Reason enough. She behaves so strangely. Do you know, I begin—I +really do begin to suspect that she's in love." +</P> + +<P> +It was Dr. Hardy's turn to sit upright. "Nonsense," he said. "Why +should she be in love?" It is the unfortunate limitation of the +philosopher that he so often leaves irrational behaviour out of the +reckoning. "She is only a child." +</P> + +<P> +"She will be eighteen presently. And why shouldn't she be in love? +And the question is—who? That is for you to answer. Whom did she +meet?" +</P> + +<P> +"If you would find a Hamlet at the root of this melancholy you must ask +our Ophelia. She met no one with me. My accident left me to enjoy my +holiday as best I could at a ranch deep in the foothills, and Reenie +stayed with me there. There was no one else—" +</P> + +<P> +"No one? No ranch men, cowboys,—cow punchers—I think I have +heard,"—with nice disdain. +</P> + +<P> +"No. Only young Elden—" +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Only</I>? Who is this young Elden?" +</P> + +<P> +"But he is just a boy. Just the son of the old rancher of whom I have +told you." +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly. And Irene is just a girl. Dr. Hardy, you are all very well +with your fevers and your chills, but you can't diagnose a love case +worth a cent. An epidemic would break out under your very eyes and you +blissfully unconscious. What about this young Elden? Did Irene see +much of him?" +</P> + +<P> +The doctor spread his hands. "Do you realize that there were four of +us at that ranch—four, only, and no one else for miles? How could she +help seeing him?", +</P> + +<P> +"And you permitted it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I was on my back with a broken leg. We were guests at their home. +They were good Samaritans to us. I couldn't chaperon her. And +besides, they don't do things that way in that country. You don't +understand. It's altogether different." +</P> + +<P> +"Andrew," said Mrs. Hardy, leaning forward, and the word was ominous, +for she used his Christian name only in moments of crisis,—"was Irene +ever, with this young man—alone?" +</P> + +<P> +The doctor arose to his feet and trod heavily upon the rich carpetings. +"I told you you don't understand," he protested. "The West is not the +East. Everything is different—" +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose human nature is different," she interrupted, meaningly. +Then her head fell upon the table and her hands went up about her hair. +It had been brown hair once, but was now thin and streaked with grey. +"Oh, Andrew," she wept. "We are ruined. That we should ever have come +to this!" +</P> + +<P> +It was now Dr. Hardy's turn to be exasperated. There was one thing his +philosophy could not endure. That was a person who was not, and would +not be, philosophical. Mrs. Hardy was not, and would not be, +philosophical. She was an absolutist. With Mrs. Hardy things were +right or things were wrong. Moreover, that which was done according to +rule was right, and that which was not done according to rule was +wrong. It was apparent that the acquaintanceship of Irene and Dave +Elden had not been according to rule. +</P> + +<P> +"This is all nonsense," said the doctor, impatiently. "There is +nothing to it, anyway. The girl had to have some company. What if +they did ride together? What—" +</P> + +<P> +"They rode together? Alone?" +</P> + +<P> +"They had their horses along," said the doctor, whose impatience had +made way for sarcasm. +</P> + +<P> +"Through the forest, I suppose," said Mrs. Hardy, with an air of one +whose humiliation is complete. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes, through the forests, across the foothills, up the canyons, +hours of it, days of it, weeks of it—" +</P> + +<P> +"Stop! You are mocking me. In this hour of shame you are making +jests. Call Irene." +</P> + +<P> +The girl was summoned. Her fine face had lost some of its brownness, +and the eyes seemed deeper and slower, but she was still a vision of +grace and beauty as she stood in response to their call framed in the +curtains of an archway. Her quick sense caught the tense atmosphere, +and she came forward with parted lips and extended fingers. There was +the glint of light on her white teeth. "Yes?" she said. "What is +wrong? Can I help?" +</P> + +<P> +"Your father has confessed," said Mrs. Hardy, trying hard to speak with +judicial calm. "Now tell us about your relations with this young +Elden, this cow <I>puncher</I>. Let us know the worst." +</P> + +<P> +Irene's startled eyes flew from her mother to her father's face. And +there they caught something that restored their calm. +</P> + +<P> +"There was no worst," she said, with a ripple of laughter. "But there +was a good deal of best. Shall I tell you the best?" +</P> + +<P> +"Irene," said her mother, severely, "Did you permit that young man to +make love to you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I did not give him permission, if that answers you, because—he didn't +ask it." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hardy had risen, "Andrew, you hear that? She confesses. And you, +blind, blind, couldn't see it!" +</P> + +<P> +"Is it very dreadful?" asked Irene. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, you mock me, too. Of course it's dreadful. Horrible. What will +everybody say?" +</P> + +<P> +"No worse than you have said, I'll be bound," put in the doctor. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, take her part. What care you for the family name?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have a right to speak for the family name," said the doctor firmly. +"It was mine before it was yours. And I sometimes think, if we lived +under more liberal laws, it might be mine after it had ceased to be +yours.… I cannot see that the family name has been compromised in +the slightest degree. This is Irene's first adventure. It will pass +away. And even if it does not—he is a manly boy." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hardy surveyed her husband hopelessly, then turned to Irene. +"Have you made any promises?" +</P> + +<P> +"Only that I wouldn't make any promises until he had his chance. That +seemed fair." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose you are receiving letters from him?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"None at all?" +</P> + +<P> +"None at all." +</P> + +<P> +"Why doesn't he write?" +</P> + +<P> +For the first time Irene's eyes fell, and the colour mounted richer in +her cheeks. She had to confess now, not for herself, but for him. +</P> + +<P> +"He can't write," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Merciful Heavens!" exclaimed Mrs. Hardy, collapsing into a chair. +"Andrew, bring me a stimulant." +</P> + +<P> +The outcome was that Mrs. Hardy insisted upon Irene embarking at once +upon a finishing course. When this was completed, as the girl had +shown a sense for form and colour, she encouraged her into a special +art course. Afterwards they travelled together for a year in Europe. +Then, home again, Irene pursued her art, and her mother surrounded her +with the social attractions which Dr. Hardy's comfortable income and +professional standing made possible. Her purpose was obvious, and but +thinly disguised. She hoped that her daughter would outlive her +youthful infatuation, and would at length, in a more suitable match, +give her heart to one of the numerous eligibles of her circle. +</P> + +<P> +To promote this end Mrs. Hardy spared no pains. Young Carlton, son of +a banker, and one of the leading men of his set, seemed a particularly +appropriate match. Mrs. Hardy opened her home to him, and Carlton, +whatever his motives, was not slow to grasp the situation. For years +Irene had not spoken of Dave Elden, and the mother had grown to hope +that the old attachment had died down and would presently be quite +forgotten in a new and more becoming passion. The fact is that Irene +at that time would have been quite incapable of stating her relation +toward Elden and its influence upon her attitude to life. She was by +no means sure that she loved that sun-burned boy of romantic memory; +she was by no means sure that she should ever marry him, let his +development in life be what it would. But she felt that her heart was +locked, at least for the present, to all other suitors. She had given +her promise, and that settled the matter. True, he had not come to +claim fulfilment of that promise—and at times she scolded him soundly +in the secrecy of her own mind for his negligence through all these +years—but she was young, with no desire for a decisive step, and while +she chafed under his apparent neglect she felt a sort of tingling dread +of the day when he should neglect her no longer. One thing she knew; +he had implanted in her soul a fine contempt for men of the set which +Carlton typified. They would have thought Dave ignorant; but she knew +that if Dave and Carlton were thrown into the wilderness on their own +resources Dave would thrive and Carlton would starve. Perhaps Dave's +education, although not recognized by any university save the +university of hard knocks, was the more real and valuable of the two. +</P> + +<P> +Notwithstanding her contempt for him, the girl found herself +encouraging Carlton's advances, or at least not meeting them with the +rebuffs which had been her habit toward all other suitors, and Mrs. +Hardy's hopes grew as the attachment apparently developed. But they +were soon to be shattered. +</P> + +<P> +Irene had gone with Carlton to the theatre; afterwards to supper. It +was long past midnight when she reached home; she knocked at her +mother's door and immediately entered. She was splendidly gowned, but +her hair was dishevelled and her cheeks were flushed, and she walked +unsteadily across the room. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter, Irene? What's the matter, child? Are you sick?" +cried her mother, springing from her bed. "Oh, dear me, and the doctor +is out!" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I'm not sick," said the girl, brutally. "I'm drunk!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, don't say that," said her mother, soothingly. "Proper people do +not become drunk. You may have had too much champagne, and to-morrow +you will have a headache—" +</P> + +<P> +"Mother! I have had too much champagne, but not as much as that +precious Carlton of yours had planned for. I just wanted to see how +despicable he was, and I floated down stream with him as far as I +dared. But just as the current got too swift I struck for shore. Oh, +we made a scene, all right, but nobody knew me there, so the family +name is safe and you can rest in peace. I called a taxi and when he +tried to follow me in I slapped him and kicked him. Kicked him, +mother. Dreadfully undignified, wasn't it?… And that's what you +want me to marry, in place of a man!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hardy was chattering with mortification and excitement. Her plans +had miscarried. Irene had misbehaved. Irene was a difficult, +headstrong child. It was useless to argue with her in her present +mood. It was useless to argue with her in any mood. No doubt Carlton +had been impetuous. Nevertheless, he stood high in his set, and his +father was something of a power in the financial world. As the wife of +such a man Irene might have a career before her—a career from which at +least some of the glory would reflect upon the silvering head of the +mother of Mrs. Carlton. And now Irene, by her folly and her +ungovernable temper, had spoiled all the carefully laid plans. Mrs. +Hardy was a very badly used woman. +</P> + +<P> +"Go to your room," she said, at length. "You are in no condition to +talk to-night. I must say it is a shame that you can't go out for an +evening without drinking too much and making a scene.… In a +public place, too.… What will Mr. Carlton think of you?" +</P> + +<P> +"If he remembers all I told him about himself he'll have enough to +think of," the girl blazed back. "You know—what I have told you—and +still <I>Mister</I> Carlton stands as high in your sight as ever. <I>I</I> am +the one to blame. Very well. I've tried your choice, and I've tried +my own. Now I am in a position to judge. There will be nothing to +talk about in the morning. Mention Carlton's name to me again and I +will give the whole incident to the papers. With photographs. And +names. Fancy the feature heading, 'Society girl, intoxicated, kicks +escort out of taxi.' Good night." +</P> + +<P> +But other matters were to demand the attention of mother and daughter +in the morning. While the scene was occurring in Mrs. Hardy's bed-room +her husband, clad in white, toiled in the operating room to save the +life of a fellow being. It was an emergency operation, performed by +artificial light, and without adequate assistance. There was a slip of +an instrument, but the surgeon toiled on; he could not, at that +juncture, pause; the life of the patient was at stake. When the +operation was finished he found his injury deeper than he supposed, and +Irene was summoned from her heavy sleep that morning to attend his +bedside. He talked to her as a philosopher; said his life's work was +done, and he was just as glad to go in the harness; the estate should +yield something, and there was his life insurance—a third would be for +her. And when Mrs. Hardy was not at his side he found opportunity to +whisper, "And if you really love that boy out west, <I>marry him</I>." +</P> + +<P> +The sudden bereavement wrought a reconciliation between Mrs. Hardy and +her daughter. Mrs. Hardy took her loss very much to heart. While +Irene grieved for her father, Mrs. Hardy grieved for herself. It was +awful to be left alone like this. There was something in her demeanour +that suggested that Andrew had been rather unkind in departing as he +did. And when the lawyers found that instead of a hundred thousand +dollars the estate would yield a bare third of that sum she spoke +openly of her husband's improvidence. He had enjoyed a handsome +income, upon which his family had lived in luxury. That it was unequal +to the strain of providing for them in that fashion and at the same +time accumulating a reserve for such an eventuality as had occurred was +a matter which his wife could scarcely overlook. +</P> + +<P> +About this time it came to the notice of Mrs. Hardy that when the late +Mr. Deware had departed this life Mrs. Deware, with her two daughters, +had gone on a trip to England to dull the poignancy of their +bereavement. The Dewares moved in the best circles, Mr. Deware having +amassed a considerable fortune in the brewing business. It was obvious +that whatever Mrs. Deware might do under such circumstances would be +correct. Upon arrival at this conclusion Mrs. Hardy lost no time in +buying two tickets for London. +</P> + +<P> +Her health, however, had suffered a severe shock, for beneath her +ostentation she felt as deep a regard for her late husband as was +possible in one who measured everything in life by various social +formulae. On the ocean voyage she contracted a cough, which the fogs +of London did little to dispel, and February found her again on the +Atlantic, with her mind occupied by more personal affairs than a seat +at the captain's table. The voyage was a particularly unhappy one, and +the widow's first concern upon reaching home was to consult a +specialist who had enjoyed a close professional acquaintanceship with +Dr. Hardy. The specialist gave her a careful, meditative, and solemn +examination. +</P> + +<P> +"Your condition is serious," he told her, "but not alarming. You must +have a drier climate, and, preferably, a higher altitude. Fortunately, +your heart is good, or I should have to keep you at sea level; that is, +I should have had to sacrifice your lungs for your heart." The doctor +spoke as though the sacrifice would have been all his, after the manner +of a specialist. "As it is, I am convinced that the conditions your +health demands are to be found in…" He named the former cow-town +from which Irene's fateful automobile journey had had its start, and +the young woman, who was present with her mother, felt herself go +suddenly pale with the thought of a great prospect. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I could never live there," Mrs. Hardy protested. "It is so crude. +Cow <I>punchers</I>, you know, and all that sort of thing." +</P> + +<P> +The specialist smiled. "You will probably not find it so crude, +although I daresay some of its customs may jar on you," he remarked, +dryly. "Still, I would recommend you to take your best gowns along. +And it is not a case of not being able to live there. It is a case of +not being able to live here. If you take my advice you should die of +old age, so far, at least, as your present ailment is concerned. If +you don't"—and he dropped his voice to just the correct note of +gravity, which pleased Mrs. Hardy very much—"if you don't, I can't +promise you a year." +</P> + +<P> +Confronted with such an alternative, the good lady had no option but to +suppress her repugnance toward cow punchers. Irene had expected +opposition born of a more subtle reason, but it soon became evident +that so deeply was her mother concerned with her own affairs that she +had quite failed to associate the proposed change with any possibility +of a re-opening of Irene's affair with the young rancher. It was years +since they had discussed him, and the probability was that, although +the incident remained in the back of Mrs. Hardy's memory, even his name +had been forgotten. +</P> + +<P> +Arrangements for the journey were made with the despatch which +characterized Mrs. Hardy. She was a stickler for precedent; any +departure from the beaten paths was in her decalogue the unpardonable +sin, but when she had arrived at a decision she was no trifler. She +accepted the situation with the resignation which she deemed to be +correct under such circumstances, but the boundless prairies were to +her so much desolation and ugliness. It was apparent that dwellers in +the little four-cornered houses of the plains must be sadly lacking in +any sense of the artistic, and as Mrs. Hardy gazed from the car window +she acquired a habit of making with her tongue a sound which, owing to +the limitations of the alphabet, cannot be represented to the reader, +but which Irene understood to be an expression of mingled surprise, +pity, and contempt. Irene gathered that her mother did not approve of +prairies. They were something new to her life, and it was greatly to +be suspected that they were improper. +</P> + +<P> +With very different emotions did the girl find herself speeding again +toward the scene of the first great event of her conscious life. For +her the boundlessness, the vastness, the immeasurable sweep of the eye, +suggested an environment out of which should grow a manhood and +womanhood that should weigh mightily in the scales of destiny of a +great nation; a manhood and womanhood defiant of the things that are, +eager for the adventure of life untrammeled by traditions. She had a +mental vision of the type which such a land must produce; her mind ran +to riots of daring as it fashioned a picture which should fairly +symbolize this people.… The day was drawing to a close, and a +prairie sunset glowed upon them in a flush of colouring that stirred +her artist soul. A cloudless sky, transparent as an ocean of glass; +fathomless, infinite, save when in the west inverted islands of gold +and brass and ruddy copper floated in a sea that gently deepened from +saffron to opal; and under that sky the yellow prairies; ever, forever, +and ever.… Up from the East came the night, and large, bright +stars stood out, and the click-clack of the car wheels came louder and +louder, and mimic car lamps raced along against the darkness outside. +And then the settlers' lights began to blink across the prairie, and +Irene's eyes were wet with an emotion she could not define; but she +knew her painting had missed something; it had been all outline and no +soul, and the prairies in the night are all soul and no outline; all +softness and vagueness and yearning unutterable.… +</P> + +<P> +"How tiresome it is," said her mother. "Ask the porter to make up the +berths." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER THIRTEEN +</H3> + + +<P> +Mrs. Hardy accepted the surroundings she found in the city that was to +be her home with not a little incredulity. For some days she treated +the city as a deep rascal which had disguised its true nature in order +to deceive her. She smiled at the ease with which she saw through all +disguises. One of these days the cloak of respectability would be +thrown off, and the shouting and shooting of the cow punchers would +proclaim the West as it really was. +</P> + +<P> +Very slowly it dawned upon Mrs. Hardy that this respectable, thriving +city, with its well dressed, properly mannered people, its public +spirit, its aggressiveness, its churches and theatres and schools, its +law and order—and its afternoon teas ("My dear, who would have thought +it possible?" She half expected a cowboy to ride in and overthrow the +china)—very slowly it dawned upon her that this, after all, was the +real West; sincere, earnest; crude, perhaps; bare, certainly; the scars +of its recent battle with the wilderness still fresh upon its person; +lacking the finish that only time can give to a landscape or a +civilization; but lacking also the mouldiness, the mustiness, the +insufferable artificiality of older communities. And the atmosphere! +Day after day brought its cloudless sky, the weather, for once, having +failed to observe the rule of contraries; evening after evening flooded +valley and hilltop with its deluge of golden glory; night after night a +crisp temperature sent her reaching for comforters. Sleep? She felt +that she had never slept before. Eat? Her appetite was insatiable; +all day long she lived in a semi-intoxication born of an unaccustomed +altitude. And, best of all, something had happened to her cough; she +did not know just what or when, but presently she discovered it was +gone. Even Mrs. Hardy, steeped for sixty years in a life of precedent +and rule and caste, began to catch the enthusiasm of a new land where +precedent and rule and caste are something of a handicap. +</P> + +<P> +"We must buy a home," she said to Irene. "We cannot afford to continue +living at an hotel, and we must have our own home. You must look up a +responsible dealer whose advice we can trust in a matter of this kind." +</P> + +<P> +And was it remarkable that Irene Hardy should think at once of the firm +of Conward & Elden? It was not. She had, indeed, been thinking of a +member of that firm ever since the decision to move to the West. She +had felt a peculiar hesitation about enquiring openly for Dave Elden, +but, upon meeting a newspaper woman in the person of Miss Morrison she +had voiced the great question with an apparent unconcern which did not +in the slightest mislead the acute Roberta. It is the business of +newspaper people to know things and people, and it seemed to Irene that +she could ask such a question of Miss Morrison in a sort of +professional way. But she had not been prepared for the reply. +</P> + +<P> +The fact is Irene had not been at all sure that she wanted to marry +Dave Elden. She wanted very much to meet him again; she was curious to +know how the years had fared with him, and her curiosity was not +unmixed with a finer sentiment; but she was not at all sure that she +should marry him. She had tried to picture him in the eye of her +imagination; she was sure he had acquired a modest education; he had +probably been reasonably successful in business, either as an employee, +or, in a small way, on his own account. She was moderately sure of all +this; but there were pessimistic moods in which she saw him slipping +back into the indifference of his old life soon after the inspiration +of her presence had been withdrawn; perhaps still living with his +bibulous father on the ranch in the foothills, or perhaps following the +profession of cow puncher, held in such contempt by her mother. And in +such moods she was sorry, but she knew she could never, never marry him. +</P> + +<P> +"What, Dave Elden, the millionaire?" Bert Morrison had said. +"Everybody knows him." And then the newspaper woman had gone on to +tell what a figure Dave was in the business life of the city, and to +declare that he might be equally prominent in the social life, did his +fancies lead him in that direction. "One of our biggest young men," +Bert Morrison had said. "Reserved, a little; likes his own company +best; but absolutely white." +</P> + +<P> +That gave a new turn to the situation. Irene had always wanted Dave to +be a success; suddenly she doubted whether she had wanted him to be so +big a success. And with that doubt came another and more disturbing +one, which, if it had ever before crossed her mind, had found no +harbourage there. She had doubted whether she should wish to marry +Dave; she had never allowed herself to doubt that Dave would wish to +marry her. Secretly, she had expected to rather dazzle him with her +ten years' development—with the culture and knowledge which study and +travel and life had added to the charm of her young girlhood; and +suddenly she realized that her lustre would shine but dimly in the +greater glory of his own.… She became conscious of a very great +desire to renew with Dave the intimacy of her girlhood. +</P> + +<P> +It was easy to locate the office of Conward & Elden; it stood on a +principal corner of a principal street, and the name was blazoned to +the wayfarer in great gilt letters. Thence she led her mother, and +found herself treading on the marble floors of the richly appointed +waiting room in a secret excitement which she could with difficulty +conceal. She was, indeed, very uncertain about the next +development.… Her mother had to be reckoned with. +</P> + +<P> +A young man asked courteously what could be done for them. "We want to +see the head of the firm," said Mrs. Hardy. "We want to buy a house." +It occurred to Irene that in some respects her mother was extremely +artless, but the issue was for the moment postponed. +</P> + +<P> +They were shown into Conward's office. Time had been when they would +have seen no further than a head salesman; but times were changing, and +real estate dealers were losing the hauteur of the days of their great +success. Conward gave them the welcome of a man who expects to make +money out of his visitors. He placed a very comfortable chair for Mrs. +Hardy; he adjusted the blinds to a nicety; he discarded his cigarette +and beamed upon them with as great a show of cordiality as his somewhat +beefy appearance would permit. The years had not been over kind to +Conward's person. His natural tendency to corpulence had been abetted +by excessive eating; his face was red and flabby, his lips had no more +colour than his face; and nature, in deciding to deprive him of a +portion of his hair, had very unkindly elected to take it in patches, +giving his head a sort of pinto effect. These imperfections were +quickly appraised by Irene, but his manner appealed to Mrs. Hardy, who +outlined her life history with considerable detail, dwelling more than +once upon the perfections of the late Dr. Hardy—which perfections she +now showed a disposition to magnify, as implying a certain distinction +unto herself—and ended with the confession that the West was not as +bad as she had feared, and anyway it was a case of living here or dying +elsewhere, so she would have to make the best of it. And here they +were. And might they see a house? +</P> + +<P> +Conward appeared to be reflecting. As a matter of fact, he saw in this +inexperienced buyer an opportunity to reduce his holdings in +anticipation of the impending crash. His difficulty was that he had no +key to the financial resources of his visitors. They had lived in good +circumstances; they were the family of a successful professional man, +but, as Conward well knew, many successful professional men had a +manner of living that galloped hard on the heels of their income. The +only thing was to throw out a feeler. +</P> + +<P> +"You are wanting a nice home, I take it, that can be bought at a +favourable price for cash. You would consider an investment of +say——." +</P> + +<P> +He paused, and Mrs. Hardy supplied the information for which he was +waiting. "About twenty-five thousand dollars," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"We can hardly invest that much," Irene interrupted, in a whisper. "We +must have something to live on." +</P> + +<P> +"People here live on the profits of their investments, do they not, Mr. +Conward?" Mrs. Hardy inquired. "I have been told that that is the way +they live, and they seem to live very well indeed." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, certainly," Conward agreed, and he plunged into a mass of +incidents to show how profitable investments had been to other clients +of the firm. He emphasized particularly the desirability of buying +improved property—preferably residential property—and suddenly +recalled that he had something very choice in which they might be +interested. At this juncture Conward's mood of deliberation gave way +to one of briskness; he summoned a car, and in a few minutes his +clients were looking over the property which he had recommended. Mrs. +Hardy, who, during her husband's lifetime had never found it necessary +to bear financial responsibilities or make business decisions, was an +amateurish buyer, her tendency being alternately to excess of caution +on one side and recklessness on the other. Conward's manner pleased +her; the house he showed pleased her, and she was eager to have it over +with. But he was too shrewd to appear to encourage a hasty decision. +He realized at once that he had sold Mrs. Hardy, but Irene was a +customer calling for more tactful handling. Conward's eye had not +failed to appraise the charm of the young woman's appearance. He would +gladly have ingratiated himself with her, but he was conscious of a +force in her personality that held him aloof. And that consciousness +made him desire the more to gain her confidence.… However, this +was a business transaction. He did not seize upon Mrs. Hardy's remark +that the house seemed perfectly satisfactory; on the contrary, he +insisted on showing other houses, which he quoted at such impossible +figures that presently the old lady was in a feverish haste to make a +deposit lest some other buyer should forestall her. +</P> + +<P> +Back in Conward's office, while the agreement was being drawn, Irene +was possessed of a consuming desire to consult with Dave Elden. She +was uneasy about this transaction in which her mother proposed so +precipitately to invest the greater part of their little fortune. But +the more she thought over the situation the more its difficulties +became apparent. She had no personal knowledge or experience which +could be summoned for such an occasion. She would like to have asked +Dave's advice; instinctively she distrusted Conward. Yet, … +Conward was Dave's partner. It was impossible to attribute honest +motives to one half of the firm and deny them to the other. And it was +unreasonable to expect that Dave's advice would conflict with +Conward's. And, in the event that an issue did arise between the two +partners, it was quite certain that her mother would side with Conward. +Meanwhile the agreement neared completion, and Mrs. Hardy had produced +her cheque book. +</P> + +<P> +Irene's excitement at length reached the point where she could no +longer remain silent. "I think I would hesitate, mother," she cried. +"If you buy this house we will have only a few thousand dollars left. +I am not thinking of myself. Your health may demand other +expenditures——" +</P> + +<P> +"My health was never better," Mrs. Hardy interrupted. "And I'm not +going to miss a chance like this, health or no health. You have heard +Mr. Conward tell how many people have grown wealthy buying property and +selling it again. And I will sell it again—when I get my price," she +ended, with a finality that suggested that large profits were already +assured. +</P> + +<P> +"It is as your mother says," Conward interjected. "There are many +rapid increases in value. I would not be surprised if you should be +offered an advance of ten thousand dollars on this place before Fall. +It is really a very exceptional investment." +</P> + +<P> +"There must be an end somewhere," Irene murmured, rather weakly. But +her mother was writing a cheque. "I shall give you five thousand +dollars now," she said, "and the balance when you give me the deed, or +whatever it is. That is the proper way, isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's done," said Irene, with an uneasy laugh, which her +excitement pitched a little higher than she had intended. +</P> + +<P> +In an adjoining room Dave Elden heard that laugh, and it stirred some +remembrance in him. Instantly he connected it with Irene Hardy. The +truth was Irene Hardy had been in the background of his mind during +every waking hour since Bert Morrison had dropped her bombshell upon +him. How effectively she had dropped it! What a hit she had scored! +Dave had ricochetted ever since between amusement and chagrin at her +generalship. She had deliberately created for him opportunities—a +whole evening full of them—to confess about Irene Hardy, and when he +had refused to admit that he had anything to confess she had confounded +him with an incident that admitted no explanation. For a moment he had +stood speechless, overcome with the significance of what she had said; +the next, he reached out to detain her, but she was already on the +stairs of her apartment and waving him a laughing good-night. And now +that voice— +</P> + +<P> +Dave had no plan. He simply walked into Conward's office. His eye +took in the little group, and the mind behind caught something of its +portent. Irene's beauty! What a quickening of the pulses was his as +he saw in this splendid woman the girl who had stirred and returned his +youthful passion! But Dave had poise. Upon a natural ability to take +care of himself in a physical sense, environment and training had +imposed a mental resourcefulness not easily taken at a disadvantage. +He walked straight to Irene. +</P> + +<P> +"I heard your voice," he said, in quiet tones that gave no hint of the +emotion beneath. "I am very glad to see you again." He took the hand +which she extended in a firm, warm grasp; there was nothing in it, as +Irene protested to herself, that was more than firm and warm, but it +set her finger-tips a-tingling. +</P> + +<P> +"My mother, Mr. Elden," she managed to say, and she hoped her voice was +as well controlled as his had been. Mrs. Hardy looked on the +clean-built young man with the dark eyes and the brown, smooth face, +but the name suggested nothing. "You remember," Irene went on. "I +told you of Mr. Elden. It was at his ranch we stayed when father was +hurt." +</P> + +<P> +"But I thought he was a cow <I>puncher</I>," exclaimed Mrs. Hardy, with no +abatement of the contempt which she always compressed into the one +western term which had smuggled into her vocabulary. +</P> + +<P> +"Times change quickly in the West, madam," said Dave. There was +nothing in his voice to suggest that he had caught the note in hers. +"Most of our business men—at least, those bred in the country—have +thrown a lasso in their day. You should hear them brag of their +steer-roping yet in the Ranchmen's Club." Irene's eyes danced. Dave +had already turned the tables; where her mother had implied contempt he +had set up a note of pride. It was a matter of pride among these +square-built, daring Western men that they had graduated into their +office chairs from the saddle and the out-of-doors. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I suppose," said her mother, for lack of a better answer. +"Everything is so absurd in the West. But you were good to my +daughter, and to poor, dear Andrew. If only he had been spared. Women +are so unused to these business responsibilities, Mr. Conward. It is +fortunate there are a few reliable firms upon which we can lean in our +inexperience." +</P> + +<P> +"Mother has bought a house," Irene explained to Dave. "We thought this +was a safe place to come——" +</P> + +<P> +A look on Elden's face caused her to pause. "Why, what is wrong?" she +said. +</P> + +<P> +Dave looked at Conward, at Mrs. Hardy, and at Irene. He was instantly +aware that Conward had "stung" them. It was common knowledge in inside +circles that the bottom was going out. The firm of Conward & Elden had +been scurrying for cover; as quietly and secretly as possible, to avoid +alarming the public, but scurrying for cover nevertheless. And Dave +had acquiesced in that policy. He had little stomach for it, but no +other course seemed possible. Conward, he knew, had no scruples. Bert +Morrison had been caught in his snare, and now this other and dearer +friend had proved a ready victim. As Conward was wont to say, business +is business. And he had acquiesced. His position was extremely +difficult. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think I would be in a hurry to buy," he said, slowly turning +his eyes on his partner. "You would perhaps be wiser to rent a home +for awhile. Rents are becoming easier." +</P> + +<P> +"But I <I>have</I> bought," said Mrs. Hardy, and there was triumph rather +than regret in her voice. "I have paid my deposit." +</P> + +<P> +"It is the policy of this firm," Elden continued, "not to force or take +advantage of hurried decisions. The fact that you have already made a +deposit does not alter that policy. I think I may speak for my partner +and the firm when I say that your deposit will be held to your credit +for thirty days, during which time it will constitute an option on the +property which you have selected. If, at the end of that time, you are +still of your present mind, the transaction can go through as now +planned; and if you have changed your mind your deposit will be +returned." +</P> + +<P> +Conward shifted under Dave's direct eye. He preferred to look at Mrs. +Hardy. "What Mr. Elden has told you about the policy of the firm is +quite true," he managed to say. "But, as it happens, this transaction +is not with Conward & Elden, but with me personally. I find it +necessary to dispose of the property which I have just sold to you at +such an exceptional price"—he was looking at Mrs. Hardy—"I find it +necessary for financial reasons to dispose of it, and naturally I +cannot run a chance of having my plans overturned by any possible +change of mind on your part. Not that I think you will change your +mind," he hurried to add. "I think you are already convinced that it +is a very good buy indeed." +</P> + +<P> +"I am entirely satisfied," said Mrs. Hardy. "The fact that Mr. Elden +wants to get the property back makes me more satisfied," she added, +with the peculiarly irritating laugh of a woman who thinks she is +extraordinarily shrewd, and is only very silly. +</P> + +<P> +"The agreement is signed?" said Dave. He walked to the desk and picked +up the documents, and the cheque that lay upon them. His eye ran down +the familiar contract. "This agreement is in the name of Conward & +Elden," he said. "This cheque is payable to Conward & Elden." +</P> + +<P> +He was addressing Conward. Conward's livid face had become white, and +it was with difficulty he controlled his anger. "They are all printed +that way," he explained. "I am going to have them endorsed over to me." +</P> + +<P> +"You are <I>not</I>," said Dave. "You are charging this woman twenty-five +thousand dollars for a house that won't bring twenty thousand on the +open market to-day, and by Fall won't bring ten thousand. The firm of +Conward & Elden will have nothing to do with that transaction. It +won't even endorse it over." +</P> + +<P> +A fire was burning in the grate. Dave walked to it, and very slowly +and deliberately thrust the agreement and the cheque into the flame. +For a moment the printed letters stood out after the body of the paper +was consumed; then all fell to ashes. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, if that doesn't beat all!" Mrs. Hardy ejaculated. "Are all cow +<I>punchers</I> so discourteous?" +</P> + +<P> +"I mean no discourtesy," said Dave. "And I hope you will let me say +now, what I should have said before, that it was with the deepest +regret I learned from your conversation of the death of Dr. Hardy. He +was a gentleman who commanded my respect, as he must have commanded the +respect of all who knew him. If my behaviour has seemed abrupt I +assure you I have only sought to serve Dr. Hardy's widow—and his +daughter." +</P> + +<P> +"It is a peculiar service," Mrs. Hardy answered curtly. She felt she +had a grievance against Dave. He had not lived down to her conception +of what a raw Western youth should be. Even the act of burning the +agreement and the cheque, dramatic though it was, had a poise to it +that seemed inappropriate. Dave should have snatched the papers—it +would have been better had the partners fought over them—he should +have crumpled them in rage and consigned them to the fire with curses. +Mrs. Hardy felt that in such conduct Dave would have been running true +to form. His assumption of the manners of a gentleman annoyed her +exceedingly. +</P> + +<P> +"I can only apologize for my partner's behaviour," said Conward. "It +need not, however, affect the transaction in the slightest degree. A +new agreement will be drawn at once—an agreement in which the firm of +Conward & Elden will not be concerned." +</P> + +<P> +"That will be more satisfactory," said Mrs. Hardy. She intended the +remark for Dave's ears, but he had moved to a corner of the room and +was conversing in low tones with Irene. +</P> + +<P> +"I am sorry I had to make your mother's acquaintance under +circumstances which, I fear, she will not even try to understand," he +had said to Irene. "I am sure she will not credit me with unselfish +motives." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Dave—Mr. Elden, I mean—that is—you don't know how proud—you +don't know how much of a <I>man</I> you made me feel you are." +</P> + +<P> +She was flushed and excited. "Perhaps I shouldn't talk like this. +Perhaps——" +</P> + +<P> +"It all depends on one thing," Dave interrupted. +</P> + +<P> +"What is that?" +</P> + +<P> +"It all depends on whether we are Miss Hardy and Mr. Elden, or whether +we are still Reenie and Dave." +</P> + +<P> +Her bright eyes had fallen to the floor, and he could see the tremor of +her fingers as they rested on the back of a chair. She did not answer +him directly. But in a moment she spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother will buy the house from Mr. Conward," she said. "She is like +that. And when we are settled you will come and see me, won't +you—Dave?" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER FOURTEEN +</H3> + + +<P> +When the Hardys had gone Conward turned to Elden. "We had better try +and find out where we stand," he said, trying to speak dispassionately, +but there was a tremor in his voice. +</P> + +<P> +"I agree," returned Elden, who had no desire to evade the issue. "Do +you consider it fair to select inexperienced women for your victims?" +</P> + +<P> +Conward made a deprecating gesture. "There is nothing to be gained by +quarreling, Dave," he said. "Let us face the situation fairly. Let us +get at the facts. When we have agreed as to facts, then we may agree +as to procedure." +</P> + +<P> +"Shoot," said Dave. He stood with his shoulder toward Conward, +watching the dusk settling about the foothill city. The streets led +away into the gathering darkness, and the square brick blocks stood in +blue silhouette against a champagne sky. He became conscious of a +strange yearning for this young metropolis; a sort of parental brooding +over a boisterous, lovable, wayward youth. It was his city; no one +could claim it more than he. And it was a good city to look upon, and +to mingle in, and to dream about. +</P> + +<P> +"I think," said Conward, "we can agree that the boom is over. Booms +feed upon themselves, and eventually they eat themselves up. We have +done well, on paper. The thing now is to convert our paper into cash." +</P> + +<P> +Dave turned about. "You know I don't claim to be any great moralist, +Conward," he said, "and I have no pity for a gambler who deliberately +sits in and gets stung. Consequently I am not troubled with any +self-pity, nor any pity for you. And if you can get rid of our +holdings to other gamblers I have nothing to say. But if it is to be +loaded on to women who are investing the little savings of their +lives—women like Bert Morrison and Mrs. Hardy—then I am going to have +a good deal to say. And there is that man—what's his name?—Merton, I +think; a lunger if there ever was one; tuberculosis written all over +him; a widower, too, with a little boy, sent out here as his last +chance—you loaded him with stuff where he can't see the smoke of the +city, and you call it city property. That's what I want to talk +about," said Dave, with rising heat. "If business has to be done that +way, then I say, to hell with business!" +</P> + +<P> +"I asked you not to quarrel," Conward returned, with remarkable +composure. "I suggested that we get at the facts. That seems to be a +business suggestion. I think we are agreed that the boom is over. +Values are on the down grade. The boomsters are departing. They are +moving on to new fields, as we should have done a year or two ago, but +I confess I had a sort of sentiment for this place. Well—that is the +price of sentiment. It won't mix with business. Now, granting that +the boom is over, where do we stand? +</P> + +<P> +"We are rated as millionaires, but we haven't a thousand dollars in the +bank at this moment. This," he lifted Mrs. Hardy's cheque, "would have +seen us over next pay day, but you say the firm must have nothing to do +with it. And which is the more immoral—since you have spoken of +morality—to accept labour from clerks whom you can't pay, or to sell +property to women who say they want it and are satisfied with the +price? We make our income by selling property. As soon as the sales +stop, the income stops. Well, the sales have stopped. But the expense +goes on. We have literally thousands of unsettled contracts. We must +keep our staff together. We have debts to pay, and we owe it to our +creditors to make collections so that we can pay those debts, and we +can't make collections without staff. I sympathize with your feelings +on this matter, Dave, but what's a man to do? It's like war; we must +kill or be killed. Business is war, of a kind. Why, on the property +we are now holding the taxes alone will amount to twenty thousand +dollars a year. And I put it up to you; if we are going to stand on +sentiment, who's going to pay the taxes?" +</P> + +<P> +"I know; I know," said Dave, whose anger over the treatment of the +Hardys was already subsiding. "We are in the grip of the System. As +you have said, it is kill or be killed. Still—in war they don't +usually kill women and non-combatants. That is the point I'm trying to +make. I've no sentiment about others who are in the game as we are. +If you limit your operations to them——" +</P> + +<P> +"The trouble is, you can't. They're wise. They see the bottom going, +and they quit. Most of them have already moved on. A few firms, like +ourselves, will stay and try to fight it out; try, at least, to close +up with a clean sheet, if we must close up. But we can't wind up a +business without selling the stock on hand, and to whom are we to sell +it, if not to people who want it? That is what you seem to object to." +</P> + +<P> +"You place me in rather an unfair light," Dave protested. "What I +object to is taking the life savings of people—people of moderate +circumstances, mainly—in exchange for property which we know to be +worth next to nothing." +</P> + +<P> +"Yet you admit that we must clean up, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I suppose so." +</P> + +<P> +"And there's no other way, Dave," said Conward, rising and placing an +arm on his partner's shoulder, "I sympathize with your point of view, +but, my boy, it's pure sentiment, and sentiment has no place in +business. And you remember the terms of our partnership, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +Dave hesitated a few moments, as he threw his mind back over the years +that had gone by since the day when Conward proposed a partnership to +him. He saw again his little office where he ground out "stuff" for +<I>The Call</I>, the littered desk and floor, the cartoons on the walls, the +big shears, and the paste pot—yes, the paste pot, and the lock he had +installed to protect it, and his select file of time copy, from +depredation. And the smell of printer's ink; even yet, when business +took Dave into a printing office, the smell of ink brought back those +old, happy days. Happy days? When he worked more hours than a man +should work, for less salary than a man should get; when the glorious +out-of-doors called him and his soul rebelled against the despotism of +fate! Yes, surely they were happy days. He smiled a moment as he +thought of them; paused to dally with them on his way to an answer for +Conward; then skimmed quickly down the surface of events to this +present evening. More wonderful had the years been than any dream of +fiction; no wizard's wand had ever worked richer magic.… +</P> + +<P> +"You remember, don't you?" Conward repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, about the coal?" Dave laughed. The moment of reminiscence had +restored his good humour. "Yes, I suppose it was a bargain. You have +held me to it pretty well." +</P> + +<P> +"Let it remain a bargain to the end," said Conward. "It is the only +way we can finish up." +</P> + +<P> +Dave dropped the subject. There appeared to be nothing to gain from +pursuing it further. They were in the grip of a System—a System which +had found them poor, had suddenly made them wealthy, and now, with +equal suddenness, threatened to make them poor again. It was like +war—kill or be killed. It occurred to Dave that it was even worse +than war. War has in it the qualities of the heroic; splendid bravery; +immeasurable self-sacrifice; that broad spirit of devotion to a vague +ideal which, for lack of a better name, is called patriotism. This +System had none of that. It was more like assassination.… +</P> + +<P> +Night had settled when Dave left the office. The champagne sky had +deepened into a strip of copper; the silhouettes were soft and black; +street lights studded the bank of foothills to the west like setting +stars. Darkness had tucked the distance that lay between the city and +the Rockies in the lap of night, and the great ridge stood up close and +clear, prodding its jagged edge into the copper pennant of the day's +farewell. A soft wind blew from the south-west; June was in the air. +June, too, was in Dave's heart as he walked the few blocks to his +bachelor quarters. What of the drab injustice of business? Let him +forget that; now it was night … and she had called him Dave. He +climbed the steps to his room with energy and life tingling in his +limbs; then he stood in his window and for a long while watched the +traffic in the street below. That is, his eyes were directed to the +traffic, but what he saw was a merry girl in a brown sweater, showering +her glances of admiration upon a raw youth of the ranges whose highest +ambition was to break six bottles with six bullets. And she had even +held that to be a worthy ambition. She had said, "Perhaps the day is +coming when our country will want men who can shoot and ride more than +it will want lawyers or professors." He smiled at the recollection of +her words. The romantic days of youth! like the mirage of sunrise they +fade and are lost in the morning of life.… And their young +philosophies! The night they found the dead calf; he had propounded +the wisdom that it is always the innocent thing that suffers; that the +crittur that can't run gets caught. Well, that seemed to hold good. +Wasn't that what Conward had argued to him this very afternoon, and he +had found no answer? He wondered what Reenie's experience had +been.… And then the compact under the spruce trees.… "Come +to me—like that—" she had said, "and then—then we'll know." And +to-day she had called him Dave. +</P> + +<P> +He dressed with care. The Chinese boy was never more obsequious in his +attentions, and Dave never presented a more manly appearance. It was +not until he was about to leave his rooms that he remembered he must +dine alone; he had been dressing for her, unconsciously. The +realization brought him up with something of a shock. "This will never +do," he said, "I can't eat alone to-night. And I can't ask Reenie, so +soon after the incident with her mother. I know—Bert Morrison." He +reached for the telephone and rang her number. Had anyone charged Dave +with fickleness in his affections he would have laughed at the +absurdity. Had he not remained true to one great passion through the +dangerous decade of his life? A man always thinks of the decade just +ended as the dangerous decade. And Bert Morrison was a good friend. +As he waited at the telephone he recalled the impulse which had seized +him when they had last parted. But the recollection brought only a +glow of friendship for Bert. There was no hint of danger in it. +</P> + +<P> +Her number did not answer. He thought of Edith Duncan. But Edith +lived at home, and it was much too late to extend a formal dinner +invitation. There was nothing for it but to eat alone. He suddenly +became conscious of the great loneliness of his bachelor life. After +all, he was quite as much alone in the city as he had been in his +boyhood in the hills. He began to moralize on this subject of +loneliness. It was very evident to him now that his life had been +empty and shallow. It was rather evident that any single life is empty +and shallow. Nature had made no mistake in decreeing that humans +should live in pairs. Dave had never thought much on that point +before, but now it struck him as so obvious that none could fail to see +its logic. The charm of bachelorhood was a myth which only needed +contact with the gentle atmosphere of feminine affection to be exposed. +</P> + +<P> +The Chinese boy coughed deferentially, and Dave was recalled from his +reverie. He took his hat and coat and went into the street. It was +his custom to take his meals at a modest eating-place on a side avenue, +but to-night he directed his steps to the best hotel the city afforded. +There was no wisdom in dressing for an event unless he were going to +deflect his course somewhat from the daily routine. +</P> + +<P> +The dining hall was a blaze of light; the odour of early roses blended +with imported perfumes, and strains of sweet, subdued music trembled +through the room in accompaniment to the merry-making of the diners. +Dave paused for a moment, awaiting the beck of a waiter, but in that +moment his eye fell on Conward, seated at a table with Mrs. Hardy and +Irene. Conward had seen him, and was motioning to him to join them. +The situation was embarrassing, and yet delightful. He was glad he had +dressed for dinner. +</P> + +<P> +"Join us, Elden," Conward said, as he reached their table. "Just a +little dinner to celebrate to-day's transaction. You will not refuse +to share to that extent?" +</P> + +<P> +Dave looked at Mrs. Hardy. Had he been dealing with Conward and Mrs. +Hardy alone he would have excused himself, but he had to think of +Irene. That is, he had to justify her by being correct in his manners. +And as he looked from mother to daughter he realized that Irene had not +inherited all her beauty from her father. In their dinner gowns Mrs. +Hardy was sedate and even beautiful, and her daughter ravishing. Dave +thought he had not before seen so much womanly charm in any figure. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Do</I> join us," said Mrs. Hardy. It was evident to Mrs. Hardy that it +would be correct for her to support Mr. Conward's invitation. +</P> + +<P> +"You are very kind," said Dave, as he seated himself. "I had not hoped +for this pleasure." And yet the pleasure was not unmixed. He felt +that Conward had out-played him. It was Conward who had done the +gracious thing. And Dave could not prevent Conward doing the gracious +thing without himself being ungracious. +</P> + +<P> +He was aware of being under the close scrutiny of Mrs. Hardy. True, +Conward sought to monopolize her attention. He had an ingratiating way +with strangers; he struck a confidential note that quickly called forth +confidence in return, and Dave was chagrined to see that not only was +his partner creating the intended impression upon Mrs. Hardy, but his +sallies and witticisms were gradually winning response from Irene. And +the more he was annoyed at this turn of affairs the less was he able to +arrest it. As Conward's guest he could not quarrel, and his fear of +over-stepping the mark if he engaged in discussion induced a silence +which might easily have been mistaken for mental inanition. He +contented himself with being punctiliously correct in his table +etiquette. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps he could have followed no wiser course, Dave's manners had an +effect upon Mrs. Hardy similar to that which she had experienced from +the decent civilization of the western city. To her it seemed +impossible that a raw youth, bred on the ranges—a cow puncher—could +conduct himself correctly in evening dress at a fashionable table. It +was more than impossible—it was heterodox; it was a defiance of all +the principles upon which caste is based, and to Mrs. Hardy caste was +the one safe line of demarkation between refinement and vulgarity. So +she noted Elden's correct deportment, even to—as it seemed to her—his +correct modesty in taking little part in the conversation, with a sense +that all this was a disguise, and that presently he would, +figuratively, burst forth from his linen and broadcloth and stand +revealed in schaps and bandana. But the meal progressed with no such +development, and Mrs. Hardy had a vague sense that this young man was +not dealing fairly with her. He was refusing to live up to her +preconceived ideas of what his part should be. Had Mrs. Hardy been +capable of analyzing her own emotions correctly, she would have known +that Dave was undermining her belief in caste, and without caste there +could be no civilization! But Mrs. Hardy was not a deep self-analyst. +Those who accept all distinctions as due to external causes have no +occasion to employ any deep mental subtlety in classifying their +acquaintances. So, as has been stated, the impression created upon her +mind by Elden's proper conduct was one of vague annoyance that proper +conduct should be found in one not reared within the charmed circle of +the <I>elite</I>. +</P> + +<P> +After dinner they sat in the lounge-room, and Conward beguiled the time +with stories of sudden wealth which had been practically forced upon +men who were now regarded as the business frame-work of the country. +As these worthies strolled through the richly furnished room leisurely +smoking their after-dinner cigars Conward would make a swift summary of +their rise from liveryman, cow puncher, clerk or labourer to their +present affluence, occasionally appealing to Dave to corroborate his +statements. It was particularly distasteful to Elden to be obliged to +add his word to Conward's in such matters, for although Conward +carefully refrained from making any direct reference to Mrs. Hardy's +purchase, the inference that great profits would accrue to her +therefrom was very obvious. +</P> + +<P> +A tall man passed by with a richly gowned woman on his arm. "Jim +Farley," Conward explained. "Plasterer by trade. Began dabbling in +real estate. Now rated as a millionaire." +</P> + +<P> +Conward paused to light another cigarette. "Interesting case, +Farley's," he continued, after a pause. "You remember it, Elden?" +Dave nodded. "Farley blew in here from Scotland, or some such place, +looking for work with his trowel. That was about the time of the +beginning of things, as things are reckoned here. Some unscrupulous +dealer learned that Farley had three hundred dollars—it goes to show +what has happened even when the motive of the seller could hardly be +endorsed as honest business. Well, this dealer learned that Farley had +three hundred dollars, and by means of much conviviality he induced him +to invest that amount in a pair of lots on a cut-bank in the most +outlandish place you can imagine. When Farley came to himself he was +so sick over it he moved on to the Coast, and took up his trade of +plastering. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, in a couple of years things had happened. The principal thing, +so far as Farley's fortunes were concerned, was the decision of a new +transcontinental railway to build into this centre. Now it so happened +that nature or geology or topography or whatever it is that controls +such matters had decreed that the railway must cross Farley's lots. +There was no other way in. It became the duty of Conward & Elden to +buy those lots. We ascertained his address and wired him an offer of +two thousand dollars. There was no time to lose, and we felt that that +offer would cinch it. But we had overlooked the fact that Farley was +Scotch. Did he accept our offer? He did not. He reasoned like this: +'If I am worth two thousand dollars I can afford a little holiday.' So +he threw up his job and in a couple of days he walked into our office. +Would he listen to reason? He would not. He knew that an eagle would +scarcely choose his property as a building site. He knew that whoever +was going to buy those lots was going to buy them because he had to +have them—because they were essential to some project. And he simply +sat tight. +</P> + +<P> +"To make the story short—how much do you think we paid for them? Ten +thousand dollars. Ten thousand dollars cash. And he made us pay the +cost of the transfer. You remember that, Elden? We laughed over it at +the time. Then he immediately re-invested his little fortune, and +to-day— It's the story of hundreds." +</P> + +<P> +Elden was glad when Mrs. Hardy remembered that she must not remain up +late. Her physician had prescribed rest. Early to bed, you know. +Still, Mr. Conward's anecdotes were so refreshing, so suggestive of +that—what is it you call it?—that spirit of the West, etc. Dave had +opportunity for just a word with Irene before they left. +</P> + +<P> +"How did this happen—to-night?" he asked, with the calm assumption of +one who has a right to know. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Mr. Conward telephoned an invitation to mother," she explained. +"I was so glad you happened in. You have had wonderful experiences; it +must be inspiring—ennobling—to take such part in the building of a +new city; something that will be here forever as a monument to the men +of this generation. Mr. Conward is charming, isn't he?" +</P> + +<P> +Dave did not know whether the compliment to Conward was a personal +matter concerning his partner, or whether it was to be taken as a +courtesy to the firm. In either case he rather resented it. He +wondered what Irene would think of this "ennobling" business in the +drab days of disillusionment that must soon sweep down upon them. But +Irene apparently did not miss his answer. +</P> + +<P> +"We shall soon be settled," she said, as Mrs. Hardy and Conward were +seen approaching. "Then you will come and visit us?" +</P> + +<P> +"I will—Reenie," he whispered, and he was sure the colour that mounted +in her cheeks held no tinge of displeasure. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER FIFTEEN +</H3> + + +<P> +Elden lost no time in making his first call upon the Hardys. He had +discussed the matter with Irene over the telephone. "We are hardly in +order yet," she had explained. "We are in a chaos of house-furnishing, +but you will be welcome. And there may be boxes to lift, and carpets +to lay, and heavy things to shove about." +</P> + +<P> +He found, however, that very fine order had already been established in +the Hardy home, or, at any rate, in that part of it available to +visitors. Mrs. Hardy would have barred, with her own robust body if +necessary, his admission into any such surroundings as Irene had +pictured. Irene received him cordially, but Mrs. Hardy evinced no more +warmth than propriety demanded. Elden, however, allowed himself no +annoyance over that. A very much greater grievance had been thrust +upon his mind. Conward had preceded him, and was already a guest of +the Hardys. +</P> + +<P> +Dave had accepted the fact of Conward's dinner party as a natural +enough occurrence, and after Irene's explanation he had dismissed it +from his mind. Conward's presence in the Hardy home was a more serious +matter. He knew Conward well enough to know that purpose always lay +behind his conduct, and during the small talk with which they whiled +away an hour his mind was reaching out acutely, exploring every nook of +possibility, to arrive, if it could, at some explanation of the sudden +interest which Conward was displaying in the Hardys. These +explanations narrowed down to two almost equally unpalatable. Conward +was deliberately setting about to capture the friendship, perhaps the +affection, of either Mrs. Hardy or Irene. Strangely enough, Elden was +more irritated by the former alternative than by the latter. He felt +that if Conward's purposes were directed towards Irene that was at +least fair warfare; he could not bring himself to think similarly of a +suit that involved Mrs. Hardy. Perhaps this attitude was due to +subconscious recognition of the fact that he had much more to fear from +Conward as a suitor for the hand of Mrs. Hardy than as a rival for that +of Irene. On the latter score he had no misgivings; he was confident +of his ability to worst any adversary in that field, and competition +would lend a piquancy to his courtship not altogether without +advantages; but he had no such confidence in the case of an assault +upon the heart of the elder woman. He could not become Conward's rival +in such a case, and, repugnant as the idea was to him, he felt no +assurance that such a match might not develop. And Conward, as a +prospective father-in-law, was a more grievous menace to his peace of +mind than Conward as a defeated rival. +</P> + +<P> +The more he contemplated this aspect of the case the less he liked it. +He would not do Conward the compliment of supposing that he had, or +might develop, a genuine attachment for Mrs. Hardy. It was true that +Mrs. Hardy, notwithstanding her years and her eccentricities, had a +certain stateliness of manner through which at times protruded a +reckless frankness that lent a unique charm to her personality, but it +was impossible to suppose that Conward had been captivated by these +interesting qualities. To Conward the affair could be nothing more +than an adventure, but it would give him a position of a sort of +semi-paternal authority over both Irene and Elden. Fortunately for his +train of thought, which was floundering into more and more difficult +travel, the prospect of having to appeal to Conward for the honour of +Irene's hand in marriage touched Dave's sense of humour, and he +suddenly burst into inappropriate laughter in the course of Mrs. +Hardy's panegyric upon the life and morals of her late husband. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hardy contracted her eyebrows. +</P> + +<P> +"I beg your pardon," said Dave. "I have to confess I allowed my wits +to go rambling, and they stumbled upon a—upon a very amusing +absurdity." Elden's mind was engaged with Mrs. Hardy and Conward, and, +unintentionally, he allowed his eyes to embrace them both in his +remark. One more astute than Mrs. Hardy might have had a glimmer of +the absurdity which had provoked Dave's untimely mirth, but she was a +woman who took herself with much seriousness. If Conward guessed +anything he concealed his intuition behind a mask of polite attention. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hardy addressed a severe gaze at Elden. "You should keep your +wits better in hand, young man. When you find them rambling it might +be well to—ah—<I>lasso</I> them. Ha, ha, Mr. Conward. That's the word, +is it not? <I>Lasso</I> them." This unexpected witticism on Mrs. Hardy's +part had the fortunate effect of restoring that lady's good humour, and +Elden found an easy way out of the situation by joining in the general +laughter. +</P> + +<P> +"I fear a thought would be a somewhat elusive thing to get a rope on," +he ventured. +</P> + +<P> +"But if it could be done, Dave would do it," Irene interjected. "You +remember——" +</P> + +<P> +"Dave?" said Mrs. Hardy, sharply. "You mean Mr. Elden." +</P> + +<P> +The colour rose in the young woman's cheeks, but she stood by her guns. +"He was Dave in those days," she said. "It would be impossible to +think of a <I>mister</I> galloping about over the foothills, swinging his +lariat, or smashing bottles with his six-shooter. Mister fits in with +the conventions; with tailors and perfume and evening dress, but it +doesn't seem to have any place in the foothills." +</P> + +<P> +"You're right," Conward agreed. "Mister has no place on horseback. If +you were to go out on the ranges and begin mistering the cow-punchers, +like as not they'd lead you into camp at a rope-end. No man really +makes much of a hit in this country until everybody calls him by his +first name." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Mr. Elden seems to have made a hit, as you call it, with some of +his acquaintances," said Mrs. Hardy, with a touch of acidity. "I +think, Irene, you would do well to remember that we are not out on the +ranges, and that Mr. Elden no longer pursues his living with a lariat." +</P> + +<P> +"It may be a point of view I have acquired in the West," Irene +persisted. "But I think it a greater courtesy to address a man by his +Christian name than by any artificial title. It is something like +admitting a guest into the kitchen—a privilege not extended to the +casual visitor. It seems like taking him into the family——" +</P> + +<P> +"Merciful Heaven!" exclaimed Mrs. Hardy. "Have we come to that?" +</P> + +<P> +Irene's cheeks and eyes grew brighter still. "Oh, I didn't mean that," +she protested. "I was—I was employing a figure of speech." +</P> + +<P> +So the talk drifted on, sometimes safely, sometimes through tortuous +channels that threatened at any moment to over-turn their little shell +of convention. But no such catastrophe occurred, and when, at length, +Mrs. Hardy began to show signs of weariness, Irene served coffee and +cake, and the two men, taking that as an intimation that their welcome +had run down, but would re-wind itself if not too continually drawn +upon, left the house together. On their way they agreed that it was a +very beautiful night. +</P> + +<P> +Dave turned the situation over in his mind with some impatience. Irene +had now been in the city for several weeks, and he had had opportunity +for scarce a dozen personal words with her. Was he to be baulked by +such an insufferable chaperonage as it seemed the purpose of Mrs. Hardy +and Conward to establish over his love affair? No. In the act of +undressing he told himself No, suiting to the word such vigour of +behaviour that in the morning he found his shoes at opposite corners of +the room. No! He who, as a boy, had not hesitated to assert a sort of +proprietorship over Irene, would not hesitate now— He was keyed to +the heroic. +</P> + +<P> +Several days passed without any word from Irene, and he had almost made +up his mind to attempt another telephone appointment, when he met her, +quite accidentally, in the street. It was a beautiful afternoon; warm, +but not hot, with a fresh breeze from the mountains flowing through the +unclouded heavens, and a radiant sun pouring down upon all. But Irene +looked more radiant still. She had been shopping, she said. The duty +of household purchases fell mainly upon her. Her mother rested in the +afternoons—— +</P> + +<P> +"How about a cup of tea?" said Dave. "And a thin sandwich? And a +delicate morsel of cake? One can always count on thin sandwiches and +delicate morsels of cake. Their function is purely a social one, +having no relation to the physical requirements." +</P> + +<P> +"I should be very glad," said Irene. +</P> + +<P> +They found a quiet tea-room. When they were seated Dave, without +preliminaries, plunged into the subject nearest his heart. +</P> + +<P> +"I have been wanting an opportunity to talk to you—wanting it for +weeks," he said. "But it always seemed——" +</P> + +<P> +"Always seemed that you were thwarted," Irene completed his thought. +"You didn't disguise your annoyance very well the other night." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you blame me for being annoyed?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. But I rather blame you for showing it. You see, I was annoyed +too." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you had nothing to do with—with bringing about the situation +that existed?" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly not. Surely you do not think that I would—that I would——" +</P> + +<P> +"I beg your pardon, Reenie," said Dave, contritely. "I should have +known better. But it seemed such a strange coincidence." +</P> + +<P> +She was toying with her cup, and for once her eyes avoided him. "You +should hardly think, Dave," she ventured,—"you should hardly conclude +that—what has been, you know, gives you the right—entitles you——" +</P> + +<P> +"To a monopoly of your attentions. Perhaps not. But it gives me the +right to a fair chance to win a monopoly of your attentions." He was +speaking low and earnestly, and his voice had a deep, rich timbre in it +that thrilled and almost frightened her. She could not resent his +straightforwardness. She felt that he was already asserting his claim +upon her, and there was something tender and delightful in the sense of +being claimed by such a man. +</P> + +<P> +"I must have a fair chance to win that monopoly," he repeated. "How +did it happen that Conward was present?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know. It just happened. A little after you telephoned me he +called up and asked for mother, and the next I knew she said he was +coming up to spend the evening. And then I said you were coming." +</P> + +<P> +"And what did she say?" +</P> + +<P> +Irene hesitated. "Please don't make me tell you," she whispered at +length. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't hesitate from any fear of hurting me," he said, with a laugh. +"I know I have failed to make a hit with your mother. On your account +I could wish I had been more successful, but perhaps she will be fairer +when she knows me better. What did she say?" +</P> + +<P> +"She just said, 'That cow <I>puncher</I>.' And I just told her that you +were the man who put the punch in the Conward & Elden firm—you see I +am learning your slang—and that everybody says so, and a few more +things I told her, too." +</P> + +<P> +But Dave had dropped into a sudden reverie. It was not so remarkable +as it seemed that Conward should have telephoned Mrs. Hardy almost +immediately after he had used the line. Conward's telephone and Dave's +were on the same circuit; it was a simple matter for Conward, if he had +happened to lift the receiver during Dave's conversation with Irene, to +overhear all that was said. That might happen accidentally; at least, +it might begin innocently enough. The fact that Conward had acted upon +the information indicated two things; first, that he had no very +troublesome sense of honour—which Dave had long suspected—and second, +that he had deliberately planned a confliction with Dave's visit to the +Hardy home. This indicated a policy of some kind; a scheme deeper than +Dave was as yet able to fathom. He would at least guard against any +further eavesdropping on his telephone. +</P> + +<P> +He took a card from his pocket, and made some figures on it. "If you +should have occasion to call me at the office at any time, please use +that number, and ask for me," he said. "It is the accountant's number. +'There's a reason.'" +</P> + +<P> +It flattered his masculine authority that she put the card in her purse +without comment. She did not ask him to explain. Dave knew that when +a woman no longer asks for explanations she pays man her highest +compliment. +</P> + +<P> +The cups were empty; the sandwiches and cake were gone, but they +lingered on. +</P> + +<P> +"I have been wondering," Dave ventured at length, "just where I +stand—with you. You remember our agreement?" +</P> + +<P> +She averted her eyes, but her voice was steady. "You have observed the +terms?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—in all essential matters. I come to you now—in accordance with +those terms. You said that we would know. Now <I>I</I> know; know as I +have always known since those wonderful days in the foothills; those +days from which I date my existence. Anything worth while that has +ripened in my life was sown by your smile and your confidence and your +strange pride in me, back in those sunny days. And I would repay it +all—and at the same time double my debt—by returning it to you, if I +may." +</P> + +<P> +"I realize that I owe you an answer, now, Dave," she said, frankly. +"And I find it very hard to make that answer. Marriage means so much +more to a woman than it does to a man. I know you don't think so, but +it does. Man, after the honeymoon, returns to his first love—his +day's work. But woman cannot go back.… Don't misunderstand me, +Dave. I would be ashamed to say I doubt myself, or that I don't know +my mind, but you and I are no longer boy and girl. We are man and +woman now. And I just want time—just want time to be <I>sure</I> +that—that——" +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose you are right," he answered. "I will not try to hurry your +decision. I will only try to give you an opportunity to know—to be +sure, as you said. Then, when you are sure, you will speak. I will +not re-open the subject." +</P> + +<P> +His words had something of the ring of an ultimatum, but no endearments +that his lips might have uttered could have gripped her heart so +surely. She knew they were the words of a man in deadly earnest, a man +who had himself in hand, a man who made love with the same serious +purpose as he had employed in the other projects of his successful +life. She raised her eyes to his fine face. Decision was stamped all +over it; from the firm jaw to the steady eyes that met her own. +Suddenly she began to tremble. It was not fear. Afterwards she knew +it to have been pride—pride in his great masterly manfulness; in a +judgment so sure of itself that it dallied not a moment in stating the +terms upon which all future happiness might hang. For if Dave had +misread Irene's heart he had deliberately closed the only door through +which he might hope to approach it. But Irene instinctively knew that +he had not misread her heart; it seemed that this bold, daring +manoeuvre had captured the citadel at a stroke. Had it not been for +some strange sense of shame—some fear that too ready capitulation +might be mistaken for weakness—she would have surrendered then. +</P> + +<P> +"I think that is best," she managed so say. "We will let our +acquaintanceship ripen." +</P> + +<P> +He rose and helped her with her light wrap. His fingers touched her +hand, and it seemed to him the battle was won.… But he had +promised not to re-open the subject. +</P> + +<P> +In the street he said, "If you will wait a moment I will take you home +in my car." Their eyes met, and each of them knew what it meant. It +meant announcement to her mother that she had met Dave down town. It +meant, perhaps, a supposition on her mother's part that she had gone +down town for that purpose. It was far-reaching. But she said simply, +"I should enjoy driving home with you." +</P> + +<P> +On the way they planned that the following Sunday they would drive into +the foothills together. Of course they would ask Mrs. Hardy to +accompany them. Of course. But it might happen that Mrs. Hardy would +be indisposed. She was tired with the numerous duties incident to +settling in a new home. Irene was of the opinion that what her mother +needed now was rest. +</P> + +<P> +As it happened, Mrs. Hardy was at the gate. She greeted Dave cordially +enough; it was not possible for Mrs. Hardy to quite forget her +conventional training, just as it was not possible for her to quite +forget that Dave was a one-time cow puncher. Encouraged by her mood +Irene determined to settle the Sunday programme at once. +</P> + +<P> +"Dave was good enough to bring me up in his car," she said. "And just +think! He invites us to drive into the foothills with him next Sunday. +Will you come? It will be delightful. Or are you feeling——" +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Elden is very kind," said Mrs. Hardy, with dignity. "I have no +doubt Mr. Conward will accompany us. He is to call this evening, and I +will ask him.… Yes, I think it very likely we will go." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER SIXTEEN +</H3> + + +<P> +The summer wore on, and autumn followed on its heels. The processes +which had been discerned by Conward and other astute operators were now +apparent to the mob which forever follows in the wake of the +successful, but usually at such a distance as to be overwhelmed in the +receding flood. The forces which had built up fabulous fortunes were +now in reverse gear, and the same mechanism that had built up was now +tearing down. As the boom had fed upon itself, carrying prices to +heights justifiable only to the most insane optimism, so did the +subsequent depression bear down upon values until they reached depths +justifiable only to the most abandoned despondency. Building +operations came to a standstill. Carpenters, masons, brick-layers, +painters, plumbers, labourers found themselves out of employment. As, +in most instances, they had lived to the extent of their income in the +prosperous period, or had invested their surpluses in the all-alluring +real estate, they were promptly confronted with the necessity of +finding work; if not at home, elsewhere. Their exodus left vacant +houses; the reduced volume of trade necessary for a smaller and more +frugal population was speedily reflected in empty shops and office +buildings. With houses, shops, and office buildings empty or rented at +prices which did not pay interest on the investment there was no +inducement to build more houses, shops, or office buildings. With no +inducement to build houses, shops, or office buildings there was no +demand for vacant lots. With no demand for vacant lots, no value +attached to them. The rosy bubble, inflated with the vapours of +irresponsible speculation, had dissolved in thin air. +</P> + +<P> +It could not be called a collapse. There was no panic, no crash. +There was no wild rush to sell. One cannot sell without buyers, and +there were no buyers. A certain latent optimism, justified in part by +the undeniable natural advantages of the city, kept the flame of hope +alive in the hearts of investors, or, perhaps, suffered it to be +gradually diminished rather than extinguished by one icy blast of +despair. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hardy was among the last to admit that she had bought on an ebbing +tide. She contended that her house was well worth the price she had +paid; what if speculation had come to a stop? So much the better; her +house was still worth its price. She would stand firm. It was not +until the Metfords, whose ostentation had brought them before her +notice, attempted to sell their home at a tremendous sacrifice, and had +found it impossible to get an offer, that Mrs. Hardy began seriously to +consider her predicament. Mrs. Metford had sold the car and discharged +the "chiffonier," and Mr. Metford had returned to his ancient and +honourable calling of coal freighter. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hardy consulted Conward. It had grown to be her habit to consult +Conward on all matters in which she found an interest. Conward had +gone out of his way to make himself agreeable to Mrs. Hardy and her +daughter, with, in the case of the former, considerable success. His +status with Irene was not so well defined, but the frequency of his +visits to the Hardy home afforded the opportunity for an attachment to +be developed by insensible degrees, and the day was nearing when +Conward would wish to trade upon that attachment. +</P> + +<P> +"How is it, Mr. Conward," Mrs. Hardy said to him one evening over her +fancy work, for she practised an indefatigable industry in matters of +no importance,—"How is it that there is no demand for property? You +are a real estate expert; you should be able to answer that." +</P> + +<P> +"It is simple enough," Conward answered. "It is all a matter of +confidence. So long as confidence was maintained, prices continued to +advance. When confidence began to be shaken, prices hesitated. If +confidence should disappear, values would follow suit." +</P> + +<P> +"But why should confidence disappear? Isn't this city as good to-day +as it was a year ago? Doesn't it occupy the same site? Are not the +farms still producing?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's just it, dear Mrs. Hardy. Why, indeed? Simply because the +booster has given way to the calamity howler. Its psychological +explanation is simple enough. The world lives by faith. Without faith +there would be neither seed-time nor harvest. That is true of raising +cities, as well as raising crops. But there are always those who +ridicule faith; always were, always will be. And as soon as faith +disappears, things begin to sink. Just like John, or whoever it was, +on the water——" +</P> + +<P> +"Peter, I think," corrected Mrs. Hardy. "Yes, yes, I begin to +understand." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's just like that. I may be a little off colour on my +scripture, but I have the principle of it, and that's the main thing. +And as soon as a city loses faith it begins to sink, just like Peter in +the Red Sea." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think it was the Red Sea," said Mrs. Hardy gently. "But that +is a matter of detail. As you say, the principle is the main thing. +So we owe all this—these empty houses and shops, unsalable property, +and everything, to those who have lost faith—or never had it. To men +like Mr. Elden, for instance. You remember how he tried to discourage +me from the very first—tried to break down my faith—that was it, Mr. +Conward—I see it all very plainly now—and he and others like him have +brought things to their present pass. Well, they have a great +responsibility." +</P> + +<P> +Conward, practised though he was in the arts of simulation, found +difficulty in maintaining a serious appearance. It had not occurred to +him that when a woman conceives a dislike for a man, her mind may lend +itself to processes of deductions that will ultimately saddle the +unfortunate offender with the responsibility for circumstances with +which he is not in the most remote manner connected. It was the most +natural thing in the world for a mind like Mrs. Hardy's, quite without +premeditated injustice, to find in Dave Elden the cause of effects as +far removed as was the collapse of the boom from the good advice he had +given her that day in Conward's office. Conward found the experience +an illuminating one. It was rich with hints of the possibilities that +might arise from apparently innocent sentences dropped at opportune +moments. It was proof that the danger of consequences lies, not in +wronging your neighbour, but in allowing your neighbour to suspect that +you wrong him. +</P> + +<P> +As a result of this discussion, Dave found himself rather less popular +with Mrs. Hardy than before. She treated him with distant civility, +showing such courtesies as convention demanded as an honour, not to +Elden, but to herself. Dave accepted her displeasure with a +light-heartedness that was extremely trying to the good woman's temper. +Had it not been for his desire to spare Irene any unhappiness, he would +have treated it with open flippancy. He was engaged in a much more +serious business than the cajolery of an old woman's whims. He was +engaged in the serious business of capturing the heart of Irene +Hardy—a task made none the easier by the self-imposed condition that +he must conduct no offensive, but must await with such patience as he +could command the voluntary capitulation of the besieged. On the +whole, he told himself he had no reason to be dissatisfied with the +progress of events. He and Irene often motored together, frequently +accompanied by Mrs. Hardy, sometimes by Conward as well, but +occasionally alone. And Irene made no secret of the fact that she +preferred the trips in which only she and Dave participated. On such +occasions the warm summer afternoons found them wandering far over the +prairies, without thought of the homeward trail until the setting sun +poured its ribbon of gold along the crest of the Rockies. The country, +with its long, rolling sweeps of prairie, its clusters of dark green +poplars; its rugged foothills from which grey roots of rock protruded, +and the blue background of the mountains, afforded a scene to charm her +artist soul, and daring and more daring were the splashes of colour +which she committed to canvas in her attempt to catch the moods of +light and shade that played over such a landscape. And if she did not +speak of love with her lips, she had eyes.… +</P> + +<P> +The gradual shrinkage of values to the vanishing point imposed upon +Dave many business duties which he would very gladly have evaded. The +office of Conward & Elden, which had once been besieged by customers +eager to buy, was now a centre of groups no less eager to sell; and +when they could not sell they contrived to lay the blame upon the firm +which had originally sold to them. Although, for the most part, these +were men and women who had bought purely from the gambler's motive, +they behaved toward the real estate dealer as though he had done them +an injustice when the finger of fortune turned up a loss instead of a +profit. For such people Dave had little sympathy, and if they +persisted in their murmurings he told them so with becoming frankness. +But there were cases that could not be turned away with a sharp answer. +Bert Morrison, for instance. Bert had never mentioned her "investment" +since the occasion already recorded; she greeted Dave with the +sociability due to their long-standing friendship; and her calm +avoidance of the subject hurt him more than the abuse of all his irate +patrons. Then there was Merton, the widower with the sick lungs and +the motherless boy, who had brought his little savings to the West in +the hope of husbanding out his life in the dry, clear atmosphere, and +saving his son from the white death that had already invaded their +little family. With a cruelty almost unbelievable, Conward had talked +this man into the purchase of property so far removed from the city as +to possess no value except as farm land; and the little savings, which +were to ward off sickness and death, or, if that could not be, minister +modest comfort in the declining hours of life, had been exchanged for +property which, even at the time of the transaction, was valueless and +unsalable. +</P> + +<P> +Merton had called on Dave with respect to his investment. Dave had at +first been disposed to tell him frankly that the property, for which he +had paid twenty dollars a foot, was barely worth that much an acre. +But a second look at the man changed his purpose. +</P> + +<P> +"I know you were stung, Merton," he said, "shamelessly stung. You are +one of those unsuspecting fellows who think everybody is going to play +fair with them. You belong to the class who keep all kinds of rogues +and scoundrels in easy circumstances. You might almost be charged with +being accessories. Now, just to show how I feel about it—how much did +you pay for these lots?" +</P> + +<P> +"Three thousand dollars. It was all I had." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course it was. If you had had more you would have paid more. I +suppose Conward justified himself with the argument that if he didn't +take your easy money some one else would, which is doubtless true. But +just to show how I feel about it—I'll buy those lots from you, for +three thousand dollars." +</P> + +<P> +"I can't do it, Mr. Elden; I can't do it," said Merton, and there was +moisture on his cheeks. "That would be charity—and I can't take it. +But I'm much obliged. It shows you're square, Mr. Elden, and I hold no +illwill to <I>you</I>." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, can I help you in some way you <I>will</I> accept? I'm afraid—I +don't mean to be unkind, but we may as well be frank—I'm afraid you +won't need help very long." +</P> + +<P> +Merton answered as one who has made up his mind to the inevitable, and +Dave thought better of him. This little wreck of a man—this child in +business matters—could look death in the face without a quiver. +</P> + +<P> +"Not so long," he said. "I felt ever so much better when I came here +first; I thought I was really going to be well again. But when I found +what a mistake I had made I began to worry, not for myself, you know, +but the boy, and worry is just what my trouble lives on. I have been +working a little, and boarding out, and the boy is going to school. +But I can't do heavy work, and work of any kind is hard to get. I find +I can't keep going that way." +</P> + +<P> +Merton looked with dreamy eyes through the office window, while Dave +was turning over the hopelessness of his position, and inwardly cursing +a system which made such conditions possible. Society protects the +physically weak from the physically strong; the physical highwayman +usually gets his deserts; but the mental highwayman preys upon the weak +and the inexperienced and the unorganized, and Society votes him a good +citizen and a success. +</P> + +<P> +"I had a plan," Merton continued, half-apologetically, as though his +plan did him little credit; "I had a plan, but it can't be worked out. +I have been trying to raise a little money on my lots, but the mortgage +people just look at me." +</P> + +<P> +"What is your plan?" said Dave, kindly. "Any plan, no matter how bad, +is always better than no plan." +</P> + +<P> +"I thought," said Merton, timidly,—"I thought if I could build a +little shack on the lots I could live there with the boy and we could +raise a very fine garden. The soil is very fertile, and at least we +should not starve. And the gardening would be good for me, and I could +perhaps keep some chickens, and work out at odd jobs as well. But it +takes money to build even a very small shack." +</P> + +<P> +"How much money?" demanded Dave. +</P> + +<P> +"If I had a hundred dollars——" +</P> + +<P> +"Bring your title to me to-morrow; to me, personally, you understand. +I'll advance you five hundred dollars." +</P> + +<P> +Merton sprang up, and there was more enthusiasm in his eyes than had +seemed possible "You will? But I don't need that much——" +</P> + +<P> +"Then use the surplus to live on." +</P> + +<P> +So the Merton affair was straightened away in a manner which left Dave +more at peace with his conscience. But another event, much more +dramatic and far-reaching in its effects upon his life, was already +ripe for the enacting. +</P> + +<P> +Business conditions had necessitated unwonted economy in the office +affairs of Conward & Elden, as a result of which many old employees had +been laid off, and others had been replaced by cheaper and less +experienced labour. Stenographers who had been receiving a hundred +dollars a month could not readily bring themselves to accept fifty, and +some of them had to make way for new girls, fresh from the business +colleges. Such a new girl was Gladys Wardin; pretty, likeable, +inexperienced. Her country home had offered no answer to her +ambitions, and she had come to the city with the most dangerous +equipment a young woman can carry—an attractive face and an +unsophisticated confidence in the goodness of humanity. Conward had +been responsible for her position in the office, and Dave had given +little thought to her, except to note that she was a willing worker and +of comely appearance. +</P> + +<P> +Returning to the office one Saturday evening Dave found Miss Wardin +making up a bundle of paper, pencils, and carbon paper. She was +evidently in high spirits, and he smilingly asked if she intended +working at home over Sunday. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, didn't Mr. Conward tell you?" she answered, as though surprised +that the good news had been kept a secret. "He is going to spend a day +or two at one of the mountain hotels, and I am to go along to do his +correspondence. Isn't it just lovely? I have so wanted to go to the +mountains, but never felt that I could afford it. And now I can +combine business with pleasure." +</P> + +<P> +The smile died out of Dave's eyes, and his face became more set and +stern than she had ever seen it. "Why, what's the matter, Mr. Elden?" +she exclaimed. "Is anything wrong?" +</P> + +<P> +He found it hard to meet her frank, unsuspecting eyes; hard to draw +back the curtains of the world so much that those eyes would never +again be quite so frank and unsuspecting.… "Miss Wardin," he +said, "did Conward tell you that?" +</P> + +<P> +"What? About going to the mountains? Of course. He said he was +taking some work with him, and he wondered if I would mind going along +to do it, and he would pay the expenses, and—and——" +</P> + +<P> +There was a quick hard catch in her voice, and she seized Elden's arm +violently. Her eyes were big and round; her pretty face had gone +suddenly white. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Mr. Elden, you don't think—you don't think that I—that he—you +wouldn't believe <I>that</I>?" +</P> + +<P> +"I think you are absolutely innocent," he said, gravely, "but—it's the +innocent thing that gets caught." Suddenly, even in that tense moment, +his mind leaped over the gulf of years to the night when he had said to +Irene Hardy, "I don't know nothin' about the justice of God. All I +know is the crittur 'at can't run gets caught." It was so of Irene's +pet; it was so of poor, tubercular Merton; it was to be so of pretty +Gladys Wardin—— +</P> + +<P> +But the girl had broken into violent tears. "Whatever shall I do—what +can I do?" she moaned. "Oh, why didn't somebody tell me? What <I>can</I> I +do——" +</P> + +<P> +He let her passion run on for a few minutes, and then he sought, as +gently as he could, to win her back to some composure. "Some one <I>has</I> +told you," he said,—"in time. You don't have to go. Don't be afraid +of anything Conward may do. <I>I</I> will settle this score with him." +</P> + +<P> +She controlled herself, but when she spoke again her voice had fear and +shame in it. "I—I hate to tell you, Mr. Elden, but I must tell +you—I—I took—I let him give me some money—to buy things—he said +maybe I was short of money, and I would want to buy some new +clothes—and he would pay me extra, in advance—and he gave me fifty +dollars—and—and—<I>I've spent it</I>!" +</P> + +<P> +Elden swung on his heel and paced the length of the office in quick, +sharp strides. When he returned to where Miss Wardin stood, wrapped +about in her misery, his fists were clenched and the veins stood out on +the back of his hands. "Scoundrel," he muttered, "scoundrel. And I +have been tied to him. I have let him blind me; I have let him set the +standards; I have let him <I>weigh the coal</I>. Well, now I know him." +There was a menace in his last words that frightened even Gladys +Wardin, well though she knew the menace was not to her, but ranged in +her defence. +</P> + +<P> +"Here," he said, taking some bills from his pocket. "You must tell him +you can't go—tell him you <I>won't</I> go; you must return his money; I +will lend you what you need. Don't be afraid; I will go with you——" +</P> + +<P> +"But I can't take <I>your</I> money, either, Mr. Elden," she protested. "I +can't stay here any longer; I will have no job, and I can't pay you +back. You see I can't take it even from you. What a fool I was! For +a few clothes——" +</P> + +<P> +"You will continue to work—for me," he said. +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head. "No. I can't. I can't work anywhere near him." +</P> + +<P> +"You won't need to. The firm of Conward & Elden will be dissolved at +once. I have always felt that there was something false in +Conward—something that wouldn't stand test. I thought it was in his +business life; and yet that didn't quite seem to give the answer. Now +I know." +</P> + +<P> +There was the sound of a key in the street door, and Conward entered. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap17"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN +</H3> + + +<P> +Conward paused as he entered the room. He had evidently not expected +to find Elden there, but after a moment of hesitation he nodded +cordially to his partner. +</P> + +<P> +"Almost ready, Miss Wardin?" he asked, cheerily. "Our train goes +in——" He took his watch from his pocket and consulted it. +</P> + +<P> +Dave's eyes were fixed on the girl. He wondered whether, in this +testing moment, she would fight for herself or lean weakly on him as +her protector. Her answer reassured him. +</P> + +<P> +"It makes no difference when it goes, Mr. Conward. I'm not going on +it." Her voice trembled nervously, but there was no weakness in it. +</P> + +<P> +The money which Dave had given her was still crumpled in her hand. She +advanced to where Conward stood vaguely trying to sense the situation, +and held the bills before him. "Here is your money, Mr. Conward," she +said. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, what does this mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"Here is your money. Will you take it please?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I won't take it, until you explain——" +</P> + +<P> +She opened her fingers, and the bills fell to the floor. "All right," +she said. +</P> + +<P> +Conward's eyes had shifted to Dave. "You are at the bottom of this, +Elden," he said. "What does it mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"It means, Conward," Dave answered, and there was steel in his +voice—"it means that after all these years I have discovered what a +cur you are—just in time to baulk you, at least in this instance." +</P> + +<P> +Conward flushed, but he maintained an attitude of composure. "You've +been drinking, Dave," he said. "I meant no harm to Miss Wardin." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't make me call you a liar as well as a cur." +</P> + +<P> +The word cut through Conward's mask of composure. "Now by God I won't +take that from any man," he shouted, and with a swing of his arms threw +his coat over his shoulders. Dave made no motion, and Conward slowly +brought his coat back to position. +</P> + +<P> +"I was right," said Dave, calmly. "I knew you wouldn't fight. You +think more of your skin than you do of your honour. Well—it's better +worth protection." +</P> + +<P> +"If this girl were not here," Conward protested. "I will not fight——" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I will leave," said Miss Wardin, with alacrity. "And I hope he +soaks you well," she shot back, as the door closed behind her. But by +this time Conward had assumed a superior attitude. "Dave," he said, "I +won't fight over a quarrel of this kind. But remember, there are some +things in which no man allows another to interfere. Least of all such +a man as you. There are ways of getting back, and I'll get back." +</P> + +<P> +"Why such a man as me? I know I haven't been much of a moralist in +business matters—I've been in the wrong company for that—but I draw +the line——" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you're fine stuff, all right. What would your friend Miss Hardy +think if I told her all I know?" +</P> + +<P> +"You know nothing that could affect Miss Hardy's opinion——" +</P> + +<P> +"No?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, you don't. You're not bluffing a tenderfoot now. I call you. If +you've any cards—play them." +</P> + +<P> +"It's too bad your memory is so poor," Conward sneered. "Why were your +lights off that night I passed your car? Oh, I guess you remember. +What will Miss Hardy think of that?" +</P> + +<P> +For a moment Dave was unable to follow Conward's thought. Then his +mind reached back to that night he drove into the country with Bert +Morrison, when on the brow of a hill he switched off his lights that +they might the better admire the majesty of the heavens. That Conward +should place an evil interpretation upon that incident was a thing so +monstrous, so altogether beyond argument, that Dave fell back upon the +basic human method reserved for such occasions. His fist leapt +forward, and Conward crumpled up before it. +</P> + +<P> +Conward lay stunned for a few minutes; then with returning +consciousness, he tried to sit up. Dave helped him to a chair. Blood +flowed down his face, and, as he began to realize what had occurred, it +was joined with tears of pain, rage, humiliation. +</P> + +<P> +"You got that one on me, Elden," he said, after awhile. "But it was a +coward's blow. You hit me when I wasn't looking. Very well. Two can +play at that game. I'll hit you when you're not looking … where +you don't expect it … where you can't hit back. You interfere with +me—you strike me—you that I took out of a thirty-dollar-a-week job +and made you all you are. I did it, Dave; gave you the money to start +with, coached you all the way. And you hit me … when I wasn't +looking." He spoke disjointedly; his throat was choked with +mortification and self-pity. "Very well. I know the stake you're +playing for. And—I'm going to spoil it." +</P> + +<P> +He turned his swollen, bloody face to Dave's, and hatred stood up in +his eyes as he uttered the threat. "I'll hit you, Dave," he repeated, +"where you can't hit back." +</P> + +<P> +"Thanks for the warning," said Elden. "So Irene Hardy is to be the +stake. All right; I'll sit in. And I'll win." +</P> + +<P> +"You'll think you've won," returned Conward, leeringly. "And then +you'll find out that you didn't. I'll present her to you, Dave, like +that." He lifted a burnt match from an ash tray and held it before him. +</P> + +<P> +Dave's impulse was to seize the thick, flabby throat in his hands and +choke it lifeless. With a resolute effort he turned to the telephone +and lifted the receiver. +</P> + +<P> +"Send a car and a doctor to Conward & Elden's office," he said, when he +had got the desired number. "Mr. Conward has been hurt; fell against a +desk, or something. Nothing serious, but may need a stitch or two." +Then, turning to Conward, "It will depend on you whether this affair +gets to the public. On you, and Miss Wardin. Make your own +explanations. And as soon as you are able to be about our partnership +will be dissolved." +</P> + +<P> +Conward was ready enough to adopt Dave's suggestion that their quarrel +should not come to the notice of the public, and Gladys Wardin +apparently kept her own counsel in the matter. In a time when firms +were going out of business without even the formality of an assignment, +and others were being absorbed by their competitors, the dissolution of +the Conward & Elden establishment occasioned no more than passing +notice. The explanation, "for business reasons," given to the +newspapers, seemed sufficient. Some few may have had surmises, but +they said nothing openly. Bert Morrison, for example, meeting Dave in +the street, congratulated him upon the change. "I knew you would find +him out some day;" she said. "Find what out?" Dave questioned, with +feigned surprise. "Oh, nothing," was her enigmatic answer, as she +changed the subject. +</P> + +<P> +Irene Hardy found herself in a position of increasing delicacy. Since +the day of their conversation in the tea-room Dave had been constant in +his attentions, but, true to his ultimatum, had uttered no word that +could in any way be construed to be more or less than Platonic. His +attitude vexed and pleased her. She was vexed that he should leave her +in a position where she must humiliate herself by taking the +initiative; she was pleased with his strength, with his daring, with +the superb self-control with which he carried out a difficult purpose. +Just how difficult was that purpose Irene was now experiencing in her +own person. She had now no doubt that she felt for Dave that +attachment without which ceremonies are without avail, and with which +ceremonies are but ceremonies. And yet she shrank from +surrender.… And she knew that some day she must surrender. +</P> + +<P> +The situation was complicated by conditions which involved her +mother—and Conward. Mrs. Hardy had never allowed herself to become +reconciled to Dave Elden. She refused to abandon her preconceived +ideas of the vulgarity which through life must accompany one born to +the lowly status of cow puncher. The fact that Dave, neither in manner +nor mind, gave any hint of that vulgarity which she chose to associate +with his early occupation, did not in the least ameliorate her +aversion. Mrs. Hardy, without knowing it, was as much a devotee of +caste as any Oriental. And Dave was born out of the caste. Nothing +could alter that fact. His assumption of the manners of a gentleman +merely aggravated his offence. +</P> + +<P> +It was also apparent that Conward's friendship for Mrs. Hardy did not +react to Dave's advantage. Conward was careful to drop no word in +Irene's hearing that could be taken as a direct reflection upon Dave, +but she was conscious of an influence, a magnetism, it almost seemed, +the whole tendency of which was to pull her away from Elden. She knew +there had been trouble between the two men, and that their formal +courtesy, when they met at her mother's house, was formal only; but +neither admitted her into the secret. Dave did not venture to speak of +the quarrel and Conward's threat, partly from a sense of delicacy; +partly from a curiously strained point of honour that that would be +taking an unfair advantage of Conward; but most, perhaps, because of +his complete assurance that Conward would never be able to carry his +threat into effect. He had absolutely no misgivings on that score. +Conward, on the other hand, knew that his standing with Irene would +not, as yet, justify him in playing any trump card. He realized that +the girl's affections were placed on Elden, but he trusted, by winning +for himself an intimate position in the family, to grow gradually into +more favourable relationship with her. Conward had a manner, a +mildness of voice, a confidential note in his words, which had not +failed him on previous occasions, and although he now stalked bigger +game than ever before he had no serious doubt of ultimate success. As +for Irene, a certain aversion which she had felt for Conward at first +did disappear under the influence of his presence in the household and +the courteous attentions, which, although directed to her mother, were +in some degree reflected upon herself. +</P> + +<P> +It would not be true to say that Irene's acquaintance with Conward made +it more difficult for her to accept the terms of Dave's ultimatum. She +regarded the two men from a totally different point of view, and there +seemed no reason why her vision of one should in any way obscure her +vision of the other. One was merely a friend of the family, to be +treated on grounds of cordial good-fellowship; the other was her +prospective husband. It was no consideration for Conward that sealed +her lips. There was another matter, however, which bore heavily upon +her pride, and strewed her path with difficulties. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hardy had invested practically all her little fortune in her +house. The small sum which had been saved from that unfortunate +investment had been eaten up in the cost of furnishing and maintaining +the home. Dr. Hardy, in addition to his good name, had left his +daughter some few thousand dollars of life insurance, and this was the +capital which was now supplying their daily needs. It, too, would soon +be exhausted, and Irene was confronted with the serious business of +finding a means of livelihood for herself and her mother. +</P> + +<P> +She discussed her problem with Bert Morrison, with whom she had formed +a considerable friendship. She wondered whether she might be able to +get a position on one of the newspapers. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't think of it," said Bert. "If you want to keep a sane, sweet +outlook on humanity, don't examine it too closely. That's what we have +to do in the newspaper game, and that's why we're all cynics. +Shakespeare said 'All the world's a stage,' and the same might have +been said of the press. The show looks pretty good from the pit, but +when you get behind the scenes and see the make-up, and all the strings +that are pulled—and who pulls them—well, it makes you suspicious of +everything. You no longer accept a surface view; you are always +looking for the hidden motive below. Keep out of it." +</P> + +<P> +"But I must earn a living," Irene protested, "and I'm not a +stenographer, nor much of anything else. I wasn't brought up to be +useful, except with a view to superintending a household—not +supporting it." +</P> + +<P> +"Ever contemplate marriage?" said Miss Morrison, with disconcerting +frankness. +</P> + +<P> +The colour rose in Irene's cheeks, but she knew that her friend was +discussing a serious matter seriously. "Why, yes," she admitted. "I +have contemplated it; in fact, I am contemplating it. That's one of +the reasons I want to start earning my living. When I marry I want to +marry as a matter of choice—not because it's the only way out." +</P> + +<P> +"Now you're talking," said Bert. "And most of us girls who marry as a +matter of choice—don't marry. Perhaps I'm too cynical. I suppose +there are some men who would make good husbands—if you could find +them. But I've seen a few, the rough and the smooth, and I've only +known one man from whom a proposal would set me thinking. And he'll +never propose to me—not now. Not since Miss Hardy came west." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said Irene, slowly. "I'm—I'm so sorry." … +</P> + +<P> +"It's all right," said Bert, looking out of the window. "Just another +of life's little bumps. We get used to them—in time. But you want a +job. Let me see; you draw, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Just for pastime. I can't earn a living that way." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not so sure. Perhaps not with art in the abstract. You must +commercialize it. Don't shy at that word. Believe me, all art is +pretty well commercialized in these times. Our literary men are +writing advertisements instead of poetry and getting more for it. And +if you, on the one hand, can make a picture of the Rockies, which you +can't sell, and on the other can make a picture of a pair of shoes, +which you can sell, which, as a woman of good sense, in need of the +simoleons, are you going to do? You're going to draw the shoes—and +the pay cheque. Now I think I can get you started that way, on +catalogue work and ad. cuts. Try your pencil on something—anything at +all—and bring down a few samples." +</P> + +<P> +So Irene's little studio room began to take on a practical purpose. It +was work which called for form and proportion rather than colour, and +in these Irene excelled. She soon found herself with as much as she +could do, in addition to the duties of the household, as maids were +luxuries which could no longer be afforded, and her mother seemed +unable to realize that they were not still living in the affluence of +Dr. Hardy's income. To Irene, therefore, fell the work of the house, +as well as its support. But her success in earning a living did not +seem in the slightest degree to clear the way for marriage. She could +not ask Dave to assume the support of her mother; particularly in view +of Mrs. Hardy's behaviour toward him, she could not ask that. She +sometimes wondered if Conward— For a long while she refused to +complete the thought, but at length, why not? Why shouldn't Conward +marry her mother? And what other purpose could he have in his +continuous visits to their home? Mrs. Hardy, although no longer young, +had by ho means surrendered all the attractions of her sex, and Conward +was slipping by the period where a young girl would be his natural +mate. If they should marry—Irene was no plotter, but it did seem that +such a match would clear the way for all concerned. She was surprised, +when she turned it over in her mind, to realize that Conward had won +for himself such a place in her regard that she could contemplate such +a consummation as very much to be desired. Subconsciously, rather than +from specific motive, she assumed a still more friendly attitude toward +him. +</P> + +<P> +Bert Morrison's confession had, however, set up another very insistent +train of thought in Irene's mind. She realized that Bert, with all her +show of cynicism and masculinity, was really a very womanly young +woman, with just the training and the insight into life that would make +her almost irresistible should she enter the matrimonial market. And +Bert and Dave were already good friends; very good friends indeed, as +Irene suspected from fragments of conversation which either of them +dropped from time to time. Although she never doubted the singleness +of Dave's devotion she sometimes suspected that in Bert Morrison's +presence he felt a more frank comradeship than in hers. And it was +preposterous that he should not know that Bert might be won for the +winning. And meantime.… +</P> + +<P> +Another winter wore away; another spring came rushing from the mountain +passes; another summer was upon them, and still Irene Hardy had not +surrendered. A thousand times she told herself it was impossible, with +her mother to think of— And always she ended in indignation over her +treatment of Dave. It was outrageous to keep him waiting. And +somewhere back of her self-indignation flitted the form—the now +seductive form—of Bert Morrison. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap18"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN +</H3> + + +<P> +Irene Hardy chose to be frank with herself over the situation. She had +not doubted the sincerity of her attachment for Dave Elden; but, had +she experienced such a doubt, the entry of Bert Morrison into the drama +would have forever removed it. Indeed, now that she knew that Dave's +suit would be regarded with favour by another woman—an accomplished, +clever, experienced woman,—she was very much more eager to monopolize +it to herself. And in fairness she admitted that things could not +continue as they were. The menace of Bert Morrison was static, so to +speak. With fine self-abnegation Bert was standing aside. But how +long would she continue to stand aside? Irene was old enough to know +that the ramparts of friendship are a poor defence when the artillery +of passion is brought to bear; indeed, it is usually through those very +ramparts that the assault is effected. And if she continued to trifle +with Dave Elden— +</P> + +<P> +Yes, <I>trifle</I>. She would be frank. She would not spare herself. She +had been trifling with him. Rather than accept the terms which her own +attitude had made necessary—rather than tell him with her lips what +she felt in her heart—she had trifled away all these months, almost +these years.… She would lay her false pride aside. In the purity +of her womanhood, which he could not misunderstand, she would divest +herself of all convention and tell him frankly that—that— +</P> + +<P> +She was not sure what she would tell, or how she would tell it. She +was sure only that she would make him know. At the very next +opportunity.… +</P> + +<P> +It came on a fine summer's evening in late July, while Dave and Irene +drifted in his car over the rich ripening prairies. Everywhere were +fields of dark green wheat, already beginning to glimmer with the gold +of harvest; everywhere were herds of sleek cattle sighing and blowing +contentedly in the cool evening air. Away to the west lay the +mountains, blue and soft as a pillow of velvet for the head of the +dying day; overhead, inverted islands of brass and copper floated +lazily in an inverted sea of azure and opal; up from the southwest came +the breath of the far Pacific, mild, and soft, and gentle. +</P> + +<P> +"We started at the wrong end in our nation building," Dave was saying. +"We started to build cities, leaving the country to take care of +itself. We are finding out how wrong we were. Depend upon it, where +there is a prosperous country the cities will take care of themselves. +We have been putting the cart before the horse—" +</P> + +<P> +But Irene's eyes were on the sunset; on the slowly fading colours of +the cloudlands overhead. Something of that colour played across her +fine face, mellowing, softening, drawing as it seemed the very soul to +cheeks and lips and eyes. Dave paused in his speech to regard her, and +her beauty rushed upon him, engulfed him, overwhelmed him in such a +poignancy of tenderness that it seemed for a moment all his resolves +must be swept away and he must storm the citadel that would not +surrender to siege.… Only action could hold him resolute; he +pressed down the accelerator until the steel lungs of his motor were +drinking power to their utmost capacity and the car roared furiously +down the stretches of the country road. +</P> + +<P> +It was dusk when he had burnt out his violence, and, chastened and +spent, he turned the machine to hum back gently to the forgotten city. +Irene, by some fine telepathy, had followed vaguely the course of his +emotions; had followed them in delicious excitement, and fear, and +hope. She sensed in some subtle feminine way the impulse that had sent +him roaring into the distances; she watched his powerful hand on the +wheel; his clear, steady eye; the minute accuracy with which he +controlled his flying motor; and she prayed—and did not know what or +why she prayed. But a colour not all of the dying sunlight lit her +cheek as she guessed—she feared—she hoped—that she had prayed that +he might forget his fine resolves—that his heart might at last +out-rule his head— +</P> + +<P> +In the deepening darkness her fingers found his arm. The motion of the +car masked the violence of her trembling, but for a time the pounding +of her heart would not allow her speech. +</P> + +<P> +"Dave," she said at length, "I want to tell you that I think you—that +we—that I—oh! I've been very selfish and proud—" +</P> + +<P> +Her fingers had followed his arm to the shoulder, and the car had idled +to a standstill. "I have fought as long as I can, Dave." She raised +her eyes full to his, and felt them glowing upon her in the dusk. "I +have fought as long as I can," she said, "and I—I always wanted to—to +lose, you know; and now—I surrender." … +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Elden lost no time in facing the unpleasant task of an interview with +Mrs. Hardy. It was even less pleasant than he expected. +</P> + +<P> +"Irene is of age," said Mrs. Hardy, bluntly. "If she will she will. +But I must tell you plainly that I will do all I can to dissuade her. +Ungrateful child!" she exclaimed, in an outburst of temper, "after all +these years to throw herself away in an infatuation for a cow +<I>puncher</I>." +</P> + +<P> +The thorn of Mrs. Hardy's distress, revealed as it was in those last +contemptuous words, struck Dave as so ridiculous that he laughed +outright. It was the second occasion upon which his sense of humour +had suffered an inopportune reaction in her presence. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, laugh at me," she said, bitterly. "Laugh at her mother, an old +woman now, alone in the world—the mother that risked her life for the +child you are taking with a laugh—" +</P> + +<P> +"I beg your pardon," said Dave. "I was not laughing at you, but at the +very great aversion in which you hold anyone who has at one time +followed the profession of a cowboy. As one who was born practically +with a lariat in his hand I claim the liberty of being amused at that +aversion. I've known many of the cow punching trade, and a good few +others, and while the boys are frequently rough they are generally +white—a great deal whiter than their critics—and with sounder respect +for a good woman than I have found in circles that consider themselves +superior. So if you ask me to apologize for the class from which I +come I have only a laugh for your answer. But when you say I have +taken your child thoughtlessly, there you do me an injustice. And when +you speak of being left alone in the world you do both Irene and me an +injustice. And when you call yourself an old woman you do us all an +injustice—" +</P> + +<P> +"You may spare your compliments," said Mrs. Hardy, tartly. "I have no +relish for them. And as for your defence of cow <I>punchers</I>, I prefer +gentlemen. Why Irene should wish to throw herself away when there are +men like Mr. Conward—" +</P> + +<P> +"Conward!" interrupted Dave. +</P> + +<P> +"He has the manners of a gentleman," she said, in a tone intended to be +crushing. +</P> + +<P> +"And the morals of a coyote," Dave returned, hotly. +</P> + +<P> +"O-o-o-h," said Mrs. Hardy, in a low, shocked cry. That Elden should +speak of Conward with such disdain seemed to her little less than +sacrilege. Then, gathering herself together with some dignity, "If you +cannot speak respectfully of Mr. Conward you will please leave the +house. I shall not forbid you to see Irene; I know that would be +useless. But please do not trouble me with your presence." +</P> + +<P> +When Dave had gone Mrs. Hardy, very angry with him, and almost equally +angry with herself owing to a vague conviction that she had had if +anything the worse of the interview, hurried to the telephone. She +rang up Conward's number. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Mr. Conward," she said. "You know who is speaking? Yes. You +must come up to-night. I do want to talk with you. I—I've been +insulted—in my own house. By that—that Elden. It's all very +terrible. I can't tell you over the telephone." +</P> + +<P> +Conward called early in the evening. Irene met him at the door. He +greeted her even more cordially than usual, dropping into that soft, +confidential note which he had found so potent in capturing such +affections as his heart, in a somewhat varied experience, had desired. +But there was no time for conversation. Mrs. Hardy had heard the bell, +and bustled into the room. She had not yet recovered from her +agitation, and made no effort to conceal it. +</P> + +<P> +"Come into my sitting-room, Mr. Conward. I am so glad you have come. +Really, I am so upset. It is such a comfort to have some one you can +depend on—some one whose advice one can seek, on occasions like this. +I never thought—" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hardy had been fingering her handkerchief, which she now pressed +to her eyes. Conward laid a soothing hand on her shoulder. "There, +there," he said. "You must control yourself. Tell me. It will +relieve you, and perhaps I can help." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I'm sure you can," she returned. "It's all over Irene and +that—that—I <I>will</I> say it—that cow <I>puncher</I>. To think it would +have come to this! Mr. Conward, you are not a mother, so you can't +understand. Ungrateful girl! But I blame <I>him</I>. And the Doctor. I +never wanted him to come west. It was that fool trip, in that fool +motor—" +</P> + +<P> +Conward smiled to himself over her unaccustomed violence. Mrs. Hardy +must be deeply moved when she forgot to be correct. He had readily +surmised the occasion of her distress. It needed no words from Mrs. +Hardy to tell him that Irene and Dave were engaged. He had expected it +for some time, and the information was not altogether distasteful to +him. He had come somewhat under the spell of Irene's attractiveness, +but he had no deep attachment for her. He was not aware that he had +ever had an abiding attachment for any woman. Attachments were things +which he put on and off as readily as a change of clothes. He planned +to hit Dave through Irene, but he planned that when he struck it should +be a death blow. Their engagement would lend a sharper edge to his +shaft. +</P> + +<P> +It may as well be set down that for Mrs. Hardy Conward had no regard +whatever. Even while he shaped soft words for her ear he held her in +contempt. To him she was merely a silly old woman. From the day he +had first seen Mrs. Hardy his attitude toward her had been one of +subtle flattery; partly because it pleased his whim, and partly because +on that same day he had seen Irene, and he was shrewd enough to know +that his approach to the girl's affections must be made by way of the +acquaintanceship which he would establish under the guise of friendship +for her mother. Since his trouble with Dave, Conward had a double +purpose in developing that acquaintanceship. He had no compunctions as +to his method of attack. While Dave was manfully laying siege to the +front gate, Conward proposed to burglarize the home through the back +door of family intimacy. And now that Dave seemed to have won the +prize, Conward realized that his own position was more secure than +ever. Had he not been called in consultation by the girl's mother? +Were not the inner affairs of the family now laid open before him? Did +not his position as her mother's advisor permit him to assume toward +Irene an attitude which, in a sense, was more intimate than even Dave's +could be? He turned these matters over quickly in his mind, and +congratulated himself upon the wisdom of his tactics. +</P> + +<P> +"It's very dreadful," Mrs. Hardy was saying, between dabbings of her +perfumed handkerchief on eyes that bore witness to the genuineness of +her distress. "Irene is not an ordinary girl. She has in her +qualities that justified me in hoping that—that she would do—very +differently from this. You have been a good friend, Mr. Conward. Need +I conceal from you, Mr. Conward, from you, of all men, what have been +my hopes for Irene?" +</P> + +<P> +Conward's heart leapt at the confession. He had secretly entertained +some doubt as to Mrs. Hardy's purpose in opening her home to him as she +had done; absurd as the hypothesis seemed, still there was the +hypothesis that Mrs. Hardy saw in Conward a possible comfort to her +declining days. He had no doubt that her vanity was equal to that +supposition, but he had done her less than justice in supposing that +she had had any directly personal ambitions. Her ambitions were for +Irene. From her point of view it seemed to Mrs. Hardy that almost +anything would be better than that Irene should marry a man who had +sprung from the low estate which Elden not only confessed, but boasted. +She had hoped that by bringing Conward into the house, by bringing +Irene under the influence of a close family acquaintanceship with him, +that that young lady might be led to see the folly of the road she was +choosing. But now her clever purpose had come to nought, and in her +vexation she did not hesitate to humble herself before Conward by +confessing, in words that he could not misunderstand, that she had +hoped that he would be the successful suitor for Irene. And Conward's +heart leapt at the confession. He was sufficiently schooled in the +affairs of life to appreciate the advantage of open alliance with Mrs. +Hardy in the short, sharp battle that lay before him. +</P> + +<P> +"And I suppose I need not conceal from you," he answered, "what my +hopes have been. Those hopes have grown as my acquaintance with you +has grown. It is reasonably safe to judge a daughter by her mother, +and by that standard Irene is one of the most adorable of young women." +</P> + +<P> +"I <I>have</I> been called attractive in my day," confessed Mrs. Hardy, +warming at once to his flattery. +</P> + +<P> +"Have been?" said Conward. "Say rather you are. If I had not been +rendered, perhaps, a little partial by my admiration of Irene, I—well, +one can scarcely give his heart in two places, you know. And my deep +regard for you, Mrs. Hardy—my desire that you shall be spared +this—ah—threatened humiliation, will justify me in using heroic +measures to bring this unfortunate affair to a close. You may trust +me, Mrs. Hardy." +</P> + +<P> +"I was sure of that," she returned, already much comforted. "I was +sure of your sympathy, and that you would find a way." +</P> + +<P> +"I shall need your co-operation," he warned her. "Irene is—you will +forgive me, Mrs. Hardy, but Irene is, if I may say it, somewhat +headstrong. She is—" +</P> + +<P> +"She is her father over again," Mrs. Hardy interrupted. "I told him he +should not attempt that crazy trip of his without me along, but he +would go. And this is what he has brought upon me, and he not here to +share it." Mrs. Hardy's tone conveyed very plainly her grievance over +the doctor's behaviour in evading the consequences of the situation +which his headstrong folly had created. +</P> + +<P> +"She is set in her own mind," Conward continued. "We must not openly +oppose her. You must appear to be resigned, even to the extent of +treating Elden with such consideration as you can. To argue with +Irene, to attempt to persuade her, or to order Elden off the place, +would only deepen their attachment. Lovers are that way, Mrs. Hardy. +We must adopt other tactics." +</P> + +<P> +"You are very clever," said Mrs. Hardy. "You have been a student of +human nature." +</P> + +<P> +Conward smiled pleasurably. Little as he valued Mrs. Hardy's opinion, +her words of praise fell very gratefully upon him. Flatterers are +seldom proof against their own poison. "Yes, I have studied human +nature," he admitted. "The most interesting—and the most +profitable—of all studies. And I know that young couples in love are +not governed by the ordinary laws of reason. That is why it is useless +to argue with Irene—sensible girl though she is—on a subject like +this. We must reach her some other way. +</P> + +<P> +"The way that occurs to me is to create distrust. Love is either +absurdly trustful or absurdly suspicious. There is no middle course, +no balanced judgment. Everything is in extremes. Everything is seen +through a magnifying lens, or missed altogether. In the trustfulness +of love little virtues are magnified to angelic qualities, and vices +are quite unseen. But change that trust to suspicion, and a hidden, +sinister meaning is found behind the simplest word or act." +</P> + +<P> +Conward had risen and was walking about the room. He was conscious of +being regarded as a man of very deep insight, and the consciousness +pleased him. +</P> + +<P> +"We must cause Irene to distrust Elden—to see him in his true light," +he continued. "That may be possible. But if it should fail we must +take another course, which I hesitate to mention to you, but which may +be necessary if we are to save her from this fatal infatuation. If our +efforts to cause Irene to see Elden in his true light were to fail, and +she were to discover those efforts, she would be more set in his favour +than ever. So we must plan two campaigns; one, which I have already +suggested, and one, if that should fail, to cause Elden to distrust +Irene. No, no," he said, raising his hand toward Mrs. Hardy, who had +started from her seat,—"there must be no vestige of reason, except +that the end justifies the means. It is a case of saving Irene, even +if we must pain her—and you—in the saving." +</P> + +<P> +"It's very dreadful," Mrs. Hardy repeated. "But you are very thorough; +you leave nothing to chance. I suppose that is the way with all big +business men." +</P> + +<P> +"You can trust me," Conward assured her. "There is no time to be lost, +and I must plan my campaigns at once." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap19"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER NINETEEN +</H3> + + +<P> +Conward paused to speak to Irene before leaving the house. +</P> + +<P> +"I owe you my good wishes," he said. "And I give them most frankly, +although, perhaps, with more difficulty than you suppose." +</P> + +<P> +"You are very good, Mr. Conward," she acknowledged. +</P> + +<P> +"I could not wish you anything but happiness," he returned. "And had I +been so fortunate as Elden, in making your acquaintance first, I might +have hoped to contribute to your happiness more directly than I can +under the present circumstances." He was speaking in his low, sedulous +notes, and his words sent the girl's blood rushing in a strange mixture +of gratification and anger. The tribute he implied—that he himself +would have been glad to have been her suitor—was skilfully planned to +appeal to her vanity, and her anger was due to its success. She told +herself she should not listen to such words; she should hate to hear +such words. And yet she listened to them, and was not sure that she +hated them. She could only say, "You are very good, Mr. Conward." +</P> + +<P> +He pressed her hand at the door, and again that strange mixture of +emotions surged through her. +</P> + +<P> +Conward proceeded to the business section of the town, well pleased +with the evening's events. He found his way impeded by crowds in front +of the newspaper offices. He had paid little attention to the progress +of the war scare, attributing it to the skilful publicity of interests +connected with the manufacture of armaments. To the last he had not +believed that war was possible. "Nobody wants to fight," he had +assured his business acquaintances. "Even the armament people don't +want to fight. All they want is to frighten more money out of the +taxpayers of Europe." To Conward this explanation seemed very +complete. It covered the whole ground and left nothing to be said. +</P> + +<P> +But to-night he was aware of a keener tension in the crowd atmosphere. +They were good natured crowds, to be sure; laughing, and cheering, and +making sallies of heavy wit; but they were in some way more intense +than he had ever seen before. There was no fear of war; there was, +rather, an adventurous spirit which seemed to fear that the affair +would blow over, as had so many affairs in the past, and all the +excitement go for nothing. That war, if it came to war, could last, no +one dreamed; it would be a matter of a few weeks, a few months, at the +most, until a thoroughly whipped Germany would retire behind the Rhine +to plan ways of raising the indemnity which outraged civilization would +demand. Conward elbowed his way through the crowds, smiling, in his +superior knowledge, over their excitement. Newspapers must have +headlines. +</P> + +<P> +At his office he used a telephone. Then he walked to a restaurant, +where, after a few minutes, he was joined by a young woman. They took +a table in a box. Supper was disposed of, and the young woman began to +grow impatient. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you brought me here," she said at last. "You've fed me, and you +don't feed anybody, Conward, without a purpose. What's the +consideration?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I have a purpose," he admitted. "I'm pulling off a little joke, +and I want you to help me." +</P> + +<P> +"You're some joker," she returned. "Who have you got it in for?" +</P> + +<P> +"You know Elden—Dave Elden?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sure. I've known him ever since that jolt put him out of business up +in your rooms, ever so many years ago. He was too rural for that +mixture. Still, Elden has lots of friends—decent friends, I mean." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm rather sorry you know him," said Conward. "But—what's more to +the point—does he know you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not he. I guess he had no memory the next morning, and would have +made a point of forgetting me, even if he had." +</P> + +<P> +"That's all right, then. Now I want you to get him down to your place +some night to be agreed upon—I'll fix the date later—and keep him +there until I call for him, with his <I>fiancée</I>." +</P> + +<P> +"Some joke," she said, and there was disgust in her voice. "Who is it +on: Elden, me, or the girl?" +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind who it's on," Conward returned. "I'm paying for it. +Here's something on account, and if you make a good job of it, I won't +be stingy." +</P> + +<P> +He handed her a bill, which she kissed and put in her purse. "I need +the money, Conward, or I wouldn't take it. Say, don't you know you're +wasting your time in this one-horse town? You ought to get into the +big league. Your jokes would sure make a hit." +</P> + +<P> +This part of his trap set, Conward awaited a suitable opportunity to +spring it. In the meantime he took Mrs. Hardy partially into his +confidence. He allowed her to believe, however, that Elden's habits +would stand correction, and he had merely arranged to trap him in one +of his favorite haunts. She was very much shocked, and thought it was +very dreadful, but of course we must save Irene. Mr. Conward was very +clever. That's what came of being a man of experience,—and judgment, +Mr. Conward, and some knowledge of the world. +</P> + +<P> +But concerning another part of his programme Conward was even less +frank with Mrs. Hardy. He was clever enough to know that he must +observe certain limitations. +</P> + +<P> +At length all his plans appeared to be complete. The city was in a +tumult of excitement over the war, but for Conward a deeper interest +centred in the plot he was hatching under the unsuspecting noses of +Irene and Elden. If he could trap Dave the rest would be easy. If he +failed in this he had another plan to give failure at least the +appearance of success. The fact that the nation was now at war +probably had an influence in speeding up the plot. Everything was +under high tension; powerful currents of thought were bearing the +masses along unaccustomed channels; society itself was in a state of +flux. If he were to strike at all let the blow fall at once. +</P> + +<P> +On this early August night he ascertained that Dave was working alone +in his office. Then he called a number on a telephone. +</P> + +<P> +"This is the night," he explained. "You will find him alone in his +office. I will be waiting to hear from you at——"—he quoted Mrs. +Hardy's telephone number. Then he drove his car to the Hardy home, +exchanged a few words with Irene, and sat down to a hand of cribbage +with her mother. +</P> + +<P> +Poring over his correspondence, Dave tried to abstract his mind from +the tumultuous doings of these last days. Office organization had been +paralyzed; stenographers and clerks were incapable with excitement. It +was as though some great excursion had been announced; something +wonderful and novel, which divorced the interest from the dull routine +of business. And Dave, with his ear cocked for the cry of the latest +extra, spent the evening hours in a valiant effort at concentration. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly he heard a knock at the door; not a business man's knock; not +an office girl's knock; a hesitating, timid, apologetic knock. +</P> + +<P> +"Come in," he called. No one entered, but presently he heard the knock +again. He arose and walked to the door. Outside stood a young woman. +She looked up shyly, her face half concealed beneath a broad hat. +</P> + +<P> +"If you please," she said, "excuse me, but—you are Mr. Elden, aren't +you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; can I help you in any way?" +</P> + +<P> +The woman tittered a moment, but resumed soberly, "You will wonder at +me coming to you, but I'm from the country. Did you think that?" +</P> + +<P> +"I suspected it," said Dave, with a smile. "You knocked——" He +paused. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes?" +</P> + +<P> +"Like a country girl," he said, boldly. +</P> + +<P> +She tittered again. "Well, I'm lost," she confessed. "I got off the +train a short time ago. My aunt was to meet me, but there are such +crowds in the street—I must have missed her. And I saw your name on +the window, and I had heard of you. So I just thought I'd ask—if you +wouldn't mind—showing me to this address." +</P> + +<P> +She fumbled in her pocket, and Dave invited her into the office. There +she produced a torn piece of paper with an address. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, that's just a few blocks," said Dave. "I'll walk around with +you." He turned for his hat, but at that moment there was another +timid knock on the door. He opened it. A boy of eight or ten years +stood outside. +</P> + +<P> +"Can I come in?" the lad ventured. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, of course you can. What is it, son?" +</P> + +<P> +"Are you Mr. Elden?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +The lad looked shyly about the office. It was evident he was impressed +with its magnificence. Suddenly he pulled off his hat, disclosing a +shock of brown hair. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you Mr. Elden that sells lots?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Or, rather, I <I>did</I> sell lots, but not many of late. Were you +thinking of buying a few lots?" +</P> + +<P> +"Did you sell lots to my father?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, if I knew your father's name perhaps I could tell you. Who is +your father?" +</P> + +<P> +"He's Mr. Merton. I'm his son. And he said to me, before he got so +bad, he said, 'There's just one honest man in this city, and that's Mr. +Elden.' Is that you, Mr. Elden?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I hope it is, but I won't claim such a distinction. I remember +your father very well. Did he send you to me?" +</P> + +<P> +"No sir. He's too sick. He don't know anybody now. He didn't know me +to-night." The boy's voice went thick, and he stopped and swallowed. +"And then I remembered what he said about you, and I just came. Was +that all right, Mr. Elden?" +</P> + +<P> +"You say your father is very sick?" +</P> + +<P> +"He don't know anybody." +</P> + +<P> +"Have you help—a doctor—a nurse?" +</P> + +<P> +"No sir. We haven't any money. My father spent it all for the lots +that he bought from you." +</P> + +<P> +Dave winced. Then, turning to the young woman, "I'm afraid this is a +more urgent case than yours. I'll call a taxi to take you to your +address." +</P> + +<P> +To his surprise his visitor broke out in a ribald laugh. She had +seated herself on a desk, and was swinging one foot jauntily. +</P> + +<P> +"It's all off," she said. "Say, Dave, you couldn't lose me in this +burg. You don't remember me, do you? Well, all the better. I'm +rather glad I broke down on this job. I used to be something of an +actress, and I'd have put it over if it hadn't been for the kid. The +fact is, Dave," she continued, "I was sent up here to decoy you. It +wasn't fair fighting, and I didn't like it, but money has been mighty +slow of late. I wonder—how much you'd give to know who sent me?" +</P> + +<P> +Dave pulled some bills from his pocket and held them before her. She +took them from his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Conward," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Dave's blood went to his head. "The scoundrel!" he cried. "The low +down dog! There's more in this than appears on the surface." +</P> + +<P> +"Sure there is," she said. "There's another woman. There always is." +</P> + +<P> +Elden walked to his desk. From a drawer he took a revolver; toyed with +it a moment in his hands; broke it open, crammed it full of cartridges +and thrust it in his pocket. +</P> + +<P> +The girl watched him with friendly interest. "Believe me, Dave," she +said, "if Conward turns up missing I won't know a thing—not a d—— +thing." +</P> + +<P> +For a moment he stood irresolute. He could only guess what Conward's +plan had been, but that it had been diabolical and cowardly, and that +it concerned Irene, he had no doubt. His impulse was to immediately +confront Conward, force a confession, and deal with him as the occasion +might seem to require. But his eye fell on the boy, with his shock of +brown hair and wistful, half-frightened face. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll go with you first," he said, with quick decision. Then to the +girl, "Sorry I must turn you out, but this case is urgent." +</P> + +<P> +"That's all right," she said. Suddenly there was a little catch in her +voice. "I'm used to being turned out." +</P> + +<P> +He shot a sharp glance at her. Her face was laughing. "You're too +decent for your job," he said, abruptly. +</P> + +<P> +"Thanks, Dave," she answered, and he saw her eyes glisten. "That +helps—some." And before he knew it she was into the street. +</P> + +<P> +"All right, son," said Dave, taking up the matter now in hand. "What's +your name—your first name?" +</P> + +<P> +"Charlie." +</P> + +<P> +"And your address?" +</P> + +<P> +The boy mentioned a distant subdivision. +</P> + +<P> +"That <I>is</I> out, isn't it? Well, we'll take the car. We'll run right +out and see what is to be done. I guess I'd better call a doctor at +once." +</P> + +<P> +He went to the telephone and gave some directions. Then he and the boy +walked to a garage, and in a few moments were humming along the +by-streets into the country. Dave had already become engrossed in his +errand of mercy, and his rage at Conward, if not forgotten, was +temporarily dismissed from his mind. He chatted with the boy as he +drove. +</P> + +<P> +"You go to school?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not this year. Father has been too sick. Of course, this is +holidays, and he says he'll be all right before they're over." +</P> + +<P> +Dave smiled grimly. "The incurable optimism of it," he murmured to +himself. Then outwardly, "Of course he will. We'll fix him up in no +time with a good doctor and a good nurse." +</P> + +<P> +They drove on through the calm night, leaving the city streets behind +and following what was little more than a country trail. This was +crossed in every direction, and at every possible angle, by just such +other country trails, unravelling themselves into the darkness. Here +and there they bumped over pieces of graded street, infinitely rougher +than the natural prairie; once Dave dropped his front wheels into a +collapsing water trench; once he just grazed an isolated hydrant. The +city lights were cut off by a shoulder of foothill; only their dull +glow hung in the distant sky. +</P> + +<P> +"And this is one of our 'choice residential subdivisions,'" said Dave +to himself, as with Charlie's guidance and his own in-born sense of +location he threaded his way through the maze of diverging trails. +"Fine business; fine business." +</P> + +<P> +As the journey continued the sense of self-reproach which had been +static in him for many months became more insistent, and he found +himself repeating the ironical phrase, "Fine business, fine business. +Yes, I let Conward 'weigh the coal' all right." The intrusion of +Conward into his mind sent the blood to his head, but at that moment +his reflections were cut short by the boy. +</P> + +<P> +"We will have to get out here," he said. "The bridge is down." +</P> + +<P> +Investigation proved him to be right. A bridge over a small stream had +collapsed, and was slowly disintegrating amid its own wreckage. Dave +explored the stream bottom, getting muddy boots for his pains. Then he +ran the car a little to one side of the road, locked the switch, and +walked on with the boy. +</P> + +<P> +"Pretty lonely out here, isn't it?" he ventured. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no. There is a street light we can see in a little while; it is +behind the hill now. We see it from the corner of our shack. It's +very cheery." +</P> + +<P> +"Fine business," Dave repeated to himself. "And this is how our big +success was made. Well, the 'success' has vanished as quickly as it +came. I suppose there is a Law somewhere that is not mocked." +</P> + +<P> +They were passing through a settlement of crude houses, dimly visible +in the starlight and by occasional yellow blurs from their windows. +Before one of the meanest of these the boy at last stopped. The upper +hinge of the door was broken, and a feeble light struggled through the +space where it gaped outward. Charlie pulled the door open, and Dave +entered. At first his eyes could not take in the dim outlines before +him; he was conscious of a very small and stuffy room, with a peculiar +odour which he attributed to an oil lamp burning on a box. He walked +over and turned the lamp up, but the oil was consumed; a red, sullen, +smoking wick was its only response. Then he felt in his pocket, and +struck a match. +</P> + +<P> +The light revealed the dinginess of the little room. There was a bed, +covered with musty, ragged clothing; a table, littered with broken and +dirty dishes and pieces of stale food; a stove, cracked and greasy, and +one or two bare boxes serving as articles of furniture. But it was to +the bed Dave turned, and, with another match, bent over the shrunken +form that lay almost concealed amid the coarse coverings. He brought +his face down close, then straightened up and steadied himself for a +moment. +</P> + +<P> +"He'll soon be well, don't you think, Mister? He said he would be well +when the holidays——" But Dave's expression stopped the boy, whose +own face went suddenly wild with fear. +</P> + +<P> +"He is well now, Charlie," he said, as steadily as he could. "It is +all holidays now for him." +</P> + +<P> +The match had burnt out, and the room was in utter darkness. Dave +heard the child drawing his feet slowly across the floor, then suddenly +whimpering like a thing that had been mortally hurt. He groped toward +him, and at length his fingers found his shock of hair. He drew the +boy slowly into his arms; then very, very tight.… After all, they +were orphans together. +</P> + +<P> +"You will come with me," he said, at length. "I will see that you are +provided for. The doctor will soon be here, or we will meet him on the +way, and he will make the arrangements for—the arrangements that have +to be made, you know." +</P> + +<P> +They retraced their steps toward the town, meeting the doctor at the +broken bridge. Dave exchanged a few words with him in low tones, and +they passed on. Soon they were swinging again through the city +streets, this time through the busy thoroughfares, which were almost +blocked with tense, excited crowds about the bulletin boards. Even +with the developments of the evening pressing heavily upon his mind, +Dave could not resist the temptation to stop and listen for a moment to +bulletins being read through a megaphone. +</P> + +<P> +"The Kaiser has stripped off his British regalia," said the announcer. +"He says he will never again wear a British uniform." +</P> + +<P> +A chuckle of derisive laughter ran through the mob; then some one +struck up a well-known refrain,—"What the hell do we care?" Up and +down the street voices caught up the chorus.… Within a year the +bones of many in that thoughtless crowd, bleaching on the fields of +Flanders, showed how much they cared. +</P> + +<P> +Dave literally pressed his machine through the throng, which opened +slowly to let it pass, and immediately filled up the wake behind. Then +he drove direct to the Hardy home. +</P> + +<P> +After some delay Irene met him at the door, and Dave explained the +situation in a few words. "We must take care of him, Reenie," he said. +"I feel a personal responsibility." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course we will take him," she answered. "He will live here until +we have a—some place of our own." Her face was bright with something +which must be tenderness. "Bring him upstairs. We will allot him a +room, and introduce him, first, to—the bath-room. And tomorrow we +shall have an excursion down town, and some new clothes for +Charlie—Elden." +</P> + +<P> +As they moved up the stairs Conward, who had been in another room in +conversation with Mrs. Hardy, followed them unseen. The evening had +been interminable for Conward. For three hours he had waited word that +his victim had been trapped, and for three hours no word had come. He +had smoked numberless cigarettes, and nibbled impatiently at his nails, +and tried to appear at ease before Mrs. Hardy. If his plans had +miscarried; if Dave had discovered the plot; well—— And here at +length was Dave, engrossed in a very different matter. Conward +followed them up the stairs. +</P> + +<P> +Irene and Dave chatted with the boy for a few moments, trying to make +him feel at home in his strange surroundings; then Irene turned to some +arrangements for his comfort, and Dave started down stairs. In the +passage he was met by Conward. Conward seemed at last to have dropped +the mask; he leered insolently, triumphantly, in Dave's face. +</P> + +<P> +"What are you doing here?" Dave demanded, as he felt his head beginning +to swim in anger. +</P> + +<P> +Conward leered only the more offensively, and walked down the stairs +beside him. At the foot he coolly lit another cigarette. If he was +conscious of the hate in Dave's eyes he hid his emotions under a mask +of insolence. He held the match before him and calmly watched it burn +out. Then he extended it toward Dave. +</P> + +<P> +"You remember our wager, Elden. I present you with—a burnt-out match." +</P> + +<P> +"You liar!" cried Dave. "You infamous liar!" +</P> + +<P> +"Ask <I>her</I>," Conward replied. "She will deny it, of course. All women +do." +</P> + +<P> +Dave felt his muscles tighten, and knew that in a moment he would tear +his victim to pieces. As his clenched fist came to the side of his +body it struck something hard. His revolver! He had forgotten; he was +not in the habit of carrying it. In an instant he had Conward covered. +</P> + +<P> +Dave did not press the trigger at once. He took a fierce delight in +torturing the man who had wrecked his life,—even while he told himself +he could not believe his boast. Now he watched the colour fade from +Conward's cheek; the eyes stand out in his face; the livid blotches +more livid still; the cigarette drop from his nerveless lips. +</P> + +<P> +"You are a brave man, Conward," he said, and there was the rasp of hate +and contempt in his voice. "You are a very brave man." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hardy, sensing something wrong, came out from her sitting-room. +With a little cry she swooned away. +</P> + +<P> +Conward tried to speak, but words stuck in his throat. With a dry +tongue he licked his drier lips. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you believe in hell, Conward?" Dave continued. "I've always had +some doubt myself, but in thirty seconds—<I>you'll know</I>." +</P> + +<P> +Irene, attracted by her mother's cry, appeared on the stairway. For a +moment her eyes refused to grasp the scene before them; Conward +cowering, terror-stricken; Dave fierce, steely, implacable, with his +revolver lined on Conward's brain. Through some strange whim of her +mind her thought in that instant flew back to the bottles on the posts +of the Elden ranch, and Dave breaking five out of six on the gallop. +Then, suddenly, she became aware of one thing only. A tragedy was +being enacted before her eyes, and Dave would be held responsible. In +a moment every impulse within her beat forth in a wild frenzy to save +him from such a consequence. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, don't, Dave, don't, don't shoot him," she cried, flying down the +remaining steps. Before Dave could grasp her purpose she was upon him; +had clutched his revolver; had wrapped her arms about his. "Don't, +don't, Dave," she pleaded. "For my sake, don't do—<I>that</I>." +</P> + +<P> +Her words were tragically unfortunate. For a moment Dave stood as one +paralyzed; then his heart dried up within him. +</P> + +<P> +"So that's the way of it," he said, as he broke her grip, and the +horror in his own eyes would not let him read the sudden horror in +hers. "All right; take it," and he placed the revolver in her hand. +"You should know what to do with it." And before she could stop him he +had walked out of the house. +</P> + +<P> +She rushed to the gate, but already the roar of his motor was lost in +the hum of the city's traffic. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap20"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER TWENTY +</H3> + + +<P> +When Dave sprang into his car he gave the motor a full head and drove +through the city streets in a fury of recklessness. His mind was +numbed; it was incapable of assorting thoughts and placing them in +proper relationship to each other. His muscles guided the machine +apparently without any mental impulse. He rode it as he had ridden +unbroken bronchos in his far-away boyhood. Only this difference; then +he had no sense of danger; now he knew the danger, and defied it. If +he killed himself, so much the better; if he killed others, so much the +better still. The world was a place without purpose; a chaos of blind, +impotent, struggling creatures, who struggled only because they did not +know they were blind and impotent. Life was a farce and death a big +bluff set up that men might take the farce seriously. +</P> + +<P> +He was soon out of the city, roaring through the still Autumn night +with undiminished speed. Over tortuous country roads, across sudden +bridges, along slippery hillsides, through black bluffs of +scrub-land—in some strange way he tried to drown the uproar in his +soul in the frenzy of the steel that quivered beneath him. On and on, +into the night. Bright stars gleamed overhead; a soft breeze pressed +against his face; it was such a night as he had driven, a year ago, +with Bert Morrison. Was that only a year ago? And what had happened? +Where had he been? Oh, to bring the boy—Charlie, the boy. When was +that? Under the calm heaven his mind was already attempting to +establish a sequence; to set its outraged home again in order. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly the car skidded on a slippery hillside, turned from the road, +plowed through a clump of scrub, ricochetted against a dark +obstruction, poised a moment on two wheels, turned around and stopped. +The shock brought Dave to his senses; he got out and walked about the +car, feeling the tires with his hands in the darkness. He could +appraise no serious damage. Then he sat on the running board and +stared for a long while into the darkness. "No use being a damned +fool, anyway, Dave," he said to himself, at length. "I got it—where I +didn't expect it—but I guess that's the way with every one. The +troubles we expect, don't happen, and then the trouble that we didn't +expect gets us when we're not watching." He tried to philosophize; to +get a fresh grip on himself. "Where are we, anyway?" he continued. +"This country looks familiar." He got up again and walked about, +finding his way back to the road. He went along it a little way. +Vague impressions suggested that he should know the spot, and yet he +could not identify it. Listen! There was a sound of water. There was +a sighing of the wind in trees; a very low sighing, rather a +whispering, of a gentle wind in trees. The place seemed alive with +spirits; spirits tapping on the door of some long sealed chamber of his +memory. +</P> + +<P> +Then, with a sudden shock, it came to him. It was the hillside on +which Dr. Hardy had come to grief; the hillside on which he had first +seen her bright face, her wonderful eyes—— A poignancy of grief +engulfed him, sweeping away his cheap philosophies. Here she stood, +young and clean and entrancing, thrust before him in an instant out of +the wonderful days of the past. And would she always follow him thus; +would she stand at every road corner, every street corner, on every +prairie hill, in every office hour; must he catch her fragrance in +every breeze; see the glint of her hair in every sunbeam; meet her eyes +for ever—soft eyes now veiled in tears and flashing glimpses of what +might have been? With an unutterable sinking he knew that that was so; +that the world was not big enough to hide him from Irene Hardy. There +was no way out. +</P> + +<P> +He started his motor and, even in his despair, felt a thrill of pride +as the faithful gears engaged, and the car climbed back to its place on +the trail. Was all faithfulness, then, in things of steel and iron, +and none in flesh and blood? He followed the trail. Why stop now? +The long-forgotten ranch buildings lay across the stream and behind the +tongue of spruce trees, unless some wandering foothill fire had +destroyed them. He forded the stream without difficulty. That was +where he had carried her out.… He felt his way slowly along the +old fence. That was where she had set up bottles for his marksmanship.… +He stopped where the straggling gate should be, and walked +carefully into the yard. That was where she had first called him +Dave.… Then he found the doorstep, and sat down to wait. +</P> + +<P> +When the sun was well up he rose and walked about. His lips were +parched; he found himself nibbling them with his teeth, so he went to +the stream. He was thirsty, but he drank only a mouthful; the water +was flat and insipid.… The old cabin was in better repair than he +would have thought. He sprung the door open. It was musty and strung +with cobwebs; that was the room she had occupied. He did not go in, +but sat down and tried to think. +</P> + +<P> +Later he walked up the canyon. He must have walked swiftly, for the +sun was not yet at the meridian when he found himself at the little +nook in the rock where he and Irene had sat that afternoon when they +had first laid their hearts open to each other. He tried to recall +that long-forgotten conversation, lacerating himself with the pain of +its tenderness. Suddenly one remark stood up in his memory. "The day +is coming," she had said, "when our country will want men who can shoot +and ride." And he had said, "Well, when it does, it can call on me." +And to-day the country did want men who could shoot and ride, and he +had flown into the foothills to nurse a broken heart.… Broken +hearts can fight as well as whole ones. Better, perhaps, because they +don't care. He felt his frame straighten as this thought sank home. +He could be of some use yet. At any rate, there was a way out. +</P> + +<P> +Some whim led him through the grove of spruce trees on his way back to +the ranch. Here, in an open space, he looked about, kicking in the dry +grass. At length his toe disturbed a few bleached bones, and he stood +and looked with unseeing eyes far across the shimmering valley. +</P> + +<P> +"Brownie," he said at length. "Brownie." The whole scene came back +upon him; the moonlight, and Irene's distress, and the little bleeding +body. And he had said he didn't know anything about the justice of +God; all he knew was the crittur that couldn't run was the one that got +caught.… And he had said that was life.… He had said it was +only nature. +</P> + +<P> +And then they had stood among the trees and beneath the white moon and +pledged their faith.… +</P> + +<P> +Again his head went up, and the old light flashed in his eyes. "The +first thing is to kill the wolf," he said aloud. "No other innocent +shall fall to his fangs. Then—my country." +</P> + +<P> +Darkness had again fallen before Dave found his car threading the +streets of the city, still feverish with its new-born excitement of +war. He returned his car to the garage; an attendant looked up +curiously,—it was evident from his glance that Dave had already been +missed—but no words were exchanged. He stood for a moment in the +street collecting his thoughts and rehearsing his resolves. He was +amazed to find that, even in his bitterness, the city reached a +thousand hands to him—hands of habit, and association, and custom of +mind—all urging him back into the old groove; all saying, "The routine +is the thing; be a spoke in the wheel; go 'round with the rest of us." +</P> + +<P> +"No," he reminded himself. "No, I can't do that. I have business on +hand. First—to kill the wolf." +</P> + +<P> +He remembered that he had given his revolver to Irene. And suddenly +she sat with him again at the tea table.… Where was he? Yes, he +had given his revolver to Irene. Well, there was another in his rooms. +First to kill the wolf. +</P> + +<P> +In the hallway of the block in which he had his bachelor apartments +Dave almost collided with a woman. He drew back, and the light fell on +his face, but hers was in the shadow. And then he heard her voice. +"Oh, Dave, I'm so glad—why, what has happened?" The last words ran +into a little treble of pain as she noted his haggard face; he had not +eaten for twenty-four hours, nor slept for thirty-six. +</P> + +<P> +"You—Edith," he managed to say. "Whatever——" +</P> + +<P> +She came toward him and placed her hands on his. "I've been here a +hundred times—ever since morning—ever since Bert Morrison called up +to say you had disappeared—that there was some mystery. There isn't, +is there, Dave? You're all right, Dave, aren't you, Dave?" +</P> + +<P> +"I guess I'm all right," he managed to answer, "but I got a job on—an +important job on. I must get it done. There is not time——" +</P> + +<P> +But her woman's intuition had gone far below his idle words. "There is +something wrong, Dave," she said. "You never looked like this before. +Tell me what it is. Tell me, Dave; not that I want to know, for +knowing's sake, but just that I—perhaps I—can help." +</P> + +<P> +Dave was silent for a moment, watching her. She had changed her +position, and he could see her face. Suddenly it occurred to him that +Edith Duncan was beautiful. If she had not quite the fine features of +Irene, she had a certain softness of expression, a certain mellowness, +even tenderness, of lip and eye; a certain womanly delicacy—— +</P> + +<P> +"Edith," he said, "you're white. Why is it that the woman a man loves +will fail him, and the woman he only likes—stays true?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" she cried, and he could not guess the depths from which her cry +was wrung.… "I should not have asked you, Dave," she said. "I'm +sorry." +</P> + +<P> +They stood a moment, neither wishing to move away. "You said you had +something must be done at once," she reminded him at length. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he answered. "I have to kill a man. Then I'm going to join up +with the army." +</P> + +<P> +Her hands were again upon him. "But you mustn't, Dave," she pleaded. +"No matter—no matter <I>what</I>—you mustn't do that. That is the one +thing you must not do." +</P> + +<P> +"Edith, you are not a man. You don't understand. That is the one +thing I must do." +</P> + +<P> +"But you can't fight for your country, then. You will only increase +its troubles in these troubled times. Don't think I'm pleading for +<I>him</I>, Dave, but for you, for the sake of us—for the sake of +those—who care." +</P> + +<P> +He took her hands in his and raised them to his shoulders and drew her +face close to his. Then, speaking very slowly, and with each word by +itself, "Do you really care?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Dave!" +</P> + +<P> +"Then come to my room and talk to me. Talk to me! Talk to me! For +God's sake talk to me. I must talk to some one." +</P> + +<P> +She followed him. Inside the room he had himself under control again. +The street lights flooded through the windows, so he did not press the +switch. He motioned her to a chair. +</P> + +<P> +And then he told her the story, all he knew. +</P> + +<P> +When he had finished she arose and walked to one of the windows and +stood looking with unseeing eyes upon the street. For the second time +in his life Dave Elden had laid his heart bare to her, and again after +all these years he still talked as friend to friend. That was it. She +was under no delusion. Dave's eyes were as blind to her love as they +had been that night when he had first told her of Irene Hardy. And she +could not tell him. Most of all, she could not tell him now.… +Yes, she was very sure of that. If she should tell him now—if she +should let him know—he would turn to her in his grief. He would be +clay in her hands. And afterwards he would despise her for having +taken advantage of his hour of weakness. She had waited all these +years, and still she must wait. +</P> + +<P> +Dave's eyes were upon her form, silhouetted against the window. It +occurred to him that in form Edith was very much like Irene. He +recalled that in those dead past days when they used to ride together +Edith had reminded him of Irene. When she stood silent so long he +spoke again. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid I haven't played a very heroic part," he said, somewhat +shamefacedly. "I should have buried my secret in my heart; buried it +even from you; perhaps most of all from you. I should have faced the +world with a smile, as one who rises above the slings and arrows of +outrageous fortune. People do that kind of thing in books; perhaps +some do in real life. I suppose you can't tell from the outside what +may be carried within—even by your closest friend. But—you can +advise me, Edith. I will value whatever you say." +</P> + +<P> +She trembled until she thought he must see her, and she feared to trust +her voice, but she could delay a reply no longer. +</P> + +<P> +"You are right, Dave," she said at length. "You never can tell what +other people are carrying; perhaps, even, as you say, your closest +friends. The first thing is to get rid of the idea that your +experience is unique; that your lot is harder than that of other +people. It may be different, but it is not harder. When you get that +point of view you will be able to pass sane judgments. +</P> + +<P> +"'And when you can pass sane judgment you may see that the evidence is +not, even at the worst, very conclusive. Why should you take Conward's +word in such a matter as this?" +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't take Conward's word. That's why I didn't kill him at once. +It wasn't his word—it was the insult—that cut. But she tried to save +him. She threw herself upon me. She would have taken the bullet +herself rather than let it find him. That was what—that was what——" +</P> + +<P> +"I know, Dave." She had to hold herself in check lest the tenderness +that welled within her, and would shape words of endearing sympathy in +her mind, should find utterance in speech. "I know, Dave," she said. +"The next thing then is to make sure in your own mind whether you ever +really loved Irene Hardy." +</P> + +<P> +He sprang to his feet. "Loved Irene!" he exclaimed, and she was in a +turmoil of fear and hope that he would approach her. But he paced his +own side of the room. +</P> + +<P> +"Edith," he said, "there is no way of explaining this. You can't +understand. I know you have given yourself up to a life of service, +and I honour you very much, and all that, but there are some things you +won't be able to understand. You can't understand just how much I +loved Irene." +</P> + +<P> +"I think I can," she answered, quietly. "You have kept your love +faithful and single for a dozen years, and I—I think I can understand. +But that isn't why I asked. Because if you loved Irene a week ago you +love her to-night." +</P> + +<P> +"Have you never known of love being turned to hate?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. Other impulses may be, but not love. Love can no more turn to +hate than sunlight can turn to darkness. Believe me, Dave, if you hate +Irene now you never loved her. Listen: +</P> + +<P> +"'Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, +<I>endureth</I> all things!'" +</P> + +<P> +"Not all things, Edith; not all things." +</P> + +<P> +"It says <I>all</I> things." +</P> + +<P> +Dave was silent for some time. When he spoke again she caught a +different sound in his voice; a tone as though his soul in those few +moments had gone through a life-time of experience. +</P> + +<P> +"Edith," he said, "when you repeated those words I knew you had +something that I have not. I knew it, not by the words, but by the way +you said them. You made me feel that you were not setting a higher +standard for me than you would accept for yourself. You made me <I>know</I> +that in your own life, if you loved, you would be ready to endure all +things. Tell me, Edith, how may this thing be done?" +</P> + +<P> +She trembled with delight at the new tone in his voice, for she knew +that in that hour Dave had crossed a boundary of his life and entered +into a new and richer field of existence. She knew that for him life +would never again be the empty, flippant, selfish, irresponsible thing +which in the past he had called life. He was already beginning to +taste of that wine of compensation provided for those who pass through +the valley of sorrow. +</P> + +<P> +"In your case," she said, "the course is simple. It is just a case of +forgiving." +</P> + +<P> +He gazed for a time into the street, while thoughts of bitterness and +revenge fought for domination of his mind. "Edith," he said at length, +"must I—forgive?" +</P> + +<P> +"I do not say you must," she answered. "I merely say if you are wise +you will. Forgiveness is the balm of our moral life, by which we keep +the wounds of the soul from festering and poisoning the spirit. +Nothing, it seems to me, is so much misunderstood as forgiveness. The +popular idea is that the whole benefit of forgiveness is to the person +who is forgiven. Really, there is a very much greater benefit to the +person who forgives. The one who is forgiven may merely escape +punishment, but the one who forgives experiences a positive spiritual +expansion. Believe me, Dave, it is the only philosophy which rings +true under the most critical tests; which is absolutely dependable in +every emergency." +</P> + +<P> +"Is that Christianity?" he ventured. +</P> + +<P> +"It is one side of Christianity. The other side is service. If you +are willing to forgive and ready to serve I don't think you need worry +much over the details of your creed. Creeds, after all, are not +expressed in words, but in lives. When you know how a man lives you +know what he believes—always." +</P> + +<P> +"Suppose I forgive—what then?" +</P> + +<P> +"Service. You are needed right now, Dave—forgive my frankness—your +country needs you right now. You have the qualities which make you +extremely valuable. You must dismiss this grievance from your mind, at +least dismiss your resentment over it, and then place yourself at the +disposal of your country. The way is so clear that it cannot be +misunderstood." +</P> + +<P> +"That is what I had been thinking of," he said. "At least that part +about serving my country, although I don't think my motives were as +high as you would make them. But the war can't last. It'll be all +over before I can take a hand. Civilization has gone too far for such +a thing as this to last. It is unbelievable." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not so sure," she answered, gravely. "Of course, I know nothing +about Germany. But I do know something about our own people. I know +how selfish and individualistic and sordid and money-grabbing we have +been; how slothful and incompetent and self-satisfied we have been, and +I fear it will take a long war and sacrifices and tragedies altogether +beyond our present imagination to make us unselfish and public-spirited +and clean and generous; it will take the strain and emergency of war to +make us vigorous and efficient; it will take the sting of many defeats +to impose that humility which will be the beginning of our +regeneration. I am not worrying about the defeat of Germany. If our +civilization is better than that of Germany we shall win, ultimately, +and if our civilization is worse than that of Germany we shall be +defeated, ultimately,—and we shall deserve to be defeated. But I +rather think that neither of these alternatives will be the result. I +rather think that the test of war will show that there are elements in +German civilization which are better than ours, and elements in our +civilization which are better than theirs, and that the good elements +will survive and form the basis of a new civilization better than +either." +</P> + +<P> +"If that is so," Dave replied, "if this war is but the working out of +immutable law which proposes to put all the elements of civilization to +the supreme test and retain only those which are justifiable by that +test, why should I—or any one else—fight? And," he added as an +after-thought, "what about that principle of forgiveness?" +</P> + +<P> +"We must fight," she answered, "because it is the law that we must +fight; because it is only by fighting that we can justify the +principles for which we fight. If we hold our principles as being not +worth fighting for the new civilization will throw those principles in +the discard. And that, too, covers the question of forgiveness. +Forgiveness, in fact, does not enter into the consideration at all. We +must fight, not because we hate Germany, but because we love certain +principles which Germany is endeavouring to overthrow. The impulse +must be love, not hate." +</P> + +<P> +She had turned and faced him while she spoke, and he felt himself +strangely carried away by the earnestness and fervour of her argument. +What a wonderful woman she was! How she had stripped the issue of the +detail and circumstance which was confusing even statesmen, and laid it +before him in positive terms which he could find no argument to +dispute! And how in his hour of distress, when he stood on the verge +of utter recklessness and indifference, she had infused into him a +strange and new ambition—an ambition which deepened and enriched every +phase of life, and yet which held life itself less worthy than its own +attainment! And as he looked at her he again thought of Irene, and +suddenly he felt himself engulfed in a great tenderness, and he knew +that even yet—— +</P> + +<P> +"What am I to do?" he said. "I am willing to accept your philosophy. +I admit that mine has broken down, and I am willing to try yours. What +am I to do?" +</P> + +<P> +In the darkness of her own shadow she set her teeth for that answer. +It was to be the crowning act of her self-renunciation, and it strained +every fibre of her resolution. She could not allow him to stay where +he was, even in uniform. The danger was two-fold. In a moment of +weakness he would probably shoot Conward, and in a moment of weakness +she would probably disclose her love. And if Dave should ever marry +her he must win her first. +</P> + +<P> +"You had better go overseas and enlist in England," she told him +calmly, although her nails were biting her palms. "You will get +quicker action that way. And when you come back you must see Irene, +and you must learn from your own heart whether you really loved her or +not. And if you find you did not, then—then you will be free +to—to—to think of some other woman." +</P> + +<P> +"I am afraid I shall never care to think of any other woman," he +answered. "Except you. But some way you're different. I don't think +of you as a woman, you know; not really, in a way. I can't explain it, +Edith, but you're something more—something better than all that." +</P> + +<P> +"I assure you I am very much a woman—" +</P> + +<P> +But he had sprung to his feet. "Edith, I can never thank you enough +for what you have said to me to-night. You have put some spirit back +into my body. I am going to follow your advice. There's a train east +in two hours and I'm going on it. Fortunately my property, or most of +it, has dissolved the way it came. I must pack a few things, and have +a bath and shave and dress." +</P> + +<P> +She moved toward him with extended hand. "Good-bye, Dave," she said. +</P> + +<P> +He held her hand fast in his. "Good-bye, Edith. I can never forget—I +can never repay—all you have been. It may sound foolish to you after +all I have said, but I sometimes wonder if—if I had not met +Irene—if——" He paused and went hot with embarrassment. What would +she think of him? An hour ago he had been ready to kill or be killed +in grief over his frustrated love, and already he was practically +making love to her. Had he brought her to his rooms for this? What a +hypocrite he was! +</P> + +<P> +"Forgive me, Edith," he said, as he released her. "I am not quite +myself.… I hold you in very high respect as one of God's good +women. Good-bye." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap21"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE +</H3> + + +<P> +When Irene Hardy pursued Dave from the house the roar of his motor car +was already drowned in the hum of the city streets. Hatless she ran +the length of a full block; then, realizing the futility of such a +chase, returned with almost equal haste to her home. She burst in and +discovered Conward holding a bottle of smelling salts to the nose of +her mother, who had sufficiently recovered to sit upright in her chair. +</P> + +<P> +"What is the meaning of this?" she demanded of Conward. "Why did he +threaten to shoot, and why did he leave as he did? You know; tell me." +</P> + +<P> +"I am sure I wish I could tell you," said Conward, with all his +accustomed suavity. In truth Conward, having somewhat recovered from +his fright, was in rather good spirits. Things had gone better than he +had dared to hope. Elden was eliminated, for the present at any rate, +and now was the time to win Irene. Not just now, perhaps, but soon, +when the shock of her interrupted passion turned her to him for +companionship. +</P> + +<P> +She stood before him, flushed and vibrating, and with flashing eyes. +"You're lying, Conward," she said, deliberately. "First you lied to +him and now you lie to me. There can be no other explanation. Where +is that gun? He said I would know what to do with it." +</P> + +<P> +"I have it," said Conward, partly carried off his feet by her violence. +"I will keep it until you are a little more reasonable, and, perhaps, a +little more respectful." +</P> + +<P> +"Irene," said Mrs. Hardy, sharply, "what way is that to speak to Mr. +Conward? You are out of your head, child. Such a scene, Mr. Conward. +Such a scene in my house! That cow <I>puncher</I>! I always knew it would +come out some time. It is breeding that tells, Mr. Conward. Oh, if +the papers should learn of this!" +</P> + +<P> +"That's all you think of," Irene retorted. "A scene, and the papers. +You don't trouble to even wonder what was the occasion of the scene. +You and this—this <I>biped</I>, are at the bottom of it. You have been +planning to force me along a course I will not go, and you have done +something, something horrible—I don't know what—to cause Dave to act +as he did. But I'm going to know. I'm going to find out. You're +afraid of the papers. I'm not. I'll give the whole story to them +to-morrow. I'll tell that you insulted him, Conward, and how you stood +there, a grinning, gaping coward under the muzzle of his gun. How I +wish I had a photograph of it," she exclaimed, with a little hysterical +laugh. "It would look fine on the front page." She broke into peals +of laughter and rushed up the stairs. +</P> + +<P> +In the morning she was very sober and pale, and marks of distress and +sleeplessness were furrowed in her face. She greeted her mother with +cold civility, and left her breakfast untouched. She gave part of her +morning to Charlie; it was saving balm to her to have some one upon +whom she could pour affection. Then she went to the telephone. She +called Dave's office; nothing was known of Mr. Elden; he had been +working there last night; he was not down yet. She called his +apartments; there was no answer. Then, with a bright thought, she +called the garage. Mr. Elden's car was out; had not been in at all +during the night. Then she tried a new number. +</P> + +<P> +"Hello, is that the office of <I>The Call</I>? Will you let me speak to——" +</P> + +<P> +Her mother interrupted almost frantically. "Irene, you are not going +to tell the papers? You mustn't do that. Think of what it means—the +disgrace—a shooting affair, almost, in our home. Think of me, your +mother——" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll think of you on one consideration—that you explain what happened +last night, and tell me where Dave Elden is." +</P> + +<P> +"I can't explain. I don't know. And I don't know——" +</P> + +<P> +"And you don't want to know. And you don't care, so long as you can +keep it out of the papers. I do. I'm going to find out the facts +about this, if every paper in the country should print them. Hello? +Yes, I want to speak to Miss Morrison." +</P> + +<P> +In a few words she explained Dave's sudden disappearance, stripping the +incident of all but vital facts. Bert Morrison was all sympathy. +"It's a big story, you know," she said, "but we won't think of it that +way. Not a line, so far as I am concerned. Edith Duncan is the girl +we need. A sort of adopted sister to Dave. She may know more than any +of us." +</P> + +<P> +But Edith knew absolutely nothing; nothing, except that her own heart +was thrown into a turmoil of emotions. She spent the day and the +evening down town, rotating about the points where Dave might likely be +found. And the next morning she called on Irene Hardy. +</P> + +<P> +In spite of all her efforts at self-control she trembled as she pressed +the bell; trembled violently as she waited for the door to open. She +had never met Irene Hardy; it was going to be a strange experience, +introducing herself to the woman who had been preferred over her, and +who had, apparently, proven so unworthy of that preference. She had +difficult things to say, and even while she said them she must fight a +battle to the death with the jealousy of her natural womanhood. And +she must be very, very careful that in saying things which were hard to +say she did not say hard things. And, most difficult of all, she must +try to pave the way to a reconciliation between Dave and the woman who +stood between her and happiness. +</P> + +<P> +Irene attended the door, as was her custom. Her eyes took in Edith's +face and figure with mild surprise; Edith was conscious of the process +of a quick intellect endeavouring to classify her;—solicitor, music +teacher, business girl? And in that moment of pause she saw Irene's +eyes, and a strange commotion of feeling surged through her. There was +something in those eyes that suggested to Edith a new side to Dave's +nature; it was as though the blind had suddenly been drawn from strange +chambers of his soul. So this was the woman Dave had chosen to love. +No; one does not choose whom one will love; one loves without choosing. +Edith was conscious of that; she knew that in her own life. And even +as she looked this first time upon Irene she became aware of a subtle +attraction gathering about her; she felt something of that power which +had held Dave to a single course through all these years. And suddenly +a great new truth was born in Edith Duncan. Suddenly she realized that +if the steel at any time prove unfaithful to the magnet the fault lies +not in the steel, but in the magnet. What a change of view, what a +reversion of all accepted things, came with the realization of that +truth which roots down into the bedrock of all nature!… +</P> + +<P> +"Won't you come in?" Irene was saying. Her voice was sweet and +musical, but there was a note of sadness in it which set responsive +chords atremble all through Edith's heart. Must she love this woman? +Must she, in spite of herself, love this, of all women? +</P> + +<P> +"I am Edith Duncan," she managed to say. "I—I think I have something +to say that may interest you." +</P> + +<P> +There was a quick leap in Irene's eyes; the leap of that intuitive +feminine sense of danger which so seldom errs in dealing with its own +sex, and is yet so unreliable a defence from the dangers of the other. +Mrs. Hardy was in the living-room. "Won't you come up to my work +shop?" Irene answered without change of voice, and they ascended the +stairs together. +</P> + +<P> +"I draw a little," Irene was saying, talking fast. "Oh yes, I have +quite commercialized my art, such as it is. I draw pictures of shoes, +and shirt waists, and other women's wear which really belong to the +field of a feminine artist. But I haven't lost my soul altogether. I +daub in colour a little—yes, daub, that's the word. But it keeps +one's soul alive. You will hardly recognize that," she said, +indicating an easel, "but here is the original." She ran up the blind +of the window which looked from the room out to the westward, and far +over the brown shoulders of the foothills rose the Rockies, majestic, +calm, imperturbable, their white summits flashing in the blaze of +autumn sunshine. "No warfare there," Irene went on. "No plotting, no +cruelty, no cowardice, no misunderstanding. And to think that they +will stand there forever; forever, as we know time; when our city, our +civilization, the very memory of our age shall have gone out. I never +look at them without feeling how—how—how——" +</P> + +<P> +She trembled, and her voice choked; she put out her arm to a chair. +When she turned her face there were tears on it.… "Tell +me,—Edith," she said.… "You know" … +</P> + +<P> +"I know some things," Edith managed to say. "I know, <I>now</I>, that I do +not know all. Dave and I are old friends—my father took a liking to +him and he used often to be in our house—he made him think of our own +boy that was killed and would have been just his age—and we got to +know each other very well and he told me about you, long ago. And last +night I found him at his rooms, almost mad, and swearing to shoot +Conward. And then he told me that—that——" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes? Yes? What did he tell you? I am not afraid——" +</P> + +<P> +Edith turned her eyes to where the white crests of the mountains cut +like a crumpled keel through a sea of infinite blue. "He told me he +saw Conward here … upstairs … and Conward made a boast … +and he would have shot him but you rushed upon him and begged him not +to. He said you would have taken the bullet yourself rather than it +should find Conward." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, oh," the girl cried, in the pain of one mortally hurt. "How could +he think that? I didn't care for him—for Conward—but for Dave. I +knew there had been a quarrel—I didn't know why—and I knew if Dave +shot him—and he <I>can</I> shoot—I've seen him break six bottles out of +six on the gallop—it wasn't self-defence—whatever it was he couldn't +plead that—and they'd hang him, and that was all I saw, Edith, that +was all I saw, and I would—yes I <I>would</I> rather have taken the bullet +myself than that that should happen——" +</P> + +<P> +"You poor girl!" said Edith. "You poor girl," and her arms found the +other's neck. "You have been hurt, hurt." And then, under her breath, +"More than me." +</P> + +<P> +…"What has he done?" +</P> + +<P> +"He talked his problems over with me, and after he had talked awhile he +became more reasonable. He had already been convinced that he should +offer his services to his country, in these times. And I think I +persuaded him that it was better to leave vengeance where it belonged. +He said he couldn't remain here, and he has already left for England. +I am afraid I encouraged him to leave at once. You see, I didn't +understand." +</P> + +<P> +Irene had taken a chair, and for some minutes she sat in silence. "I +don't blame you," she said at length. "You gave him good advice. And +I don't blame him, although he might have been less ready to jump at +conclusions. There remains only one thing for me to do." +</P> + +<P> +"What?" said Edith, after a moment's hesitation. +</P> + +<P> +"Follow him! I shall follow him, and make him understand. If he must +go into battle—with all that that means—he must go in knowing the +truth. You have been very kind, Miss Duncan. You have gone out of +your way to do me a great service, and you have shown more kindness +than I have any right to claim from a stranger.… I feel, too, the +call for vengeance," she exclaimed, springing to her feet, "but first I +must find Dave. I shall follow him at once. I shall readily locate +him in some way through the military service. Everything is organized; +they will be able to find his name." +</P> + +<P> +She accompanied her visitor to the door. They shook hands and looked +for a moment in each other's eyes. And then Edith burst away and +hurried down the street. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Irene had searched London for two weeks. The confidence of her earlier +inquiries had diminished with each successive blind trail, which, +promising results at first, led her into a maze of confusion and +disappointment. The organization of the military service commanded +less enthusiasm than she had felt a month before. She saw it +struggling with the apparently impossible; it was as though she, in her +little studio, had been suddenly called upon to paint all the portraits +in the world … In some degree she understood the difficulties. In +equal degree she sympathized with those who were striving to overcome +them and she hung on from day to day in her search with a dogged +determination which set its teeth against admitting that the search was +hopeless. Her little store of money was fast dwindling away; she +looked into the face of every man in uniform with a pathetic +earnestness that more than once caused her to be misunderstood. +</P> + +<P> +At last one great fear had settled on her heart. It came upon her +first suddenly on shipboard; she had resolutely thrown it out of her +mind; but it had been knocking ever since for admittance, and more than +once she had almost let it in. Suppose Dave should not enlist under +his right name? In such a case her chance of finding him was the mere +freak of accidental meeting; a chance not to be banked upon in a +country already swarming with its citizen soldiery.… And yet +there was nothing to do but keep on. +</P> + +<P> +She had sought a park bench where groups of soldiers were continually +moving by. The lights shone on their faces, and her own tired eyes +followed them incessantly. Always her ear was alert for a voice that +should set her heart a-pounding, and more than once she had thought she +heard that, voice; more than a score of times she had thought she had +seen that figure with its stride of self-reliance, with strength +bulging in every muscle. And always it had been to learn that she had +been mistaken; always it had been to feel the heart sink just a little +lower than before. And still she kept on. There was nothing to do but +keep on. +</P> + +<P> +Often she wondered how he would receive her. That cold look which had +frozen his features when she seized the revolver in his hand; would it +still sit there, too distant and detached to be even scornful? Would +she have it to break down; must she, with the fire of her own +affection, thaw out an entrance through his icy aloofness? What cost +of humiliation would be the price, and would even any price be +accepted? She could not know; she could only hope and pray and go on. +</P> + +<P> +As she turned her eyes to follow a group of men in uniform she became +aware of a soldier sitting alone in the shadow a short distance away. +Some quality about him caught her attention; his face was not +discernible, and his figure was too much in the shadow to more than +suggest its outline, but she found herself regarding him with an +intentness that set her pulses racing. Some strange attraction raised +her from her seat; she took a step toward him, then steadied herself. +Should she dare risk it again? And yet there was something.… She +had a sudden plan. She would make no inquiry, no apology; she would +walk near by and call him by name. If that name meant nothing to him +he would not even notice her presence, but if it should be—— +</P> + +<P> +She was within three paces. Still she could discern nothing +definitely, but her pulses were raging more wildly than ever. They had +deceived her before; could it be that they were deceiving her again? +</P> + +<P> +"Dave," she said. +</P> + +<P> +He turned quickly in his seat; the light fell on her face and he saw +her; he was on his feet and had taken a step toward her. Then he +stopped, and she saw his features harden as they had on that dreadful +occasion which now seemed so long ago. Would he turn on his heel? If +he did she must rush upon him. She must tell him now, she must plead +with him, reason with him, prevail upon him at all costs. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" he said. His voice was mechanical, but in it was something +which quickened her hope; something which suggested that he was making +it mechanical because he dared not let it express the human emotion +which was struggling for utterance. +</P> + +<P> +"Let me talk to you, Dave," she pleaded. "I have followed you around +the world for this. Let me talk. I can explain everything." +</P> + +<P> +He stood still so long that she wondered if he never would speak. She +dared not reach her hands to him, she could only stand and wait. +</P> + +<P> +"Irene," he said, "why did you follow me here?" +</P> + +<P> +"There is only one answer, Dave. Because I love you, and would follow +you anywhere. No one can stop me doing that; no one, Dave—except you." +</P> + +<A NAME="img-335"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-335.jpg" ALT=""There is only one answer, Dave. Because I love you."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="375" HEIGHT="532"> +<H3> +[Illustration: "There is only one answer, Dave. Because I love you."] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +And again he stood, and she knew that he was turning over in his mind +things weightier than life and death, and that when he spoke again his +course would be set. Then, in the partial shadow, she saw his arms +slowly extend; they rose, wide and strong, and extended toward her. +There was a quick step, and they met about her, and the world swooned +and went by.… +</P> + +<P> +"I can explain everything," she said, when she could talk. +</P> + +<P> +"You need explain nothing," he returned. "I have lived the torments of +the damned. Edith Duncan was right; she said if it were real love it +would never give up. 'Endureth all things,' she said. 'All things,' +she said.… There is no limit." +</P> + +<P> +She caressed his cheeks with her fingers, and knew by the touch that +they were brown again as they had been in those great days of the +foothills. "But I must tell you, dear," she said, "so that you may +understand." And then she patched together the story, from what she +knew, and from what Edith Duncan had told her, and Dave filled in what +neither had known, including the incident earlier on that fateful +evening. She could see his jaws harden as they pieced the plot +together, and she knew what he was thinking. +</P> + +<P> +"Your country needs you more," she whispered. "It is better that way. +And what a man you are in uniform! I think I see you smashing heads +instead of bottles. Six out of six, Dave! It's awful, but you must do +it. Already we know what has happened in Belgium. You will forget +your own wrongs in the greater wrongs of others.… And I shall +join the service as a nurse. My father was a doctor, and I can soon +pick it up." +</P> + +<P> +She chatted on, but he had become suddenly grave. "I don't think that +is your course, Irene," he said. "This is going to be a bigger job +than it looked. The Government will get soldiers and nurses; the +popular imagination turns to such things. But it will be neither +soldiers nor nurses that will win the war. I feel sure of that now. +It has come to me, perhaps as a kind of presentiment, but I feel +absolutely sure. The determining factor will be food. The world's +margin is narrow enough in normal times, and now we are plunged into +the abnormal. Millions of men will be taken from production and turned +to purposes of destruction. They will be taken from offices, where +they need little food, and put in the trenches, where they need much +food. Countries will be devastated; armies will retreat, destroying +all food as they go. Ships will go down with cargoes of wheat; +incendiary fires will swallow warehouses of food. I do not regret my +decision, I believe my place is in the trenches; but those less fit for +the fight than I must, in some form or other, produce food. That +includes the women; it includes you." +</P> + +<P> +"Me? But what can I do?" +</P> + +<P> +"Since I left home I've thought a good deal of the old ranch. I +despised it in those prosperous days—those days we thought we were +prosperous—but the prosperity is gone and the ranch remains. It still +lies out there, just as it did when you and your father motored down +that afternoon a dozen years ago. I think you'll have to go back +there, Reenie. I think you'll have to take the boy Charlie, and what +other help you can get, and go back to the old ranch and raise +something for the soldiers to eat. You can do it. There are good men +to be had; men who can't very well carry a rifle, but can drive a plow. +And believe me, Reenie, it's the plow that's going to win. Go back and +put them at it. Think of every furrow as another trench in the +defences which shall save your home from the fate of Belgium's homes. +It's not as easy as going to the front; it hasn't got the heroic ring +to it, and I suppose there are many who will commercialize it. Let +them. We shall need their profits after the war to pay our debts. But +it's the thing that must be done. And you'll do it, won't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll do what ever needs to be done, Dave. I'd rather be by your side, +or as near as may be, but if you say that my duty lies back on the old +ranch I shall go back to the old ranch and raise food for my soldier. +And when it's all over we shall ride those old hillsides again.… +Up the canyon, you remember, Dave? The little niche in the wall of the +canyon, and all the silence and the sunlight?… Forever.…" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap22"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXII +</H3> + + +<P> +Any philosophy which accepts the principle that the great, +over-shadowing events of life are subject to an intelligent controlling +influence must of necessity grant that the same principle applies to +the most commonplace and every-day experiences. It is impossible to +believe that the World War, for example, has a definite place in the +eternal scheme of the universe without believing the same of the +apparently most trivial incident in the life of Kaiser Wilhelm, Lloyd +George, or Woodrow Wilson, or, for that matter, of the humblest soldier +in the ranks. The course of the greatest stream of events may well be +deflected by incidents so commonplace as to quite escape the notice of +the casual observer. +</P> + +<P> +Some such thought as this comforted me—or, at least, would have +comforted me, had I thought it—when a leaking gasoline tank left me, +literally as well as figuratively, high and dry in the foothills. The +sun of an August afternoon blazed its glory from a cloudless sky; far +across the shimmering hills copper-colored patches of ripening wheat +stood out ruddy and glowing like twentieth century armour on the brown +breast of the prairie; low in a valley to the left a ribbon of +silver-green mountain water threaded its way through fringes of spruce +and cottonwood, while on the uplands beyond sleek steers drowsed in the +sunshine, and far to the westward the Rockies slept unconcerned in +their draperies of afternoon purple. All these scenes the eye took in +without enthusiasm, almost without approval; and then fell on the +whitewashed ranch buildings almost in the shadow underneath. And in +these days a ranch—almost any ranch—means gasoline. +</P> + +<P> +I soon was at the door. The walls had been recently white-washed; +there were new shingles of red cedar on the roof; flowers bloomed by +the path that led down to the corrals. My knock attracted a little +chap of two-and-a-half or three years; his stout hands shoved the +screen back, and I found myself ushered into his company. There +evidently was no one else about, so I visited, and we talked on those +things which are of importance in the world of three-year-olds. +</P> + +<P> +"Muvver's don to the wiver," he confided. "She tum back pwetty soon." +</P> + +<P> +"And Father?" I asked. "Where is he?" +</P> + +<P> +Into the dark eyes came a deeper look; they suddenly shone with the +spirituality of a life only three years removed from the infinite. By +what instruction, I afterwards wondered, by what almost divine charm +had she been able to instil into his young mind the honour and the +glory and the pride of it? For there was pride, and something more +than pride; adoration, perhaps, in his words as he straightened up and +said in perfect English, "My father was a soldier. He was killed at +Courcelette." +</P> + +<P> +I looked in his little, sunburned face; in his dark, proud eyes; and +presently a strange mist enveloped the room. How many little faces, +how many pairs of eyes! It was just fading away when a step sounded on +the walk, and I arose as she reached the door. +</P> + +<P> +"The Man of the House has made me at home," I managed to say. "I am +shipwrecked on the hill, for a little gasoline." +</P> + +<P> +"There is plenty out in the field, where the tractor is," she replied. +"You will find it without difficulty. Or if you care to wait here, +Charlie may be along presently." +</P> + +<P> +Her voice had sweet, modulated tones, with just that touch of pathos +which only the Angel of Suffering knows how to add. And her face was +fair, and gentle, and a little sad, and very sweet. +</P> + +<P> +"He has told me," I said. There seemed no reason why I should not say +it. She had entered into the sisterhood—that universal sisterhood of +suffering which the world has known in these long, lonely years.… +And it was between us, for we were all in the family. There was no +occasion to scrape acquaintance by slow, conventional thrust and parry. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said, sitting down, and motioning me to a chair. "I was +bitter at first. I was dreadfully bitter at first. But gradually I +got a different view of it. Gradually I came to feel and know that all +we can feel and know here is on the surface; on the outside, as you +might say, and we can't know the purpose until we are inside. It is as +though life were a riddle, and the key is hidden, and the door behind +which the key is hidden is called Death. And I don't believe it's all +for nothing; I won't believe it's all for nothing. If I believed it +was all for nothing I would quit; we would all quit. +</P> + +<P> +"Then there is the suffering," she continued, after a pause. "I don't +know why there should be suffering, but I know if there were no +suffering there would be no kindness. It is not until you are +hit—hard hit—that you begin to think of other people. Until then all +is selfishness. But we women—we women of the war—we have nothing +left to be selfish for. But we have the whole world to be unselfish +for. It's all different, and it can never go back. We won't let it go +back. We've paid too much to let it go back." +</P> + +<P> +It was hard to find a reply. "I think I knew your husband, a little," +I ventured. "He was a—a man." +</P> + +<P> +"He was all that," she said. She arose and stood for a moment in an +attitude of hesitation; her fingers went to her lips as though +enjoining caution. Then, with quick decision, she went into an inner +room, from which she returned with a letter. +</P> + +<P> +"If you knew him you may care to read this," she said. "It's very +personal, and yet, some way, everything is impersonal now, in a sense. +There has been such a common cause, and such a wave of common +suffering, that it seems to flood out over the individual and embrace +us all. Individualism is gone. It's the community now; the state; +mankind, if you like, above everything. I suppose, so far as German +kultur stands for that, it has been imposed upon the world.… So +this is really, in a sense, your letter as well as mine." +</P> + +<P> +I took it and read: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I have had many letters to write since my service began as a nurse in +the war, but never have I approached the task with such mixed emotions. +The pain I must give you I would gladly bear myself if I could; but it +is not all pain; underneath it, running through it in some way I cannot +explain, is a note so much deeper than pain that it must be joy. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +You will already have been advised that David Elden was among those who +fell at Courcelette. It is trite to say that you have the sympathy of +a grateful nation. How grateful the nation really is we shall know by +its treatment of the heroes who survive the war, and of the dependents +of those who have crossed over. But nothing can rob you of the +knowledge that he played a man's part. Nothing can debar you from that +universal fellowship of sympathy which is springing up wherever manhood +is valued at its worth. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +A new Order has been born into the world; the Order of Suffering. Not +that it is new, either; it has been with us since the first mother went +into the shadow for her first child; but always suffering has been +incidental; a matter of the individual; a thing to be escaped if +possible. But now it is universal, a thing not to be escaped, but to +be accepted, readily, bravely, even gladly. And all who so accept it +enter into the new Order, and wear its insignia, which is unselfishness +and sympathy and service. And in that Order you shall not be least, +measured by either your sacrifice or the spirit in which you accept it. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +But you are yearning for his last word; for some voice that will seem +to you now almost a voice out of the grave, and I am happy to be able +to bring you that word. It was something more than chance that guided +me that night, as it is every night. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +We were well behind the line of actual fighting, but still in the +danger zone of artillery fire. Night had settled in; all was darkness +save for occasional distant flares. I had become detached from my +party in moving to another station; lost, if you like, yet not lost; +never have I gone so directly to so great a destination. While trying +to get my location I became aware of a presence; it will sound strange +to you, but I became intensely aware of <I>your</I> presence. Of course I +knew it could not be you, in the flesh, but you it seemed to be, +nevertheless. I moved as though led by an invisible hand, and +presently I found a bit of shattered wall. In the gloom I could just +discern the form of a man lying in the shelter of the wall—if you +could call it shelter—it rose scarce a foot above the ground. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I knelt beside him and turned my torch on to his face. It was pale +even through the brown skin; the eyes were closed; the hair was wet and +plastered on the forehead; there were smears of blood in it and on his +cheeks. As my light fell on his lips they framed a smile. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"Reenie," he said. "It was good of you to come. I knew you would +come." +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"I am here, Dave," I answered, and I think you will forgive me the +impersonation. "Now let me find out where you are hurt, and we'll fix +you up, and get you moved presently." +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +He opened his eyes and looked at me with the strange look of a man +whose thread of consciousness is half unravelled. "Oh, it's you, +Edith," he said, when he had taken me in. "Funny, I thought it was +Irene. I must have been dreaming." +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I questioned him again about his wound, and began feeling his hair. +"It's not there," he said. "Guess I got it all over my hands. They +got me this time. Shrapnel, in the body. Don't waste time on me. +Some other fellow may have a chance." +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I found, with a little examination, that the case was as bad as he +supposed. Fortunately, the wound had induced a local paralysis, and he +was not suffering to any great degree. I placed my hand in his and +felt his grip tighten on it. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"I'm going to stay till it's over, Dave. We'll see it out together." +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"That's decent," he answered, and then was still for quite a time. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"I've often wondered what was on the other side," he said at length. +"I shall know presently." +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"You are not afraid?" I whispered. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"No. Only sort of—curious. And—reverent. I guess it's +reverent… You know I haven't been much on religion. Never seemed +to get the formula. What is the formula? I mean the key—the thing +that gives it all in one word?" +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"In one word—sacrifice." +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"I walked out of church once because of some doctrine about sacrifice," +he continued. "I couldn't go it… And yet—there may be something +in it. It's sacrifice here, Edith. War is sacrifice. Sacrifice for +other people. It's not all on the surface. There's something deeper +than we know." +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"'He that loseth his life shall find it,'" I quoted. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +He did not answer, but I could see his lips smiling again. His breath +was more labored. A few drops of rain fell, and some of them spattered +on his face. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Presently he chuckled. It was an eerie sensation, out on that broad +plain of death, alone by the side of this man who was already far into +the shadow,—to hear him chuckle. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"That splash of water—you remember—it made me think of the time we +pulled the old car into the stream, and the harness broke, or +something, and I had to carry you. You remember that, Reenie?" I +could only say "Yes," and press his hand. His mind was back on the +old, old trails. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +He became suddenly sober. "And when Brownie was killed," he went on, +"I said it was the innocent thing that got caught. Perhaps I was +right. But perhaps it's best to get caught. Not for the getting +caught, but for the—the compensations. It's the innocent men that are +getting killed. And perhaps it's best. Perhaps there are +compensations worth while." +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +His voice was weaker, and I had to lean close to catch his words. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"I'm going—out," he said. "Kiss me, Reenie." +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +And then I kissed him—for you. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Suddenly he sat up. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"The mountains!" he exclaimed, and his voice was a-thrill with the +pride of his old hills. "See, the moonlight—on the mountains!" +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Then his strength, which seemed to have gathered itself for this one +last vision of the place of his boyhood, gave way, and he fell back. +And he did not speak any more. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +And what can I add? Dear, it is not defeat. It is promise. It is +hope. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Some day we shall know. But until then we shall go on. It is woman's +bit to carry on. But not in despondency; not in bitterness; not in +anger or despair. <I>He</I> didn't go out that way. He was reverent—and a +little curious, and he went out with a smile. And we shall go on, and +carry his smile and his confidence through the valley of our sacrifice. +What am I doing, speaking of <I>our</I> sacrifice? +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I salute you, sister in the Order of Suffering—and of hope. +<BR><BR> +EDITH DUNCAN. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +I handed the letter back to her, and for a time I had no words. "Won't +you let me tell the story?" I said at length. "The world is full of +sorrow, and it needs voices to give that sorrow words, and perhaps turn +it into hope—as this letter does." +</P> + +<P> +She hesitated, and I realized then how much I had asked. "It is the +story of my life—my soul," she said. "Yet, if it would help——" +</P> + +<P> +"Without names," I hastened to explain. "Without real names of places +or people." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +And so, in that little white-washed home, where the brown hills rise +around and the placid mountains look down from the distance, and a +tongue of spruce trees beyond the stream stands sentinel against the +open prairie, she is carrying on, not in despondency and bitterness, +but in service and in hope. And so her sisters, all this world over, +must carry on, until their sweetness and their sacrifice shall fill up +and flood over all the valleys of hate.… And if you should chance +that way, and if you should win the confidence of young Three-year-old, +he may stand for you and say, with his voice filled with the honour and +the glory and the pride of it, +</P> + +<P> +"My father was a soldier. He was killed at Courcelette." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE END +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cow Puncher, by Robert J. C. 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C. Stead + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Cow Puncher + +Author: Robert J. C. Stead + +Release Date: September 4, 2006 [EBook #19173] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COW PUNCHER *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: The Cow Puncher] + + + + + +The Cow Puncher + + +By + +ROBERT J. C. STEAD + + + +Author of "The Homesteaders," "Kitchener and Other Poems," "The Bail +Jumper," "Songs of the Prairie," "Prairie Born," "The Empire Builders," +etc. + + + + + +TORONTO + +THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY + +LIMITED + + + + +Copyright Canada, 1918 + +THE MUSSON BOOK CO., LIMITED + +Publishers -------- TORONTO + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER I + CHAPTER II + CHAPTER III + CHAPTER IV + CHAPTER V + CHAPTER VI + CHAPTER VII + CHAPTER VIII + CHAPTER IX + CHAPTER X + CHAPTER XI + CHAPTER XII + CHAPTER XIII + CHAPTER XIV + CHAPTER XV + CHAPTER XVI + CHAPTER XVII + CHAPTER XVIII + CHAPTER XIX + CHAPTER XX + CHAPTER XXI + CHAPTER XXII + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +The Cow Puncher . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ + +These long rides afforded her many side-lights on the remarkable nature +of her escort. + +"You aren't talking to-day . . . what's wrong?" + +"There is only one answer, Dave. Because I love you." + + + + +THE COW PUNCHER + + +CHAPTER ONE + +The shadows of the spruce trees fell north-eastward, pointing long, +cool fingers across belts of undulating prairie, or leaning lazily +against the brown foothills. Like an incandescent globe the afternoon +sun hung in the bowl of a cloudless heaven, filmy with heat, but the +hot rays were met by the high altitude of the ranch country and lost +their force like a blow half struck. And among the spruce trees it was +cool and green, and clear blue water rippled over beds of shining +gravel. + +The ranch buildings lay a little to the rear, as though the trees stood +sentinel between them and the prairies. The house was of round +straight logs; the shingles of the squat roof were cupped and blistered +with the suns of many summers. Refuse loitered about the open door; +many empty tins; a leaky barrel, with missing hoops; boxes, harness, +tangled bits of wire. Once there had been a fence; a sort of picket +fence of little saplings, but wild bronchos had kicked it to pieces and +range steers had straggled unscarred across its scattered remnants. + +Forward, and to the left, was the corral; mill slabs on end, or fences +of lodge-pole pine; a corner somewhat covered in, offering vague +protection from the weather. The upper poles were worn thin with the +cribbing of many horses. + +The sunlight bathed the scene; nursed it in a soft, warm silence. The +desertion seemed absolute; the silence was the silence of the unspoken +places. But suddenly it was broken by a stamping in the covered part +of the corral, and a man's voice saying, "Hip, there; whoa, you cayuse; +get under your saddle! Sleepin' against a post all day, you +sloppy-eye. Hip, come to it!" + +Horse and rider dashed into the sunlight. The boy--for he was no more +than a boy--sat the beast as though born to it, his lithe frame taking +every motion of his mount as softly as a good boat rides the sea. His +red shirt and thick hairy schaps could not disguise the lean +muscularity of his figure; the broad felt hat, and the revolver at his +belt, gave just the touch of romance. With a yell at his horse he +snatched the hat from his head, turning to the sun a smooth, brown face +and a mane of dark hair, and slapped the horse across the flank with +his crumpled headgear. At the signal the animal sprang into the air, +then dashed at a gallop down the roadway, bearing the boy as +unconcerned as a flower on its stem. + +Suddenly he brought his horse to a stop; swung about, and rode back at +a gentle canter. A few yards from the house he again spurred him to a +gallop, and, leaning far down by the animal's side, deftly picked a +bottle from among the grass. Then he circled about, repeating this +operation as often as his eye fell on a bottle, until he had +half-a-dozen; then down the road again, carefully setting a bottle on +each post of the fence that skirted it to the right. + +Again he came back to the house, but, when he turned, his eye was on +the row of posts, and his right hand lay on the grip of his revolver. +Again his sharp yell broke the silence and the horse dashed forward as +though shot from a gun. Down the road they went until within a rod of +the first bottle; then there was a flash in the sunlight, and to the +clatter of the horse's hoofs came the crack-crack of the revolver. Two +bottles shivered to fragments, but four remained intact, and the boy +rode back, muttering and disappointed. + +He reasoned with his horse as he rode. "'Taint no use, you ol' +slop-eye; a fellow can't get the bede if he ain't got the fillin'; +cooked meals an' decent chuck. I could plug 'em six out o' six--you +know that, you ol' flop-ears; don't you argue about it, neither--when +I'm right inside my belt I smash 'em six out o' six, but I ain't right, +an' you know it. You don't know nothin' about it; you never had a +father, leastways, you never had to be responsible for one. . . . +Well, it's comin' to a finish--a damn lame finish, you know that. You +know--" + +But he had reloaded his revolver and set up two more bottles. This +time he broke four, and was better pleased with himself. As he rode +back his soliloquy was broken by a strange sound from beyond the belt +of trees. The horse pricked up his ears, and the boy turned in the +saddle to listen. + +"Jumpin' crickets, what's loose?" he ejaculated. He knew every sound +of the foothill country, but this was strange to him. A kind of snort, +a sort of hiss; mechanical in its regularity, startling in its +strangeness, it came across the valley with the unbroken rhythm of a +watch-tick. + +"Well, I guess it won't eat us," he ventured at last. "We'll just run +it down and perhaps poke a hole in it." So saying, he cantered along +the road which skirted the spruce trees, crossed the little stream and +swung up the hill on the farther side. + +He was half way up when a turn in the road brought him into sudden +sight of the strange visitor. It was the first he had seen, but he +knew it at once, for the fame of the automobile, then in its +single-cylinder stage, had already spread into the farthest ranching +country. The horse was less well informed. Whether or not in that +moment he recognized the great rival of his race must be left to some +analyst of horse character, but he bucked and kicked in rage and +terror. But the boy was conscious not so much of the horse as of two +bright eyes turned on him in frank and surprised admiration. + +"What horsemanship!" she exclaimed, but the words had scarce left her +lips when they were followed by a cry of alarm. For the car had taken +a sudden turn from the road and plunged into a growth of young poplars +that fringed the hillside. The oldish man at the wheel gave it a +violent wrench, but left his motor in gear, and the car half slid, half +plowed its way into semi-vertical position among the young trees. The +two occupants were thrown from their seat; the girl fell clear, but her +father was less fortunate. + +In an instant the boy had flung himself from his horse, dropping the +reins to the ground, and the animal, although snorting and shivering, +had no thought of disgracing his training by breaking his parole. With +quick, ungainly strides the boy brought himself to the upturned +machine. It was curious that he should appear to such disadvantage on +his feet. In the saddle he was grace personified. + +For a moment he looked somewhat stupidly upon the wreck. Had it been a +horse or a steer he would have known the procedure, but this experience +was new to his life. Besides, there were strangers here. He had no +fear of strangers when they wore schaps and coloured handkerchiefs, but +a girl in a brown sweater and an oldish man with a white collar were +creatures to be approached with caution. The oldish man was lying on +the ground, with a leg pinned under the car, and Brown Sweater raised +his head against her knee and pressed his cheeks with small white +fingers and looked at the boy with bright grey eyes and said, "Well, +aren't you going to do anything?" + +That brought him back. "Sure," he said, springing to her side. "Whada +ye' want me to do?" + +"I am afraid my leg is broken," said the man, speaking calmly +notwithstanding his pain. "Can you get the jack out of the tool box +and raise the car?" + +The girl pointed to the box, and in a moment he had the jack in his +hand. But it was a new tool to him and he fumbled with it stupidly. +The handle would not fit, and when it did fit it operated the wrong way. + +"Oh, let me have it," she cried, impatiently. In a moment she had it +set under the frame of the car and was plying the handle up and down +with rapid strokes. The machine began to groan with the pressure, and +the boy looked on, helpless and mortified. He was beginning to realize +that there were more things in the world than riding a horse, and +shooting bottles. He felt a sudden desire to be of great service. And +just now he could be of no service whatever. + +But the foot of the jack began to sink in the soft earth, and the girl +looked up helplessly. "It won't lift it," she said. "What shall we +do?" + +It was his chance. He was eighteen, and his wild, open life had given +him muscles of steel. "Here," he said, roughly, "move his leg when I +get it clear." He turned his back to the machine and crouched down +until he could get his hands under the steel frame. Then he lifted. +The car was in a somewhat poised position, and he was able to swing it +up far enough to release the injured leg. + +"Very good, my boy," said the man. "That was a wonderful lift. The +leg is broken--compound. Can you get some way of moving me to shelter? +I will pay you well." + +The last words were unfortunate. Hospitality in the ranching country +is not bought and sold. + +"You can't pay me nothin'," he said rudely. "But I can bring a light +wagon, if you can ride in that, and put you up at the ranch. The old +man's soused," he added, as an afterthought, "but it's better than +sleepin' out. I won't be long." + +He was back at his horse, and in a moment they heard the clatter of +hoofs galloping down the hillside. + +The girl sat on the ground and rested her father's head in her lap. +Tears made her bright eyes brighter still. + +"Don't cry, Reenie," he said, gently. "We are very lucky to be so +close to help. Of course, I'll be laid up for awhile, but it will give +you a chance to see ranch life as it really is"--He winced with pain, +but continued, "I fancy we shall find it plain and unveneered. What a +horseman! If I could run an automobile like he does a horse we should +not be here. Did you notice that I didn't release the clutch? Just +ambled into this predicament--embraced it, I might say." + +"He's strong," she said. "But he's rude." + +"The best fields for muscle are often poor schools for manners," he +answered. "But manners are no substitute for hospitality, and he seems +to have that, all right. It is something that belongs to the open +country, the big, open country. In cities they _entertain_, but in the +ranching country they, why, there isn't any word for it, but you will +see for yourself." + +He was soon back with a wagon and a stretcher. He avoided the eyes of +his guests, but quickly and gently enough he placed the injured man on +the stretcher. "I guess you'll have to take the feet," he said. The +words were for the girl, although he did not look at her. "I could +hustle him myself, but it might hurt 'im." + +But the injured man interrupted. "I beg your pardon," he said, "that I +did not introduce my daughter. I am Doctor Hardy--this is my daughter, +Irene, Mr.----?" + +"They don't call me mister," said the boy. "Misters is scarce in these +woods. My name is Elden--Dave Elden." + +He was for dropping it at that, but the girl came up with extended +hand. He took it shyly, but it made him curiously bold. "I'm glad to +meet you, Mr. Elden," she said. + +"I'm glad to meet you, too," he answered. "Misses is scarcer than +misters in this neck o' the woods." + +Carefully they lifted the injured man into the wagon, and Dave drove to +the ranch building with an unwonted caution that must have caused +strange misgivings in the hearts of his team. + +"It ain't much of a place," he said, as they pulled up at the door. "I +guess you can see that for yourself," he added, with a grin. "You see, +there's just Dad and me, and he's soused most of the time, and I handle +a lasso better'n a scrubbin' brush." He was already losing his +shyness. "Now, you take the feet again. Steady, don't break any more +bones. Look out for that barrel hoop. This way, now." + +He led into the old ranch house, kicking the door wider open with his +heel as he passed. A musty smell fell on the senses of the girl as she +entered, and she was conscious of the buzzing of innumerable flies. A +partition from east to west divided the house, and another partition +from north to south divided the northern half. In the north-east room +they set the stretcher on the floor. + +"Now," Said the boy, "I'm goin' for the doctor. It's forty miles to +town, and it'll likely be mornin' before I'm back, but I'll sure burn +the trail. You'll have to make the best of it," he continued, +impersonally addressing the much-spotted window. "There's grub in the +house, and you won't starve--that is, if you can cook." (This was +evidently for Irene. There was a note in it that suggested the girl +might have her limitations.) "Dig in to anythin' in sight. And I hope +your father's leg won't hurt very much." Irene wondered afterwards why +the hope concerning her father should have been expressed to her. Did +he already feel--what was it?--better acquainted with her? + +"Oh, I'll stand it," said Doctor Hardy, with some cheerfulness. "We +medical men become accustomed to suffering--in other people. You are +very kind. My daughter may remain in this room, I suppose? There is +no one else?" + +"No one but the old man," he answered. "He's asleep in the next room, +safe till mornin'. I'll be back by that time. That's my bed," +indicating a corner. "Make yourselves at home." He lounged through +the door and they heard his spurs clanking across the hard earth. + +The girl's first thought was to assure as much comfort for her father +as the circumstances would permit. She removed his boot and stocking, +and, under his direction, slit the leg of his trousers above the +injury. It was bleeding a little. In the large room of the house she +found a pail with water, and she bathed the wound, wiping it with her +handkerchief, and mingling a tear or two with the warm blood that +dripped from it. + +"You're good stuff," her father said, pressing the fingers of her +unoccupied hand. "Now, if you could find a clean cloth to bandage it--" + +She looked about the place, somewhat hopelessly. Her expedition to the +main part of the house, when she had found the water pail, had not +reassured her as to the housekeeping of the Eldens. Her father read +her perplexity. + +"It seems as though you would be in charge here for awhile, Reenie," he +said, "so you will save time by getting acquainted at once with your +equipment. Look the house over and see what you have to work with." + +"Well, I can commence here," she answered. "This is Dave's room. I +suppose I should say Mr. Elden's, but--what was it he said about +'mistering'? It would be splendid if it were cleaned up," she +continued, with kindling enthusiasm. "These bare logs, bare floors, +bare rafters--we've got back to essentials, anyway. And that's his +bed." She surveyed a framework of spruce poles, on which lay an old +straw mattress and some very grey blankets. "I suppose he is very +tired when he goes to bed," she said, drolly, as though that could be +the only explanation of sleep amid such surroundings. "And the walls +give one a clue to the artistic side of his nature." A poster +advertising a summer fair, with a prodigious bull occupying the centre +of the picture, hung on one wall, and across from it a lithograph of a +young woman, with very bright clothing and very alabaster skin and very +decollete costume tendered a brand of beer with the assurance that it +goes to the spot. "I ought to drape it," she said, and the curl on her +lip showed smooth white teeth. + +"I was forgetting I have to find a bandage for you," she suddenly +remembered. "There's his trunk; it might produce something, but we +will save it for a last resort. Now I will explore this main room, +which I suppose is the kitchen, dining room, living room, everything." + +In the south end of the larger room stood a fireplace, crudely made of +slabs of native rock. The fires of many winters had crumbled the rock, +so that it had fallen in in places, and was no longer employed for its +original purpose. A very rusty and greasy stove now occupied the space +immediately in front of the fireplace, the stove-pipe leading into the +ample but tottering chimney. Near the stove was a bench supporting a +tin wash-basin, a wooden pail, and certain fragments of soap--evidently +all the equipment necessary for the simple ablutions of the Elden +household. The remnant of a grain bag, with many evidences of use and +abuse, performed the functions of towel, and a broken piece of +looking-glass gave the faintest intimation that a strain of fundamental +relationship links the sexes. By the western wall was a table, with +numerous dishes; and to the wall itself had been nailed wooden +boxes--salmon and tomato cases--now containing an assortment of +culinary supplies. A partially used sack of flour, and another of +rolled oats, leaned against the wall, and a trap-door in the floor gave +promise of further resources beneath. There was a window in the east +and another in the west, both open and unscreened; myriads of flies +gave the only touch of life to the dismal scene. + +Irene looked it all over, then leaned against the window sill and +laughed. Her father had brought her west for holidays with the promise +of changed surroundings and new experiences, but he had promised her no +such delight as this. With the Elden kitchen still photographed in her +mind she called up the picture of her own city home; the green lawn, +faultlessly trimmed by a time-serving gardener; the floral borders, the +hedges; the two stately trees; the neat walk, the wide verandah, the +dim, mysterious hall; the rooms, heavily shaded to save the rich +carpets; the order, the precision, the fixedness, the this-sits-here +and that-stands-thereness--the flatness and emptiness and formality of +it all, and she turned again to the Elden kitchen and laughed--a soft, +rippling, irrepressible laugh, as irrepressible as the laughter of the +mountain stream amid the evergreens. Then she thought of her mother; +prim, sedate, conventional, correct--"Always be correct, my dear; there +is a right way and a wrong way, and a well-bred person always chooses +the right"--and her eyes sobered a trifle, then flashed in brighter +merriment as they pictured her mother amid these surroundings. + +"She would be so shocked, oh, dreadfully shocked," she rippled to +herself. "I am quite sure she would never approve of Father breaking +his leg with such consequences. It wasn't the correct thing--very +commonplace, I should say--and think of Irene! Why, the child--she's +but a child, Andrew, a very beautiful child, but with just a little +weakness for the--ah--unconventional--she must be restrained--she needs +her mother's guidance to protect her from the suggestion of +maybe--shall I say?--vulgarity. That's a very dreadful word. Think of +all the vulgar people there are in the world. . . . And here is dear +little Irene right in the midst of it, and--horrors--revelling in it." + +Then she looked again from the open window, this time with eyes that +saw the vista of valley and woodland and foothill that stretched down +into the opening prairie. Suddenly she realized that she was looking +down upon a picture--one of Nature's obscure masterpieces--painted in +brown and green and saffron against an opal canvas. It was beautiful, +not with the majesty of the great mountains, nor the solemnity of the +great plains, but with that nearer, more intimate relationship which is +the peculiar property of the foothill country. Here was neither the +flatness that, with a change of mood, could become in a moment +desolation, nor the aloofness of eternal rocks towering into cold +space, but the friendship of hills that could be climbed, and trees +that lisped in the light wind, and water that babbled playfully over +gravel ridges gleaming in the August sunshine. The girl drew a great +breath of the pure air and was about to dream a new day-dream when the +voice of her father brought her to earth. + +"Can't you find anything that will do for a bandage?" he asked. + +"Oh you dear Daddykins," she replied, her voice tremulous with +self-reproach. "I had forgotten. There was a spell, or something; it +just came down upon me in the window. That's a good idea, blaming +one's negligence on a spell. I must remember that. But the bandage? +Dear, no; the only cloth I see is the kitchen towel, and I can't +recommend it. But what a goose I am! Our grips are in the car, or +under it, or somewhere. I'll be back in a jiffy." And she was off at +a sharp trot down the trail along which she had so recently come in +Dave Elden's wagon. + +At the little stream she paused. A single log was the only bridge, and +although the water was not deep it ran swiftly, and still with the +coldness of its glacier source. She ventured along the log, but near +the centre she was seized with an acute sense of her temerity. Perhaps +she had been foolish in attempting this passage without the aid of a +stick. A stick, which could be shoved against the gravel below that +blue water, would have been a very practical aid. Suddenly, the +waverings of the mind were transmuted to the body. She felt an +impetuous desire to fall upstream, which she resisted so successfully +that she promptly fell down stream. The water was deeper than it +looked, and colder than it looked, and when she scrambled up the +farther bank she was a very wet young woman indeed. She was conscious +of a deep annoyance toward young Elden. A fine bridge, that! She +would tell him--but this thought died at its birth with the +consciousness that Elden would be amused over the incident, and would +be at little pains to disguise his merriment. And then she laughed, +and ran along up the road. + +The grips were duly found, and Irene congratulated herself that she and +her father were in the habit of traveling with equipment for over +night. She had even a spare skirt along, with which she was able to +disguise her mishap at the stream, although she took the precaution not +to make the change until she was safe back over the narrow bridge. And +this time she used a stick. Arrived at the house, she deftly wrapped a +bandage about her father's injury, and set to work at the preparation +of supper--a task not strange to her, as her mother considered it +correct that her daughter should have a working knowledge of kitchen +affairs. Her equipment was meagre, and she spent more time scouring +than cooking, but her heart beat high with the spirit of adventure. + +Once, during the evening, she took a glance into the other room. It +was even less inviting than Dave's, with walls bare of any adornment, +save dirty garments that hung from nails driven in the logs. On the +rude bed lay an old man; she could see only part of his face; a grey +moustache drooping over an open mouth, and a florid cheek turned to the +glow of the setting sun. On a chair beside the bed sat a bottle, and +the room reeked with the smell of breath charged with alcohol. She +gently closed the door, and busied herself through the long evening +with reforms in the kitchen, and with little ministrations designed to +relieve the sufferings of her father. + +The sun sank behind the Rockies, and a darkness, soft and mystical and +silent, stole up the valley, hushing even the noiseless day. Presently +the glow of the rising moon burst in ruddy effulgence over the +foothills to the east, first with the effect of fire upon their crests, +and then as a great, slowly-whitening ball soaring high into the +fathomless heaven. The girl stood framed in the open window, and the +moonlight painted her face to the purest ivory, and toyed with the rich +brown fastness of her hair, and gleamed from a single ornament at her +throat. And she thought of the young horseman galloping to town; +wondered if he had yet set out on his homeward journey, and the eerie +depths of the valley communicated to her a fantastic admiration for his +skill and bravery. She was under the spell. She was in a new world, +where were manhood, and silence, and the realities of being; and +moonlight, and great gulfs of shadow between the hills, and large, +friendly stars, and soft breezes pushing this way and that without +definite direction, and strange, quiet noises from out of the depths, +and the incense of the evergreens, and a young horseman galloping into +the night. And conventions had been swept away, and it was correct to +live, and to live! + + + + +CHAPTER TWO + +The first flush of dawn was mellowing the eastern sky when the girl was +awakened from uneasy sleep by sounds in the yard in front of the ranch +house. She had spent most of the night by her father's side, and +although he had at last prevailed upon her to seek some rest for +herself, she had done so under protest and without undressing. Now, +after the first dazed moment of returning consciousness, she was on her +feet and through the door. + +The stars were still shining brightly through the cold air. In the +faint light she could distinguish a team and wagon, and men unhitching. +She approached, and, in a voice that sounded strangely distant in the +vastness of the calm night, called, "Is that you, Dave?" + +And in a moment she wondered how she had dared call him Dave. But she +soon had other cause for wonder, for the boy replied from near beside +her, in that tone of friendly confidence which springs so spontaneously +in the darkness, "Yes, Reenie, and the doctor, too. We'll have Mr. +Hardy fixed up in no time. How did he stand the night?" + +How dared he call her Reenie? A flush of resentment rose in her breast +only to be submerged in the sudden remembrance that she had first +called him Dave. That surely gave him the right to address her as he +had done. But with this thought came recognition of the curious fact +that Dave had not presumed upon her frankness; that it was not by her +word that he would attempt to justify his. Indeed, she was convinced +that he would have called her Reenie anyway,--just as she had called +him Dave, without premeditation or intention. Then she remembered she +was in the ranch country, in the foothills, where the conventions--the +conventions she hated--had not yet become rooted, and where the souls +of men and women stood bare in the clear light of frank acceptance of +the fact. It would be idle--dangerous--to trifle with this boy by any +attempt at concealment or deception. And what were conventions but a +recognized formula of concealment and deception? + +She could see his form now, as he led the horses toward the corral. +How straight he was, and how bravely his footsteps fell on the hard +earth! The poetry of his motion reached her through the darkness. She +heard the harness jingle as the horses rubbed between the posts of the +corral gate. + +"He's a wonderful boy," said the doctor, of whose presence she had been +unconscious. "Cat's eyes. Full gallop through the dark; side hills, +mountain streams, up and down; break-neck. Well, here we are." The +doctor breathed deeply, as though this last fact were one to occasion +some wonderment. "Your brother tells me you have an injured man here; +accident; stranger, I believe? Well, shall we go in?" + +Brother! But why should she explain? Dave hadn't bothered. Why +hadn't he? He had told about the stranger; why had he not told about +both strangers? Why had he ignored her altogether? This time came +another flush, born of that keen womanly intuition which understands. + +With a commonplace she led the doctor into the house and to the bedside +of her father. She was struck by the change in attitude of the +visiting physician when he learned that his patient was of his own +profession. It was like the meeting of brothers in a secret order. +There was an exchange of technical terms that might have served as +password or sign into some fine fraternity, and the setting of the limb +was accompanied by a running fire of professional comment as effective +upon the nerves of the sufferer as an opiate. + +When the operation was completed the girl turned her attention to the +kitchen, where she found Dave, sweating in vicarious suffering. He had +helped to draw the limb into place, and it had been his first close +contact with human pain. It was different from branding calves, and he +had slipped out of the room as soon as possible. The morning sun was +now pouring through the window, and the distraught look on the boy's +face touched her even more than the frankness of the words spoken in +the darkness. She suddenly remembered that he had been up all +night--for her. She would not deceive herself with the thought that it +was for her father's sake Dave had galloped to town, found a doctor, +secured a fresh team and driven back along the little-used foothill +trails. She recalled the doctor's terse description of that journey. +No doubt Dave would have done it all for her father, had her father +been there alone, but as things were she had a deep conviction that he +had done it for her. And it was with a greater effort than seemed +reasonable that she laid her fingers on his arm and said, "Thank you, +Dave." + +"What for?" he asked, and she could not doubt the genuineness of his +question. + +"Why, for bringing the doctor, and all that. Driving all night on +those awful roads. We fell off them in day time. I am sure I +can't--Father won't be able to--" + +"Oh, shucks," he interrupted, with a manner which, on the previous +afternoon, she would have called rudeness. "That's nothin'. But say, +I brought home some grub. The chuck here was pretty tame; guess you +found that out last night." He looked about the room, and she knew +that he was taking note of her house-cleaning, but he made no remark on +the subject. + +"Well, let's get breakfast," she said, after a moment's pause, and for +lack of other conversation. "You must be hungry." + +Dave's purchases had been liberal. They included fresh meat and +vegetables, canned goods, coffee, rice and raisins. He laid the last +three items on the table with a great dissembling of indifference, for +he was immensely proud of them. They were unwonted items on the Elden +bill of fare; he had bought them especially for her. From somewhere +the knowledge had been borne in upon him that city people frequently +drink coffee for breakfast, and the rice and raisins were an +inspiration quite his own. He would see what she could do with them. +But she busied herself at the breakfast without a thought of the +epoch-marking nature of these purchases. + +"Do you milk?" she asked, presently. + +"Milk what?" he demanded, pausing with stove-lid and lifter raised in +his hand, in the half-completed act of putting wood on the fire. + +"Dave!" she cried. "Put that lid down. Look at the smoke." A blue +cloud was curling under the rafters. "Yes," he said, with great +composure. "It always does that in this country." + +She shot a quick glance at him. Was he making fun of her? No; plainly +not; he was just making fun _with_ her; he had a vein of humor. And a +little before she had found his face drawn in sympathy for her father. +Perhaps for her. . . . He was not all on the surface. + +He completed his operation at the stove and returned the lid to its +place with no lack of deliberation. He was evidently waiting for her +to speak again, but she worked on in silence. + +"What did you say about milking?" he ventured at length. + +"I asked you if you milked," she said, with an attempt at curtness. +"And you answered, 'Milk what?' as though that were clever. And we +need milk for breakfast." + +"Well, I was serious enough," he said. "There isn't a cow within +twenty miles." + +"No cows? Why, I thought this was the ranching country?" + +"Sure thing. We sell beef and buy milk. Let me show you." + +He approached a packing-case on the wall, walking softly and extending +his hands as though to touch it gently, and murmuring, "So boss; so +boss," as he went. From the box he removed a tin of condensed milk, +which he set on the table. In his pocket he found a nail, and with a +hammer quickly made two holes in the tin. + +"Milkin' is finished," he announced. + +At this juncture the doctor, who had been resting in the room with his +patient, entered the kitchen. During the setting of the limb he had +gradually become aware of the position of Irene in the household, but +had that not been so, one glance at the boy and girl as they now stood +in the bright morning sunshine, he with his big, wiry frame, his brown +face, his dark eyes, his black hair; she, round and knit and smooth, +with the pink shining through her fair skin and the light of youth +dancing in her grey eyes and the light of day glancing on her brown +hair, must have told him they had sprung from widely separated stock. +For one perilous moment he was about to apologize for the mistake made +in the darkness, but some wise instinct closed his lips. But he +wondered why she had not corrected him. + +They were seated at breakfast when the senior Elden made his +appearance. He had slept off his debauch and was as sober as a man in +the throes of alcoholic appetite may be. He was only partially +dressed; his face had the peculiar bulginess of the hard drinker; his +eyes were watery and shifty, and several days' growth of beard, with +patchy grey and black spots, gave a stucco effect to his countenance. +His moustache drooped over a partly open mouth; the top of his large +head was bald, and the hair that hung about his ears was much darker +than his moustache. Seeing the strangers, he hesitated in his lurch +toward the water pail, steadied himself on wide-spread feet, very flat +on the floor, and waved his right hand slowly in the air. Whether this +was to be understood as a form of salutation or a gesture of defiance +was a matter of interpretation. + +"Vishitors," said the old man, at length. "Alwaysh welcome, m'sure. +'Sh scush me." He made his uncertain way to the water bench, took a +great drink, and set about washing his face and hands, while the +breakfast proceeded in silence. As his preparations neared completion +Irene set a place at the table. + +"Won't you sit down here, Mr. Elden?" she said. There had been no +introductions. Dave ate on in silence. + +"Thank you," said the old man, and there was something in his voice +which may have been emotion, or may have been the huskiness of the +heavy drinker's throat. The girl gave it the former explanation. +Perhaps it was his unintended tribute to that touch of womanly +attentiveness to which his old heart still beat response. As he took +the proffered chair she saw in this old man shreds of dignity which the +less refined eye of his son had not distinguished. To Dave, his father +was an affliction to be borne; an unfair load on a boy who had done +nothing to deserve this punishment. The miseries associated with his +parentage had gone far to make him sour and moody. Irene at first had +thought him rude and gloomy; flashes of humor had modified that +opinion, but she had not yet learned that his disposition was naturally +a buoyant one, weighed down by an environment which had made it soggy +and unresponsive. In years to come she was to know what unguessed +depths of character were to be revealed when that stoic nature was +cross-sectioned by the blade of a keen and defiant passion. This +morning she foresaw nothing of those future revelations, but in the old +man her instinct detected qualities which perhaps were awaiting only +some touch of sympathetic understanding to flash forth even yet like +that burst of sunset radiance which sometimes marks the close of a +leaden day. + +Mr. Elden promptly engaged the doctor in conversation, and in a few +moments had gleaned the main facts in connection with the accident and +the father and daughter which it had brought so involuntarily under his +roof. He was quite sober now, and his speech, although slovenly, was +not indelicate. He was still able to pay to woman that respect which +curbs the coarseness of a tongue for years subjected to little +discipline. + +After breakfast Irene attended to the wants of her father, and by this +time the visiting doctor was manifesting impatience to be away. Other +fees were calling him, and he assured Doctor Hardy, what the latter +quite well knew, that nothing more could be done for him at present. +He would come again at any time if summoned by the young man, or if his +professional duties should bring him into the neighborhood of the Elden +ranch. But Dave declared with prompt finality that the horses must +rest until after noon, and the doctor, willy-nilly, spent the morning +rambling in the foothills. Meanwhile the girl busied herself with work +about the house, in which she was effecting a rapid transformation. + +After the mid-day dinner Dave harnessed the team for the journey to +town, but before leaving inquired of Irene if there were any special +purchases, either personal or for the use of the house, which she would +recommend. With some diffidence she mentioned one that was uppermost +in her thoughts: soap, both laundry and toilet. Dr. Hardy had no +hesitation in calling for a box of his favorite cigars and some new +magazines, and took occasion to press into the boy's hand a bill out of +all proportion to the value of the supplies requested. There was an +argument in the yard, which the girl did not fully hear, between father +and son, but she gathered that the old man insisted on going to town, +and, failing that, that Dave should replenish his stock of whiskey, to +neither of which would the young man consent. It was evident that Dave +was the responsible person in the affairs of the Elden ranch. + +The day was introductory to others that were to follow. Dave returned +the next afternoon, riding his own horse, and heavily laden with +cigars, magazines, soap, and with a soft little package which proved to +be a sponge, which he had bought on his own initiative, and which he +tendered to Irene. She took it with slowly rising color, and with a +strange misgiving whether this was a bona fide contribution to the +toilet equipment of the house, or a quiet satire designed to offset the +effect of the appeal for soap. + +The following day it was decided that the automobile, which since the +accident had lain upturned by the roadway, should be brought to the +ranch buildings. Dave harnessed his team, and, instead of riding one +of the horses, walked behind, driving by the reins, and accompanied by +the girl, who had proclaimed her ability to steer the car. When they +reached the stream she hesitated, remembering her mishap, but the boy +slipped his unoccupied hand firmly under her arm, and they walked the +log in safety. It seemed to Irene that he continued his assistance +when it was no longer needed, but she accepted the courtesy without +remark. + +With the aid of the team and Dave's lariat the car was soon righted, +and was found to be none the worse for its deflection from the beaten +track. Irene presided at the steering wheel, watching the road with +great intentness, and turning the wheel too far on each occasion, which +gave to her course a somewhat wavy or undulating order, such as is +found in bread knives, or perhaps a better figure would be to compare +it to that rolling motion affected by fancy skaters. However, the mean +of her direction corresponded with the mean of the trail, and all went +merrily until the stream was approached. Here was a rather steep +descent, and the car showed a sudden purpose to engage the horses in a +contest of speed. The animals were suspicious enough at best of their +strange wagon, and had no thought of allowing it to assume the +initiative. Now, Irene knew perfectly well where the brake was, and +how to use it. In fact, there were two brakes, operated by different +members, and perhaps it was this duplication, intended to insure +safety, that was responsible for her undoing. Her first impulse was to +use the emergency, but to do so she must remove her hand from the +steering wheel, where it was very fully occupied. She did start to put +this impulse into effect, but an unusually violent deflection caused +her to reconsider that intention. She determined to use the foot +brake, a feat which was accomplished, under normal conditions, by +pressing one foot firmly against a contraption somewhere beneath the +steering post. She shot a quick glance downward, and to her alarm +discovered not one, but three contraptions, all apparently designed to +receive the pressure of a foot--if one could reach them--and as similar +as the steps of a stair. This involved a further hesitation, and in +automobiling he who hesitates invites a series of rapid experiences. +By this time all Irene's attention was required to bring the car to +some unanimity of direction. It was quite evident that it was running +away. It was quite evident that the horses were running away. The +situation assumed the qualities of a race, and the only matter of grave +doubt related to its termination. Dave, still holding fast to the +reins, ran beside the car with prodigious strides which enabled him to +bring but little restraint upon the team, and Irene held to the +steering wheel with a grip of desperation. + +Then they struck the water. It was not more than two feet deep, but +the extra resistance it caused, and the extra alarm it excited in the +horses, resulted in the breaking of the lariat. Dave still clung fast +to his team, and, now that the terrifying rival no longer pursued them, +they were soon brought to a standstill. Having pacified them he tied +them to a post and returned to the stream. The car sat in the middle; +the girl had put her feet on the seat beside her, and the swift water +flowed by a few inches below. She was laughing merrily when Dave, very +wet in parts, appeared on the bank. + +"Well, I'm not wet, except for a little splashing," she said, "and you +are. Does anything occur to you?" Without reply he walked stolidly +into the cold water, took her in his arms, and carried her ashore. The +lariat was soon repaired and the car hauled to the ranch buildings +without further mishap. + +Later in the day he said to her, "Can you ride?" + +"Some," she answered. "I have ridden city horses, but don't know about +these ranch animals. You know, a city horse has to do as he is told, +but a ranch horse seems to do pretty much as he likes. But I would +like to try--if I had a saddle." + +"I have an extra saddle," he said. "But it's a man's. . . . They all +ride that way here." + +She made no answer, and the subject was dropped for the time. But the +next morning she saw Dave ride away, leading a horse by his side. He +did not return until evening, but when he came the idle horse carried a +saddle. + +"It's a strad-legger," he said when he drew up beside Irene, "but it's +a girl's. I couldn't find anythin' else in the whole diggin's." + +"I'm sure it will do--splendidly--if I can just stick on," she replied. +But another problem was already in her mind. It apparently had not +occurred to Dave that women require special clothing for riding, +especially if it's a "strad-legger." She opened her lips to mention +this, then closed them again. He had been to enough trouble on her +account. He had already spent a whole day scouring the country for a +saddle. . . . She would manage some way. + +Late that night she was busy with scissors and needle. + + + + +CHAPTER THREE + +Dr. Hardy recovered from his injuries as rapidly as could be expected, +and, while he chafed somewhat over spending his holidays under such +circumstances, the time passed not unhappily. Had he sought the world +over for a haven from the intrusion of business or professional cares +he could have found it nowhere in greater perfection than in the +foothill country centering about the Elden ranch. Here was an Arcadia +where one might well return to the simple life; a little bay of still +water sheltered from the onrushing tide of affairs by the warm brown +prairies and the white-bosomed mountains towering through their +draperies of blue-purple mist. It was life as far removed from his +accustomed circles as if he had been suddenly spirited to a different +planet. It was life without the contact of life, without the crowd and +jostle and haste and gaiety and despair that are called life; but the +doctor wondered if, after all, it did not come nearer to filling the +measure of experience--which is life. + +A considerable acquaintanceship had sprung up between him and the +senior Elden. The rancher had come from the East forty years before, +but in turning over their memories the two men found many links of +association; third persons known to them both; places, even streets and +houses common to their feet in early manhood; events of local history +which each could recall, although from different angles. And Elden's +life in the West had been a treasury of experience, in which he now +dipped for the first time in years, regaling his guest with tales of +the open range long before barbed wire had stuck its poisoned fang into +the heart of the ranchman; tales of horse-stealing and cattle-rustling, +with glimpses of sudden justice unrecorded in the official documents of +the territory; of whiskey-running and excess and all those large +adventures that drink the red blood of the wilderness. In his grizzled +head and stooping frame he carried more experiences than would fill a +dozen well-rounded city lives, and he had the story-teller's art which +scorns to spoil dramatic effect by a too strict adherence to fact. But +over one phase of his life he kept the curtain resolutely down. No ray +of conversation would he admit into the more personal affairs of his +heart, or of the woman who had been his wife, and even when the talk +turned on the boy he quickly withdrew it to another topic, as though +the subject were dangerous or distasteful. But once, after a long +silence following such a diversion, had he betrayed himself into a +whispered remark, an outburst of feeling rather than a communication. +"I've been alone so much," he said. "It seems I have never been +anything but alone. And--sooner or later--it gets you--it gets you." + +"You have the boy," ventured the doctor. + +"No," he answered, almost fiercely. "That would be different, I could +stand it then. But I haven't got him, and I can't get him. He +despises me because--because I take too much at times." He paused as +though wondering whether to proceed with this unwonted confidence, but +the ache in his heart insisted on its right to human sympathy. "No, it +ain't that," he continued. "He despises me because he thinks I wasn't +fair to his mother. He can't understand. He doesn't know yet that +there's things--pulls and tugs of life, that lead a man as helpless as +a steer chokin' in his lasso. I was like that. I wanted to be good to +her, to be close to her. Then I took to booze, as natural as a steer +under the brandin' iron roars to drown his hurt. But the boy don't +understand." The old man got up and stood at the western window, +watching the gold of approaching sunset gather on the mountains. . . . +"He despises me." Then, after a long silence, "No matter. I despise +myself." + +The doctor approached and placed a hand on his shoulder. But Elden was +himself again. The curtains of his life, which he had drawn apart for +a moment, he whipped together again rudely, almost viciously, and +covered his confusion by plunging into a tale of how he had led a breed +suspected of cattle rustling on a little canter of ten miles with a +rope about his neck and the other end tied to the saddle. "He ran +well," said the old man, chuckling still at the reminiscence. "And it +was lucky he did. It was a strong rope." + +The morning after Dave had brought in the borrowed saddle Irene +appeared in a sort of bloomer suit, somewhat wonderfully contrived from +the spare skirt to which allusion has been made, and announced a +willingness to risk life and limb on any horse that Dave might select +for that purpose. He provided her with a dependable mount, and their +first journey, taken somewhat gingerly along the principal trail, was +accomplished without incident. It was the fore-runner of many others, +plunging deeper and deeper into the fastnesses of the foothills, and +even into the passes of the very mountains themselves. These long +rides through the almost untracked wilderness, frequently along paths +on which the element of danger was by no means a mere fancy, and into +regions where the girl's sense of distance and direction were totally +confused, afforded her many side-lights on the remarkable nature of her +escort. His patience was infinite, and, although there were no silk +trappings to his courtesy, it was a very genuine and manly deference he +paid her. She was quite sure that he would at any moment give his life +if needed to defend her from injury--and accept the transaction as a +matter of course. His physical endurance was inexhaustible, and his +knowledge of prairie and foothill seemed to her almost uncanny. When +she had been utterly lost for hours he would suddenly swing their +horses' heads about and guide them home with the accuracy of the wild +goose on its nights to the nesting grounds. He read every sign of +footprint, leaf, water, and sky with unfailing insight. He had no +knowledge of books, and she had at first thought him ignorant, but as +the days went by she had found in him a mine of wisdom which shamed her +ready-made education. + +[Illustration: These long rides afforded her many side-lights on the +remarkable nature of her escort.] + +After such a ride they one day dismounted in a grassy opening among the +trees that bordered a mountain canyon. The waters of ages had +chiselled a sharp passage through the rock, and the green stream now +swirled in its rapid course a hundred feet below. Fragments of rock, +loosened by the sun and wind and frost of centuries, had fallen from +time to time, leaving sheltered nooks and shelves in the walls of the +canyon. In one of these crevices they found a flat stone that gave +comfortable seating, and here they rested while the horses browsed +their afternoon meal on the grass above. Little irregular bits of +stone had broken off the parent rock, and for awhile they amused +themselves with tossing these into the water. But both were conscious +of a gradually increasing tension in the atmosphere. For days the boy +had been moody. It was evident he was harbouring something that was +calling through his nature for expression, and Irene knew that this +afternoon he would talk of more than trees and rocks and footprints of +the wild things of the forest. + +"Your father is gettin' along well," he said at length. + +"Yes," she answered. "He has had a good holiday, even with his broken +leg. He is looking ever so much better." + +"You will be goin' away before long," he continued. + +"Yes," she answered, soberly, and waited. + +"Things about here ain't goin' to be the same after you're gone," he +went on. He was avoiding her eyes and industriously throwing bits of +crumbled rock into the canyon. He wore no coat, and the neck of his +shirt was open, for the day was warm. Had he caught her side-long +glances even his slow, self-deprecating mind must have read their +admiration. But he kept his eyes fixed on the green water. + +"You see," he said, "before you came it was different. I didn't know +what I was missin', an' so it didn't matter. Not but what I was +dog-sick of it at times, but still I thought I was livin',--thought +this was life, and, of course, now I know it ain't. At least, it won't +be after you're gone." + +"That's strange," she said, not in direct answer to his remark, but as +a soliloquy on it as she turned it over in her mind. "This life, now, +seems empty to you. All my old life seems empty to me. This seems to +me the real life, out here in the foothills, with the trees, and the +mountains, and--and our horses, you know." + +She might have ended the sentence in a way that would have come much +closer to him, and been much truer, but conventionality had been bred +into her for generations and she did not find it possible yet freely to +speak the truth. Indeed, as she thought of her position here it seemed +to her she had become shamelessly unconventional. She thought of her +mother, careful, correct,--"Always be correct, my dear,"--and wondered +what she would say could she see her only child on these wild, +unchaperoned rides and in these strange confidences where she was a +girl and Dave was a boy and all the artificialities with which society +aims to protect itself had been stripped away. There was a dash of +adventure which added to the relish of the situation. + +"It's such a wonderful life," she continued. "One gets so strong and +happy in it." + +"You'd soon get sick of it," he said. "We don't see nothin'. We don't +learn nothin'. Reenie, I'm eighteen, an' I bet you could read an' +write better'n me when you was six." + +"Did you never go to school?" she asked, in genuine surprise. She knew +his speech was ungrammatical, but thought that due to careless training +rather than to no training at all. + +"Where'd I go to school?" he demanded bitterly. "There ain't a school +within forty miles. Guess I wouldn't have went if I could," he added +as an afterthought, wishing to be quite honest in the matter. "School +didn't seem to cut no figure--until jus' lately." + +"But you have learned--some?" she continued. + +"Some. When I was a little kid my father used to work with me at +times. He learned me to read a little, an' to write my name, an' a +little more. But things didn't go right between him an' mother, an' he +got to drinkin' more an' more, an' just makin' hell of it. We used to +have a mighty fine herd of steers here, but it's all shot to pieces. +We don't put up hardly no hay, an' in a bad winter they die like +rabbits. When we sell a bunch the old man'll stay in town for a month +or more, blowin' the coin and leavin' the debts go. But I've been +fixin' him this year or two. I sneak a couple of steers away now an' +then, an' with the money I keep our grocery bills paid up, an' have a +little to rattle in my jeans. My credit's good at any store in town," +and Irene thrilled to the note of pride in his voice as he said this. +The boy had real quality in him. "But I'm sick of it all," he +continued. "Sick of it, an' I wanna get out." + +"You think you are not educated," she answered, trying to meet his +outburst as tactfully as possible. "Perhaps you are not, the way we +think of it in the city. But I guess there's a good many things you +can't learn out of books, and I guess you could show the city boys a +good many things they don't know, and never will know." + +For the first time he looked her straight in the face. His dark eyes +met her grey ones, and demanded truth. "Irene," he said, "do you mean +that?" + +"Sure I do," she answered. "College courses, and all that kind of +thing; they're good stuff, all right, but they make some awful nice +boys--real live boys, you know--into some awful dead ones. Either they +get the highbrow, and become bores, or the swelled head, and become +cads. Not all, you know, but lots of them. And then when they get out +they have to start learning the real things of life--things that you +have been learning here for ever so long. My father says about the +best education is to learn to live within your income, pay your debts, +and give the other fellow a chance to do the same. They don't all +learn that in college. So when they get out they have to go and work +for somebody who has learned it, like you have. Then there's the +things you do, just like you were born to it, that they couldn't do to +save their lives. Why, I've seen you smash six bottles at a stretch, +you going full gallop, and whooping and shooting so we could hardly +tell which was which. And ride--you could make more money riding for +city people to look at than most of those learned fellows, with letters +after their names like the tail of a kite, will ever see. But I +wouldn't like you to make it that way. There's more useful things to +do." + +He was comforted by this speech, but he referred to his accomplishments +modestly. "Ridin' an' shootin' ain't nothin'," he said. + +"I'm not so sure," she answered. "Father says the day is coming when +our country will want men who can shoot and ride more than it will want +lawyers or professors." + +"Well, when it does, it can call on me," he said, and there was the +pride in his voice which comes to a boy who feels that in some way he +can take a man's place in the world. "Them is two things I sure can +do." + +Years later she was to think of her remark and his answer, consecrated +then in clean red blood. + +They talked of many things that afternoon, and when at last the +lengthening shadows warned them it was time to be on the way they rode +long distances in silence. Both felt a sense which neither ventured to +express, that they had travelled very close in the world of their hopes +and sorrows and desires. Perhaps, as they rode along the foothill +trail, they were still journeying together down the long, strange +trails of the future; dim, visionary, exquisite trails; rough, hard, +cruel trails hidden in the merciful mirage of their young hopefulness. + +The shadows had deepened into darkness, and the infinite silence of the +hills hung about them as they dropped from their saddles at the Elden +door. A light shone from within, and Dr. Hardy, who was now able to +move about with the aid of a home-made crutch, could be seen setting +the table, while Mr. Elden stirred a composition on the stove. They +chatted as they worked, and there was something of the joy of little +children in their companionship. The young folks watched for a moment +through the window, and in Dave's heart some long-forgotten emotion +moved momentarily at the sight of the good fellowship prevailing in the +old house. Irene, too, was thinking; glimpses of her own butlered +home, and then this background of primal simplicity, where the old +cow-man cooked the meals and the famous specialist set the plates on +the bare board table, and then back of it all her mother, sedate and +correct, and very much shocked over this mingling of the classes. But +the girl's reverie was cut short by a sudden affectionate licking of +her fingers, and glancing downward she found Brownie, adopted early in +her visit at the Eldens', expressing its fondness in the only fashion +at its command. + +The calf had been an incident in her ranch experience. It was a late +comer, quite unable to keep pace with the earlier fruits of the herd, +and had the additional misfortune to be born of an ambitious mother, +who had no thought of allowing her domestic duties to impair her social +relationships with the matrons and males of her immediate set. She had +no place for old-fashioned notions; she was determined to keep up with +the herd and the calf might fare as best it could. So they rambled +from day to day; she swaggering along with the set, but turning now and +then to send an impatient moo toward the small brown body stuck on four +long, ungainly legs,--legs which had an unfortunate habit of folding +up, after the fashion of a jack knife, upon unforeseen occasions, and +precipitating the owner in a huddled mass on the ground. At rare +times, when heaven must have stooped close about the herd, the mother +instinct would assert itself, and the cow would return to her +offspring, licking it lavishly and encouraging it with mooings of deep +affection, but such periods of bliss were of short duration. The lure +of "the life" was too great for her; she felt herself born for more +important roles than mere motherhood, and she would presently rush away +to her favourite circle, leaving her begotten to such fates as might +befall. + +It was on such an occasion, when left far behind, that one of the +ungainly legs found its way into a badger hole. The collapse was +harder and more complete than usual, and the little sufferer would have +died there had he not been found by Dave and Irene in the course of +their rides. Dave, after a moment's examination, drew his revolver, +but Irene pled for the life of the unfortunate. + +"Oh, don't kill it, Dave," she cried. "You couldn't kill it! Let's +get the wagon and take it home. It'll get all right, won't it?" + +"Never be worth a----," said Dave, checking his vocabulary in the nick +of time. "Once they begin to give trouble you might's well knock 'em +on the head." + +"But it's cruel," she protested. "Just to kill it because it's hurt." + +"I don't know about the cruel," he answered. "You see, they're all +raised, every one of 'em, to be killed, anyway. Jus' like people, I +guess. Sooner or later. But if your heart's set on this little +crittur, we'll save it's long as we can." + +So the calf was taken home and became Irene's special care. The mother +was captured and tied up in the corral, and the calf, although lame, +began to thrive and wax strong. It would gallop in its ungainly way +about the yard, in its exuberation of youthful innocence, while the +mother pined for the latest scandal from the great fields over the +hills. + +"Brownie, we'll call it," said Irene, "on account of its colour." + +"All right," said Dave, "on account of your sweater. That'll sort o' +show the connection." + +So this night she rubbed its nose, and scratched its forehead, and then +reproved its affection, which had a habit of running to extremes. And +the mother cow mooed from the corral, and Brownie forgot his +benefactress and ambled away at the call of the blood. + +"Well, you youngsters must have this country pretty well explored," +said Dr. Hardy, as they entered the house. "Where was it today: the +prairies, the foothills, or the real fellows behind?" + +"The canyon, up the river," said Irene, drawing off her sweater. +"What's the eats? Gee, I'm hungry. Getting pretty supple, Daddykins, +aren't you?" + +"Yes, an' I'm sorry for it, Miss," said the old rancher. "Not wishin' +him any harm, or you neither. We was jus' talkin' it over, an' your +father thinks he's spry enough for the road again. Ain't ever goin' to +be like it use to be after he's gone, an' you." + +So the afternoon's conversations in the canyon and the cabin had been +on the same theme, although prompted by very different emotions. Yet +the girl wondered whether the loneliness in the old man's heart, which +cried out to his own sex, might not bear some relationship to a +strange, new sense she herself was experiencing; a sense which reminded +her that she was incomplete--and alone. And it called across the +barrier of sex for completion. + +"We'll be sorry to go," said the doctor. "That's what I've been saying +all day, and thinking, too. If misfortunes can be lucky, ours was one +of that kind. I don't know when I've enjoyed a holiday so much. What +do you say, girl?" he asked, as he rested an arm on her round, firm +shoulder and looked with fatherly fondness into the fine brown of her +face. + +"I've never known anything like it," she answered. "It's wonderful. +It's life." Then with a sudden little scream she exclaimed, "Oh, +Daddy, why can't you sell your practice and buy a ranch? Wouldn't that +be wonderful?" + +"Your mother might not see it that way," he replied, and her eyes fell. +Yes, that was the obstacle. She would have to go back to the city, and +talk by rule, and dress by rule, and behave by rule, and be correct. +She wondered how often her father had turned from the path of the true +adventure because her mother "might not see it that way." + +"It's been a good time," the doctor continued, when they had commenced +supper, "but I've already overstayed my holiday. Well, I had good +excuse. I feel that I can travel now, and my leg will be pretty strong +by the time I am back East. If Dave will oblige us by going to town +to-morrow and bringing back someone who can drive a car we will be able +to start the following morning. I will just take the car to town and +either sell it there or ship it." + +The following morning found Dave early on the trail, leading a saddled +horse by his side. The hours were leaden for the girl all that day, +and looking into the future she saw the spectre of her life shadowed +down the years by an unutterable loneliness. How could she ever drop +it all--all this wild freedom, this boundless health, this great +outdoors, this life, life, how could she drop it all and go back into +the little circle where convention fenced out the tiniest alien +streamlet, although the circle itself might lie deep in mire? And how +would she give up this boy who had grown so imperceptibly but so +intimately into the very soul of her being; give him up with all his +strength, and virility, and--yes, and coarseness, if you will--but +sincerity too; an essential man, as God made him, in exchange for a +machine-made counterfeit with the stamp of Society? Deeply did she +ponder these questions, and as the day wore on she found herself +possessed of a steadily growing determination that she would not follow +the beaten trail, let the by-paths lead where they might. + +Darkness, save for a white moon, had settled over the foothills when +the boy returned with another young man. The stranger ate a ravenous +supper, but was not too occupied to assay conversation with Irene. +Indeed, from their meeting at the doorway his eyes scarcely left her. +He chose to call her cook. + +"Swell pancakes, cook," was his opening remark. "Can you find another +for yours truly?" + +She refilled his plate without answer. + +"Used to know a girl mighty like you," he went on. "Waitress in the +Royal Edward. Gee, but she was swell! A pippin! Class! Say, she had +'em all guessing. Had me guessing myself for awhile. But just for +awhile." He voiced these remarks with an air of intense self-approval +more offensive than the words. + +Irene felt the colour rise about her neck and cheeks and run like an +over-flowing stream into her ears and about her hair. It was evident +that, for a second time, Dave had chosen to say nothing to strangers +about her presence at the ranch. But that was not what brought the +colour. She was addressed as a menial, as a hired helper in the Elden +household! Her own honesty told her that even that was not what +brought the colour. It was not even the man's insolent familiarity; it +was his assumption that his familiarity would not be resented. Her +father and Mr. Elden were in Dave's room; Dave had stopped eating and +she saw the veins rising in his clenched fists. But the challenge was +to her, and she would accept it; she felt no need of his protection. + +"Fill your stomach," she said, passing more pancakes; "your head is +hopeless." + +He attempted a laugh, but the meal was finished in silence. The +stranger lit a cigarette, and Irene went to the door with Dave. An +over-lace of silver moonlight draped the familiar objects near at hand +and faded into the dark, vague lingerie of night where the spruce trees +cut their black wedge along the valley. + +"Come for a walk," he whispered. "The horses are tired, so let's walk. +. . . It's our last chance." + +She ran for her sweater and rejoined him in a moment. They walked in +silence down a path through the fragrant trees, but Dave turned from +time to time to catch a glimpse of her face, white and fine as ivory in +the soft light. He had much to say; he felt that the ages could not +utter all he had to say to-night, but he was tongue-tied under the +spell of her beauty. + +"You squelched him, all right," he broke out at length. + +"Just in time, too, I think," she replied. "I was watching your hands." + +He smiled a quiet but very confident smile. "Reenie," he said, "that +fellow makes me sick. All the way out he talked about girls. If it +hadn't been that I was makin' the trip for your father I'd 'a' licked +him on the road, sure. He's a city chap, an' wears a white collar, but +he ain't fit to speak your name. Another minute an' I'd 'a' had 'im by +the neck." He seized a spruce limb that stuck across their path. It +was the size of a stout stick but he snapped it with a turn of his +wrist. It was very tough; it oozed sticky stuff where he broke it. +"His neck," he said, between his teeth. "Jus' like that." + +They reached an open space. Something black--or was it red?--lay on +the ground. Dave bent over it a moment, then looked up to her white, +clear face, whiter and clearer than ever since witnessing the strength +of his hate. + +"It's Brownie," he said, as calmly as he could. "Half et up. Wolves, +I guess." + +He saw her eyes grow slowly larger in the moonlight. Without a word +she sank to her knees. He saw her fingers about her head, burrowing in +her hair. Then she looked up, over the black trees, to the sky with +its white moon and its few great stars. + +"The poor, poor thing," she breathed. "The poor, innocent thing. Why +did it have to die?" + +"It's always the innocent things 'at suffers," he answered. + +"Always the innocent things," she repeated mechanically. "Always--" + +She sprang to her feet and faced him. "Then what about the justice of +God?" she demanded. + +"I don' know nothin' about the justice of God," he answered, bitterly. +"All I know is the crittur 't can't run gets caught." + +There was a long pause. "It doesn't seem right," she said at length. + +"It ain't right," he agreed. "But I guess it's life. I see it here on +the prairies with every living thing. Everything is a victim, some way +or other. Even the wolves 'at tore this little beast 'll go down to +some rancher's rifle, maybe, although they were only doing what nature +said . . . I guess it's the same way in the cities; the innocent bein' +hunted, an' the innocenter they are the easier they're caught. An' +then the wolves beggin' off, an' sayin' it was only nature." + +The girl had no answer. No one had ever talked to her like this. What +did this country boy know? And yet it was plain he did know. He had +lived among the fundamentals. + +"I guess I was like that, some," he went on. "I've been caught. I +guess a baby ain't responsible for anything, is it? I didn't pick my +father or my mother, did I? But I got to bear it." + +There was something near a break in his voice on the last words. She +felt she must speak. + +"I think your father is a wonderful old man," she said, "and your +mother must have been wonderful, too. You should be proud of them +both." + +"Reenie, do you mean that?" he demanded. His eyes were looking +straight into hers. Once before he had faced her with that question, +and she had not forgotten. + +"Absolutely," she answered. "Absolutely, I mean it." + +"Then I'm goin' to say some more things to you," he went on, rapidly. +"Things 'at I didn't know whether to say or not, but now they've got to +be said, whatever happens. Reenie, I haven't ever been to school, or +learned lots of things I should 'a' learned, but I ain't a fool, +neither. I know 'at when you're home you live thousands of miles from +me, but I know 'at in your mind you live further away than that. I +know it's like all the prairies an' all the oceans were between us. +But I know, too, that people cross prairies an' oceans, an' I'm wantin' +to cross. I know it takes time, an' I'll be a slow traveller, but I'm +a mighty persistent crittur when I start out. I didn't learn to break +all those bottles in a day. Well, I can learn other things, too, an' I +will, if only it will take me across. I'm goin' to leave this old +ranch, someway, jus' as soon as it can be arranged. I'm goin' to town, +an' work. I'm strong; I can get pretty good wages. I've been thinkin' +it all over, and was askin' some questions in town to-day. I can work +days and go to school nights. An' I'll do it if--if it'll get me +across. You know what I mean. I ain't askin' no pledges, Reenie, but +what's the chance? I know I don't talk right, an' I don't eat +right--you tried not to notice, but you couldn't help--but Reenie, I +think right, an' I guess with a girl like you that counts more than +eatin' and talkin'." + +She had thought she could say yes or no to any question he could ask, +but as he poured forth these plain passionate words she found herself +enveloped in a flame that found no expression in speech. She had no +words. She was glad when he went on. + +"I know I'm only a boy, an' you're only a girl. That's why I don' ask +no pledge. I leave you free, only I want you to stay free until I have +my chance. Will you promise that?" + +She tried to pull herself together. "You know I've had a good time +with you, Dave," she said, "and I've gone with you everywhere, like I +would not have gone with any other boy I ever knew, and I've talked and +let you talk about things I never talked about before, and I believe +you're true and clean, and--and--" + +"Yes," he said. "What's your answer?" + +"I know you're true and clean," she repeated. "Come to me--like +that--when I'm a woman and you're a man, and then--then we'll know." + +He was tall and straight, and his shadow fell across her face, as +though even the moon must not see. "Reenie," he said, "kiss me." + +For one moment she thought of her mother. She knew she stood at the +parting of the ways; that all life for her was being moulded in that +moment. Then she put both her arms about his neck and drew his lips to +hers. + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + +Dave's opportunity came sooner than he expected. After the departure +of the Hardys things at the old ranch were as both father and son had +predicted, very different. They found themselves on a sort of good +behaviour; a behaviour which, unhappily excited in each other grave +suspicions as to purpose. Between these two men rude courtesies or +considerations of any kind had been so long forgotten that attempts to +reintroduce them resulted in a sort of estrangement more dangerous than +the old open hostility. The tension steadily increased, and both +looked forward to the moment when something must give way. + +For several weeks the old man remained entirely sober, but the call of +the appetite in him grew more and more insistent as the days went by, +and at last came the morning when Dave awoke to find him gone. He +needed no second guess; the craving had become irresistible and his +father had ridden to town for the means to satisfy it. The passing +days did not bring his return, but this occasioned no anxiety to Dave. +In the course of a carouse his father frequently remained away for +weeks at a stretch, and at such times it was Dave's custom to visit the +boys on a ranch a dozen miles over the foothills to the southward. +These boys had a sister, and what was more natural than that Dave +should drown his loneliness in such company? + +But this time he did not ride southward over the hills. He moped +around the ranch buildings, sat moodily by the little stream, casting +pebbles in the water, or rode over the old trails on which she had so +often been his companion. The season was bright with all the glory of +the foothill September; the silver dome of heaven, cloudless morning +and noon, ripened with the dying day into seas of gold on which floated +cloud-islands of purple and amethyst, and through the immeasurable +silence of the night moon and stars bathed the deep valleys in +celestial effulgence. But in the heart of the boy was neither sun, nor +moon, nor stars, but only the black gulfs of loneliness from which his +light had gone out. + +Then the old man's horse came home. Dave saw it coming up the trail, +not running wildly, but with nervous gallop and many sidelong turnings +of the head. As the boy watched he found a strange emptiness possess +him; his body seemed a phantom on which his head hung over-heavy. He +spoke to the horse, which pulled up, snorting, before him; noted the +wet neck and flanks, and at last the broken stirrup. Then, slowly and +methodically, and still with that strange sensation of emptiness, he +saddled his own horse and set out on the search. . . . + +After the last rites had been paid to the old rancher Dave set about at +once to wind up his affairs, and it was not until then that he +discovered how deeply his father had been involved. The selling of the +cattle and the various effects realized only enough to discharge the +liabilities, and when this had been done Dave found himself with a +considerable area of unmarketable land, a considerable bundle of paid +bills, and his horse, saddle and revolver. He rode his horse to town, +carrying a few articles of wear with him. It was only after a stiff +fight he could bring himself to part with his one companion. The last +miles into town were ridden very slowly, with the boy frequently +leaning forward and stroking the horse's neck and ears. + +"Tough doin's, ol' Slop-eye," he would say. "Tough doin's. But it's +got to be done. I can't keep you in town; 't ain't like out on the old +ranch. An' I got a bigger job now than ever you an' me stood in on, +an' we've stood in on some big ones, too, ain't we? But that's gone +an' done; that old life's all busted, all of a sudden, like a bottle. +Busted an' run out. I got a big job on now, an' you can't take no +part. You jus' got to get out. You're done, see?" He sold horse and +saddle for sixty dollars and took a room at a cheap hotel until he +should find work and still cheaper lodgings. + +In the evening he walked through the streets of the little cow-town. +It was not altogether new to him; he had frequently visited it for +business or pleasure, but he had never felt the sense of strangeness +which oppressed him this night. In the past he had always been in the +town as a visitor; his roots were still in the ranch; he could afford +to notice the ways of the town, and smile to himself a whimsical smile +and go on. But now he was throwing in his lot with the town; he was +going to be one of it, and it stretched no arms of welcome to him. It +snubbed him with its indifference. . . . He became aware that he was +very lonely. He became aware that the gathering twilight in the great +hills had never seemed so vague and empty as the dusk of this strange +town. He realized that he had but one friend in the world; but one, +and of her he knew not so much as her address. . . . He began to +wonder whether he really had a friend at all; whether the girl would +not discard him when he was of no further use just as he had discarded +his faithful old horse. Tears of loneliness and remorse gathered in +his eyes, and a mist not of the twilight blurred the street lamps now +glimmering from their poles. He felt that he had treated the horse +very shabbily indeed. He wanted old Slop-eye back again. He suddenly +wanted him with a terrific longing; wanted him more than anything else +in the world. For a moment he forgot the girl, and all his +homesickness centred about the beast which had been so long his +companion and servant and friend. + +"I'll buy him back in the mornin', I will, sure as hell," he said in a +sudden gust of emotion. "We got to stick together. I didn't play fair +with him, but I'll buy him back. Perhaps I can get a job for him, too, +pullin' a light wagon, or somethin'." + +The resolution to "play fair" with Slop-eye gradually restored his +cheerfulness, and he walked slowly back to the hotel, looking in at +many window displays as he went. Half shyly he paused before a window +of women's wear; fine, filmy things, soft and elusive, and, he +supposed, very expensive. He wondered if Reenie bought clothes like +that to wear in her city home. And then he began to look for a brown +sweater, and to move from window to window. And presently he found +himself at his hotel. + +The men's sitting room now presented a much more animated picture than +when he had registered earlier in the evening. It was filled with +ranchers, cowboys, and cattlemen of all degree; breeders, buyers, +traders, owners and wage-earners, with a sprinkling of townspeople and +others not directly engaged in some phase of the cattle business. The +room was strong with smoke and language and expectoration and +goodfellowship, to which the maudlin carousal of the line-up at the bar +furnished appropriate accompaniment. Through the smoke he could see +another room farther back, in which were a number of pool tables; loud +voices and loud laughter and occasional awe-inspiring rips of profanity +betokened deep interest in the game, and he allowed himself to drift in +that direction. Soon he was in a group watching a gaudily dressed +individual doing a sort of sleight-of-hand trick with three cards on a +table. + +"Smooth guy that," said some one at his side. The remark was evidently +intended for Dave, and he turned toward the speaker. He was a man +somewhat smaller than Dave; two or three years older; well dressed in +town clothes; with a rather puffy face and a gold filled tooth from +which a corner had been broken as though to accommodate the cigarette +which hung there. He blew a slow double stream of smoke from his +nostrils and repeated, "Smooth guy that." + +"Yes," said Dave. Then, as it was apparent the stranger was inclined +to be friendly, he continued, "What's the idea?" + +The stranger nudged him gently. "Come out of the bunch," he said, in a +low voice. When they had moved a little apart he went on, in a +confidential tone: "He has a little trick with three cards that brings +him in the easy coin. He's smooth as grease, but the thing's simple. +Oh, it's awful simple. It's out of date with the circuses in the +States--that was where I got wise to it--but it seems to get 'em here. +Now you watch him for a minute," and they watched through an opening in +the crowd about his table. The player held three cards; two red ones +and a black. He passed them about rapidly over the table, occasionally +turning his hand sideways so that the on-lookers could see the position +of the cards. Then he suddenly threw them, face down, on the table, +each card by itself. + +"The trick is to locate the black card," Dave's companion explained. +"It's easy enough if you just keep your eye on the card, but the +trouble with these rubes is they name the card and then start to get +out their money, and while they're fumbling for it he makes a change so +quick they never see it. There's just one way to beat him. Get up +close, but don't say you're going to play; just pretend you're getting +interested. Then when you're dead sure of a card, crack your fist down +on it. Glue yourself right to it, and get out your money with the +other hand. When he sees you do that he'll try to bluff you; say you +ain't in on it, but you just tell him that don't go, this is an open +game and he's got to come through, and the crowd'll back you up. I +stuck him one--a whole hundred first crack--and then he barred me. +Watch him." + +Dave watched. Saw the black card go down at one corner of the board; +saw a bystander fumbling for a five dollar bill; saw the bill laid on +the card; saw it turned up--and it was red. + +"That _is_ smooth," he said. "I'd 'a' sworn that was the black card." + +"So it was--when you saw it," his companion explained. "But you were +just like the sucker that played him. You couldn't help glancing at +the jay getting out his money, and it was in that instant the trick was +done. He's too quick for the eye, but that's how he does it." + +Dave became interested. He saw two or three others lose fives and +tens. Then his companion pinched his arm. "Watch that new guy," he +whispered. "Watch him. He's wise." + +A new player had approached. He stood near the table for some minutes, +apparently looking on casually; then his left fist came down on one of +the cards. "A hundred on this one," he said, and began thumbing out a +roll with his other hand. + +"You ain't playin'," said the dealer. "You ain't in on this." + +"Ain't I? What do you say, fellows?" turning to the crowd. "Am I in +or not?" + +"Sure you're in," they exclaimed. "Sure you're in," repeated a big +fellow, lounging forward. "If this guy ain't in we clean you out, see?" + +"It's on me," said the dealer, with an ugly smile. "Well, if I must +pay, I pay. Turn 'er up." + +It was black. The dealer paid out a hundred dollars to the new player, +who quickly disappeared in the crowd. + +Dave had made his decision. It was plain his companion's tip was +straight. There was just one way to beat this game, but it was simple +enough when you knew how. He sidled close to the table, making great +pretense of indifference, but watching the cards closely with his keen +black eyes. The dealer showed his hand, made a few quick passes, and +the black card flew out to the right. This was Dave's chance. He +pounced on it with his left hand, while his other plunged into his +pocket. + +"Sixty dollars on this one," he cried, and there was the triumphant +note in his voice of the man who knows he has beaten the other at his +own game. + +"You ain't playin'," said the dealer. "You ain't in on this." + +"That don't go," said Dave, very quietly. "You're playin' a public +game here, an' I choose to play with you, this once. Sixty dollars on +this card." He was fumbling his money on the table. + +"You ain't playin'," repeated the dealer. "You're a butt-in. You +ain't in this game at all." + +"Sure he's in," said the crowd. + +"Sure he's in," repeated the big fellow who had interfered before. +"He's a stranger here, but you play with him or you don't play no more +in this joint, see?" + +"That's hittin' me twice in the same spot, an' hittin' me hard," whined +the dealer, "but you got it on me. Turn 'er up." + +The card was red. + +Dave looked at it stupidly. It was a moment or two before he realized +that his money was gone. Then, regardless of those about, he rushed +through the crowd, flinging by-standers right and left, and plunged +into the night. + +He walked down a street until it lost itself on the prairie; then he +followed a prairie trail far into the country. The air was cold and a +few drops of rain were flying in it, but he was unconscious of the +weather. He was in a rage, through and through. More than once his +hand went to his revolver, and he half turned on his heel to retrace +his steps, but his better judgment led him on to fight it out with +himself. Slop-eye was now a dream, a memory, gone--gone. Everything +was gone; only his revolver and a few cents remained. He gripped the +revolver again. With that he was supreme. No man in all that town of +men, schooled in the ways of the West, was more than his equal while +that grip lay in his palm. At the point of that muzzle he could demand +his money back--and get it. + +Then he laughed. Hollow and empty it sounded in the night air, but it +was a laugh, and it saved his spirit. "Why, you fool," he chuckled. +"You came to town for to learn somethin', didn't you? Well, you're +learnin'. Sixty dollars a throw. Education comes high, don't it? But +you shouldn't kick. He didn't coax you in, an' gave you every chance +to back away. You butted in and got stung. Perhaps you've learned +somethin' worth sixty dollars." + +With these more philosophical thoughts he turned townward again, and as +he tramped along his light heartedness re-asserted itself. His sense +of fairness made him feel that he had no grievance against the card +sharper, and in his innocence of the ways of the game it never occurred +to him that the friendly stranger who had showed him how to play it, +and the big fellow who insisted on his being "in", and the other player +who had won a hundred dollars a few minutes before, were all partners +with the sharper and probably at this moment were dividing his sixty +dollars--the price of old Slop-eye--between them. + +Early next morning he was awake and astir. The recollection of his +loss sent a sudden pang through his morning spirits, but he tried to +close his mind to it. "No use worryin' over that," he said, jingling +the few coins that now represented his wealth. "That's over and gone. +I traded sixty dollars for my first lesson. Maybe it was a bad trade, +but anyway, I ain't goin' to squeal." He turned that thought over in +his mind. It suddenly occurred to him that it expressed a principle +which he might very well weave into his new life. "If I can jus' get +that idea, an' live up to it," he said, "never to squeal, no matter +what hits me, nor how, I guess it's worth sixty dollars." He whistled +as he finished dressing, ate his breakfast cheerfully, and set out in +search of employment. + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + +Almost the first person he met was the stranger who had schooled him in +the gambling game the night before. He greeted Dave cordially; his +voice had a soft, sedulous, almost feminine quality which Dave had not +noticed in their whispered conversation in the pool room. There was +something attractive about his personality; something which invited +friendship and even confidence, and yet beneath these emotions Dave +felt a sense of distrust, as though part of his nature rebelled against +the acquaintanceship. + +"That was the rottenest luck you had last night," the stranger was +saying. "I never saw the beat of it. I knew you were wrong the moment +you had your hand down, but I couldn't butt in then. I was hoping +you'd stay and raise him next time; you might have got your money back +that way." + +"Oh, I don't mind the money," said Dave, cheerfully. "I don't want it +back. In fact, I figure it was pretty well spent." + +"Lots more where it came from, eh?" laughed the other. "You're from +the ranches, I see, and I suppose the price of a steer or two doesn't +worry you a hair's worth." + +"_From_ is right," Dave replied. "I'm from them, an' I'm not goin' +back. As for money--well, I spent my last nickle for breakfast, so +I've got to line up a job before noon." + +The stranger extended his hand. "Shake," he said. "I like you. +You're no squealer, anyway. My name is Conward. Yours?" + +Dave told his name, and shook hands. Conward offered his cigarette +box, and the two smoked for a few moments in silence. + +"What kind of a job do you want?" Conward asked at length. + +"Any kind that pays a wage," said Dave. "If I don't like it I'll chuck +it as soon as I can afford t' be partic'lar, but just now I've got to +get a grub-stake." + +"I know the fellow that runs an employment agency down here," Conward +answered. "Let's go down. Perhaps I can put you in right." + +Conward spoke to the manager of the employment agency and introduced +Dave. + +"Nothing very choice on tap to-day," said the employment man. "You can +handle horses, I suppose?" + +"I guess I can," said Dave. "Some." + +"I can place you delivering coal. Thirty dollars a month, and you +board with the boss." + +"I'll take it," said Dave. + +The boss proved to be one Thomas Metford. He owned half a dozen teams +and was engaged in the cartage business, specializing on coal. He was +a man of big frame, big head, and a vocabulary appropriate to the +purposes to which he applied it. Among his other possessions were a +wife, numerous children, and a house and barn, in which he boarded his +beasts of burden, including in the term his horses, his men, and his +wife, in the order of their valuation. The children were a by-product, +valueless until such time as they also would be able to work. + +Dave's duties were simple enough. He had to drive a wagon to a coal +yard, where a very superior young man, with a collar, would express +surprise that he had been so long gone, and tell him to back in under +chute number so-and-so. It appeared to be always a matter of great +distress to this young man that Dave did not know which chute to back +under until he was told. Having backed into position, a door was +opened. There was a fiction that the coal in the bin should then run +into the wagon box, but, as Dave at once discovered, this was merely a +fiction. Aside from a few accommodating lumps near the door the coal +had to be shovelled. When the box was judged to be full the wagon was +driven on to the scales. If the load were too heavy some of it had to +be thrown off, while the young man with the collar passed remarks +appropriate to the occasion. If the load were too light less distress +was experienced. Then Dave had to drive to an address that was given +him, shovel the coal down a chute located in the most inaccessible +position the premises afforded, and return to the coal yard, where the +young man with the collar would facetiously inquire whether Mrs. Blank +had invited him in to afternoon tea, or if he had been waiting for a +change in the weather. + +Conditions in the boarding-house had the value of distracting Dave's +attention from the unpleasantness of his work. Mrs. Metford, +handicapped by her numerous offspring, embittered by the regular +recurrence of her contributions to the State, and disheartened by +drudgery and overwork, had long ago ceased to place any store on +personal appearance or even cleanliness. As Dave watched her slovenly +shuffle to and from the kitchen, preceded and pursued by young Metfords +in all degrees of childish innocence, his mind flew back to dim +recollections of his own mother, and the quiet, noiseless order of +their home. Even in the latter days, when he and his father had been +anything but model housekeepers, they had never known such squalor as +this. + +Metford's attitude toward his wife fluctuated from course humour to +brutality, but there was left in the woman no spark of spirit to +resist. With neither tongue nor eye did she make any response, and her +shufflings back and forth were neither hastened nor delayed by the +pleasure of her lord. Her bearing was that of one who has suffered +until the senses are numb, who has drunk the last dregs of bitterness, +for whom no possible change of condition can be worse. Her +indifference was tragic. + +The sleeping accommodations had the virtue of simplicity. The Metford +tribe was housed in a lean-to which supported one wall of the kitchen, +and the eight boarders slept upstairs over the main part of the house. +The room was not large, but it had four corners, and in each corner +stood a cheap iron bed with baggy springs and musty mattress. The +ceiling, none too high at any part, sloped at the walls almost to the +edges of the beds. One table and wash basin had to serve for the eight +lodgers; those who were impatient for their turn might omit their +ablutions altogether or perform them in the horse-trough at the barn. + +All Metford's employees, with the exception of Dave, were foreigners, +more or less inconversant with the English language. Somewhat to his +surprise, they maintained an attitude of superiority toward him, +carrying on their conversations in a strange tongue, and allowing him +little part in their common life. Dave's spirit, which had always been +accustomed to receive and be received on a basis of absolute equality, +rebelled violently against the intangible wall of exclusion which his +fellow workers built about themselves, and as they had shown no desire +for his company, he retaliated by showing still less for theirs, with +the result that he found himself very much alone and apart from the +life of his new surroundings. + +His work and supper were over by seven o'clock each evening, and now +was the opportunity for him to begin the schooling for which he had +left the ranch. But he developed a sudden disinclination to make the +start; he was tired in the evening, and he found it much more to his +liking to stroll down town, smoke cigarettes on the street corners, or +engage in an occasional game of pool. In this way the weeks went by, +and when his month with Metford was up he had neglected to find another +position, so he continued where he was. He was being gradually and +unconsciously submerged in an inertia which, however much it might hate +its present surroundings, had not the spirit to seek a more favourable +environment. + +So the fall and winter drifted along; Dave had made few acquaintances +and no friends, if we except Conward, whom he frequently met in the +pool rooms, and for whom he had developed a sort of attachment. His +first underlying sense of distrust had been lulled by closer +acquaintanceship; Conward's mild manner and quiet, seductive voice +invited friendship, and it became a customary thing for the two to play +for small stakes, which Dave won as often as he lost. + +One Saturday evening as Dave was on the way to their accustomed resort +he fell in with Conward on the street. "Hello, old man," said Conward, +cheerily, "I was just looking for you. Got two tickets for the show +to-night. Some swell dames in the chorus. Come along. There'll be +doings." + +There were two theatres in the town, one of which played to the better +class residents. In it anything of a risque nature had to be presented +with certain trimmings which allowed it to be classified as "art," but +in the other house no such restrictions existed. It was to the latter +that Conward led. Dave had been there before, in the cheap upper +gallery, but Conward's tickets admitted to the best seats in the house. +Dave had adopted town ways to the point where he changed his clothes +and put on a white collar Saturday evenings, and he found himself amid +the gay rustle and perfumes of the orchestra floor with a very pleasant +sense of being somebody among other somebodies. The orchestra played a +swinging air, to which his foot kept tap, and presently the curtain +went up and the show was on with a rush of girls and colour. + +It was an entirely new experience. From the upper gallery the actors +and actresses always seemed more or less impersonal and abstract, but +here they were living, palpitating human beings, almost within hand +reach, certainly within eye reach, as Dave presently discovered. There +was a trooping of girls about the stage, with singing and rippling +laughter and sweet, clear voices; then a sudden change of formation +flung a line of girls right across behind the footlights, where they +tripped merrily through motions of mingled grace and acrobatics. Dave +found himself regarding the young woman immediately before him; all in +white she was, with some scintillating material that sparkled in the +glare of the spot-light; then suddenly she was in orange, and pink, and +purple, and mauve, and back again in white. And although she performed +the various steps with smiling abandon, there was in her dress and +manner a modesty which fascinated the boy with a subtlety which a more +reckless appearance would have at once defeated. + +And then Dave looked in her face. It was a pretty face, +notwithstanding its grease-paint, and it smiled right into his eyes. +His heart thumped between his shoulders as though it would drive all +the air from his lungs. She smiled at him--for him! Now they were +away again; there were gyrations about the stage, he almost lost her in +the maze; a young man in fine clothes rushed in, and was apparently +being mobbed by the girls, and said some lines in a rapid voice which +Dave's ear had not been trained to catch; and then he danced about with +one of them--with the very one--with his one! My, how nimble she was! +He wondered if she knew the young man very well. They seemed very +friendly. But he supposed she had to do that anyway; it was part of +her job; it was all in the play. Certainly the young man was very +clever, but he didn't like his looks. Certainly he could dance very +well. "I could make him dance different to the tune of a six-shooter," +Dave said to himself, and then flushed a little. That was silly. The +young man was paid to do this, too. Still it looked like a very good +job. It looked like a very much better job than shovelling coal for +Metford. + +Then there was a sudden break-away in the dance, and the girl +disappeared behind a forest, and the mobbing of the young man +recommenced. Dave supposed she had gone to rest; dancing like that +must be hard on the wind. He found little to interest him now in what +was going on on the stage. It seemed rather foolish. They were just +capering around and being foolish. They were a lot of second-raters. +And the young man--it was plain he didn't care a whit for them; he was +just doing it because he had to. There was a vacant seat in front. He +wished the girl behind the forest would come down and rest there. Then +she could see the show herself. Then she could see-- + +But there was a whirr from the forest, and the girl re-appeared, this +time all in red, but not nearly so much in red as she had previously +been in white. My, what a quick change she had made! And how her +skirt stood out like a rim when she whirled herself! And the young man +left all the rest and went to dance with her again. Dave was not +altogether pleased with that turn of events. But presently the dance +broke up, and they were flung again in line across the stage. And +there she was, all in red--no, not all in red, but certainly not in any +other colour--right before him. And then she looked down and smiled +again at him. And he smiled back. And then he looked at Conward and +saw him smiling, too. And then he felt a very distressing uncertainty, +which brought the colour slowly to his face. He resolved to say +nothing, but watch. And his observations convinced him that the smiles +had been for Conward, not for him. And then he lost interest in the +play. + +They hustled into their overcoats to the playing of the National +Anthem. "Hurry," said Conward, "let's get out quick. Ain't she some +dame? There--through the side exit--the stage door is that way. She +promised to have her chum with her--they'll be waiting if we don't +hurry." + +Conward steered him to the stage entrance, where a little group was +already congregated. In a moment the girl appeared, handsomely dressed +in furs. Dave would not have known her, but Conward recognized her at +once, and stepped forward. With her was another girl, also from the +chorus, but Dave could not recall her part. He was suddenly aware of +being introduced. + +"This is my friend Belton," Conward was saying. Dave was about to +correct him when Conward managed to whisper, "Whist! Your stage name. +Mine's Elward. Don't forget." + +Conward took the first girl by the arm, and Dave found himself +following rapidly with the other. They cut through certain side +streets, up a stairway, and into a dark hall. Conward was rattling +keys and swearing amiably in his soft voice. Presently a door opened; +Conward pressed a button, and they found themselves in a small but +comfortably furnished room--evidently bachelor apartments. + +The girls threw off their wraps and sauntered about the place, +commenting freely on the furnishings and decorations, while Conward +started a gas grate and put some water to boil. + +"Sorry I've nothing for you to eat," he said, "but I've some good +medicine for the thirst." + +"Eating's poor business when there's a thirst to be quenched," said one +of the girls, with a yawn. "And believe me, I've a long one." + +Conward pulled a table into the centre of the room, set chairs about, +and produced glasses and a bottle. Dave experienced a sudden feeling +as of a poor swimmer beyond his depth. He had never drunk, not even +beer, not so much from principles of abstinence as from disgust over +his father's drunkenness and enmity towards the means of it. . . . + +The glasses were filled and raised. "Ho!" said Conward. + +"Here's looking!" said one of the girls. Dave still hesitated, but the +other girl clinked her glass against his. "Here's looking at you," she +said, and she appeared to lay special emphasis on the last two words. +Certainly her eyes were on Dave's as she raised her glass to her lips. +And under the spell of those eyes he raised his glass and drained it. + +Other glasses were filled and drained. The three were chattering away, +but Dave was but vaguely conscious of their talk, and could weave no +connected meaning into it. His head was buzzing with a pleasant dreamy +sensation. A very grateful warmth surrounded him, and with it came a +disposition to go to sleep. He probably would have gone to sleep had +his eye not fallen on a picture on the wall, It was a picture of a girl +pointing her finger at him. He suspected that she was pointing it at +him, and as he looked more closely he became very sure of it. . . No +girl could point her finger at him. He arose and made a lunge across +the room. He missed her, and with difficulty retraced his steps to the +table to make a fresh start. + +"She's makin' fun of me," he said, "an' I don't stand for that. Nobody +can do that with me. Nobody--see? I don't 'low it." + +"Oh, you don't," laughed one of the girls, running into a corner and +pointing a finger at him. "You don't?" + +He turned his attention to her, steadying himself very carefully before +he attempted an advance. Then, with wide-stretched arms, he bore down +cautiously upon her. When he had her almost within reach she darted +along the edge of the room. He attempted a sudden change in direction, +which ended disastrously, and he found himself very much sprawled out +upon the floor. He was aware of laughter, but what cared he? He was +disposed to sleep. What better place to sleep than this? What better +time to sleep than this? In a moment he was lost to all consciousness. +. . . + +It was later in the night when he felt himself being dragged into a +sitting posture. He remonstrated in a mumbling voice. "'S too early," +he said. "Altogether too early. Early. Whew! Watch 'er spin. Jus' +his job. Paid for it, ain't he?" + +"Well, I ain't paid for this," said Conward, rather roughly, "and you +got to pull yourself together. Here, take a little of this; it'll put +some gimp into you." He pressed a glass to his lips, and Dave +swallowed. + +"Where am I?" he said, blinking at the light. + +He rose uncertainly to his feet and stared about the room in returning +consciousness. + +"Where's the girls?" he asked. + +"Gone," said Conward, sulkily. "Couldn't expect 'em to stick around +all night to say good bye, could you, and you sleeping off your drunk?" + +Dave raised his hand to his head. A sense of disgrace was already upon +him. Then he suddenly turned in anger on Conward. + +"You put this up on me," he cried. "You made a fool of me. I've a +mind to bash your skull in for you." + +"Don't be silly," Conward retorted. "I didn't enjoy it any more than +you did--introducing you as my friend, and then have you go out like +that. Why didn't you tip me? I didn't know it would put you to sleep." + +"Neither did I," said Dave. + +"Well, the next thing is to get you home. Can you walk?" + +"Sure." Dave started for the door, but his course suddenly veered, and +he found himself leaning over a chair. Conward helped him into his +overcoat, and half led, half shoved him to his boarding house. + + + + +CHAPTER SIX + +Elden awoke Sunday morning with a feeling that his head had been +boiled. Also he had a prodigious thirst, which he slacked +[Transcriber's note: slaked?] at the water pitcher. It was the +practice of Metford's gang to select one of their number to care for +all the horses on Sundays, while the others enjoyed the luxury of their +one day of leisure. In consequence of this custom the room was still +full of snoring sleepers, and the air was very close and foul. + +Dave sat down by the little table that fronted the open window and +rested his head on his hands. It was early spring; the snow was gone; +dazzling sunshine bathed the prairies in the distance, and near at hand +were the twitter of birds and the ripple of water. It was a day to be +alive and about. + +But the young man's thoughts were not of the sunshine, nor the fields, +nor the water. He was recalling, with considerable effort, the events +of the previous night; piecing them together in impossible ways; +re-assorting them until they offered some sequence. The anger he had +felt toward Conward had subsided, but the sting of shame rankled in his +heart. He had no doubt that he had furnished the occasion for much +merriment upon the part of the young women, in which, quite probably, +Conward had joined. + +"Fool," he said to himself. And because he could think of no more +specific expression to suit his feelings, and because expression of any +kind brought a sort of relief, he kept on repeating the word, "Fool, +fool, fool!" And as his self-condemnation gradually won him back to a +sense of perspective he became aware of the danger of his position. He +went over the events of the recent months, and tried to be rational. +He had left his ranch home to better himself, to learn things, to rise +to be somebody. He had worked harder than ever before, at more +disagreeable employment; he had lived in conditions that were almost +nauseating, and what had he learned? That you can't beat a card man at +his own game, price sixty dollars, and that the gallery seats are +cheaper, and sometimes safer, than the orchestra. + +Then all of a sudden he thought of Reenie. He had not thought of her +much of late; he had been so busy in the days, and so tired at nights, +that he had not thought of her much. True, she was always in the back +of his mind; in his subconscious mind, perhaps, but he seemed to have +put her away, like his skill with revolver and lasso. Now she burst +upon him again with all that beauty and charm which had so magnetised +him in those glad, golden days, and the frank cleanness of her girlhood +made him disgusted and ashamed. It was to fit himself for her that he +had come to town, and what sort of mess was he making of it? He was +going down instead of up. He had squandered his little money, and now +he was squandering his life. He had been drunk. . . + +Dave's nature was one in which emotions were accelerated with their own +intensity. When he was miserable his misery left no place in his soul +for any ray of sunshine. It fed on itself, and grew to amazing +proportions. It spread out from its original cause and enveloped his +whole life. It tinctured all his relationships, past, present and +future. When a cloud of gloom settled upon him he felt that it would +never lift, but became heavier and heavier until he was crushed under +its weight. And the sudden manner in which Reenie had now invaded his +consciousness intensified the blackness in which he was submerged, as +lightning darkens the storm. He saw her on that last night, with the +moonlight wooing her white face, until his own body had eclipsed it in +a warmer passion, and he heard her words, "I know you are true and +clean." + +True and clean. "Yes, thank God, I am still that!" he cried, springing +suddenly to his feet and commencing to dress. "I've been spattered, +but nothing that won't wash off. Perhaps," and he stopped as the great +thought struck him, "perhaps it was the luckiest thing in the world +that the booze did put me out last night. . . It'll wash off." + +There was considerable comfort in this thought. He had wasted some +precious months, but he had not gone too far, and there was still time +to turn back. But he must begin work at once on the serious business +of life. With this resolve his spirits returned with a rush, and he +found himself whistling as he completed his toilet. There was no +breakfast for the late sleepers Sunday mornings, and he went at once +into the warm air outside. The sunshine fondled his body, his limbs, +his face; the spring ozone was in his lungs; it was good to be alive. +Alive--for a purpose. Well, he would start at once; how could he begin +a life of purpose to-day? He was quite set on the necessity of doing +something, but quite at sea as to what that something should be. It +occurred to him for the first time that society had been much more +generous in supplying facilities for a boy to go down hill than to go +up. + +He became aware of a bell ringing. At first the sound had fallen only +on his subconsciousness, but gradually he became aware of it, as one +being slowly recalled from sleep. Then he remembered that it was +Sunday, and that was a church bell. He had often heard them on +Sundays. He was about to dismiss the matter when a strange impulse +came into his mind. Why not go to church? He had never been in +church, and he felt that the surroundings of the pool hall would be +much more congenial. He had little stomach for church. What if the +rest of the gang should learn he had been at church? + +"I believe you're afraid to go," he said to himself. That settled it. +In a few minutes he was at the church door, where an oldish man, after +surveying him somewhat dubiously, gave him a formal handshake and +passed him into the hands of an usher. The usher led him down an aisle +and crowded him into a small pew with several others. There were many +unoccupied pews, so Dave concluded it must be a church policy to fill +them full as far as they went. He also observed that the building was +filling up from the rear, notwithstanding the efforts of the ushers to +cajole the people farther down the aisles. Dave reflected that the +custom here was quite different from the theatre, especially the "rush" +gallery, where every one scrambled for the front seats. + +He was very conscious of being observed, and there was an atmosphere of +formality and, as it seemed to him, of strained goodness that made him +uncomfortable. But presently the organ commenced and diverted his +interest from himself. It was very wonderful. His position commanded +a view of the organist, and Dave marvelled at the manner in which that +gentleman's feet hopped about, and how his hands flourished up and +down, and occasionally jumped from the keyboard altogether to jerk out +a piece of the machine. + +Then the choir filed in. They were all dressed alike, and the men had +on a kind of gown. Dave thought that was very silly. By some mental +freak he found himself picturing a man with a gown roping a steer, and +it was only by a sudden tightening of his jaws that he prevented an +explosion of amusement. He was still feeling very happy over this when +a tall man entered from a side door and ascended the steps to the +pulpit. He moved very solemnly, and, when he sat down, rested his head +on his hand for a minute. Then he looked over the audience, and Dave +thought that his expression was one of approval. Then he looked at the +ceiling. + +"He feels safe in his seat," thought Dave. "No buckin' in this bunch. +Well--" + +The organ had broken forth in a great burst of sound and every one was +standing up. Dave did so too, belatedly. Then everybody sang. They +seemed to know just what to sing. It was all new to Dave, but it +sounded all right. It made him feel just like the sunshine did after +the stuffy room. Then they all sat down. Dave was becoming more +alert, and was not caught napping in this movement. + +There was a short prayer, which Dave did not understand, and more +singing by everybody, and then the ushers came around for the +collection. Dave did not know how much to put on the plate, but he +supposed a good seat like this in the theatre would cost a dollar, so +he put on that amount. He noticed that his neighbour on one side put +on a nickel, and on the other side nothing at all. He began to think +he must have made a mistake. All this time the organ was playing +boisterously, but suddenly it dropped to a low, meditative theme, and +Dave began to fear it would stop altogether. But no; a young woman was +standing up in the choir; she was pretty, with quite a different air +and a finer comeliness than that of the theatre girls of the night +before. In some vague way she seemed reminiscent of Reenie Hardy. +Dave's introspection was not deep enough to know that any fine girl +would remind him of Reenie Hardy. + +Then she began to sing, and he felt again that the sunshine was playing +about him, but this time he heard the birds, too, and the ripple of the +distant water, and the stir of the spruce trees, and he could see the +lattice of sunlight through their dark leaves playing on the brown +grass, and there was a smell of distant wood smoke, and the glow of +dying coals. . . He was swaying gently in his seat, held in the thrall +of her voice, and suddenly he was glad he had put a dollar on the +plate. He could not follow all the words, but it was something about a +land where the sun would never go down. Well--no doubt the preacher +would tell them more about it. + +Then there was a long prayer by the preacher. He began by addressing +the Deity as all mighty and all knowing, and then spent many minutes in +drawing His attention to details which had evidently escaped His +notice, and in offering suggestions for the better government of the +universe. He dwelt on the humility and penitence of the congregation, +including himself, and at this point Dave's unorthodox ear began to +detect a false note. He looked about from preacher to congregation, +and saw no evidence of penitence or humility. "If God is all-knowin'," +said Dave to himself, "that preacher is goin' to get in wrong. Why, he +couldn't put over that humility bunk on me." + +At length it seemed that the sermon was really going to commence, but a +well dressed man came down the aisle and read a long financial +statement. Dave gathered from it that the Lord was pretty hard pressed +for ready cash. "No wonder," thought he, "if they all give nickels and +nothin's. Pretty well dressed bunch, too." + +Finally the preacher took the meeting in hand again, and announced his +text, but Dave soon forgot it in trying to follow the sermon. It was +an orthodox exposition of the doctrine of the atonement. Dave would +not have known it by that name, and there were many expressions which +he could not understand, but out of a maze of phrases he found himself +being slowly shocked into an attitude of uncompromising hostility. +There was no doubt about it; the preacher was declaring that an +innocent One had been murdered that the guilty might go free. This was +bad enough, but when the speaker went on to say that this was God's +plan; that there had to be a sacrifice, and that no other sacrifice was +sufficient to appease the wrath of Jehovah directed toward those whom +He had created, Dave found himself boiling with indignation. If this +was Christianity he would have none of it. His instruction in religion +had been of the most meagre nature, but he had imbibed some conception +of a Father who was love, and this doctrine of the sacrifice of the +innocent crashed through all his slender framework of belief. Had he +been told of a love which remained steadfast to its ideals even at the +cost of Calvary his manliness would have responded as to the touch of a +kindred spirit, but the attempt to fit that willing sacrifice into a +dogmatic creed left him adrift and rudderless. Suddenly from somewhere +in his memory came the words, "Then what becomes of the justice of +God?" It was Reenie Hardy who had asked that question. And he +recalled his answer, "I don't know nothin' about the justice of God. +All I know is the crittur 'at can't run gets caught." Was he then in +sympathy with this doctrine of cruelty, without knowing it? No. No! +Reenie Hardy had believed in justice, and he would believe in the same. +He rose from his seat and walked down the aisle and out of the +building, oblivious to the eyes that followed him. + +His feet led him to the river, running brown with the mud of spring. +He sat on the gravel, in the warm sunshine, and tossed pebbles into the +swift-flowing water. . . He had determined on a new road, but how was +he to find the road? Environment had never been kind to him, and he +was just beginning to realize its power in shaping his destinies. He +was dissatisfied, but he did not know where to find satisfaction; he +was bewildered, and nowhere was a clear path before him. He was +lonely. He knew a room where a little game would be in progress; he +arose, brushed the gravel-dust from his Sunday clothes, and wended his +way down town. + +A crowd was entering the theatre which he had attended the night +before. He looked at it wonderingly, as by statute the theatres were +closed on Sundays. Still, it was evident something was going on, and +he went in with the others. No tickets were required, and an usher +showed him to a good seat. + +It was not long before Dave realized that he was in a Socialist +meeting. He knew rather less of Socialism than he did of Christianity, +but the atmosphere of the place appealed to him. They were mostly men +in working clothes, with tobacco or beer on their breaths, and in their +loud whisperings he caught familiar profanities which made him feel at +home. When the speaker said something to their liking, they applauded +him; when he crossed them they denounced him openly. Interruptions +were frequent, and sometimes violent, but Dave admired the spirit of +fair play which gave every man a chance to speak his mind. Through it +all he gathered that there were two great forces in the world; Capital +and Labour, and that Capital was a selfish monster with a strangle-hold +on Labour and choking him to death. No, not quite to death, either, +for Capital needed Labour, and therefore only choked him until he was +half dead. Also, there were two classes of people in the world; the +Masters and the Slaves. Dave was a Slave. He had never known it +before, but the speaker made it quite apparent. + +"But I'm not a slave," said Dave, suddenly springing to his feet. "I +can quit my job to-morrow, and tell my boss to go to hell." + +There were boos and cat-calls, but at last the man on the platform made +himself heard. + +"And what will you do, my friend, after you have quit your job?" he +asked, quite courteously. + +"Get another one," said Dave, without scenting the trap. "There's lots +of jobs." + +"That is, you would get another master," said the Socialist. "You +would still have a master. And as long as you have a master, you are a +slave." And Dave sat down, confused and wondering. + +After the main address there was a sort of free-for-all. Half a dozen +sprang to their feet, each seeking to out-talk his neighbour, and it +was with difficulty the chairman obtained order and established a +sequence of events. An old man in the gallery read loudly from Victor +Hugo while a speaker in the orchestra declaimed on Single Tax. Finally +the old man was silenced, and Dave began to learn that all the economic +diseases to which society is heir might be healed by a potion +compounded by Henry George. Another in the audience started to speak +of the failure of the established system of marriage, embellishing his +argument with more than one local incident of a salacious nature, but +he was at last required to give place to a woman who had a more +personal grievance to present. + +"You talk about your masters and your slaves, and your taxes and your +marriages," she cried in a shrill voice that penetrated every corner of +the building. "I can tell you something about masters and slaves. I'm +hearing everywhere that what this country wants is population; that is +the talk of the politician, and the learned men, that are supposed to +know. Now, what is the country doing for those that bring the +population--not from the slums of Europe, that is not what I'm +asking--but for those that bring the native-born population--the only +population that doesn't have to be naturalized? I'm the mother of six, +and what has the country done for me, but leave me at the mercy of +those who charge more for an hour's attendance than my old man can save +from a month's drudgery? And then, with my health broken down--in the +service of the State--I have to go to the hospital, and they tell me I +must have an operation, and I wake up with a horrid pain and a bill for +a hundred and fifty dollars. All done in an hour, or less, and that's +the bill, or part of it, for the hospital dues and the extras and +etceteras are still to come. Masters and slaves! More than I can save +in a year, or two years, and no one to say whether the work was needed +or not, or whether it was well done or not. When my kitchen pipes are +plugged a plumber fixes them and charges me a dollar, and if he doesn't +do it right he has to do it over again, but when the human pipes go +wrong the man-plumber charges a hundred and fifty dollars, and if he +doesn't do it right he collects just the same, and the undertaker adds +another hundred. Now I don't know whether this comes under the head of +Capital or Labour or Single Tax, but I do know it is outrageous +extortion--extortion of blood money, imposed by the wealthy and +prosperous on the poor and the sick and the unfortunate, and while the +State clamours for population it does not raise a finger to protect +those who are bringing the native-born." + +During this philippic Dave had turned toward the woman; her thin face +still wore marks of refinement and even his uncultured ear recognized a +use of English that indicated a fair degree of education. But she was +broken; crushed with the joint cares of motherhood and poverty, and +desperate at the injustices of a system that capitalized her +sacrifices. He had heard much talk of slaves, but here, he felt, he +saw one, not in the healthy, well fed men with their deep mutterings +against employers, but in this haggard woman from whose life the lamp +of joy had gone out in the bitterness of suffering and physical +exhaustion. + +He spent the rest of the day alone, thinking. He was not yet sure of +any road, but he knew that his mind had been made to think, and that +his life was bigger that night than it had been in the morning. He +might not find the right road at once, but he could at least leave the +old one. He felt a strange hunger to understand all that had been +said. He felt, also, a tremendous sense of his own ignorance; +tremendous, but not crushing; a realization that the world was full of +things to be learned; problems to be faced; conclusions to be studied +out, and underneath was a sense almost of exaltation that he should +take some part in the studies and perhaps aid in the solutions. It was +his first glimpse into the world of reason, and it charmed and invited +him. He would follow. + +He went early to bed, thinking over all he had heard. His mind was +full, but it was happy, and, in some strange way, fixed. Even the +morning service came back with a sense of worthwhileness as he recalled +it in the semi-consciousness of approaching sleep. . . The music had +been good. It had made him think of spring and the deep woods . . . +and water . . . and wood smoke. . . + +It was about a far away land . . . and Reenie Hardy. She was very like +Reenie Hardy. . . + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + +Fortunate Fate, or whatever good angel it is that sometimes drops +unexpected favours, designed that young Elden should the following day +deliver coal at the home of Mr. Melvin Duncan. Mr. Duncan, tall, +quiet, and forty-five, was at work in his garden as Dave turned the +team in the lane and backed them up the long, narrow drive connecting +with the family coal-chute. As the heavy wagon moved straight to its +objective Mr. Duncan looked on with approval that heightened into +admiration. Dave shovelled his load without remark, but as he stood +for a moment at the finish wiping the sweat from his coal-grimed face +Mr. Duncan engaged him in conversation. + +"You handle a team like you were born to it," he said. "Where did you +get the knack?" + +"Well, I came up on a ranch," said Dave. "I've lived with horses ever +since I could remember." + +"You're a rancher, eh?" queried the older man. "Well, there's nothing +like the range and the open country. If I could handle horses like you +there isn't anything would hold me in town. + +"Oh, I don' know," Dave answered. "You get mighty sick of it." + +"Did you get sick of it?" + +Elden shot a keen glance at him. The conversation was becoming +personal. Yet there was in Mr. Duncan's manner a certain kindliness, a +certain appeal of sincere personality, that disarmed suspicion. + +"Yes, I got sick of it," he said. "I lived on that ranch eighteen +years, and never was inside school or church. Wouldn't that make you +sick? . . . So I beat it for town." + +"And I suppose you are attending church regularly now, and night +school, too?" + +Dave's quick temper fired up in resentment, but again the kindliness of +the man's manner disarmed him. He was silent for a moment, and then he +said, "No, I ain't. That's what makes me sick now. I came in here +intendin' to get an education, an' I've never even got a start at it, +excep' for some things perhaps wasn't worth the money. There always +seems to be somethin' else--in ahead." + +"There always will be," said Mr. Duncan, "until you start." + +"I suppose so," said Dave, wearily, and took up the reins. + +But Mr. Duncan persisted. "You're not in such a hurry with that team," +he said. "Even if you are late--even if you should lose your job over +it--that's nothing to settling this matter of getting started with an +education." + +"But how's it to be done?" Dave questioned, with returning interest. +"Schools an' books cost money, an' I never save a dollar." + +"And never will," said Mr. Duncan, "until you start. But I think I see +a plan that might help, and if it appeals to you it will also be a +great convenience to me. My wife likes to go driving Sundays, and +sometimes on weekday evenings, but I have so many things on hand I find +it hard to get out with her. My daughter used to drive, but these +new-fangled automobiles are turning the world upside down--and many a +buggy with it. They're just numerous enough to be dangerous. If there +were more or less they would be all right, but just now every horse is +suspicious of them. Well--as I saw you driving in here I said to +myself, 'There's the man for that job of mine, if I can get him,' but +I'm not rich, and I couldn't pay you regular wages. But if I could +square the account by helping with your studies a couple of nights a +week--I used to teach school, and haven't altogether forgotten--why, +that would be just what I want. What do you say?" + +"I never saw anything on four feet I couldn't drive," said Dave, "an' +if you're willing to take a chance, I am. When do we start?" + +"First lesson to-night. Second lesson Thursday night. First drive +Sunday." Mr. Duncan did not explain that he wanted to know the boy +better before the drives were commenced, and he felt that two nights +together would satisfy him whether he had found the right man. + +Dave hurried back to the coal-yard and completed the day's work in high +spirits. It seemed he was at last started on a road that might lead +somewhere. After supper he surprised his fellow labourers by changing +to his Sunday clothes and starting down a street leading into the +residential part of the town. There were speculations that he had +"seen a skirt." + +Mr. Duncan met him at the door and showed him into the living-room. +Mrs. Duncan, plump, motherly, lovable in the mature womanliness of +forty, greeted him cordially. She was sorry Edith was out; Edith had a +tennis engagement. She was apparently deeply interested in the young +man who was to be her coachman. Dave had never been in a home like +this, and his eyes, unaccustomed to comfortable furnishings, appraised +them as luxury. There were a piano and a phonograph; leather chairs; a +fireplace with polished bricks that shone with the glow of burning +coal; thick carpets, springy to the foot; painted pictures looking down +out of gilt frames. And Mr. Duncan had said he was not rich! And +there was more than that; there was an air, a spirit, an atmosphere +that Dave could feel although he could not define it; a sense that +everything was all right. He soon found himself talking with Mrs. +Duncan about horses, and then about his old life on the ranch, and then +about coming to town. Almost, before he knew it, he had told her about +Reenie Hardy, but he had checked himself in time. And Mrs. Duncan had +noticed it, without comment, and realized that her guest was not a boy, +but a man. + +Then Mr. Duncan talked about gardening, and from that to Dave's skill +in backing his team to the coal-chute, and from that to coal itself. +Dave had shovelled coal all winter, but he had not thought about coal, +except as something to be shovelled and shovelled. And as Mr. Duncan +explained to him the wonderful provisions of nature; how she had stored +away in the undiscovered lands billions of tons of coal, holding them +in reserve until the world's supply of timber for fuel should be +nearing exhaustion, and as he told of the immeasurable wealth of this +great new land in coal resources, and of how the wheels of the world, +traffic and industry, and science, even, were dependent upon coal and +the man who handled coal, Dave felt his breast rising with a sense of +the dignity of his calling. It was no longer dirty and grimy; it was +part of the world; it was essential to progress and happiness--more +essential than gold, or diamonds, or all the beautiful things in the +store windows. And he had had to do with this wonderful substance all +winter, and not until to-night had it fired the divine spark of his +imagination. The time ticked on, and although he was eager to be at +work he almost dreaded the moment when Mr. Duncan should mention his +lesson. But before that moment came there was a ripple of laughter at +the door, and a girl in tennis costume, and a young man a little older +than Dave, entered. + +"Edith," said Mrs. Duncan. Dave arose to shake hands, but then his +eyes fell full on her face. "Oh, I know you," he exclaimed. "I heard +you sing yesterday." + +Slowly he felt the colour coming to his cheeks. Had he been too +familiar? Should he have held that back? What would she think? But +then he felt her hand in his, and he knew it was all right. + +"And I know you," she was saying. "I saw you--" she stopped, and it +was her turn to feel the rising colour. + +"Yes, I know what you saw," he took up her thought. "You saw me get up +and go out of church because I wouldn't sit and listen to a man say +that God punished the innocent to let the guilty go free. And I +won't." There was a moment's silence following this outburst, and Mr. +Duncan made a new appraisal of his pupil. Then it was time to +introduce Mr. Allan Forsyth. Mr. Forsyth shook hands heartily, but +Dave was conscious of being caught in one quick glance which embraced +him from head to heel. And the glance was satisfied--self-satisfied. +It was such a glance as Dave might give a horse, when he would say, "A +good horse, but I can handle him." It was evident from that glance +that Forsyth had no fear of rivalry from that quarter. And having no +fear he could afford to be friendly. + +Dave had no distinct remembrance of what happened just after that, but +he was conscious of an overwhelming desire to hear Miss Duncan sing. +How like Reenie she was! And just as he was beginning to think Mr. +Duncan must surely have forgotten his lesson, he heard her asking him +if she should sing. And then he saw Forsyth at the piano--why couldn't +he leave her to do it herself, the butt-in?--and then he heard her +fine, silvery voice rising in the notes of that song about the land +where the sun should never go down. . . And suddenly he knew how +lonely, how terribly, terribly lonely he was. And he sat with head +bowed that they might not know. . . + +And then there were other songs, and at last Mrs. Duncan, who had +slipped away unnoticed, returned with a silver teapot, and cups of +delicate china, and sandwiches and cake, and they sat about and ate and +drank and talked and laughed. And Edith refilled his cup and sat down +beside him, leaving that Forsyth quite on the opposite side of the +room. And suddenly he was very, very happy. And when he looked at his +watch it was eleven o'clock! + +"I guess we didn't get any lesson to-night," he said, as he shook hands +with Mr. Duncan at the sidewalk. + +"I am not so sure," replied his tutor. "The first thing for you to +learn is that all learning does not come from books. A good listener +can learn as much as a good reader--if he listens to the right kind of +people." And as Dave walked home the thought deepened in him that it +really had been a lesson, and that Mr. Duncan had intended it that way. +And he wondered what remarkable fortune had been his. The air was full +of the perfume of balm-o'-gilead, and his feet were light with the joy +of youth. And he thought much of Edith, and of Reenie Hardy. + +In subsequent lessons Dave was rapidly initiated into many matters +besides parlour manners and conversation. Mr. Duncan placed the first +and greatest emphasis upon learning to write, and to write well. They +had many philosophic discussions, in which the elder man sought to lead +the younger to the acceptance of truths that would not fail him in the +strain of later life, and when a conclusion had been agreed upon, it +was Mr. Duncan's habit to embody it in a copy for Dave's writing +lesson. One evening they had a long talk on success, and Mr. Duncan +had gradually stripped the glamour from wealth and fame and social +position. "The only thing worth while," he said, "is to give +happiness. The man who contributes to the happiness of the world is a +success, and the man who does not contribute to the happiness of the +world is a failure, no matter what his wealth or position. Every man +who lives long enough, and has brains enough, comes to know this in +time. And those who have not brains enough to know it, are the +greatest failures of all, because they think they have attained +success, and they have only been buncoed with a counterfeit." + +"But a man who has money is in a position to give more happiness than +one who hasn't," objected Dave. "Think of all the things a man with a +million dollars can do to make people happy--like paying for libraries, +and giving excursions to poor children, and things like that. So, in +order to make people happy, wouldn't the first step be to make money, +so it could be spent in that way?" + +"That is a good thought," agreed Mr. Duncan, "but not a conclusive one. +In reckoning the happiness a man gives we must, of course, subtract the +unhappiness he occasions. He may make a great sum of money, and use +much of it in creating happiness, but if in the making of the money he +used methods that resulted in unhappiness, we must subtract the +unhappiness first before we can give him any credit for the happiness +he has created. And I am disposed to think that many a philanthropist, +if weighed in that balance, would be found to have a debit side bigger +than his credit. No matter how much wealth a man may amass, or how +wisely he may distribute it, we cannot credit him with success if he +has oppressed the hireling or dealt unfairly with his competitors or +the public. Such a man is not a success; he is a failure. In his own +soul he knows he is a failure, that is, provided he still has a soul, +and if not, as I said before, he is a greater failure still." + +Out of this discussion Mr. Duncan evolved the copy line, "The success +of a life is in direct proportion to its net contribution to human +happiness," and Dave sat writing it far into the night. + +As soon as Dave had learned to read a little Mr. Duncan took him one +day to the public library, and the young man groped in amazement up and +down the great rows of books. Presently a strange sense of +inadequateness came over him. "I can never read all of those books, +nor half of them," he said. "I suppose one must read them in order to +be well informed." + +Mr. Duncan appeared to change the subject. + +"You like fruit?" he asked. + +"Yes, of course. Why--" + +"When you go into a fruit store do you stand and say, 'I can never eat +all of that fruit; crates and crates of it, and carloads more in the +warehouse?' Of course you don't. You eat enough for the good of your +system, and let it go at that. Now, just apply the same sense to your +reading. Read enough to keep your mind fresh, and alert, and vigorous; +give it one new thought to wrestle with every day, and let the rest +go. . . Oh, I know that there is a certain school which holds that +unless you have read this author or that author, or this book or that +book, you are hopelessly uninformed or behind the times. That's +literary snobbery. Let them talk. A mind that consumes more than it +can assimilate is morally on a par with a stomach that swallows more +than it can digest. Gluttons, both of them. Read as much as you can +think about, and no more. The trouble with many of our people is that +they do not read to think, but to save themselves the trouble of +thinking. The mind, left to itself, insists upon activity. So they +chloroform it." + +Mr. Duncan also took occasion to speak with Dave about his religious +views. He did not forget Dave's explanation of why he went out of the +church. "I sympathize with your point of view a great deal," he said, +"but don't be too sweeping in your conclusions. The church is too +fussy over details; too anxious to fit the mind of man--which is his +link with the Infinite--into some narrow, soul-crushing creed; too +insistent upon the form of belief and not nearly insistent enough upon +conduct. It makes me think of a man who was trying to sell me an +automobile the other day. He was explaining all about the trimmings; +the cushions and the lights and the horn and all that sort of stuff, +and when he was through I said, 'Now tell me something about the motor. +I want to know about the thing that makes the wheels go round. If it's +no good I guess the trimmings are only fit for junk.' Well, that's the +way with the church. The motor that has kept it running for nineteen +centuries is the doctrine of love; love of man to man, love of man to +God, love of God to man. Nothing about wrath--that's only a +back-fire--but love. Without that motor all the trimmings are junk. +Each sect has its own trimmings, but they all profess to use the same +motor. . . Still, the motor is all right, even if it is neglected and +abused. I don't think you'll find a better, and you must have power of +some kind." + +"What about Socialism?" asked Dave. + +"Very good, insofar as it is constructive. But there is a destructive +brand of Socialism which seizes the fancy of disappointed and +disgruntled men and women, and bids them destroy. There is a basic +quality in all human nature which clamours for destruction. You see it +in the child pulling his toys to pieces, or in the mob wrecking +buildings. Destruction is easy and passionate, but construction +demands skill and patience." + +"I have been at some of their meetings," said Dave. "They lay great +stress on the war between Labour and Capital--" + +"Between husband and wife in the family of production," interrupted Mr. +Duncan. "Nothing is to be gained by that quarrel. I admit the husband +has been overbearing, offensive, brutal, perhaps; but the wife has been +slovenly, inefficient, shallow. Neither has yet been brought to +realize how hopeless is the case of one without the other. And I don't +think they will learn that by quarreling. What they need is not hard +words, but mutual respect and sympathy, and an honest conception of +what constitutes success. Doctrines and policies are helpful to the +extent to which they cause men to think, either directly, or by +creating environment conducive to thought; but they will never bring +the golden age of happiness. That can come only through the +destruction of selfishness, which can be destroyed only by the power of +love. That is why I emphasized the motor, in our talk about the +church. It is our only chance." + +Dave's talks with Mr. Duncan became almost nightly occurrences, either +at the Duncan home, or when he drove the family--for the master of the +house often accompanied them--or when they met down town, as frequently +happened. And the boy was not slow to realize the broad nature of the +task to which Mr. Duncan had set himself. His education was to be +built of every knowledge and experience that could go into the rounding +of a well-developed life. + +The climax seemed to be reached when Mr. Duncan invited Dave to +accompany him to a dinner at which a noted thinker, just crossing the +continent, had consented to speak. + +"It will be evening dress," said Mr. Duncan. "I suppose you are hardly +fitted out that way?" + +"I guess not," said Dave, smiling broadly. He recalled the half +humorous sarcasm with which the Metford gang referred to any who might +be seen abroad in their "Hereford fronts." He had a sudden vision of +himself running the gauntlet of the ridicule. + +But Mr. Duncan was continuing. "I think I can fix you up," he said. +"We must be pretty nearly of a size, and I have a spare suit." And +almost before he knew it it was arranged that Dave should attend the +dinner. + +It was an eventful night for him. His shyness soon wore off, for +during these months he had been learning to accept any new experience +gladly. "Life is made up of experience," his teacher had said, +"therefore welcome every opportunity to broaden your life by travelling +in new tracks. There are just two restrictions--the injurious and the +immoral. You must grow by experience, but be sure you grow the right +way. Only a fool must personally seize the red iron to see if it will +burn. . . But most of us are fools." And as he sat among this company +of the best minds of the town he felt that a new and very real world +was opening before him. His good clothes seemed to work up in some way +through his sub-consciousness and give him a sense of capability. He +was in the mental atmosphere of men who did things, and by conforming +to their customs he had brought his mind into harmony with theirs, so +that it could receive suggestions, and--who knows?--return suggestions. +And he was made to think, think, think. + +As he walked home with Mr. Duncan under the stars he spoke of the +subtle sense of well-being and ability which came with good clothes. +"I don't mind confessing I have always had something like contempt for +stylish dressing," he said. "Now I almost feel that there's something +to it." + +"There is some good quality in everything that survives," said Mr. +Duncan. "Otherwise it would not survive. That doesn't mean, of +course, that the good qualities outweigh the bad, but the good must be +there. Take the use of liquor, for instance; perhaps the greatest +source of misery we have. Yet it touches a quality in man's life: +sociability, conviviality, if you like; but a quality that has virtue +in it none the less. And the errors of sex are so often linked with +love that one can scarcely say where virtue ceases and where vice +begins. I know convention placards them plainly enough, but convention +does not make virtue vice, nor vice virtue. There are deeper laws down +beneath, and sometimes they may set at defiance all accepted codes. + +"Yet I would not quarrel with the accepted codes--until I knew I had +something better. Accepted codes represent man's net progress through +experience to truth. The code, for instance, 'Thou shalt not kill;' we +accept it in general, but not completely. The State does not hesitate +to kill in self-defence, or even to carry out purposes which have no +relation to defence. And shall we not allow similar exceptions to the +other codes? And yet, although we may find our codes are not +infallible, are they not still the best guides we have? + +"To return to clothes. Clothes won't make you, but they will help you +to make yourself. Only, don't become a clothes-tippler. You can run +to intoxication on fine raiment as well as on fine wines. It has +virtue in it, but just beyond the virtue lies the vice." + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + +The summer was not far gone when Dave, through an introduction +furnished by Mr. Duncan, got a new job. It was in the warehouse of a +wholesale grocery, trundling cases and sacks of merchandise. It was +cleaner than handling coal, and the surroundings were more congenial, +and the wages were better--fifty dollars a month, to begin. + +"The first thing is to get out of the dead-line," said Mr. Duncan. "I +am not hoping that you will have found destiny in a wholesale +warehouse, but you must get out of the dead-line. As long as you +shovel coal, you will shovel coal. And you are not capable of anything +better until you think you are." + +"But I've liked it pretty well," said Dave. "As long as I was just +working for my wages it was dull going, but it was different after I +got to see that even shovelling coal was worth while. I suppose it is +the same with groceries, or whatever one does. As soon as you begin to +study what you handle the work loses its drudgery. It isn't a man's +job that makes him sick of his job; it's what he thinks of his job." + +A light of satisfaction was in his teacher's eyes as Dave made this +answer. Mr. Duncan had realized that he was starting late with this +pupil, and if there were any short-cuts to education he must find them. +So he had set out deliberately to instil the idea that education is not +a matter of schools and colleges, or courses of reading, or formulae of +any kind, but a matter of the five senses applied to every experience +of life. And he knew that nothing was coarse or common that passed +through Dave's hands. Coal had ceased to be a smutty mineral, and had +taken on talismanic qualities unguessed by the mere animal workman; and +sugar, and coffee, and beans, and rice, and spices, each would open its +own wonderful world before this young and fertile mind. As an heritage +from his boyhood on the ranges Dave had astonishingly alert senses; his +sight, his hearing, his sense of smell and of touch were vastly more +acute than those of the average university graduate. . . And if that +were true might it not fairly be said that Dave was already the better +educated of the two, even if he, as yet, knew nothing of the classics? + +As Dave parted from the Metford gang he felt that he knew what Mr. +Duncan had meant by the dead-line. These were men who would always +shovel coal, because they aspired to nothing better. There was no atom +of snobbery in Dave's nature; he knew perfectly well that shovelling +coal was quite as honourable and respectable a means of livelihood as +managing a bank, but the man who was content to shovel coal was on the +dead-line. . . And, by the same logic, the man who was content to +manage a bank was on the dead-line. That was a new and somewhat +startling aspect of life. He must discuss it with Mr. Duncan. + +Dave's energy and enthusiasm in the warehouse soon brought him +promotion from truck hand to shipping clerk, with an advance in wages +to sixty-five dollars a month. He was prepared to remain in this +position for some time, as he knew that promotion depends on many +things besides ability. Mr. Duncan had warned him against the delusion +that man is entirely master of his destiny. "Life, my boy," he had +said, "is fifty per cent. environment and forty per cent. heredity. +The other ten per cent. is yours. But that ten per cent. is like the +steering gear in an automobile; it's only a small part of the +mechanism, but it directs the course of the whole machine. Get a good +grip on the part of your life you can control, and don't worry over the +rest." + +To economize both time and money Dave took his lunch with him and ate +it in the warehouse. He had also become possessed of a pocket +encyclopaedia and it was his habit to employ the minutes saved by +eating lunch in the warehouse in reading from his encyclopaedia. It +chanced one day that as he was reading in the noon hour Mr. Trapper, +the head of the firm, came through the warehouse. Dave knew him but +little; he thought of him as a stern, unapproachable man, and avoided +him as much as possible. But this time Mr. Trapper was upon him before +he was seen. + +"What are you reading?" he demanded. "Yellow backed nonsense?" + +"No, sir," said Dave, rising and extending his arm with the book. + +"Why, what's this?" queried Mr. Trapper, in some surprise. +"Tea--tea--oh, I see, it's an encyclopaedia. What is the idea, young +man?" + +"I always like to read up about the stuff we are handling," said Dave. +"It's interesting to know all about it; where it comes from, how it is +grown, what it is used for; the different qualities, and so forth." + +"H'm," said Mr. Trapper, returning the book. "No doubt." And he +walked on without further comment. But that afternoon he had something +to say to his manager. + +"That young fellow on the shipping desk--Elden, I think his name is. +How do you find him?" + +"Very satisfactory, sir. Punctual, dependable, and accurate." + +"Watch him," said Mr. Trapper. + +The manager swung around in his chair. "Why, what do you mean? You +haven't occasion to suspect--?" + +Mr. Trapper's customary sternness slowly relaxed, until there was the +suggestion of a smile about the corners of his mouth, and rather more +than a suggestion in the twinkle in his eye. + +"Do you know what I caught that young fellow doing during noon hour?" +he asked. "Reading up the encyclopaedia on tea. Tea, mind you. Said +he made a practice of reading up on the stuff we are handling. _We_, +mind you. Found it very interesting to know where it came from, and +all about it. I've been in the grocery business for pretty close to +forty years, and I've seen many an employee spend his noon hour in the +pool rooms, or in some other little back room, or just smoking, but +this is the first one I ever caught reading up the business in an +encyclopaedia. Never read it that way myself. Well--you watch him. +I'd risk a ten-spot that he knows more about tea this minute than half +of our travellers." + +But Dave was not to continue in the grocery trade, despite his reading +of the encyclopaedia, A few evenings later he was engaged in reading in +the public library; not an encyclopaedia, but Shakespeare. The +encyclopaedia was for such time as he could save from business hours, +but for his evening reading Mr. Duncan had directed him into the realm +of fiction and poetry, and he was now feeling his way through Hamlet. +From the loneliness of his boyhood he had developed the habit of +talking aloud to himself, and in abstracted moments he read in an +audible whisper which impressed the substance more deeply on his mind, +but made him unpopular in the public reading rooms. It was well known +among the patrons of the rooms that he read Hamlet. This fact, +however, may not have been altogether to Dave's disadvantage. On the +evening in question an elderly man engaged him in conversation. + +"You are a Shakespearean student, I see?" + +"Not exactly. I read a little in the evenings. But I haven't gone far +enough to call myself a student." + +"I have seen you here different times. Are you well acquainted with +the town?" + +"Pretty well," said Dave, scenting that there might be a purpose in the +questioning. + +"Working now?" + +Dave told him where he was employed. + +"I am the editor of _The Call_," said the elderly man. "We need +another man on the street; a reporter, you know. We pay twenty-five +dollars a week for such a position. If you are interested you might +call at the office tomorrow." + +Dave hurried with his problem to Mr. Duncan. "I think I'd like the +work," he said, "but I am not sure whether I can do it. My writing is +rather--wonderful." + +Mr. Duncan turned the matter over in his mind. "Yes," he said at +length, "but I notice you are beginning to use the typewriter. When +you learn that God gave you ten fingers, not two, you may make a +typist. And there is nothing more worth while than being able to +express yourself in English. They'll teach you that on a newspaper. I +think I'd take it. + +"Not on account of the money," he continued, after a little. "You +would probably soon be earning more in the wholesale business. +Newspaper men are about the worst paid of all professions. But it's +the best training in the world, not for itself, but as a step to +something else. I have often wondered why editors, who are forever +setting every other phase of the world's work to rights, are content to +train up so many thousands of bright young men--and then pass them +along into other businesses where they are better paid. But the +training is worth while, and it's the training you want. Take it." + +Dave explained his disadvantages to the editor of _The Call_. "I +didn't want you to think," he said with great frankness, "that because +I was reading Shakespeare I was a master of English. And I guess if I +were to write up stuff in Hamlet's language I'd get canned for it." + +"We'd probably have a deputation from the Moral Reform League," said +the editor, with a dry smile. "Just the same, if you know Shakespeare +you know English, and we'll soon break you into the newspaper style." + +So, almost before he knew it, Dave was on the staff of _The Call_. His +beat comprised the police court, fire department, hotels, and general +pick-ups. And the very first day, as though to afford fuel for his +genius, a small fire occurred in a clothing store. + +"'S good for two sticks--about four inches," said the editor, when Dave +had given him the main facts. "Write your story to fit." + +Dave suddenly realized that, although he had been a persistent reader +of newspapers during the recent months, he had scarcely the remotest +idea of how many words went to a column, or to an inch. It was a piece +of information needed at once, so he set about to count the words in a +column. Then he wrote his story to fit. He had already learned that +everything in a newspaper office, from a wedding to a ball game, is "a +story." When he turned his in it looked like this: + + +The fire bell was heard ringing this morning about ten o'clock, and +soon after crowds were seen wending their way to the Great West +Clothing Store. There was a heavy black smoke coming from the back end +of the store. The firemen were late in getting there, and before they +arrived a man had got badly choked by trying to go into the store. +Presently the engine came up and before long water was being applied in +great quantities, and soon the fire was under control. Part of the +roof fell in, and the building is pretty badly ruined. Some of the +contents may be fit for sale. It seems too bad that the fire engine +should have been so long in coming, as without doubt if it had got +there promptly the fire could have been put out before much damage +occurred. However, it might have been worse, as it was a frame +building, in a row of other frame buildings, and if the fire had once +got beyond control much damage might have been done. Nobody seems to +know how the fire started. + + +It was with much quiet excitement that he awaited the appearance of the +evening edition. He had a strange eagerness to see his contribution in +print; a manifestation, no doubt, of that peculiar trait in human +nature which fills the editorial waste basket with unaccepted +contributions. At last he found it, but it read like this: + + +Fire this morning gutted the Great West Clothing Store with a loss of +$8,000.00 of which $4,000.00 is covered by insurance in the Occidental. +Frank Beecher, proprietor of the store, was overcome by smoke, and is +in the city hospital. + +Smoke was first seen issuing from the back of the store by Fred Grant, +a delivery man for the Imperial Laundry, who turned in an alarm at +10.08. Owing to the fire team colliding with a dray owned by Sheppard +& Co. some minutes of delay occurred. During this period the building, +which was of frame, burned fiercely. It was almost completely +destroyed, although some of the stock may be salable. + +Beecher rushed into the back room for certain papers, where he was +found by Fireman Carey in an unconscious condition. He is recovering, +and is already planning to rebuild. + + +Dave read the account with a sinking heart. By the time he reached the +end it seemed his heart could sink no further. He found that the +editor had not left the office, so he approached him with as much +spirit as he could command. + +"I guess you won't need me any more," he said. "I'm sorry I made a +mess of that fire story." + +There was a kind twinkle in the chief's eye as he answered, "Nonsense. +Of course we need you. You have merely made the mistake every one else +makes, in supposing you could write for a newspaper without training. +We will give you the training--and pay you while you learn. The only +man we can't use is the man who won't learn. Now let me give you a few +pointers," and the editor got up from his desk and held the paper with +the fire story before him. "In the first place, don't start a story +with 'the,' at least, not more than once or twice a week. In the +second place, get the meat into the first paragraph. Seventy-five per +cent. of the readers never go further than the first paragraph; give +them the raw facts there; if they want the trimmings they will go down +for them. That is where a magazine story is exactly opposite to a +newspaper story; a newspaper story shows its hand in the first +paragraph, a magazine story in the last. + +"Then, get the facts. Nobody cares whether the fire bell rang or not, +but they do care about the man who was suffocated; who he was, what he +was doing there, what became of him. Revel in names. Get the names of +everybody, and get them right. The closest tight-wad in the town will +buy a paper if it has his name in it. Every story, no matter how +short, is good for a number of names. In your copy as you turned it +in"--the editor picked it up from his desk; he had evidently saved it +for such an occasion as this--"the only name you had was that of the +clothing store. I had one of the other boys get to work on the +telephone, and you see he got the name of the proprietor; of the +insurance company, with the amount of the insurance; of the man who +turned in the alarm; of the owner of the dray team that obstructed the +engine, and of the firemen who carried Beecher to safety. Every one of +these people, with their families, their cousins, and their aunts, +become especially interested in the story the moment their names are +introduced. + +"Next, remember that it is not the business of a reporter to pass +editorial comment. It may have been too bad that the fire engine was +delayed, but that is a matter for the editor to decide. The business +of the reporter is to find out why it was delayed, and state the facts, +without regrets or opinions. You must learn to hold the mirror up to +nature without making faces in it. You know what I mean--keep your own +reflection out of the picture. If you think the incident calls for an +expression of opinion by the paper, write an editorial and submit it to +me. But remember that the editorial and news columns of a paper should +be as distinct as the two sides of a fence." + +"Thank you very much," said Dave, slowly, when it was plain the editor +had finished. "I think I begin to see. But there's one thing I don't +understand. Why did you not mention the origin of the fire?" + +A flicker of amusement--or was it confession?--ran across the chief's +face as he answered, "Because we don't know what started it--and +Beecher is one of our best advertisers. To say the origin of the fire +is unknown always leaves a smack of suspicion. It is like the almost +imperceptible shrug of the shoulder at the mention of a woman's name. +You can't get away from it. And it is the advertiser who keeps the +paper alive. . . I know it's not idealism, but idealism doesn't pay +wages and paper bills, and as long as readers demand papers for less +than it costs to print them they will have to take second place to the +advertiser." + +"Then all reports are to be coloured to suit the advertiser?" demanded +Dave. + +"No. Where a principle is involved--and we have principles, even in +these degenerate days--we stand by the principle, even if we lose the +patronage. Our notions of what is for the public good have cost us a +lot of money at times. You see, the exploiter is always ready to pay +his servants, which is more than can be said of the public. But where +no real principle is involved we try to be friendly to our friends." + +With these fresh viewpoints on his profession Dave entered upon his +work the following day chastened but determined. Almost immediately he +found the need of acquaintanceships. The isolation of his boyhood had +bred in him qualities of aloofness which had now to be overcome. He +was not naturally a good "mixer;" he preferred his own company, but his +own company would not bring him much news. So he set about +deliberately to cultivate acquaintance with the members of the police +force and the fire brigade, and the clerks in the hotels. And he had +in his character a quality of sincerity which gave him almost instant +admission into their friendships. He had not suspected the charm of +his own personality, and its discovery, feeding upon his new-born +enthusiasm for friendships, still further enriched the charm. + +As his acquaintance with the work of the police force increased Dave +found his attitude toward moral principles in need of frequent +re-adjustment. By no means a Puritan, he had, nevertheless, two +sterling qualities which so far had saved him from any very serious +misstep. He practised absolute honesty in all his relationships. His +father, drunken although he was in his later years, had never quite +lost his sense of commercial uprightness, and Dave had inherited the +quality in full degree. And Reenie Hardy had come into his life just +when he needed a girl like Reenie Hardy to come into his life . . . He +often thought of Reenie Hardy, and of her compact with him, and +wondered what the end would be. And meanwhile he found the need of +frequent readjustments. He became aware of the fact that in every +community there are two communities; one on the surface, respectable, +discreet, conventional; and one beneath the surface, to which these +terms would not apply. He found that the province of the police was +not to enforce morality, but to prevent immorality becoming obnoxious. +Anything, almost, might go on so long as its effects were confined to +the voluntary participants. Underneath the sham of good behaviour was +a world, known to the police and the newspaper men and a few others, +which refused to accept standard conventions and lived according to its +own impulse. And this world included so-called best citizens, of both +sexes. And they _were_ good citizens. It seemed the community had two +natures; a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on a community basis. +Splendid qualities; large heartedness, generosity, were mingled and +streaked through degrees of selfishness and lust running down into +positive crime. . . And the wonder was not what the papers printed, +but what they left untold. . . And he was glad he had met Reenie +Hardy. She was an anchor about his soul. . . And Edith Duncan. + +One morning, as he sat with Carson of _The Times_ at the reporters' +table in the police court, listening absently to the clerk calling a +list of names, his companion, with a grimace, intimated that there was +something beneath the surface. "Pure fiction," he whispered, as the +list was completed. "It would do you good to know who they are. +Shining lights, every one of them. And when they are lit up they can't +be kept under a bushel. The police just had to do something. They +won't be here--not one of them. Their lawyer will plead guilty, and +pay the fines, and every one will be sorry--they were caught. Even his +nibs on the bench isn't twice as happy. It was by good luck he wasn't +with the bunch himself." + +It turned out as Carson predicted. One of the leading lawyers of the +city addressed the Court, expressing the regret of his clients that +their behaviour had necessitated interference by the police. He was +full of suave assurances that no disrespect to the law, nor annoyance +to any member of the community, was intended, and he pleaded feelingly +for as great leniency as the court might consider consistent with the +offence. The minimum fine was imposed, and the lawyer withdrew, +bearing with him the double happiness of having earned a good fee and +having saved a number of his personal friends from a public exposure +which would have been, at least, embarrassing. As the lawyer passed +the reporters' table Dave felt something pressed into his hand, and +heard the whispered words, "Split it." + +In his hand was a ten dollar bill. "What's the idea?" said Dave to +Carson, when the session was over. + +"The idea is that I get five," said Carson, "and both of us forget it. +Cheap skate, he might have made it twenty. Of course the names were +bogus, but they couldn't risk mention, even with that precaution. Easy +picking, isn't it?" + +"It doesn't look quite right," Dave faltered. "I'm here to get the +news--" + +"Oh, can that. You know we don't publish all the news. Why, man, we'd +wreck society, or the ship of state, or whatever it is we are all +floating on, if we did that. We'd have every lawyer in this burg busy +in a week, and they're making too much money already. What the world +doesn't know the world doesn't grieve over. And the joke of it is, +everybody thinks he's putting it over somebody else, and while he's +busy thinking that somebody else is putting it over him. So they're +about even in the finish. Besides, if you talk about principle, +doesn't the Bible say to do unto others as you would that they should +do unto you? How would you feel in their position? + +"I tell you," said Carson, warming up to his subject, "this is an +intricate game, this life business. Pretty seedy in spots, but, after +all, most people are merely victims of circumstances. And if +circumstances place a five-spot in your hand to-day, accept what the +gods bring you. To-morrow they will take it away. + +"See this suit," he continued, indicating his attire, which greatly +out-classed Dave's. "A friend gave me that. I get all my suits that +way. When a scrap occurs in a bar-room; a booze riot, or knifing, or +something goes wrong upstairs, I just mention that it took place in 'a +down town hotel.' Then I order myself a suit, or something of that +kind, and have the tailor send his bill to the proprietor of the joint. +He pays. If he doesn't, next time I name his tavern right in the +story." + +"Don't you call that graft?" asked Dave. + +"Graft? Nonsense! Merely an exchange of courtesies. . . There are +others, too. You'll get wise to them in time." + +But Dave was by no means satisfied with Carson's philosophy. He went +to his editor with the five dollar bill and the police court incident. +"What shall I do about it?" he demanded. + +He fancied there was a note of impatience in the editor's reply. "Give +the money to the Salvation Army," he said, "and forget about the rest. +Isn't it Kipling who says 'There comes a night when the best gets +tight,' and so on? We could tell the story, but what good would it do? +And let me tell you, Elden, there are mighty few, men or women, who +have gone half way through life without something they'd like to +forget. Why not let them forget it? You're young yet, and perhaps you +don't see it that way, but you'll be older. There's a verse by +somebody runs like this: + + "Don't take the defensive by saying + "I told only just what was true," + For there's more at that game might be playing + If the truth were all told about you." + + +"That may be bad poetry, but it's good journalistic ethics." + +But after Dave had gone the editor called his business manager. "I +guess we'll have to raise Elden to thirty dollars a week," said he. +"He's so honest he embarrasses me, and I guess I need that kind of +embarrassment, or I wouldn't be embarrassed." + + + + +CHAPTER NINE + +While the gradually deepening current of Dave's life flowed through the +channels of coal heaver, freight hustler, shipping clerk, and reporter, +its waters were sweetened by the intimate relationship which developed +between him and the members of the Duncan household. He continued his +studies under Mr. Duncan's directions; two, three, or even four nights +in the week found him at work in the comfortable den, or, during the +warm weather, on the screened porch that overlooked the family garden. +His duties as reporter frequently called for attendance at public +meetings devoted to all conceivable purposes, and he was at first +disposed to feel unkindly toward these interruptions in his regular +studies. He raised the point with Mr. Duncan. + +"One thing I have been trying to drill into you," said his tutor, "is +that education is not a thing of books or studies or formulae of any +kind. It is the whole world; particularly the world of thought, +feeling, and expression. It is not a flower in the garden of life; it +is the garden itself, with its flowers, and its perfumes, and its +sunshine and rain. Yes, and its weeds, and droughts, and insects and +worms. There is a phase of education in the public meeting, whether +its purpose be to discuss the municipal tax rate or the flora of the +Rockies. You can't afford to miss any subject; but still less can you +afford to miss the audiences that are interested in any subject. They +are deeper than any book. There are all kinds of audiences. There is +the violent audience, and the mysterious audience, and the sentimental +audience, and the destructive audience, and the whimsical audience, and +the hysterical audience,--and every other kind. And the funny thing is +that they are all made up of much the same people. Take a sentimental +audience, for instance; a few passes, and you have an hysterical +audience. It is a difference of moods. We don't think enough about +moods. We are all subject to moods, and yet we judge a new +acquaintance by the mood he happens to be in--and the mood we happen to +be in--at the time of making the acquaintanceship. Another day, in +other moods, he would make a quite different impression--if the +impression already made could be effaced. I have a theory that the +world's sorrow is largely a matter of moods. I don't deny the sorrow, +nor the need for sorrow, nor the reality of it, but I do believe there +is a mood of happiness which even the deepest sorrows cannot suppress. +And the more you study people the more you will understand moods, and, +perhaps, be master of your own. And the man who can, by force of his +own will, determine the mood in which he will live, is master of the +world." + +So Dave came to realize that every incident in the reportorial round +was to be assimilated for its educational value, and this lent a zest +to his work which it could not otherwise have had. But the attraction +of the Duncan household grew upon him, and many an hour he spent under +its hospitable roof. Mrs. Duncan, motherly, and yet not too +motherly--she might almost have been an older sister--appealed to the +young man as an ideal of womanhood. Her soft, well modulated voice +seemed to him to express the perfect harmony of the perfect home, and +underneath its even tones he caught glimpses of a reserve of power and +judgment not easily unbalanced. She was a woman to whom men might +carry their ambitions, and women their hopes, and little children their +wonderings, and all be assured of sympathetic audience and wise +counsel. And as Dave's eyes would follow her healthy, handsome figure +as it moved noiselessly about in her domestic duties, or as he caught +the flush of beauty that still bloomed in her thoughtful face, or as at +rarer intervals he plunged into the honest depths of her frank grey +eyes, the tragedy of his own orphaned life bore down upon him and he +rebelled that he had been denied the start which such a mother could +have given him. + +"I am twenty years behind myself," he would reflect, with a grim smile. +"Never mind. I will do three men's work for the next ten, and then we +will be even." + +And there was Edith,--Edith, who had held him rapture-bound on that +first Sunday in church--Edith, who had burst so unexpectedly upon his +life that first evening in her father's home. He had not allowed +himself any foolishness about Edith. It was evident that Edith was +pre-empted, just as he was pre-empted, and the part of honour in his +friend's house was to recognize the _status quo_. . . Still, Mr. Allan +Forsyth was unnecessarily self-assured. He might have made it less +evident that he was within the enchanted circle, while Dave remained +outside. His complacence irritated Dave almost into rivalry. But the +boon camaraderie of Edith herself checked any adventure of that kind. +She checked it in two ways; by her own frank acceptance of him much as +she would have accepted a brother in the household, and by her uncanny +and unconscious knack of reminding him in almost every word and gesture +of Reenie Hardy. She was of about the same figure as Reenie Hardy; a +little slighter, perhaps; and about the same age; and she had the same +quick, frank eyes. And she sang wonderfully. He had never heard +Reenie sing, but in some strange way he had formed a deep conviction +that she would sing much as Edith sang. He was not yet psychologist +enough to know that his admiration for Edith was the reflex action to +his love for the girl who had so wonderfully invaded his foothill life +and so wonderfully changed the current of his destinies. In love, as +in religion, man is forever setting up idols to represent his +ideals. . . And forever finding feet of clay. + +Dave was not long in discovering that his engagement as coachman was a +device, born of Mr. Duncan's kindness, to enable him to accept +instruction without feeling under obligation for it. When he made this +discovery, he smiled quietly to himself, and pretended not to have made +it. Two things were apparent after their first drive; that nothing was +further from the minds of Mr. Duncan's bays than anything which called +for so much exertion as a runaway, and that, even had they been so +disposed, Edith was entirely competent to manage them. The girl had +not lived in the foothill town since childhood without becoming +something of a horse-woman. But Dave pretended not to know that he was +a supernumerary. To have acted otherwise would have seemed ungrateful +to Mr. Duncan. And presently the drives began to have a strange +attraction of themselves. + +When they drove in the two-seated buggy on Sunday afternoons the party +usually comprised Mrs. Duncan and Edith, young Forsyth and Dave. Mr. +Duncan was interested in certain Sunday afternoon meetings. It was +Mrs. Duncan's custom to sit in the rear seat, for its better riding +qualities, and it had a knack of falling about that Edith would ride in +the front seat with the driver. She caused Forsyth to ride with her +mother, ostensibly as a courtesy to that young gentleman,--a courtesy +which, it may be conjectured, was not fully appreciated. At first he +accepted it with the good nature of one who feels his position secure, +but gradually that good nature gave way to a certain testiness of +spirit which he could not entirely conceal. It became evident that he +would have preferred other ways of spending the Sunday afternoons. The +parks, for instance, or quiet walks through the cottonwoods by the +river. . . + +The crisis was precipitated one fine Sunday in September, in the first +year of Dave's newspaper experience. Dave called early, and found +Edith in a riding habit. + +"Mother is 'indisposed,' as they say in the society page," she +explained. "In other words, she doesn't wish to be bothered. So I +thought we would ride to-day." + +"But there are only two horses," said Dave. + +"Well?" queried the girl, and there was a note in her voice that +sounded strange to him. Then, after a pause in which the colour slowly +rose to her cheeks, "There are only two of us." + +"But Mr. Forsyth?" + +"He is not here. He may not come. Will you saddle the horses and let +us get away?" + +It was evident to Dave that, for some reason, Edith wished to evade +Forsyth this afternoon. A lover's quarrel, no doubt. That she had a +preference for him, and was revealing it with the utmost frankness, +never occurred to his sturdy, honest mind. One of the delights of his +companionship with Edith had been that it was a real companionship. +None of the limitations occasioned by any sex consciousness had +narrowed the sphere of the frank friendship he felt for her. She was +to him almost as another man, yet in no sense masculine. It seemed +rather that her femininity was of such purity that, like the atmosphere +he breathed, it surrounded him, flooded him without exciting +consciousness of its existence. Save for a certain tender delicacy +which her womanhood inspired, he came and went with her as he might +have done with a man chum of his own age. And when she preferred to +ride _without_ Forsyth it did not occur to Elden that she preferred to +ride _with_ him. + +They were soon in the country, and Edith, leading, swung from the road +to a bridle trail that followed the winding of the river. As her +graceful figure drifted on ahead it seemed more than ever reminiscent +of Reenie Hardy. What rides they had had on those foothill trails! +What dippings into the great canyons! What adventures into the spruce +forests! And how long ago it all seemed. That was before he started +on the paper; before he had been in the grocery business, or in the +coal business; back in the long, long past on the ranch in the days +before his father died. Life--how it goes! And had it brought to her +as many changes as to him? And had it, perhaps, brought to her one +change it had not brought to him--a change in the anchor about which +her heart's affection clung? This girl, riding ahead, suggestive in +every curve and pose of Reenie Hardy. . . His eyes were burning with +loneliness. + +He knew he was dull that day, and Edith was particularly charming and +vivacious. She coaxed him into conversation a dozen times, but he +answered absent-mindedly. At length she leapt from her horse and +seated herself, facing the river, on a fallen log. Without looking +back she indicated with her hand the space beside her, and Dave +followed and sat down. For a time they watched the swift water in +silence; blue-green where the current ran deeply; tinged with brown +glow in the shallows from the gravel underneath. + +"You aren't talking to-day," she said at length. "You don't quite do +yourself justice. What's wrong?" + +[Illustration: "You aren't talking to-day . . . what's wrong?"] + +"Oh, nothing," he answered with a laugh, pulling himself together. +"This September weather always gets me. I guess I have a streak of +Indian; it comes of being brought up on the ranges. And in September, +after the first frosts have touched the foliage--" He paused, as +though it was not necessary to say more. + +"Yes, I know," she said quietly. Then, with a queer little note of +confidence, "Don't apologize for it, Dave." + +"Apologize?" and his form straightened. "Certainly not. . . One +doesn't apologize for nature, does he? . . . But it comes back in +September." He smiled, and she thought the subconscious in him was +calling up the smell of fire in dry grass, or perhaps even the rumble +of buffalo over the hills. And he knew he smiled because he had so +completely misled her. + +Presently she took out a pocket volume. "Will you read?" she said. +Strangely enough he opened it at the lines: + + "Oh, you will never hide your soul from me; + I've seen the jewels flash, and know 'tis there + Muffle it as you will." + + +. . . It was dusk when they started homeward. + +Forsyth was waiting for her. Dave scented stormy weather and excused +himself early. + +"What does this mean?" demanded Forsyth, angrily, as soon as Dave had +gone. "Do you think I'll take second place to that--that coal heaver?" + +She straightened, and her bright eyes were charged with a blaze which +would have astonished Dave, who had known her only in her milder moods. +But she tried to speak without passion. + +"That is not to his discredit," she said. + +"Straight from the corrals into good society," Forsyth sneered. + +Then she made no pretense of composure. "If you have nothing more to +urge against Mr. Elden, perhaps you will go." + +Forsyth took his hat. At the door he paused and turned, but she was +already ostensibly interested in a magazine. He went out into the +night. + +The week was a busy one with Dave, and he had no opportunity to visit +the Duncans. Friday Edith called him on the telephone. She asked an +inconsequential question about something which had appeared in the +paper, and from that the talk drifted on until it turned on the point +of their expedition of the previous Sunday. Dave never could account +quite clearly how it happened, but when he hung up the receiver he knew +he had asked her to ride with him again on Sunday, and she had +accepted. He had ridden with her before, of course, but he had never +_asked_ her before. He had been a sort of honoured employee, whose +business it was to comply with her wishes. But this time she would +ride at his request. He felt that a subtle change had come over their +relationship. + +He was at the Duncan house earlier than usual Sunday afternoon, but not +too early for Edith. She was dressed for the occasion; she seemed more +fetching than he had ever seen her. There was the blush of health--or +was it altogether the blush of health?--on her cheeks, and a light in +her eyes such as he had seen more than once on those last rides with +Reenie Hardy. And across her saddle she threw a brown sweater. + +She led the way over the path followed the Sunday before until again +they sat by the rushing water. Dave had again been filled with a sense +of Reenie Hardy, and his conversation was disjointed and uninteresting. +She tried unsuccessfully to draw him out with questions about himself; +then took the more astute tack of speaking of her own past life. It +had begun in an eastern city, ever so many years ago. + +Chivalry could not allow that to pass. "Oh, not so very many," said +Dave. + +"How many?" she teased. "Guess." + +He looked judicially on her bright face; it was a good face to look +upon. Perhaps his eyes said as much. + +"Nineteen," he hazarded. + +"Oh, more than that." + +"Twenty-one?" + +"Oh, less than that." And their first confidence was established. + +"Twenty," thought Dave to himself. "Reenie must be about twenty now." + +"And I was five when--when Jack died," she went on. "Jack was my +brother, you know. He was seven, and a great boy for his daddy. Most +boys run to their mother with their hurts, but Jack was different. +When father was at the office Jack would save up his little hurts until +evening. . . Well, we were playing, and I stood on the car tracks, +signalling the motorman, to make him ring his bell. On came the car, +with the bell clanging, and the man in blue looking very cross. Jack +must have thought I was waiting too long, for he suddenly rushed on the +track to pull me off." She stopped, and sat looking at the rushing +water. + +"I heard him cry, 'Oh Daddy, Daddy,' above the screech of the brakes," +she continued, in a dry voice. + +"Sorrow is a strange thing," she went on, after a pause. "I don't +pretend to understand, but it seems to have its place in life. I fancy +this would soon be a pretty degenerate world if there were no sorrow in +it. I have been told that sometimes fruit trees refuse to bear until +they have met with adversity. Then the gardener bores a hole in them, +or something like that, and, behold, next season they bear. Sounds +silly, but they say it's a fact. I guess it's natural law. Well--" +She paused again, and when she spoke it was in a lower, more +confidential note. + +"I shouldn't tell you this, Dave. I shouldn't know it myself. But +before that things hadn't been, well, just as good as they might in our +home. . . They've been different since." + +The shock of her words brought him upright. To him it seemed that Mr. +and Mrs. Duncan were the ideal father and mother. It was impossible to +associate them with a home where things "hadn't been just as good as +they might." But her half confession left no room for remark. + +"Mother told me," she went on, after a long silence, and without +looking at him. "A few years ago, 'If some one had only told me, when +I was your age,' she said." + +"Why do you tell me this?" he suddenly demanded. + +"Did you ever feel that you just had to tell _someone_?" + +It was his turn to pause. "Yes," he confessed, at length. + +"Then tell me." + +So he led her down through the tragedy of his youth and the lonely +rudderless course of his boyhood. She followed sympathetically to the +day when Dr. Hardy and his daughter Irene became guests at the Elden +ranch. And then her interest manifested something deeper than +sympathy. But he had become engrossed in his narrative. . . The +September day had drawn to a close, and the dusk was thick about them, +ere he reached the end. But before the end he stopped. Should he tell +her all? Why not? She had opened her life to him. So he told her of +that last evening with Irene, and the compact under the trees and the +moon. Her hand had fallen into his as they talked, but here he felt it +slowly withdrawn. But he was fired with the flame of love which had +sprung up in the breath of his reminiscence. . . And Edith was his +friend and his chum. + +"And you have been true?" she said, but her voice was distant and +strained. + +"Yes." + +"And you are waiting for her?" + +"Yes, I am waiting. . . It must be so." . . . + +"It is cold," she said. "Let us go home." + + + + +CHAPTER TEN + +Whatever the effect of this conversation had been upon Edith she +concealed it carefully, and Dave counted it one of the fortunate events +of his life. It had sealed to him a new friendship, a confidence to +support him in days of stress. He had been working under the spur of +his passion for Irene, but now this was to be supplemented by the +friendship of Edith. That it was more than friendship on her part did +not occur to him at all, but he knew she was interested in him, and he +was doubly determined that he would justify her interest and +confidence. He threw himself into the columns of _The Call_ with +greater vigour than ever. + +But just at this time another incident occurred which was to turn the +flood of his life into strange channels. Dave had been promoted to the +distinction of a private office--a little six-by-six "box stall," as +the sports editor described it--but none the less a distinction shared +only with the managing editor and Bert Morrison, compiler of the +woman's page. Her name was Roberta, but she was masculine to the tips, +and everybody called her Bert. The remainder of the staff occupied a +big, dingy room, with walls pasted with specimen headings, comic +cartoons, and racy pictures, and floor carpeted deeply with exchanges. +Dave, however, had established some sort of order in his den, and had +installed at his own cost a spring lock to prevent depredations upon +his paste pot or sudden raids upon his select file of time copy. + +Into this sanctuary one afternoon in October came Conward. It was such +an afternoon as to set every office-worker at war with the gods; the +glories of the foothill October are known only in the foothill country, +and Dave, married though he was to his work, felt the call of the +sunshine and the open spaces. This was a time for fallen leaves and +brown grass and splashes of colour everywhere--nature's autumn colours, +bright, glorious, unsubdued. Only Dave knew how his blood leaped to +that suggestion. But the world must go on. + +Conward's habitual cigarette hung from its accustomed short tooth, and +his round, florid face seemed puffier than usual. His aversion to any +exercise more vigorous than offered by a billiard cue was beginning to +reflect itself in a premature rotundity of figure. But his soft, +sedulous voice had not lost the note of friendly confidence which had +attracted Dave, perhaps against his better judgment, on the night of +their first meeting. + +"'Lo, Dave," he said. "Alone?" + +"Almost," said Dave, without looking up from his typewriter. Then, +turning, he kicked the door shut with his heel and said, "Shoot." + +"This strenuous life is spoiling your good manners, Dave, my boy," said +Conward, lazily exhaling a thin cloud of smoke. "If work made a man +rich you'd die a millionaire. But it isn't work that makes men rich. +Ever think of that?" + +"If a man does not become rich by work he has no right to become rich +at all," Dave retorted. + +"What do you mean by that word 'right,' Dave? Define it." + +"Haven't time. We go to press at four." + +"That's the trouble with fellows like you," Conward continued. "You +haven't time. You stick too close to your jobs. You never see the +better chances lying all around. Now suppose you let them go to press +without you to-day, and you listen to me for a while." + +Dave was about to throw him out when a gust of yearning for the open +spaces swept over him again. It was true enough. He was giving his +whole life to his paper. Promotion was slow, and there was no prospect +of a really big position at any time. He remembered Mr. Duncan's +remarks about newspaper training being the best preparation for +something else. With a sudden decision he closed his desk. "Shoot," +he said again, but this time with less impatience. + +"That's better," said Conward. "Have you ever thought of the future of +this town?" + +"Well, I can't say that I have. I've been busy with its present." + +"That's what I supposed. You've been too busy with the details of your +little job to give attention to bigger things. Now, let me pass you a +few pieces of information--things you must know, but you have never put +them together before. What are the natural elements which make a +country or city a desirable place to live? I'll tell you. Climate, +transportation, good water, variety of landscape, opportunity of +independence. Given these conditions, everything else can be added. +Now, our climate--of course it is misunderstood in the South and East, +but misunderstanding doesn't ruffle it. You and I know what it is. +This is a white man's climate. Follow our latitude into Europe if you +want to find the seats of power and success. London and Berlin are +north of us; Paris very little south." + +"Where did you get this stuff?" Dave interjected. "Sounds like the +prelude of an address before a boomsters' club." + +"I've been thinking, while you've been too busy to think," Conward +retorted. "Then there's transportation. This is one of the few +centres in America which has a north and south trade equal to its east +and west trade. We're on the cross-roads. Every settler who goes into +the North--and it is a mighty North--means more north and south trade. +The development of the Pacific Coast, the industrialization of Asia, +the opening of the Panama Canal--these mean east and west trade. Every +railway that taps this country must come to this city, because we have +the start, and are too big to be ignored." + +"'City' is good," said Dave. + +"All right. Scoff as much as you like. Have your joke before it turns +on you. There'll be a quarter of a million people here before you're +dead, if you play fair with the life insurance people." + +"Go on." + +"Then there's the soil--the richest soil in the world. Just dry enough +to keep it from leaching. Natural possibilities for irrigation +wherever necessary--" + +"I'm not sure about it as a grain country," interrupted Dave, with a +touch of antagonism. + +"That is because you were brought up on a ranch, and are a rancher at +heart," Conward shot back. "No rancher is ever sure of any country +being a grain country. All he is sure of is that if the farmer comes +it is good-bye to the open range. Just as the fur-trader blackguarded +the climate to keep the stockman out, so is the stockman blackguarding +the climate to keep the farmer out. But they're coming. They can't be +stopped. It's only a case of education--of advertising. + +"I tell you, Dave, the movement is on now, and before long it'll hit us +like a tidal wave. I've been a bit of a gambler all my life, but this +is the biggest jack-pot ever was, and I'm going to sit in. How about +you?" + +"I'd like to think it over. Promotion doesn't come very fast on this +job, that's sure." + +"Yes, and while you are thinking it over chances are slipping by. +Don't think it over--put it over. I tell you, Dave, there are big +things in the air. They are beginning to move already. Have you +noticed the strangers in town of late? That's the advance guard--" + +"Advance guard of a real estate boom?" + +"Hish! That's a bad word. Get away from it. Say 'Industrial +development.'" + +"All right,--industrial development. And do we have to have an advance +guard of strangers to bring about 'industrial development?'" + +"Sure. That's the only way. You never heard of the old-timers in a +town booming it--the term goes between us--did you? Never. The old +resident is always deader than the town, no matter how dead the town +may be. And this business is a science. The right gang can spring it +anywhere, and almost any time. + +"Let me elaborate. We'll say Alkali Lake is a railway station where +lots go begging at a hundred dollars each. In drops a well dressed +stranger--buys ten lots at a hundred and fifty each--and the old-timers +are chuckling over sticking him. But in drops another stranger and +buys a block of lots at two hundred each. Then the old timers begin to +wonder if they didn't sell too soon. By the time the fourth or fifth +stranger has dropped in they are dead sure of it, and they are trying +to buy their lots back. All sorts of rumours get started, nobody knows +how. New railways are coming, big factories are to be started, +minerals have been located, there's a secret war on between great +monied interests. The town council meets and changes the name to +Silver City--having regard, no doubt, to the alkali in the sleugh +water. The old-timers, and all that great, innocent public which is +forever hoping to get something for nothing, are now glad to buy the +lots at five hundred to ten thousand dollars each, and by the time +they've bought it up the gang moves on. It's the smoothest game in the +world, and every community will fall for it at least twice. . . Well, +they're here. + +"Of course, it's a little different in this case, because there really +is something in the way of natural advantages to support it. It's not +all hot air. That'll make the event just so much bigger. + +"Now, Dave, I've been dipping in a little already, and it struck me we +might work together on this deal. Your paper has considerable weight, +and if that weight falls the right way you won't find me stingy. For +instance, an item that this property"--he produced a slip with some +legal descriptions--"has been sold for ten thousand dollars to eastern +investors--very conservative investors from the East, don't forget +that--might help to turn another deal that's just hanging. Sorry to +keep you so long, but perhaps you can catch the press yet." And, with +one of his friendly mannerisms, Conward departed. + +Dave sat for some minutes in a quandary. He was discouraged with his +salary, or, rather, with the lack of prospect of any increase in his +salary. Conward's words had been very unsettling. They pulled in +opposite directions. They fired him with a new enthusiasm for his +city, and they intimated that a gang of professional land-gamblers was +soon to perpetrate an enormous theft, leaving the public holding the +sack. Still there must be a middle course somewhere. + +He walked to his little window and looked across the warm prairie. No +buildings cut his view from the brown hillsides where the lazy mists of +autumn beckoned to be out and free. It was a sleepy cow-town still, +and yet, as he now recalled, a new pulse had been throbbing its +arteries of late. The proportion of strangers--men in white collars +and street shoes--at the hotels was steadily growing. Rents were going +up. It was the first low wave--and Conward's ear had caught it. . . + +At any rate, he could use Conward's story about the land sale. That +was news--legitimate news. Of course, it might be a faked sale--faked +for its news value--but reporters are not paid for being detectives. +The rule was to publish the news while it was hot. Nothing is so +perishable as news. It must be used at once or discarded +altogether. . . The _Evening Call_ carried a statement of Conward's +sale, and on that statement was hung a column story on the growing +prosperity of the city, and its assured future owing to its exceptional +climate and natural resources, combined with its commanding position on +transportation routes, both east and west and north and south. With +the industrialization of Asia and the settlement of the great +North--and how great is that North--etc., etc. + +During the following days Dave had a keener eye than usual for +evidences of 'industrial development.' He found them on every hand. +Old properties, long considered unsalable, were changing owners. +Handsomely furnished offices had been opened on principal corners for +the sale of city and country property. Hotels were crowded, bar-rooms +were jammed. The preponderance of the male population had never been +so pronounced, and every incoming train added to it. Money moved +easily; wages were stiffening; tradesmen were in demand. There was +material for many good stories in his investigations. He began writing +features on the city's prosperity and prospects. The rival paper did +the same, and there was soon started between them a competition of +optimism. The great word became "boost." It stood, apparently, for +any action or attitude that would increase prices. The virus was now +in the veins of the community; pulsing through every street and by-way +of the little city. Dave marvelled, and wondered how he had failed to +read these signs until Conward had laid their portent bare before him. +But as yet it was only his news sense that responded; his delight in +the strange and the sensational. He was not yet inoculated with the +poison of easy wealth. + +His nights were busy with his investigations, but on Sundays, as usual, +he went out to Duncans'. He had developed the habit of attending +morning service; he loved the music, and it was customary for Edith to +sing a morning solo. Her voice, which had enraptured him when they +first met, had developed wonderfully. It filled the morning air like +the clear tolling of silver bells. For its sake he gladly endured the +sermons, and even in the sermon he sometimes found common ground with +the preacher. They could meet on any faith that postulated the +brotherhood of man. But the reverend speaker touched such a subject +warily. It seemed to Dave he would gladly have gone further, but was +held in restraint by a sense of the orthodoxy of his congregation. Too +literal an interpretation of the brotherhood of man might carry the +taint of Socialism, and the congregation represented the wealth of the +city. It was safer to preach learnedly on abstractions of belief. + +This morning Edith had not been in her place, and the service was flat. +In the afternoon she was not at her home. Mrs. Duncan explained that +Edith had gone to visit a girl friend in the country; would be away for +some time. Dave felt a foolish annoyance that she should have left +town. She might at least have called him up. Why should she call him +up? Of course not. Still, the town was very empty. He drove with +Mrs. Duncan in the afternoon, and at night took a long walk by the +river. He had a vague but oppressive sense of loneliness. He had not +realized what part of his life these Sunday afternoons with Edith had +come to be. He had no man friends; his nature held him apart from his +own sex. And yet he had a strange capacity for making friends quickly, +if he tried. But he didn't try. He didn't feel the need. But he felt +lost without Edith. + +A few days later Conward strolled in, with the inevitable cigarette. +He smoked in silence until Dave completed a story. + +"Good stuff you're giving us," he commented, when the article was +finished. "Mighty good stuff." + +"Your tip put me on to a good lead all right," Dave acknowledged. "And +now _The Times_ is chasing me hard. They had a story this morning that +the ---- railway is buying a right-of-way up the river." + +"Remember what I told you the other day? Stories start from nowhere. +It's just like putting a match to tinder. Now we're off." + +Conward smoked a few minutes in silence, but Dave could not fail to see +the excitement under his calm exterior. He had, as he said, decided to +"sit in" in the biggest game ever played. The intoxication of sudden +wealth had already fired his blood. + +He slipped a bill to Dave. "For your services in that little +transaction," he explained. + +Elden held the bill in his fingers, gingerly, as though it might carry +infection, as in very truth it did. He realized that he stood at a +turning point--that everything the future held for him might rest on +his present decision. There remained in him not a little of the fine, +stern honour of the ranchmen of the open range; an honour curious, +sometimes terrible, in its interpretation of right and wrong, but a +fine, stern honour none the less. And he instinctively felt that to +accept this money would compromise him forever more. And yet--others +did it. He had no doubt of that. Conward would laugh at such +scruples. And Conward had more friends than he had. Everybody liked +Conward. It seemed to Dave that he, only, distrusted him. But that, +also, as Dave said to himself, lay in the point of view. He granted +that he had no more right to impose his standard of morals upon Conward +than the preacher had to impose an arbitrary belief upon him. And as +he turned the bill in his fingers he noticed that it was for one +hundred dollars. He had thought it was ten. + +"I can't take that much," he exclaimed. "It isn't fair." + +"Fair enough," said Conward, well pleased that Dave should be impressed +by his generosity. "Fair enough," he repeated. "It's just ten per +cent. of my profit." + +"You mean you made a thousand dollars on that deal?" + +"Exactly that. And that will look like a peanut to what we are going +to make later on." + +"We?" + +"Yes. You and me. We're going into partnership." + +"But I've nothing to invest. I've only a very little saved up." + +"Invest that hundred." + +Dave looked at Conward sharply. Was he trifling? No; his eyes were +frank and serious. + +"You mean it?" + +"Of course. Now, I'll put you on to something, and it's the biggest +thing that has been pulled off yet. There's a section of land lying +right against the city limits that is owned by a fellow over in +England; remittance man who fell heir to an estate and had to go home +to spend it. Well, he has been paying taxes ever since, and is tired +of the 'bally rawnch'; besides, he is busy keeping his property in +England reasonably well spent. I am arranging through a London office +to offer him ten dollars an acre, and I'll bet he jumps at it. I've +arranged for the necessary credits, but there will be some expenses for +cables, etc., and you can put your hundred into that. If we pull it +off--and we will pull it off--we start up in business as Conward & +Elden, or Elden & Conward, which ever sounds better. Boy, there's a +fortune in it." + +"What do you figure it's worth?" said Dave, trying to speak easily. +"Twenty-five dollars an acre?" + +"Twenty-five dollars an acre!" Conward shouted. "Dave, newspaper +routine has killed your imagination, little as one would expect such a +result, from some of the things the papers print. Twenty-five dollars +an acre! Listen! + +"The city boundaries are to be extended--probably will be by the time +this deal goes through. Then it is city property. A street railway +system is to be built, and we'll see that it runs through our land. We +may have to 'grease' somebody, but it's a poor engineer that saves on +grease. Then we'll survey that section into twenty-five foot lots--and +we'll sell them at two hundred dollars each for those nearest the city +down to one hundred for those farthest out--average one hundred and +fifty, total nine hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Allow say sixty +thousand for 'grease' and there is still nine hundred thousand, and +that doesn't count re-sale commissions. Dave, it's good for a cool +million. And that is just the beginning. It will give us a standing +that will make anything possible." + +Dave was doing rapid thinking. Suddenly he faced Conward, and their +eyes met. "Conward," he said, "why do you put this up to me?" + +"What d'ye mean?" + +"You don't need my little hundred to put this over. Why do you let me +in on it?" + +Conward smiled and breathed easily. There had been a moment of tension. + +"Oh, that's simple," he answered. "I figure this business is going to +be too big for me, and you are the partner I need. I figure we'll +travel well in double harness. I'm a good mixer--I know people--and +I've got ideas. And you're sound and honourable and people trust you." + +"Thanks," said Dave, dryly. + +"That's right," Conward continued. "We'll be a combination hard to +beat. You know the story about the brothers in the coal business?" + +"No." + +"Jim and Fred were coal dealers, when a revival broke out in their +town, and Jim got religion. Then he tried to convert Fred; tried awful +hard to get Fred to at least go to the meetings. But Fred wouldn't +budge. Said it wasn't practicable. Jim argued and coaxed and prayed, +but without result. At last he put it up to Fred. + +"'Fred,' he said, 'why won't you come to our meetings?'" + +"'Well,' the brother answered, 'it was all right for you to get +religion. Sort o' lends respectability to the firm. But if I get it +too, who's going to weigh the coal?'" + +The two men laughed over the story, and yet it left an unpleasant +impression upon Dave. He had never felt sure of Conward, and now he +felt less sure than ever. But the lust of easy money was beginning to +stir within him. The bill in his hands represented more than three +weeks' wages. Conward was making money--making money fast, and surely +here was an opportunity such as comes once in a lifetime. A boy shoved +in his head and yelled for copy. Dave swore at him, impatiently. He +had never before realized how irksome the drudgery of his steady grind +had become. + +"I'll go you," he said to Conward at last. "I'll risk this hundred, +and a little more if necessary." + +"Good," said Conward, springing to his feet and taking Dave's hand in a +warm grasp. "Now we're away. But you better play safe. Stick to your +pay cheque here until we pull the deal through. There won't be much to +do until then, anyway, and you can help more by guiding the paper along +right lines." + +"It sounds like a fairy tale," Dave demurred, as though unwilling to +credit the possibilities Conward had outlined. "You're sure it can be +done?" + +"Done? Why, son, it has been done in all the big centres in the +States, and at many a place that'll never be a centre at all. And it +will be done here. Dave, bigger things than you dare to dream of are +looming up right ahead." + +Then Dave had a qualm. "If that section of land is worth close to a +million dollars," he said, "is it quite fair to take advantage of the +owner's absence and ignorance to buy it for a few thousand?" + +"Dave," said Conward, with an arm on his shoulder, "the respectability +of the firm is safe in your hands. But--_please_ let me weigh the +coal." + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN + +David Elden smoked his after-dinner cigar in his bachelor quarters. +The years had been good to the firm of Conward & Elden; good far beyond +the wildness of their first dreams. The transaction of the section +bought from the English absentee had been but the beginning of bigger +and more daring adventures. That section was now considered close-in +property, and lots which Conward & Elden had originally sold for two +hundred dollars each had since changed hands at more than a thousand. +The street railway ran far beyond it. Water mains, sewers, electric +lights, graded streets and concrete sidewalks had sprawled for miles +across the prairie. Conward, in that first wild prophecy of his, had +spoken of a city of a quarter of a million people; already more lots +had been sold than could be occupied by four times that population. + +It had been a very marvellous development; an enthusiasm which had +grown deeper and wilder until it swept along as an insane abandon, +bearing in its current the last vestiges of conservatism and caution. +For at last the old-timers, long alluded to as the "dead ones," had +come in. For years they had held back, scoffing, predicting disaster; +and while they held back venturesome youths had become millionaires. +One can stand that only so long, and at last the old-timers were buying +and selling and debauching with the others in the lust of easy money. + +Dave had often asked himself where it all would end. He traced it from +its beginning; from the day when he wrote his first "boost" story; from +the hundred-dollar bill that Conward had placed in his hands. It was a +simple course to trace; so simple now that he was amazed that only +Conward and a few shrewd others had seen it at that time. It had begun +with the prosperity of incoming money; the money of a little group of +speculators and adventurers and the others who hung on their train. +They had filled the few hotels and office buildings. Presently some +one began to build a new hotel. Labour was scarce and dear; +carpenters, masons, bricklayers, plumbers, plasterers, labourers, had +to be brought in from the outside. There was no place for them to +sleep; there was no place for them to eat; there were insufficient +stores to supply their wants. More hotels and shops and stores and +houses had to be built, and to build them more carpenters and masons +and bricklayers and plumbers and plasterers and painters had to be +brought from the outside. The thing grew upon itself. It was like a +fire starting slowly in the still prairie grass, which by its own heat +creates a breeze that in turn gives birth to a gale that whips it forth +in uncontrollable fury. Houses went up, blocks of them, streets of +them, miles of them, but they could not keep pace with the demand, for +every builder of a house must have a roof to sleep under. And there +were streets to build; streets to grade and fill and pave; ditches to +dig and sidewalks to lay and wires to string. And more houses had to +be built for the men who paved streets and dug ditches and laid +sidewalks and strung wires. And more stores and more hotels and more +churches and more schools and more places of amusement were needed. +And the fire fed on its own fury and spread to lengths undreamed by +those who first set the match to the dry grass. + +The process of speculation was as easily defined. The first buyers +were cautious; they looked over the vacant lots carefully; weighed +their advantages and disadvantages; the prospect of the city growing +this way or that. But scarcely had they bought when they sold again at +a profit, and were seized with a quick regret that they had not bought +more, or earlier. Soon the caution of the early transactions was +forgotten in the rush for more lots which, almost immediately, could be +re-sold at a profit. Judgment and discretion became handicaps in the +race; the successful man was he who threw all such qualities to the +winds. Fortunes were made; intrinsic values were lost sight of in the +glare of great and sudden profits. Prices mounted up and up, and when +calmer counsels held that they had reached their limits all such +counsels were abashed by prices soaring higher still. + +And the firm of Conward & Elden had profited not the least in these +wild years of gain-getting. Their mahogany finished first floor +quarters were the last word in office luxuriance. Conward's private +room might with credit have housed a premier or a president. Its +purpose was to be impressive, rather than to give any other service, as +Conward spent little of his time therein. On Dave fell the +responsibility of office management, and his room was fitted for +efficiency rather than luxury. It commanded a view of the long general +office where a battery of stenographers and clerks took care of the +detail of the business of Conward & Elden. And Dave had established +his ability as an office manager. His fairness, his fearlessness, his +impartiality, his courtesy, his even temper--save on rare and excusable +occasions--had won from the staff a loyalty which Conward, with all his +abilities as a good mixer, could never have commanded. + +He had prospered, of course. His statement to his banker ran into +seven figures. For years he had not known the experience of being +short of money for any personal purpose. Occasionally, at first, and +again of late, the firm had found it necessary to resort to high +finance. This was usually accomplished by getting a bank so deeply +involved in their speculations that, in moments of emergency, it dared +not desert them if it would. There are ways of doing that. And always +the daring of Conward and the organization of Elden had justified +themselves. Dave was still a young man, not yet in his thirties; he +was rated a millionaire; he had health, comeliness, and personality; he +commanded the respect of a wide circle of business men, and was +regarded as one of the matrimonial prizes of the city; his name had +been discussed for public office; he was a success. + +And yet this night, as he sat in his comfortable rooms and watched the +street lights come fluttering on as twilight silhouetted the great +hills to the west, he was not so sure of his success. A gas fire +burned in the grate, rippling in blue, sinuous waves, and radiating an +agreeable warmth on the May evening air. Dave finished his cigar and +stood by the window, where the street light now poured in, blending its +pale effulgence with the blue radiance from the grate. He was a man to +be admired. His frame a trifle stouter than when we last saw him, but +still supple and firm; the set of the shoulders, the taper of the body +to the waist, the keen but passive face, the poise of the whole figure +was that of one who, tasting of the goodness of life, had not +gormandized thereon. He was called a success, yet in the honesty of +his own soul he feared the coin did not ring true. Conward had +insisted more and more upon "weighing the coal." And Dave had +concerned himself less and less with the measure. That was what +worried him. He felt that the crude but honest conception of the +square deal which was the one valuable heritage of his childhood was +slipping away from him. He had little in common with Conward outside +of their business relationship. He suspected the man vaguely, but had +never found tangible ground for his suspicion. Dave did not drink, and +those confidences peculiar to a state of semi-intoxication were denied +him. He was afraid to drink, not with the fear of the craven, but with +the fear of a man who knows his enemy's advantage. He had suffered in +his own home, and he feared the enemy, and would make no truce. +Neither was he seduced by the vices which the possession of wealth made +easy to his hand. He counted more as a dream--a sort of supernalism +out of the past--that last night and that last compact with Irene +Hardy, but it had been anchorage for his soul on more than one +dangerous sea, and he would not give it up. Some time, he supposed, he +should take a wife, but until then that covenant, sealed by the +moonlight to the approving murmur of the spruce trees, should stand as +his one title of character against which no _caveat_ might be +registered. + +He was turning this very matter over in his mind, and wondering what +the end would be, when a knock came at the door. + +"Come," he said, switching on the light. . . "Oh, it's you, Bert. I +am honoured. Sit down." + +The girl threw her coat over a chair and sank into another. Without +speaking she extended her shapely feet to the fire, but when its +soothing warmth had comforted her limbs she looked up and said, + +"Adam sure put it over on us, didn't he?" + +"Still nursing that grievance over your sex," laughed Dave. "I thought +you would outgrow it." + +"I don't blame him," continued the girl, ignoring his interruption. "I +am just getting back from forty-seven teas. Gabble, gabble, gabble. I +don't blame him. We deserve it." + +"Then you have had nothing to eat?" + +"Almost. Only insignificant indigestibles." + +Dave pressed a button, and a Chinese boy (all male Chinese are boys) +entered, bowing in that deference which is so potent to separate the +white man from his silver. The white man glories in being salaamed, +especially by an Oriental, who can grovel with a touch of art. And the +Oriental has not been slow to capitalize his master's vanity. + +"Bring something to eat. Go out for it, and be quick. For two." + +"Ice cleam? Toast? Tea--" + +"No! Something to eat! Soup, flied chicken, hot vegetables, dessert, +everything." + +"You've had your dinner, surely?" asked Bert. + +"Such a dinner as a man eats alone," he answered. "Now for something +real. You stick to the paper like the ink, don't you, Bert?" + +"Can't leave it. I hate it--and I love it. It's my poison and my +medicine. Most of all I hate the society twaddle. And, of course, +that's what I have to do." + +"And you write it up so gloriously," said Dave. "Enthusiasm in every +line of it." + +"You read it, then? I thought all men looked on the society page with +contempt." + +"They do. But they look on it just the same--long enough to see +whether their names appear among those present." + +"Or whose husband is out of town?" + +"You're growing more cynical all the time." + +"How can I help it, when I see both sides of the game? If I printed +half what I know I'd have every lawyer in this city busy +to-morrow--except those who skipped out over-night." + +"You know it," Dave agreed. "But here is dinner." The boy wheeled a +table between them, and there was a savoury smell of hot food. + +"A _recherche_ repast," screamed Bert, half through her soup, with a +great burst of merriment. "Oh, I must tell you. You remember the +Metfords? You used to shovel coal for them. I know you're no snob, or +I wouldn't put it so brutally. Of course, they're rich. Sold the old +stable-yard for a quarter of a million, or thereabouts, and are now +living in style. Some style! When they have guests, as they nearly +always have--there'll be parasites as long as there's easy money--old +man Metford eats breakfast in evening dress. And she orders the +chiffonier to take the guests down to the _depot_ in their Packer. But +one thing has gone to her heart. She didn't realize in time that it +wasn't good form to be prolific. Now that she knows three is the limit +she has sent the other six to the country. But that isn't what I +started on. She called up this morning and gave me hell because I said +yesterday that she had served a _recherche_ repast at some function +they pulled off the other night. 'See here, young woman,' she says, 'I +want you to understand there's none of that _recherche_ stuff on my +table. Nothing short of champagne, every drop of it.' I just yelled." + +"Why didn't you print a retraction?" + +"I don't know." + +"I do. It's because, Miss Roberta, beneath your cynicism and your +assumption of masculinity, you are as sympathetic as a young mother. +It would be mean to put over anything like that, and you just can't do +it." + +"Nonsense. You see what I print at times--" + +"Bert," he said suddenly, "why don't you get married?" + +"Who, me?" Then she laughed. "I guess I'm too sympathetic. It would +be mean to put over anything like that on a man, and a girl wouldn't +have me." + +"Well, then, why don't you buy some real estate?" he continued, +jocularly. "Every man should have some dissipation--something to make +him forget his other troubles." + +"A little late in the meal for that word, isn't it?" + +He stared a moment, and then sprang to his feet. "I beg your pardon. +What will you drink?" + +"What you drink." + +"But I drink coffee." + +"So do I. . . I may be mannish, Dave, but I don't think I'm a fool. I +can understand a man drinking, but not a woman. It's too +dangerous. . . . But I'll smoke a cigarette. + +"Now, as for real estate. The fact is, I _have_ invested." + +A look came into his face which she did not understand. "With whom?" +he demanded, almost peremptorily. + +"With Conward & Elden," she answered, and the roguishness of her voice +suggested that her despised femininity lay not far from the surface. +"Were you about to be jealous?" + +"Why didn't you come to me?" She realized that he was in deep earnest. + +"I did," she answered, candidly. "At least, I asked for you, but you +were out of town, so Conward took me in hand, and I followed his +advice." + +"Do you trust Conward?" he demanded almost fiercely. + +"Well, he's good enough to be your partner, isn't he?" + +The thrust hurt more than she knew. He had his poise again. + +"Real estate is the only subject I would trust him on," she continued. +"I must say, Dave, that for a shrewd business man you are awfully dense +about Conward." + +He remained silent for a few moments. He decided not to follow her +lead. He knew that if she had anything explicit to say about Conward +she would say it when she felt the time to be opportune, and not until +then. He returned to the matter of her speculation. + +"How much did you invest?" + +"Not much. Just what I had." + +"You mean all your savings?" + +"Why not? It's all right, isn't it?" + +He had risen and was standing again by the window. The long line of +lights stretched out until they became mere diamond points on the +velvet bosom of the night. Motor cars sped noiselessly to and fro, +save where, at the corner below, chauffeurs exercised their sirens. +But neither the lights, nor the night, nor the movement and noises of +the street had any part in the young man's consciousness. + +"It's all right, isn't it?" she repeated. + +"I'm afraid it isn't," he said at length, in a restrained voice. "I'm +afraid it isn't." + +"What do you mean?" she demanded. There was an accusation in her eyes +that was hard to face. + +"Bert," he continued, "did it ever occur to you that this thing must +have an end--that we can't go on forever lifting ourselves by our own +bootstraps? We have built a city here, a great and beautiful city, +almost as a wizard might build it by magic over night. There was room +for it here; there was occasion; there was justification. But there +was neither occasion nor justification for turning miles and miles of +prairie land into city lots--lots which in the nature of things cannot +possibly, in your time or mine, be required for city purposes. These +lots should be producing; wheat, oats, potatoes, cows, butter--that is +what we must build our city on. We have been considering the effect +rather than the cause. The cause is the country, the neglected +country, and until it overtakes the city we must stand still, if we do +not go back. Our prosperity has been built on borrowed money, and we +have forgotten that borrowed money must, sometime, be repaid. +Meanwhile, in the heart of the greatest agricultural country in the +world, we bring our potatoes across the American continent and our +butter across the Pacific ocean." + +He had spoken with effort, as one who makes a bitter confession, yet +tries to state the case fairly, without excuses and without violence. + +"You mean that the boom is about to burst?" she said. + +"Not exactly burst. It will not be so sudden as that. It will just +ooze away, like a toy balloon pricked with a pin." + +There was silence for some minutes. When she spoke at length it was +with a tinge of bitterness. + +"So you are unloading?" + +"The firm is. I beg you, Bert, to believe that if I had known your +intention I would have tried to dissuade you. I would have advised you +to keep your money in the bank until after the air cleared. Three per +cent. is small, but it is better than tax bills on unsalable property." + +"Why me particularly? I am only one of the great public. Why don't +you give your conclusions to the world? When you were convinced that a +period of inflation was about to occur you did not hesitate to say so. +If I remember you used _The Call_ for that purpose. Now that you see +the reaction setting in, doesn't honesty suggest what your course +should be?" + +She had risen, and she, too, looked with unseeing eyes upon the busy +street. There was reproach in her voice, Dave thought, rather than +bitterness. + +He spread his hands. "What's the use? The harm is done. To predict a +collapse would be to precipitate a panic. It is as though we were +passengers on a boat at sea. You and I know the boat is sinking, but +the other passengers don't. They are making merry with champagne and +motor cars--if you can accept that figure--and revelry and easy money. +Why spoil their remaining few hours by telling them they are headed for +the bottom? . . . Besides, they are not deserving of sympathy, after +all. They are in the game because they wanted to make money without +earning it. Gamblers, every one of them. And the man or woman who +expects to get wealth without giving value shouldn't whine if, by a +turn of fate, he gives value without getting wealth." + +After a moment she placed her fingers on his arm. "Forgive me, Dave," +she said. "I didn't mean to whine." + +"You didn't whine," he returned, almost fiercely. "It's not in you. +You are too good a sport. But there will be lots of whining in the +coming months." Man-like it did not occur to Dave that in that moment +the girl had bid good-bye to her savings of a dozen years, and had +merely looked up and said, "Forgive me, Dave, I didn't mean to whine." +When he thought of it, long afterward, he had a sudden conviction that +if he had realized then just how much of a brick she was he would have +proposed to her on the spot. . . And she would have laughed, and said, +"Now, Dave, don't spoil our fun with anything like that." + +What she did do was to let her hand creep up his arm until she could +tap his cheek with her second finger. "Is this all the entertainment +you can think of to-night?" she bantered. + +He glanced at his watch. "It's late for a theatre," he said, "but we +can ride. Which do you say--auto or horse-back?" + +"I can't go horse-back in these clothes, and I don't want to change." + +Dave pressed a button, and the omnipresent Chinese "boy" stood before +him. "My car," he said. "The two-passenger car. I shall not want a +driver." Then, continuing to Miss Morrison, "You will need something +more than that coat. Let me see. My smoking jacket should fit." + +In a few minutes they were threading their way through the street +traffic in Dave's machine. Whatever had been his forecast of impending +disaster, the streets held little hint of it. They were congested with +traffic and building material. Although it was late at night the +imperious clamour of electric rivetters rattled down from steel +structures on every hand. Office blocks, with their rental space all +contracted months in advance, were being rushed to completion by the +aid of arc lights and double shifts. But presently the traffic +thinned, and the car hummed through long residential avenues of +comfortable homes. From a thousand unmasked windows came the glow of +light; here and there were the strains of music. On and on they sped, +until the city streets and the city lights fell behind, and the car was +swinging along a fine country road, through a land marked with streams +and bridges, and blocked out with fragrant bluffs of young poplars. + +At last, after an hour's steady driving in a delight of motion too keen +for conversation, they pulled up on the brow of a hill. A soft breeze +from the south-west, sensuous with the smell of spruce and +balm-o'-gilead, pressed, cool and gentle, against their faces, and far +to the south-east some settler's burning straw pile lay like an +orange-red coal on the lips of the prairie, from which she blew an +incense of ruddy gold and ochre, fan-shaped against the heavens. +Behind them, to the north, far-away city lights danced and sparkled in +the lap of the foot-hills, like diamonds strewn by some mighty and +profligate Croesus. Dave switched off his lights, the better to +appreciate the majesty of the night, and in the silence came the low +murmur of water. There were no words. They sat and breathed it. + +Suddenly, from a sharp bend in the road, flashed the lights of an +approaching car. Dave was able to switch his own lights on again only +in time to avoid a collision. The on-coming car lurched and passed by +furiously, but not before Dave had recognized Conward as the driver. +Back on its trail of dust floated the ribald notes of half-intoxicated +women. + +"Close enough," said Dave, when the dust had settled. "Well, let us +jog back home." + +They took the return trip leisurely, drinking in the glories of the +night, and allowing time for the play of conversation. Bert Morrison +was a good conversationalist. Her points of interest were almost +infinite. And they were back among the street lights before they knew. + +"Oh, we are nearly home," she exclaimed. "And, honest, Dave, I wanted +to ask you something. Why don't you get married?" + +"I guess I'm too sympathetic," he answered, after a moment's pause. +"And it wouldn't be fair--" + +"Oh, can that. It's been warmed over once already. Really, though, +why don't you?" + +"Why should I?" + +"Why shouldn't you? It's natural. And you know you can't go on always +just putting it off. It leaves your life empty. To-night, when I +asked you if you had had dinner, you said, 'Such a meal as a man eats +alone.' That betrays the emptiness." + +"I suppose it does. But I don't know many girls. I don't know any +girl very well, except you, and you wouldn't have me." + +"No, I wouldn't," she answered frankly. "I like you too well. But you +know other girls, and you could get to know more if you wanted to. +There's Edith Duncan, for instance." + +"Edith is a fine girl. The Duncans are wonderful people. I owe to +them almost everything. But as for marrying Edith--" + +"Why not?" + +"I don't know. I never thought of it that way. She's a fine girl." + +"None better," said Bert, with decision. "Dave, I'm not much on +orthodox religion, as you know, but that girl's got something on me. +She has a voice that would make her famous on the stage, but she uses +it all the time, as she says, 'in the service of the King!' I think +she's narrow on that point, but I know she's sincere. Edith has had a +great sorrow, and it makes her nobility stand out, pure and wonderful, +like a white gem in a black setting. It seems to be the law that one +must rub shoulders with sorrow before he really begins to live. And +any afternoon you can find her down in the children's ward, singing +with that wonderful voice to the little sick sufferers." + +"I know about her sorrow," said Dave, as though confessing a profound +secret. "She told me about her little brother being killed." + +It sprang to Bert's lips to say, "Oh, what's the use?" but she checked +herself. They were at the door of her boarding-house. As he helped +her to the sidewalk Dave stood for a moment with her hand in his. He +had long liked Bert Morrison, and to-night he was powerfully drawn +toward her. He knew--what she would have most strenuously denied--that +her masculinity was a sham. Her defiance of convention--rambling like +a fellow bachelor into his apartments--her occasional profanity and +occasional cigarette--these were but the cloak from which her own deep +womanhood was forever peering forth. He felt impelled to kiss her. He +wondered if she would be angry; if such a familiarity would obstruct +their growing friendship. He felt sure she would not be angry, but she +would probably think him foolish. And man cannot endure being thought +foolish by woman. + +"Oh, I almost forgot," she said as they parted, as though she really +had forgotten. "I was at a reception to-day when a beautiful woman +asked for you. Asked me if I had ever heard of Mr. David Elden. + +"'What, Dave Elden, the millionaire?' I said. 'Everybody knows him. +He's the beau of the town, or could be, if he wanted to.' Oh, I gave +you a good name, Dave." + +"Thanks, Bert. That was decent. Who was she?" + +"She said her name was Irene Hardy." + + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE + +Upon the return of Irene Hardy to the East it had slowly become +apparent to her mother that things were not as they once had been. +There were various vague stirrings of uneasiness, but perhaps the most +alarming manifestation was the strange silence in which the girl +enveloped herself. It seemed as though she had left part of her nature +behind--had outgrown it, perhaps--and had created about herself an +atmosphere of reserve foreign to her earlier life. It seemed as though +the loneliness of the great plains had settled upon her. The old +virility had been sobered; the gaiety of her girlhood had ripened into +a poise more disturbing to Mrs. Hardy than any conventional excess +could have been. She sought her own company; she tolerated social +engagements in which she had previously found delight. And, most +sinister of all, she showed no disposition to encourage the attentions +which were ready enough in the offering. + +"Whatever has come over Irene?" said Mrs. Hardy to the doctor one +evening when their daughter had been particularly indifferent to a +theatre invitation. "She hasn't been the same since she came home. I +should not have let her go west alone." + +The doctor looked up mildly from his paper. It was the custom of the +doctor to look up mildly when Mrs. Hardy made a statement demanding +some form of recognition. From the wide initiation into domestic +affairs which his profession had given him, Dr. Hardy had long since +ceased to look for the absolute in woman. He had never looked for it +in man. He realized that in Mrs. Hardy he did not possess a perfect +mate, but he was equally convinced that in no other woman would he have +found a perfect mate, and he accepted his lot with the philosophy of +his sixty years. If Mrs. Hardy, in some respects, failed to measure up +to his standard of the ideal, he found it true nevertheless that she +had many admirable qualities. Granting that in his matrimonial +adventure he might possibly have done somewhat better, fairness +compelled the admission that he might also have done very much worse. +And being, as has been hinted, something of a philosopher, he had +sought, whenever possible, to harmonize his life with hers; and when +that was impossible, at least to keep what pressure he might upon the +soft pedal. So instead of reminding his wife that Irene had not been +alone when she went west he remarked, very mildly, that the girl was +growing older. + +Mrs. Hardy found in this remark occasion to lay down the book she had +been holding, and to sit upright in a rigidity of intense disapproval. +Dr. Hardy was aware that this was entirely a theatrical attitude, +assumed for the purpose of imposing upon him a proper humility. He had +experienced it many, many times. And he knew that his statement, +notwithstanding its obviousness, was about to be challenged. + +"Dr. Hardy," said his wife, after the lapse of an appropriate period, +"do you consider that an intelligent remark?" + +"It has the advantage of truthfulness," returned the doctor, +complacently. "It is susceptible of demonstration." + +"I should think this is a matter of sufficient interest to the family +to be discussed seriously," retorted Mrs. Hardy, who had an unfortunate +habit of becoming exasperated by her husband's good humour. She had +none of his philosophy, and she mistook his even temper for +indifference. "Irene is our only child, and before your very eyes you +see her--you see her--" Mrs. Hardy's fears were too nebulous to enable +her to complete the sentence. + +"Yes, I see her," the doctor admitted. "That is, I did see her at +dinner. There is nothing alarming about that." Then, relenting, "But, +seriously, what reason have you for uneasiness about the child?" + +"Reason enough. She behaves so strangely. Do you know, I begin--I +really do begin to suspect that she's in love." + +It was Dr. Hardy's turn to sit upright. "Nonsense," he said. "Why +should she be in love?" It is the unfortunate limitation of the +philosopher that he so often leaves irrational behaviour out of the +reckoning. "She is only a child." + +"She will be eighteen presently. And why shouldn't she be in love? +And the question is--who? That is for you to answer. Whom did she +meet?" + +"If you would find a Hamlet at the root of this melancholy you must ask +our Ophelia. She met no one with me. My accident left me to enjoy my +holiday as best I could at a ranch deep in the foothills, and Reenie +stayed with me there. There was no one else--" + +"No one? No ranch men, cowboys,--cow punchers--I think I have +heard,"--with nice disdain. + +"No. Only young Elden--" + +"_Only_? Who is this young Elden?" + +"But he is just a boy. Just the son of the old rancher of whom I have +told you." + +"Exactly. And Irene is just a girl. Dr. Hardy, you are all very well +with your fevers and your chills, but you can't diagnose a love case +worth a cent. An epidemic would break out under your very eyes and you +blissfully unconscious. What about this young Elden? Did Irene see +much of him?" + +The doctor spread his hands. "Do you realize that there were four of +us at that ranch--four, only, and no one else for miles? How could she +help seeing him?", + +"And you permitted it?" + +"I was on my back with a broken leg. We were guests at their home. +They were good Samaritans to us. I couldn't chaperon her. And +besides, they don't do things that way in that country. You don't +understand. It's altogether different." + +"Andrew," said Mrs. Hardy, leaning forward, and the word was ominous, +for she used his Christian name only in moments of crisis,--"was Irene +ever, with this young man--alone?" + +The doctor arose to his feet and trod heavily upon the rich carpetings. +"I told you you don't understand," he protested. "The West is not the +East. Everything is different--" + +"I suppose human nature is different," she interrupted, meaningly. +Then her head fell upon the table and her hands went up about her hair. +It had been brown hair once, but was now thin and streaked with grey. +"Oh, Andrew," she wept. "We are ruined. That we should ever have come +to this!" + +It was now Dr. Hardy's turn to be exasperated. There was one thing his +philosophy could not endure. That was a person who was not, and would +not be, philosophical. Mrs. Hardy was not, and would not be, +philosophical. She was an absolutist. With Mrs. Hardy things were +right or things were wrong. Moreover, that which was done according to +rule was right, and that which was not done according to rule was +wrong. It was apparent that the acquaintanceship of Irene and Dave +Elden had not been according to rule. + +"This is all nonsense," said the doctor, impatiently. "There is +nothing to it, anyway. The girl had to have some company. What if +they did ride together? What--" + +"They rode together? Alone?" + +"They had their horses along," said the doctor, whose impatience had +made way for sarcasm. + +"Through the forest, I suppose," said Mrs. Hardy, with an air of one +whose humiliation is complete. + +"Oh, yes, through the forests, across the foothills, up the canyons, +hours of it, days of it, weeks of it--" + +"Stop! You are mocking me. In this hour of shame you are making +jests. Call Irene." + +The girl was summoned. Her fine face had lost some of its brownness, +and the eyes seemed deeper and slower, but she was still a vision of +grace and beauty as she stood in response to their call framed in the +curtains of an archway. Her quick sense caught the tense atmosphere, +and she came forward with parted lips and extended fingers. There was +the glint of light on her white teeth. "Yes?" she said. "What is +wrong? Can I help?" + +"Your father has confessed," said Mrs. Hardy, trying hard to speak with +judicial calm. "Now tell us about your relations with this young +Elden, this cow _puncher_. Let us know the worst." + +Irene's startled eyes flew from her mother to her father's face. And +there they caught something that restored their calm. + +"There was no worst," she said, with a ripple of laughter. "But there +was a good deal of best. Shall I tell you the best?" + +"Irene," said her mother, severely, "Did you permit that young man to +make love to you?" + +"I did not give him permission, if that answers you, because--he didn't +ask it." + +Mrs. Hardy had risen, "Andrew, you hear that? She confesses. And you, +blind, blind, couldn't see it!" + +"Is it very dreadful?" asked Irene. + +"Yes, you mock me, too. Of course it's dreadful. Horrible. What will +everybody say?" + +"No worse than you have said, I'll be bound," put in the doctor. + +"Yes, take her part. What care you for the family name?" + +"I have a right to speak for the family name," said the doctor firmly. +"It was mine before it was yours. And I sometimes think, if we lived +under more liberal laws, it might be mine after it had ceased to be +yours. . . . I cannot see that the family name has been compromised in +the slightest degree. This is Irene's first adventure. It will pass +away. And even if it does not--he is a manly boy." + +Mrs. Hardy surveyed her husband hopelessly, then turned to Irene. +"Have you made any promises?" + +"Only that I wouldn't make any promises until he had his chance. That +seemed fair." + +"I suppose you are receiving letters from him?" + +"No." + +"None at all?" + +"None at all." + +"Why doesn't he write?" + +For the first time Irene's eyes fell, and the colour mounted richer in +her cheeks. She had to confess now, not for herself, but for him. + +"He can't write," she said. + +"Merciful Heavens!" exclaimed Mrs. Hardy, collapsing into a chair. +"Andrew, bring me a stimulant." + +The outcome was that Mrs. Hardy insisted upon Irene embarking at once +upon a finishing course. When this was completed, as the girl had +shown a sense for form and colour, she encouraged her into a special +art course. Afterwards they travelled together for a year in Europe. +Then, home again, Irene pursued her art, and her mother surrounded her +with the social attractions which Dr. Hardy's comfortable income and +professional standing made possible. Her purpose was obvious, and but +thinly disguised. She hoped that her daughter would outlive her +youthful infatuation, and would at length, in a more suitable match, +give her heart to one of the numerous eligibles of her circle. + +To promote this end Mrs. Hardy spared no pains. Young Carlton, son of +a banker, and one of the leading men of his set, seemed a particularly +appropriate match. Mrs. Hardy opened her home to him, and Carlton, +whatever his motives, was not slow to grasp the situation. For years +Irene had not spoken of Dave Elden, and the mother had grown to hope +that the old attachment had died down and would presently be quite +forgotten in a new and more becoming passion. The fact is that Irene +at that time would have been quite incapable of stating her relation +toward Elden and its influence upon her attitude to life. She was by +no means sure that she loved that sun-burned boy of romantic memory; +she was by no means sure that she should ever marry him, let his +development in life be what it would. But she felt that her heart was +locked, at least for the present, to all other suitors. She had given +her promise, and that settled the matter. True, he had not come to +claim fulfilment of that promise--and at times she scolded him soundly +in the secrecy of her own mind for his negligence through all these +years--but she was young, with no desire for a decisive step, and while +she chafed under his apparent neglect she felt a sort of tingling dread +of the day when he should neglect her no longer. One thing she knew; +he had implanted in her soul a fine contempt for men of the set which +Carlton typified. They would have thought Dave ignorant; but she knew +that if Dave and Carlton were thrown into the wilderness on their own +resources Dave would thrive and Carlton would starve. Perhaps Dave's +education, although not recognized by any university save the +university of hard knocks, was the more real and valuable of the two. + +Notwithstanding her contempt for him, the girl found herself +encouraging Carlton's advances, or at least not meeting them with the +rebuffs which had been her habit toward all other suitors, and Mrs. +Hardy's hopes grew as the attachment apparently developed. But they +were soon to be shattered. + +Irene had gone with Carlton to the theatre; afterwards to supper. It +was long past midnight when she reached home; she knocked at her +mother's door and immediately entered. She was splendidly gowned, but +her hair was dishevelled and her cheeks were flushed, and she walked +unsteadily across the room. + +"What's the matter, Irene? What's the matter, child? Are you sick?" +cried her mother, springing from her bed. "Oh, dear me, and the doctor +is out!" + +"No, I'm not sick," said the girl, brutally. "I'm drunk!" + +"Oh, don't say that," said her mother, soothingly. "Proper people do +not become drunk. You may have had too much champagne, and to-morrow +you will have a headache--" + +"Mother! I have had too much champagne, but not as much as that +precious Carlton of yours had planned for. I just wanted to see how +despicable he was, and I floated down stream with him as far as I +dared. But just as the current got too swift I struck for shore. Oh, +we made a scene, all right, but nobody knew me there, so the family +name is safe and you can rest in peace. I called a taxi and when he +tried to follow me in I slapped him and kicked him. Kicked him, +mother. Dreadfully undignified, wasn't it? . . . And that's what you +want me to marry, in place of a man!" + +Mrs. Hardy was chattering with mortification and excitement. Her plans +had miscarried. Irene had misbehaved. Irene was a difficult, +headstrong child. It was useless to argue with her in her present +mood. It was useless to argue with her in any mood. No doubt Carlton +had been impetuous. Nevertheless, he stood high in his set, and his +father was something of a power in the financial world. As the wife of +such a man Irene might have a career before her--a career from which at +least some of the glory would reflect upon the silvering head of the +mother of Mrs. Carlton. And now Irene, by her folly and her +ungovernable temper, had spoiled all the carefully laid plans. Mrs. +Hardy was a very badly used woman. + +"Go to your room," she said, at length. "You are in no condition to +talk to-night. I must say it is a shame that you can't go out for an +evening without drinking too much and making a scene. . . . In a +public place, too. . . . What will Mr. Carlton think of you?" + +"If he remembers all I told him about himself he'll have enough to +think of," the girl blazed back. "You know--what I have told you--and +still _Mister_ Carlton stands as high in your sight as ever. _I_ am +the one to blame. Very well. I've tried your choice, and I've tried +my own. Now I am in a position to judge. There will be nothing to +talk about in the morning. Mention Carlton's name to me again and I +will give the whole incident to the papers. With photographs. And +names. Fancy the feature heading, 'Society girl, intoxicated, kicks +escort out of taxi.' Good night." + +But other matters were to demand the attention of mother and daughter +in the morning. While the scene was occurring in Mrs. Hardy's bed-room +her husband, clad in white, toiled in the operating room to save the +life of a fellow being. It was an emergency operation, performed by +artificial light, and without adequate assistance. There was a slip of +an instrument, but the surgeon toiled on; he could not, at that +juncture, pause; the life of the patient was at stake. When the +operation was finished he found his injury deeper than he supposed, and +Irene was summoned from her heavy sleep that morning to attend his +bedside. He talked to her as a philosopher; said his life's work was +done, and he was just as glad to go in the harness; the estate should +yield something, and there was his life insurance--a third would be for +her. And when Mrs. Hardy was not at his side he found opportunity to +whisper, "And if you really love that boy out west, _marry him_." + +The sudden bereavement wrought a reconciliation between Mrs. Hardy and +her daughter. Mrs. Hardy took her loss very much to heart. While +Irene grieved for her father, Mrs. Hardy grieved for herself. It was +awful to be left alone like this. There was something in her demeanour +that suggested that Andrew had been rather unkind in departing as he +did. And when the lawyers found that instead of a hundred thousand +dollars the estate would yield a bare third of that sum she spoke +openly of her husband's improvidence. He had enjoyed a handsome +income, upon which his family had lived in luxury. That it was unequal +to the strain of providing for them in that fashion and at the same +time accumulating a reserve for such an eventuality as had occurred was +a matter which his wife could scarcely overlook. + +About this time it came to the notice of Mrs. Hardy that when the late +Mr. Deware had departed this life Mrs. Deware, with her two daughters, +had gone on a trip to England to dull the poignancy of their +bereavement. The Dewares moved in the best circles, Mr. Deware having +amassed a considerable fortune in the brewing business. It was obvious +that whatever Mrs. Deware might do under such circumstances would be +correct. Upon arrival at this conclusion Mrs. Hardy lost no time in +buying two tickets for London. + +Her health, however, had suffered a severe shock, for beneath her +ostentation she felt as deep a regard for her late husband as was +possible in one who measured everything in life by various social +formulae. On the ocean voyage she contracted a cough, which the fogs +of London did little to dispel, and February found her again on the +Atlantic, with her mind occupied by more personal affairs than a seat +at the captain's table. The voyage was a particularly unhappy one, and +the widow's first concern upon reaching home was to consult a +specialist who had enjoyed a close professional acquaintanceship with +Dr. Hardy. The specialist gave her a careful, meditative, and solemn +examination. + +"Your condition is serious," he told her, "but not alarming. You must +have a drier climate, and, preferably, a higher altitude. Fortunately, +your heart is good, or I should have to keep you at sea level; that is, +I should have had to sacrifice your lungs for your heart." The doctor +spoke as though the sacrifice would have been all his, after the manner +of a specialist. "As it is, I am convinced that the conditions your +health demands are to be found in. . ." He named the former cow-town +from which Irene's fateful automobile journey had had its start, and +the young woman, who was present with her mother, felt herself go +suddenly pale with the thought of a great prospect. + +"Oh, I could never live there," Mrs. Hardy protested. "It is so crude. +Cow _punchers_, you know, and all that sort of thing." + +The specialist smiled. "You will probably not find it so crude, +although I daresay some of its customs may jar on you," he remarked, +dryly. "Still, I would recommend you to take your best gowns along. +And it is not a case of not being able to live there. It is a case of +not being able to live here. If you take my advice you should die of +old age, so far, at least, as your present ailment is concerned. If +you don't"--and he dropped his voice to just the correct note of +gravity, which pleased Mrs. Hardy very much--"if you don't, I can't +promise you a year." + +Confronted with such an alternative, the good lady had no option but to +suppress her repugnance toward cow punchers. Irene had expected +opposition born of a more subtle reason, but it soon became evident +that so deeply was her mother concerned with her own affairs that she +had quite failed to associate the proposed change with any possibility +of a re-opening of Irene's affair with the young rancher. It was years +since they had discussed him, and the probability was that, although +the incident remained in the back of Mrs. Hardy's memory, even his name +had been forgotten. + +Arrangements for the journey were made with the despatch which +characterized Mrs. Hardy. She was a stickler for precedent; any +departure from the beaten paths was in her decalogue the unpardonable +sin, but when she had arrived at a decision she was no trifler. She +accepted the situation with the resignation which she deemed to be +correct under such circumstances, but the boundless prairies were to +her so much desolation and ugliness. It was apparent that dwellers in +the little four-cornered houses of the plains must be sadly lacking in +any sense of the artistic, and as Mrs. Hardy gazed from the car window +she acquired a habit of making with her tongue a sound which, owing to +the limitations of the alphabet, cannot be represented to the reader, +but which Irene understood to be an expression of mingled surprise, +pity, and contempt. Irene gathered that her mother did not approve of +prairies. They were something new to her life, and it was greatly to +be suspected that they were improper. + +With very different emotions did the girl find herself speeding again +toward the scene of the first great event of her conscious life. For +her the boundlessness, the vastness, the immeasurable sweep of the eye, +suggested an environment out of which should grow a manhood and +womanhood that should weigh mightily in the scales of destiny of a +great nation; a manhood and womanhood defiant of the things that are, +eager for the adventure of life untrammeled by traditions. She had a +mental vision of the type which such a land must produce; her mind ran +to riots of daring as it fashioned a picture which should fairly +symbolize this people. . . . The day was drawing to a close, and a +prairie sunset glowed upon them in a flush of colouring that stirred +her artist soul. A cloudless sky, transparent as an ocean of glass; +fathomless, infinite, save when in the west inverted islands of gold +and brass and ruddy copper floated in a sea that gently deepened from +saffron to opal; and under that sky the yellow prairies; ever, forever, +and ever. . . . Up from the East came the night, and large, bright +stars stood out, and the click-clack of the car wheels came louder and +louder, and mimic car lamps raced along against the darkness outside. +And then the settlers' lights began to blink across the prairie, and +Irene's eyes were wet with an emotion she could not define; but she +knew her painting had missed something; it had been all outline and no +soul, and the prairies in the night are all soul and no outline; all +softness and vagueness and yearning unutterable. . . . + +"How tiresome it is," said her mother. "Ask the porter to make up the +berths." + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN + +Mrs. Hardy accepted the surroundings she found in the city that was to +be her home with not a little incredulity. For some days she treated +the city as a deep rascal which had disguised its true nature in order +to deceive her. She smiled at the ease with which she saw through all +disguises. One of these days the cloak of respectability would be +thrown off, and the shouting and shooting of the cow punchers would +proclaim the West as it really was. + +Very slowly it dawned upon Mrs. Hardy that this respectable, thriving +city, with its well dressed, properly mannered people, its public +spirit, its aggressiveness, its churches and theatres and schools, its +law and order--and its afternoon teas ("My dear, who would have thought +it possible?" She half expected a cowboy to ride in and overthrow the +china)--very slowly it dawned upon her that this, after all, was the +real West; sincere, earnest; crude, perhaps; bare, certainly; the scars +of its recent battle with the wilderness still fresh upon its person; +lacking the finish that only time can give to a landscape or a +civilization; but lacking also the mouldiness, the mustiness, the +insufferable artificiality of older communities. And the atmosphere! +Day after day brought its cloudless sky, the weather, for once, having +failed to observe the rule of contraries; evening after evening flooded +valley and hilltop with its deluge of golden glory; night after night a +crisp temperature sent her reaching for comforters. Sleep? She felt +that she had never slept before. Eat? Her appetite was insatiable; +all day long she lived in a semi-intoxication born of an unaccustomed +altitude. And, best of all, something had happened to her cough; she +did not know just what or when, but presently she discovered it was +gone. Even Mrs. Hardy, steeped for sixty years in a life of precedent +and rule and caste, began to catch the enthusiasm of a new land where +precedent and rule and caste are something of a handicap. + +"We must buy a home," she said to Irene. "We cannot afford to continue +living at an hotel, and we must have our own home. You must look up a +responsible dealer whose advice we can trust in a matter of this kind." + +And was it remarkable that Irene Hardy should think at once of the firm +of Conward & Elden? It was not. She had, indeed, been thinking of a +member of that firm ever since the decision to move to the West. She +had felt a peculiar hesitation about enquiring openly for Dave Elden, +but, upon meeting a newspaper woman in the person of Miss Morrison she +had voiced the great question with an apparent unconcern which did not +in the slightest mislead the acute Roberta. It is the business of +newspaper people to know things and people, and it seemed to Irene that +she could ask such a question of Miss Morrison in a sort of +professional way. But she had not been prepared for the reply. + +The fact is Irene had not been at all sure that she wanted to marry +Dave Elden. She wanted very much to meet him again; she was curious to +know how the years had fared with him, and her curiosity was not +unmixed with a finer sentiment; but she was not at all sure that she +should marry him. She had tried to picture him in the eye of her +imagination; she was sure he had acquired a modest education; he had +probably been reasonably successful in business, either as an employee, +or, in a small way, on his own account. She was moderately sure of all +this; but there were pessimistic moods in which she saw him slipping +back into the indifference of his old life soon after the inspiration +of her presence had been withdrawn; perhaps still living with his +bibulous father on the ranch in the foothills, or perhaps following the +profession of cow puncher, held in such contempt by her mother. And in +such moods she was sorry, but she knew she could never, never marry him. + +"What, Dave Elden, the millionaire?" Bert Morrison had said. +"Everybody knows him." And then the newspaper woman had gone on to +tell what a figure Dave was in the business life of the city, and to +declare that he might be equally prominent in the social life, did his +fancies lead him in that direction. "One of our biggest young men," +Bert Morrison had said. "Reserved, a little; likes his own company +best; but absolutely white." + +That gave a new turn to the situation. Irene had always wanted Dave to +be a success; suddenly she doubted whether she had wanted him to be so +big a success. And with that doubt came another and more disturbing +one, which, if it had ever before crossed her mind, had found no +harbourage there. She had doubted whether she should wish to marry +Dave; she had never allowed herself to doubt that Dave would wish to +marry her. Secretly, she had expected to rather dazzle him with her +ten years' development--with the culture and knowledge which study and +travel and life had added to the charm of her young girlhood; and +suddenly she realized that her lustre would shine but dimly in the +greater glory of his own. . . . She became conscious of a very great +desire to renew with Dave the intimacy of her girlhood. + +It was easy to locate the office of Conward & Elden; it stood on a +principal corner of a principal street, and the name was blazoned to +the wayfarer in great gilt letters. Thence she led her mother, and +found herself treading on the marble floors of the richly appointed +waiting room in a secret excitement which she could with difficulty +conceal. She was, indeed, very uncertain about the next +development. . . . Her mother had to be reckoned with. + +A young man asked courteously what could be done for them. "We want to +see the head of the firm," said Mrs. Hardy. "We want to buy a house." +It occurred to Irene that in some respects her mother was extremely +artless, but the issue was for the moment postponed. + +They were shown into Conward's office. Time had been when they would +have seen no further than a head salesman; but times were changing, and +real estate dealers were losing the hauteur of the days of their great +success. Conward gave them the welcome of a man who expects to make +money out of his visitors. He placed a very comfortable chair for Mrs. +Hardy; he adjusted the blinds to a nicety; he discarded his cigarette +and beamed upon them with as great a show of cordiality as his somewhat +beefy appearance would permit. The years had not been over kind to +Conward's person. His natural tendency to corpulence had been abetted +by excessive eating; his face was red and flabby, his lips had no more +colour than his face; and nature, in deciding to deprive him of a +portion of his hair, had very unkindly elected to take it in patches, +giving his head a sort of pinto effect. These imperfections were +quickly appraised by Irene, but his manner appealed to Mrs. Hardy, who +outlined her life history with considerable detail, dwelling more than +once upon the perfections of the late Dr. Hardy--which perfections she +now showed a disposition to magnify, as implying a certain distinction +unto herself--and ended with the confession that the West was not as +bad as she had feared, and anyway it was a case of living here or dying +elsewhere, so she would have to make the best of it. And here they +were. And might they see a house? + +Conward appeared to be reflecting. As a matter of fact, he saw in this +inexperienced buyer an opportunity to reduce his holdings in +anticipation of the impending crash. His difficulty was that he had no +key to the financial resources of his visitors. They had lived in good +circumstances; they were the family of a successful professional man, +but, as Conward well knew, many successful professional men had a +manner of living that galloped hard on the heels of their income. The +only thing was to throw out a feeler. + +"You are wanting a nice home, I take it, that can be bought at a +favourable price for cash. You would consider an investment of +say----." + +He paused, and Mrs. Hardy supplied the information for which he was +waiting. "About twenty-five thousand dollars," she said. + +"We can hardly invest that much," Irene interrupted, in a whisper. "We +must have something to live on." + +"People here live on the profits of their investments, do they not, Mr. +Conward?" Mrs. Hardy inquired. "I have been told that that is the way +they live, and they seem to live very well indeed." + +"Oh, certainly," Conward agreed, and he plunged into a mass of +incidents to show how profitable investments had been to other clients +of the firm. He emphasized particularly the desirability of buying +improved property--preferably residential property--and suddenly +recalled that he had something very choice in which they might be +interested. At this juncture Conward's mood of deliberation gave way +to one of briskness; he summoned a car, and in a few minutes his +clients were looking over the property which he had recommended. Mrs. +Hardy, who, during her husband's lifetime had never found it necessary +to bear financial responsibilities or make business decisions, was an +amateurish buyer, her tendency being alternately to excess of caution +on one side and recklessness on the other. Conward's manner pleased +her; the house he showed pleased her, and she was eager to have it over +with. But he was too shrewd to appear to encourage a hasty decision. +He realized at once that he had sold Mrs. Hardy, but Irene was a +customer calling for more tactful handling. Conward's eye had not +failed to appraise the charm of the young woman's appearance. He would +gladly have ingratiated himself with her, but he was conscious of a +force in her personality that held him aloof. And that consciousness +made him desire the more to gain her confidence. . . . However, this +was a business transaction. He did not seize upon Mrs. Hardy's remark +that the house seemed perfectly satisfactory; on the contrary, he +insisted on showing other houses, which he quoted at such impossible +figures that presently the old lady was in a feverish haste to make a +deposit lest some other buyer should forestall her. + +Back in Conward's office, while the agreement was being drawn, Irene +was possessed of a consuming desire to consult with Dave Elden. She +was uneasy about this transaction in which her mother proposed so +precipitately to invest the greater part of their little fortune. But +the more she thought over the situation the more its difficulties +became apparent. She had no personal knowledge or experience which +could be summoned for such an occasion. She would like to have asked +Dave's advice; instinctively she distrusted Conward. Yet, . . . . +Conward was Dave's partner. It was impossible to attribute honest +motives to one half of the firm and deny them to the other. And it was +unreasonable to expect that Dave's advice would conflict with +Conward's. And, in the event that an issue did arise between the two +partners, it was quite certain that her mother would side with Conward. +Meanwhile the agreement neared completion, and Mrs. Hardy had produced +her cheque book. + +Irene's excitement at length reached the point where she could no +longer remain silent. "I think I would hesitate, mother," she cried. +"If you buy this house we will have only a few thousand dollars left. +I am not thinking of myself. Your health may demand other +expenditures----" + +"My health was never better," Mrs. Hardy interrupted. "And I'm not +going to miss a chance like this, health or no health. You have heard +Mr. Conward tell how many people have grown wealthy buying property and +selling it again. And I will sell it again--when I get my price," she +ended, with a finality that suggested that large profits were already +assured. + +"It is as your mother says," Conward interjected. "There are many +rapid increases in value. I would not be surprised if you should be +offered an advance of ten thousand dollars on this place before Fall. +It is really a very exceptional investment." + +"There must be an end somewhere," Irene murmured, rather weakly. But +her mother was writing a cheque. "I shall give you five thousand +dollars now," she said, "and the balance when you give me the deed, or +whatever it is. That is the proper way, isn't it?" + +"Well, it's done," said Irene, with an uneasy laugh, which her +excitement pitched a little higher than she had intended. + +In an adjoining room Dave Elden heard that laugh, and it stirred some +remembrance in him. Instantly he connected it with Irene Hardy. The +truth was Irene Hardy had been in the background of his mind during +every waking hour since Bert Morrison had dropped her bombshell upon +him. How effectively she had dropped it! What a hit she had scored! +Dave had ricochetted ever since between amusement and chagrin at her +generalship. She had deliberately created for him opportunities--a +whole evening full of them--to confess about Irene Hardy, and when he +had refused to admit that he had anything to confess she had confounded +him with an incident that admitted no explanation. For a moment he had +stood speechless, overcome with the significance of what she had said; +the next, he reached out to detain her, but she was already on the +stairs of her apartment and waving him a laughing good-night. And now +that voice-- + +Dave had no plan. He simply walked into Conward's office. His eye +took in the little group, and the mind behind caught something of its +portent. Irene's beauty! What a quickening of the pulses was his as +he saw in this splendid woman the girl who had stirred and returned his +youthful passion! But Dave had poise. Upon a natural ability to take +care of himself in a physical sense, environment and training had +imposed a mental resourcefulness not easily taken at a disadvantage. +He walked straight to Irene. + +"I heard your voice," he said, in quiet tones that gave no hint of the +emotion beneath. "I am very glad to see you again." He took the hand +which she extended in a firm, warm grasp; there was nothing in it, as +Irene protested to herself, that was more than firm and warm, but it +set her finger-tips a-tingling. + +"My mother, Mr. Elden," she managed to say, and she hoped her voice was +as well controlled as his had been. Mrs. Hardy looked on the +clean-built young man with the dark eyes and the brown, smooth face, +but the name suggested nothing. "You remember," Irene went on. "I +told you of Mr. Elden. It was at his ranch we stayed when father was +hurt." + +"But I thought he was a cow _puncher_," exclaimed Mrs. Hardy, with no +abatement of the contempt which she always compressed into the one +western term which had smuggled into her vocabulary. + +"Times change quickly in the West, madam," said Dave. There was +nothing in his voice to suggest that he had caught the note in hers. +"Most of our business men--at least, those bred in the country--have +thrown a lasso in their day. You should hear them brag of their +steer-roping yet in the Ranchmen's Club." Irene's eyes danced. Dave +had already turned the tables; where her mother had implied contempt he +had set up a note of pride. It was a matter of pride among these +square-built, daring Western men that they had graduated into their +office chairs from the saddle and the out-of-doors. + +"Oh, I suppose," said her mother, for lack of a better answer. +"Everything is so absurd in the West. But you were good to my +daughter, and to poor, dear Andrew. If only he had been spared. Women +are so unused to these business responsibilities, Mr. Conward. It is +fortunate there are a few reliable firms upon which we can lean in our +inexperience." + +"Mother has bought a house," Irene explained to Dave. "We thought this +was a safe place to come----" + +A look on Elden's face caused her to pause. "Why, what is wrong?" she +said. + +Dave looked at Conward, at Mrs. Hardy, and at Irene. He was instantly +aware that Conward had "stung" them. It was common knowledge in inside +circles that the bottom was going out. The firm of Conward & Elden had +been scurrying for cover; as quietly and secretly as possible, to avoid +alarming the public, but scurrying for cover nevertheless. And Dave +had acquiesced in that policy. He had little stomach for it, but no +other course seemed possible. Conward, he knew, had no scruples. Bert +Morrison had been caught in his snare, and now this other and dearer +friend had proved a ready victim. As Conward was wont to say, business +is business. And he had acquiesced. His position was extremely +difficult. + +"I don't think I would be in a hurry to buy," he said, slowly turning +his eyes on his partner. "You would perhaps be wiser to rent a home +for awhile. Rents are becoming easier." + +"But I _have_ bought," said Mrs. Hardy, and there was triumph rather +than regret in her voice. "I have paid my deposit." + +"It is the policy of this firm," Elden continued, "not to force or take +advantage of hurried decisions. The fact that you have already made a +deposit does not alter that policy. I think I may speak for my partner +and the firm when I say that your deposit will be held to your credit +for thirty days, during which time it will constitute an option on the +property which you have selected. If, at the end of that time, you are +still of your present mind, the transaction can go through as now +planned; and if you have changed your mind your deposit will be +returned." + +Conward shifted under Dave's direct eye. He preferred to look at Mrs. +Hardy. "What Mr. Elden has told you about the policy of the firm is +quite true," he managed to say. "But, as it happens, this transaction +is not with Conward & Elden, but with me personally. I find it +necessary to dispose of the property which I have just sold to you at +such an exceptional price"--he was looking at Mrs. Hardy--"I find it +necessary for financial reasons to dispose of it, and naturally I +cannot run a chance of having my plans overturned by any possible +change of mind on your part. Not that I think you will change your +mind," he hurried to add. "I think you are already convinced that it +is a very good buy indeed." + +"I am entirely satisfied," said Mrs. Hardy. "The fact that Mr. Elden +wants to get the property back makes me more satisfied," she added, +with the peculiarly irritating laugh of a woman who thinks she is +extraordinarily shrewd, and is only very silly. + +"The agreement is signed?" said Dave. He walked to the desk and picked +up the documents, and the cheque that lay upon them. His eye ran down +the familiar contract. "This agreement is in the name of Conward & +Elden," he said. "This cheque is payable to Conward & Elden." + +He was addressing Conward. Conward's livid face had become white, and +it was with difficulty he controlled his anger. "They are all printed +that way," he explained. "I am going to have them endorsed over to me." + +"You are _not_," said Dave. "You are charging this woman twenty-five +thousand dollars for a house that won't bring twenty thousand on the +open market to-day, and by Fall won't bring ten thousand. The firm of +Conward & Elden will have nothing to do with that transaction. It +won't even endorse it over." + +A fire was burning in the grate. Dave walked to it, and very slowly +and deliberately thrust the agreement and the cheque into the flame. +For a moment the printed letters stood out after the body of the paper +was consumed; then all fell to ashes. + +"Well, if that doesn't beat all!" Mrs. Hardy ejaculated. "Are all cow +_punchers_ so discourteous?" + +"I mean no discourtesy," said Dave. "And I hope you will let me say +now, what I should have said before, that it was with the deepest +regret I learned from your conversation of the death of Dr. Hardy. He +was a gentleman who commanded my respect, as he must have commanded the +respect of all who knew him. If my behaviour has seemed abrupt I +assure you I have only sought to serve Dr. Hardy's widow--and his +daughter." + +"It is a peculiar service," Mrs. Hardy answered curtly. She felt she +had a grievance against Dave. He had not lived down to her conception +of what a raw Western youth should be. Even the act of burning the +agreement and the cheque, dramatic though it was, had a poise to it +that seemed inappropriate. Dave should have snatched the papers--it +would have been better had the partners fought over them--he should +have crumpled them in rage and consigned them to the fire with curses. +Mrs. Hardy felt that in such conduct Dave would have been running true +to form. His assumption of the manners of a gentleman annoyed her +exceedingly. + +"I can only apologize for my partner's behaviour," said Conward. "It +need not, however, affect the transaction in the slightest degree. A +new agreement will be drawn at once--an agreement in which the firm of +Conward & Elden will not be concerned." + +"That will be more satisfactory," said Mrs. Hardy. She intended the +remark for Dave's ears, but he had moved to a corner of the room and +was conversing in low tones with Irene. + +"I am sorry I had to make your mother's acquaintance under +circumstances which, I fear, she will not even try to understand," he +had said to Irene. "I am sure she will not credit me with unselfish +motives." + +"Oh, Dave--Mr. Elden, I mean--that is--you don't know how proud--you +don't know how much of a _man_ you made me feel you are." + +She was flushed and excited. "Perhaps I shouldn't talk like this. +Perhaps----" + +"It all depends on one thing," Dave interrupted. + +"What is that?" + +"It all depends on whether we are Miss Hardy and Mr. Elden, or whether +we are still Reenie and Dave." + +Her bright eyes had fallen to the floor, and he could see the tremor of +her fingers as they rested on the back of a chair. She did not answer +him directly. But in a moment she spoke. + +"Mother will buy the house from Mr. Conward," she said. "She is like +that. And when we are settled you will come and see me, won't +you--Dave?" + + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN + +When the Hardys had gone Conward turned to Elden. "We had better try +and find out where we stand," he said, trying to speak dispassionately, +but there was a tremor in his voice. + +"I agree," returned Elden, who had no desire to evade the issue. "Do +you consider it fair to select inexperienced women for your victims?" + +Conward made a deprecating gesture. "There is nothing to be gained by +quarreling, Dave," he said. "Let us face the situation fairly. Let us +get at the facts. When we have agreed as to facts, then we may agree +as to procedure." + +"Shoot," said Dave. He stood with his shoulder toward Conward, +watching the dusk settling about the foothill city. The streets led +away into the gathering darkness, and the square brick blocks stood in +blue silhouette against a champagne sky. He became conscious of a +strange yearning for this young metropolis; a sort of parental brooding +over a boisterous, lovable, wayward youth. It was his city; no one +could claim it more than he. And it was a good city to look upon, and +to mingle in, and to dream about. + +"I think," said Conward, "we can agree that the boom is over. Booms +feed upon themselves, and eventually they eat themselves up. We have +done well, on paper. The thing now is to convert our paper into cash." + +Dave turned about. "You know I don't claim to be any great moralist, +Conward," he said, "and I have no pity for a gambler who deliberately +sits in and gets stung. Consequently I am not troubled with any +self-pity, nor any pity for you. And if you can get rid of our +holdings to other gamblers I have nothing to say. But if it is to be +loaded on to women who are investing the little savings of their +lives--women like Bert Morrison and Mrs. Hardy--then I am going to have +a good deal to say. And there is that man--what's his name?--Merton, I +think; a lunger if there ever was one; tuberculosis written all over +him; a widower, too, with a little boy, sent out here as his last +chance--you loaded him with stuff where he can't see the smoke of the +city, and you call it city property. That's what I want to talk +about," said Dave, with rising heat. "If business has to be done that +way, then I say, to hell with business!" + +"I asked you not to quarrel," Conward returned, with remarkable +composure. "I suggested that we get at the facts. That seems to be a +business suggestion. I think we are agreed that the boom is over. +Values are on the down grade. The boomsters are departing. They are +moving on to new fields, as we should have done a year or two ago, but +I confess I had a sort of sentiment for this place. Well--that is the +price of sentiment. It won't mix with business. Now, granting that +the boom is over, where do we stand? + +"We are rated as millionaires, but we haven't a thousand dollars in the +bank at this moment. This," he lifted Mrs. Hardy's cheque, "would have +seen us over next pay day, but you say the firm must have nothing to do +with it. And which is the more immoral--since you have spoken of +morality--to accept labour from clerks whom you can't pay, or to sell +property to women who say they want it and are satisfied with the +price? We make our income by selling property. As soon as the sales +stop, the income stops. Well, the sales have stopped. But the expense +goes on. We have literally thousands of unsettled contracts. We must +keep our staff together. We have debts to pay, and we owe it to our +creditors to make collections so that we can pay those debts, and we +can't make collections without staff. I sympathize with your feelings +on this matter, Dave, but what's a man to do? It's like war; we must +kill or be killed. Business is war, of a kind. Why, on the property +we are now holding the taxes alone will amount to twenty thousand +dollars a year. And I put it up to you; if we are going to stand on +sentiment, who's going to pay the taxes?" + +"I know; I know," said Dave, whose anger over the treatment of the +Hardys was already subsiding. "We are in the grip of the System. As +you have said, it is kill or be killed. Still--in war they don't +usually kill women and non-combatants. That is the point I'm trying to +make. I've no sentiment about others who are in the game as we are. +If you limit your operations to them----" + +"The trouble is, you can't. They're wise. They see the bottom going, +and they quit. Most of them have already moved on. A few firms, like +ourselves, will stay and try to fight it out; try, at least, to close +up with a clean sheet, if we must close up. But we can't wind up a +business without selling the stock on hand, and to whom are we to sell +it, if not to people who want it? That is what you seem to object to." + +"You place me in rather an unfair light," Dave protested. "What I +object to is taking the life savings of people--people of moderate +circumstances, mainly--in exchange for property which we know to be +worth next to nothing." + +"Yet you admit that we must clean up, don't you?" + +"Yes, I suppose so." + +"And there's no other way, Dave," said Conward, rising and placing an +arm on his partner's shoulder, "I sympathize with your point of view, +but, my boy, it's pure sentiment, and sentiment has no place in +business. And you remember the terms of our partnership, don't you?" + +Dave hesitated a few moments, as he threw his mind back over the years +that had gone by since the day when Conward proposed a partnership to +him. He saw again his little office where he ground out "stuff" for +_The Call_, the littered desk and floor, the cartoons on the walls, the +big shears, and the paste pot--yes, the paste pot, and the lock he had +installed to protect it, and his select file of time copy, from +depredation. And the smell of printer's ink; even yet, when business +took Dave into a printing office, the smell of ink brought back those +old, happy days. Happy days? When he worked more hours than a man +should work, for less salary than a man should get; when the glorious +out-of-doors called him and his soul rebelled against the despotism of +fate! Yes, surely they were happy days. He smiled a moment as he +thought of them; paused to dally with them on his way to an answer for +Conward; then skimmed quickly down the surface of events to this +present evening. More wonderful had the years been than any dream of +fiction; no wizard's wand had ever worked richer magic. . . . + +"You remember, don't you?" Conward repeated. + +"Oh, about the coal?" Dave laughed. The moment of reminiscence had +restored his good humour. "Yes, I suppose it was a bargain. You have +held me to it pretty well." + +"Let it remain a bargain to the end," said Conward. "It is the only +way we can finish up." + +Dave dropped the subject. There appeared to be nothing to gain from +pursuing it further. They were in the grip of a System--a System which +had found them poor, had suddenly made them wealthy, and now, with +equal suddenness, threatened to make them poor again. It was like +war--kill or be killed. It occurred to Dave that it was even worse +than war. War has in it the qualities of the heroic; splendid bravery; +immeasurable self-sacrifice; that broad spirit of devotion to a vague +ideal which, for lack of a better name, is called patriotism. This +System had none of that. It was more like assassination. . . . + +Night had settled when Dave left the office. The champagne sky had +deepened into a strip of copper; the silhouettes were soft and black; +street lights studded the bank of foothills to the west like setting +stars. Darkness had tucked the distance that lay between the city and +the Rockies in the lap of night, and the great ridge stood up close and +clear, prodding its jagged edge into the copper pennant of the day's +farewell. A soft wind blew from the south-west; June was in the air. +June, too, was in Dave's heart as he walked the few blocks to his +bachelor quarters. What of the drab injustice of business? Let him +forget that; now it was night . . . and she had called him Dave. He +climbed the steps to his room with energy and life tingling in his +limbs; then he stood in his window and for a long while watched the +traffic in the street below. That is, his eyes were directed to the +traffic, but what he saw was a merry girl in a brown sweater, showering +her glances of admiration upon a raw youth of the ranges whose highest +ambition was to break six bottles with six bullets. And she had even +held that to be a worthy ambition. She had said, "Perhaps the day is +coming when our country will want men who can shoot and ride more than +it will want lawyers or professors." He smiled at the recollection of +her words. The romantic days of youth! like the mirage of sunrise they +fade and are lost in the morning of life. . . . And their young +philosophies! The night they found the dead calf; he had propounded +the wisdom that it is always the innocent thing that suffers; that the +crittur that can't run gets caught. Well, that seemed to hold good. +Wasn't that what Conward had argued to him this very afternoon, and he +had found no answer? He wondered what Reenie's experience had +been. . . . And then the compact under the spruce trees. . . . "Come +to me--like that--" she had said, "and then--then we'll know." And +to-day she had called him Dave. + +He dressed with care. The Chinese boy was never more obsequious in his +attentions, and Dave never presented a more manly appearance. It was +not until he was about to leave his rooms that he remembered he must +dine alone; he had been dressing for her, unconsciously. The +realization brought him up with something of a shock. "This will never +do," he said, "I can't eat alone to-night. And I can't ask Reenie, so +soon after the incident with her mother. I know--Bert Morrison." He +reached for the telephone and rang her number. Had anyone charged Dave +with fickleness in his affections he would have laughed at the +absurdity. Had he not remained true to one great passion through the +dangerous decade of his life? A man always thinks of the decade just +ended as the dangerous decade. And Bert Morrison was a good friend. +As he waited at the telephone he recalled the impulse which had seized +him when they had last parted. But the recollection brought only a +glow of friendship for Bert. There was no hint of danger in it. + +Her number did not answer. He thought of Edith Duncan. But Edith +lived at home, and it was much too late to extend a formal dinner +invitation. There was nothing for it but to eat alone. He suddenly +became conscious of the great loneliness of his bachelor life. After +all, he was quite as much alone in the city as he had been in his +boyhood in the hills. He began to moralize on this subject of +loneliness. It was very evident to him now that his life had been +empty and shallow. It was rather evident that any single life is empty +and shallow. Nature had made no mistake in decreeing that humans +should live in pairs. Dave had never thought much on that point +before, but now it struck him as so obvious that none could fail to see +its logic. The charm of bachelorhood was a myth which only needed +contact with the gentle atmosphere of feminine affection to be exposed. + +The Chinese boy coughed deferentially, and Dave was recalled from his +reverie. He took his hat and coat and went into the street. It was +his custom to take his meals at a modest eating-place on a side avenue, +but to-night he directed his steps to the best hotel the city afforded. +There was no wisdom in dressing for an event unless he were going to +deflect his course somewhat from the daily routine. + +The dining hall was a blaze of light; the odour of early roses blended +with imported perfumes, and strains of sweet, subdued music trembled +through the room in accompaniment to the merry-making of the diners. +Dave paused for a moment, awaiting the beck of a waiter, but in that +moment his eye fell on Conward, seated at a table with Mrs. Hardy and +Irene. Conward had seen him, and was motioning to him to join them. +The situation was embarrassing, and yet delightful. He was glad he had +dressed for dinner. + +"Join us, Elden," Conward said, as he reached their table. "Just a +little dinner to celebrate to-day's transaction. You will not refuse +to share to that extent?" + +Dave looked at Mrs. Hardy. Had he been dealing with Conward and Mrs. +Hardy alone he would have excused himself, but he had to think of +Irene. That is, he had to justify her by being correct in his manners. +And as he looked from mother to daughter he realized that Irene had not +inherited all her beauty from her father. In their dinner gowns Mrs. +Hardy was sedate and even beautiful, and her daughter ravishing. Dave +thought he had not before seen so much womanly charm in any figure. + +"_Do_ join us," said Mrs. Hardy. It was evident to Mrs. Hardy that it +would be correct for her to support Mr. Conward's invitation. + +"You are very kind," said Dave, as he seated himself. "I had not hoped +for this pleasure." And yet the pleasure was not unmixed. He felt +that Conward had out-played him. It was Conward who had done the +gracious thing. And Dave could not prevent Conward doing the gracious +thing without himself being ungracious. + +He was aware of being under the close scrutiny of Mrs. Hardy. True, +Conward sought to monopolize her attention. He had an ingratiating way +with strangers; he struck a confidential note that quickly called forth +confidence in return, and Dave was chagrined to see that not only was +his partner creating the intended impression upon Mrs. Hardy, but his +sallies and witticisms were gradually winning response from Irene. And +the more he was annoyed at this turn of affairs the less was he able to +arrest it. As Conward's guest he could not quarrel, and his fear of +over-stepping the mark if he engaged in discussion induced a silence +which might easily have been mistaken for mental inanition. He +contented himself with being punctiliously correct in his table +etiquette. + +Perhaps he could have followed no wiser course, Dave's manners had an +effect upon Mrs. Hardy similar to that which she had experienced from +the decent civilization of the western city. To her it seemed +impossible that a raw youth, bred on the ranges--a cow puncher--could +conduct himself correctly in evening dress at a fashionable table. It +was more than impossible--it was heterodox; it was a defiance of all +the principles upon which caste is based, and to Mrs. Hardy caste was +the one safe line of demarkation between refinement and vulgarity. So +she noted Elden's correct deportment, even to--as it seemed to her--his +correct modesty in taking little part in the conversation, with a sense +that all this was a disguise, and that presently he would, +figuratively, burst forth from his linen and broadcloth and stand +revealed in schaps and bandana. But the meal progressed with no such +development, and Mrs. Hardy had a vague sense that this young man was +not dealing fairly with her. He was refusing to live up to her +preconceived ideas of what his part should be. Had Mrs. Hardy been +capable of analyzing her own emotions correctly, she would have known +that Dave was undermining her belief in caste, and without caste there +could be no civilization! But Mrs. Hardy was not a deep self-analyst. +Those who accept all distinctions as due to external causes have no +occasion to employ any deep mental subtlety in classifying their +acquaintances. So, as has been stated, the impression created upon her +mind by Elden's proper conduct was one of vague annoyance that proper +conduct should be found in one not reared within the charmed circle of +the _elite_. + +After dinner they sat in the lounge-room, and Conward beguiled the time +with stories of sudden wealth which had been practically forced upon +men who were now regarded as the business frame-work of the country. +As these worthies strolled through the richly furnished room leisurely +smoking their after-dinner cigars Conward would make a swift summary of +their rise from liveryman, cow puncher, clerk or labourer to their +present affluence, occasionally appealing to Dave to corroborate his +statements. It was particularly distasteful to Elden to be obliged to +add his word to Conward's in such matters, for although Conward +carefully refrained from making any direct reference to Mrs. Hardy's +purchase, the inference that great profits would accrue to her +therefrom was very obvious. + +A tall man passed by with a richly gowned woman on his arm. "Jim +Farley," Conward explained. "Plasterer by trade. Began dabbling in +real estate. Now rated as a millionaire." + +Conward paused to light another cigarette. "Interesting case, +Farley's," he continued, after a pause. "You remember it, Elden?" +Dave nodded. "Farley blew in here from Scotland, or some such place, +looking for work with his trowel. That was about the time of the +beginning of things, as things are reckoned here. Some unscrupulous +dealer learned that Farley had three hundred dollars--it goes to show +what has happened even when the motive of the seller could hardly be +endorsed as honest business. Well, this dealer learned that Farley had +three hundred dollars, and by means of much conviviality he induced him +to invest that amount in a pair of lots on a cut-bank in the most +outlandish place you can imagine. When Farley came to himself he was +so sick over it he moved on to the Coast, and took up his trade of +plastering. + +"Well, in a couple of years things had happened. The principal thing, +so far as Farley's fortunes were concerned, was the decision of a new +transcontinental railway to build into this centre. Now it so happened +that nature or geology or topography or whatever it is that controls +such matters had decreed that the railway must cross Farley's lots. +There was no other way in. It became the duty of Conward & Elden to +buy those lots. We ascertained his address and wired him an offer of +two thousand dollars. There was no time to lose, and we felt that that +offer would cinch it. But we had overlooked the fact that Farley was +Scotch. Did he accept our offer? He did not. He reasoned like this: +'If I am worth two thousand dollars I can afford a little holiday.' So +he threw up his job and in a couple of days he walked into our office. +Would he listen to reason? He would not. He knew that an eagle would +scarcely choose his property as a building site. He knew that whoever +was going to buy those lots was going to buy them because he had to +have them--because they were essential to some project. And he simply +sat tight. + +"To make the story short--how much do you think we paid for them? Ten +thousand dollars. Ten thousand dollars cash. And he made us pay the +cost of the transfer. You remember that, Elden? We laughed over it at +the time. Then he immediately re-invested his little fortune, and +to-day-- It's the story of hundreds." + +Elden was glad when Mrs. Hardy remembered that she must not remain up +late. Her physician had prescribed rest. Early to bed, you know. +Still, Mr. Conward's anecdotes were so refreshing, so suggestive of +that--what is it you call it?--that spirit of the West, etc. Dave had +opportunity for just a word with Irene before they left. + +"How did this happen--to-night?" he asked, with the calm assumption of +one who has a right to know. + +"Oh, Mr. Conward telephoned an invitation to mother," she explained. +"I was so glad you happened in. You have had wonderful experiences; it +must be inspiring--ennobling--to take such part in the building of a +new city; something that will be here forever as a monument to the men +of this generation. Mr. Conward is charming, isn't he?" + +Dave did not know whether the compliment to Conward was a personal +matter concerning his partner, or whether it was to be taken as a +courtesy to the firm. In either case he rather resented it. He +wondered what Irene would think of this "ennobling" business in the +drab days of disillusionment that must soon sweep down upon them. But +Irene apparently did not miss his answer. + +"We shall soon be settled," she said, as Mrs. Hardy and Conward were +seen approaching. "Then you will come and visit us?" + +"I will--Reenie," he whispered, and he was sure the colour that mounted +in her cheeks held no tinge of displeasure. + + + + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN + +Elden lost no time in making his first call upon the Hardys. He had +discussed the matter with Irene over the telephone. "We are hardly in +order yet," she had explained. "We are in a chaos of house-furnishing, +but you will be welcome. And there may be boxes to lift, and carpets +to lay, and heavy things to shove about." + +He found, however, that very fine order had already been established in +the Hardy home, or, at any rate, in that part of it available to +visitors. Mrs. Hardy would have barred, with her own robust body if +necessary, his admission into any such surroundings as Irene had +pictured. Irene received him cordially, but Mrs. Hardy evinced no more +warmth than propriety demanded. Elden, however, allowed himself no +annoyance over that. A very much greater grievance had been thrust +upon his mind. Conward had preceded him, and was already a guest of +the Hardys. + +Dave had accepted the fact of Conward's dinner party as a natural +enough occurrence, and after Irene's explanation he had dismissed it +from his mind. Conward's presence in the Hardy home was a more serious +matter. He knew Conward well enough to know that purpose always lay +behind his conduct, and during the small talk with which they whiled +away an hour his mind was reaching out acutely, exploring every nook of +possibility, to arrive, if it could, at some explanation of the sudden +interest which Conward was displaying in the Hardys. These +explanations narrowed down to two almost equally unpalatable. Conward +was deliberately setting about to capture the friendship, perhaps the +affection, of either Mrs. Hardy or Irene. Strangely enough, Elden was +more irritated by the former alternative than by the latter. He felt +that if Conward's purposes were directed towards Irene that was at +least fair warfare; he could not bring himself to think similarly of a +suit that involved Mrs. Hardy. Perhaps this attitude was due to +subconscious recognition of the fact that he had much more to fear from +Conward as a suitor for the hand of Mrs. Hardy than as a rival for that +of Irene. On the latter score he had no misgivings; he was confident +of his ability to worst any adversary in that field, and competition +would lend a piquancy to his courtship not altogether without +advantages; but he had no such confidence in the case of an assault +upon the heart of the elder woman. He could not become Conward's rival +in such a case, and, repugnant as the idea was to him, he felt no +assurance that such a match might not develop. And Conward, as a +prospective father-in-law, was a more grievous menace to his peace of +mind than Conward as a defeated rival. + +The more he contemplated this aspect of the case the less he liked it. +He would not do Conward the compliment of supposing that he had, or +might develop, a genuine attachment for Mrs. Hardy. It was true that +Mrs. Hardy, notwithstanding her years and her eccentricities, had a +certain stateliness of manner through which at times protruded a +reckless frankness that lent a unique charm to her personality, but it +was impossible to suppose that Conward had been captivated by these +interesting qualities. To Conward the affair could be nothing more +than an adventure, but it would give him a position of a sort of +semi-paternal authority over both Irene and Elden. Fortunately for his +train of thought, which was floundering into more and more difficult +travel, the prospect of having to appeal to Conward for the honour of +Irene's hand in marriage touched Dave's sense of humour, and he +suddenly burst into inappropriate laughter in the course of Mrs. +Hardy's panegyric upon the life and morals of her late husband. + +Mrs. Hardy contracted her eyebrows. + +"I beg your pardon," said Dave. "I have to confess I allowed my wits +to go rambling, and they stumbled upon a--upon a very amusing +absurdity." Elden's mind was engaged with Mrs. Hardy and Conward, and, +unintentionally, he allowed his eyes to embrace them both in his +remark. One more astute than Mrs. Hardy might have had a glimmer of +the absurdity which had provoked Dave's untimely mirth, but she was a +woman who took herself with much seriousness. If Conward guessed +anything he concealed his intuition behind a mask of polite attention. + +Mrs. Hardy addressed a severe gaze at Elden. "You should keep your +wits better in hand, young man. When you find them rambling it might +be well to--ah--_lasso_ them. Ha, ha, Mr. Conward. That's the word, +is it not? _Lasso_ them." This unexpected witticism on Mrs. Hardy's +part had the fortunate effect of restoring that lady's good humour, and +Elden found an easy way out of the situation by joining in the general +laughter. + +"I fear a thought would be a somewhat elusive thing to get a rope on," +he ventured. + +"But if it could be done, Dave would do it," Irene interjected. "You +remember----" + +"Dave?" said Mrs. Hardy, sharply. "You mean Mr. Elden." + +The colour rose in the young woman's cheeks, but she stood by her guns. +"He was Dave in those days," she said. "It would be impossible to +think of a _mister_ galloping about over the foothills, swinging his +lariat, or smashing bottles with his six-shooter. Mister fits in with +the conventions; with tailors and perfume and evening dress, but it +doesn't seem to have any place in the foothills." + +"You're right," Conward agreed. "Mister has no place on horseback. If +you were to go out on the ranges and begin mistering the cow-punchers, +like as not they'd lead you into camp at a rope-end. No man really +makes much of a hit in this country until everybody calls him by his +first name." + +"Well, Mr. Elden seems to have made a hit, as you call it, with some of +his acquaintances," said Mrs. Hardy, with a touch of acidity. "I +think, Irene, you would do well to remember that we are not out on the +ranges, and that Mr. Elden no longer pursues his living with a lariat." + +"It may be a point of view I have acquired in the West," Irene +persisted. "But I think it a greater courtesy to address a man by his +Christian name than by any artificial title. It is something like +admitting a guest into the kitchen--a privilege not extended to the +casual visitor. It seems like taking him into the family----" + +"Merciful Heaven!" exclaimed Mrs. Hardy. "Have we come to that?" + +Irene's cheeks and eyes grew brighter still. "Oh, I didn't mean that," +she protested. "I was--I was employing a figure of speech." + +So the talk drifted on, sometimes safely, sometimes through tortuous +channels that threatened at any moment to over-turn their little shell +of convention. But no such catastrophe occurred, and when, at length, +Mrs. Hardy began to show signs of weariness, Irene served coffee and +cake, and the two men, taking that as an intimation that their welcome +had run down, but would re-wind itself if not too continually drawn +upon, left the house together. On their way they agreed that it was a +very beautiful night. + +Dave turned the situation over in his mind with some impatience. Irene +had now been in the city for several weeks, and he had had opportunity +for scarce a dozen personal words with her. Was he to be baulked by +such an insufferable chaperonage as it seemed the purpose of Mrs. Hardy +and Conward to establish over his love affair? No. In the act of +undressing he told himself No, suiting to the word such vigour of +behaviour that in the morning he found his shoes at opposite corners of +the room. No! He who, as a boy, had not hesitated to assert a sort of +proprietorship over Irene, would not hesitate now-- He was keyed to +the heroic. + +Several days passed without any word from Irene, and he had almost made +up his mind to attempt another telephone appointment, when he met her, +quite accidentally, in the street. It was a beautiful afternoon; warm, +but not hot, with a fresh breeze from the mountains flowing through the +unclouded heavens, and a radiant sun pouring down upon all. But Irene +looked more radiant still. She had been shopping, she said. The duty +of household purchases fell mainly upon her. Her mother rested in the +afternoons---- + +"How about a cup of tea?" said Dave. "And a thin sandwich? And a +delicate morsel of cake? One can always count on thin sandwiches and +delicate morsels of cake. Their function is purely a social one, +having no relation to the physical requirements." + +"I should be very glad," said Irene. + +They found a quiet tea-room. When they were seated Dave, without +preliminaries, plunged into the subject nearest his heart. + +"I have been wanting an opportunity to talk to you--wanting it for +weeks," he said. "But it always seemed----" + +"Always seemed that you were thwarted," Irene completed his thought. +"You didn't disguise your annoyance very well the other night." + +"Do you blame me for being annoyed?" + +"No. But I rather blame you for showing it. You see, I was annoyed +too." + +"Then you had nothing to do with--with bringing about the situation +that existed?" + +"Certainly not. Surely you do not think that I would--that I would----" + +"I beg your pardon, Reenie," said Dave, contritely. "I should have +known better. But it seemed such a strange coincidence." + +She was toying with her cup, and for once her eyes avoided him. "You +should hardly think, Dave," she ventured,--"you should hardly conclude +that--what has been, you know, gives you the right--entitles you----" + +"To a monopoly of your attentions. Perhaps not. But it gives me the +right to a fair chance to win a monopoly of your attentions." He was +speaking low and earnestly, and his voice had a deep, rich timbre in it +that thrilled and almost frightened her. She could not resent his +straightforwardness. She felt that he was already asserting his claim +upon her, and there was something tender and delightful in the sense of +being claimed by such a man. + +"I must have a fair chance to win that monopoly," he repeated. "How +did it happen that Conward was present?" + +"I don't know. It just happened. A little after you telephoned me he +called up and asked for mother, and the next I knew she said he was +coming up to spend the evening. And then I said you were coming." + +"And what did she say?" + +Irene hesitated. "Please don't make me tell you," she whispered at +length. + +"Don't hesitate from any fear of hurting me," he said, with a laugh. +"I know I have failed to make a hit with your mother. On your account +I could wish I had been more successful, but perhaps she will be fairer +when she knows me better. What did she say?" + +"She just said, 'That cow _puncher_.' And I just told her that you +were the man who put the punch in the Conward & Elden firm--you see I +am learning your slang--and that everybody says so, and a few more +things I told her, too." + +But Dave had dropped into a sudden reverie. It was not so remarkable +as it seemed that Conward should have telephoned Mrs. Hardy almost +immediately after he had used the line. Conward's telephone and Dave's +were on the same circuit; it was a simple matter for Conward, if he had +happened to lift the receiver during Dave's conversation with Irene, to +overhear all that was said. That might happen accidentally; at least, +it might begin innocently enough. The fact that Conward had acted upon +the information indicated two things; first, that he had no very +troublesome sense of honour--which Dave had long suspected--and second, +that he had deliberately planned a confliction with Dave's visit to the +Hardy home. This indicated a policy of some kind; a scheme deeper than +Dave was as yet able to fathom. He would at least guard against any +further eavesdropping on his telephone. + +He took a card from his pocket, and made some figures on it. "If you +should have occasion to call me at the office at any time, please use +that number, and ask for me," he said. "It is the accountant's number. +'There's a reason.'" + +It flattered his masculine authority that she put the card in her purse +without comment. She did not ask him to explain. Dave knew that when +a woman no longer asks for explanations she pays man her highest +compliment. + +The cups were empty; the sandwiches and cake were gone, but they +lingered on. + +"I have been wondering," Dave ventured at length, "just where I +stand--with you. You remember our agreement?" + +She averted her eyes, but her voice was steady. "You have observed the +terms?" she said. + +"Yes--in all essential matters. I come to you now--in accordance with +those terms. You said that we would know. Now _I_ know; know as I +have always known since those wonderful days in the foothills; those +days from which I date my existence. Anything worth while that has +ripened in my life was sown by your smile and your confidence and your +strange pride in me, back in those sunny days. And I would repay it +all--and at the same time double my debt--by returning it to you, if I +may." + +"I realize that I owe you an answer, now, Dave," she said, frankly. +"And I find it very hard to make that answer. Marriage means so much +more to a woman than it does to a man. I know you don't think so, but +it does. Man, after the honeymoon, returns to his first love--his +day's work. But woman cannot go back. . . . Don't misunderstand me, +Dave. I would be ashamed to say I doubt myself, or that I don't know +my mind, but you and I are no longer boy and girl. We are man and +woman now. And I just want time--just want time to be _sure_ +that--that----" + +"I suppose you are right," he answered. "I will not try to hurry your +decision. I will only try to give you an opportunity to know--to be +sure, as you said. Then, when you are sure, you will speak. I will +not re-open the subject." + +His words had something of the ring of an ultimatum, but no endearments +that his lips might have uttered could have gripped her heart so +surely. She knew they were the words of a man in deadly earnest, a man +who had himself in hand, a man who made love with the same serious +purpose as he had employed in the other projects of his successful +life. She raised her eyes to his fine face. Decision was stamped all +over it; from the firm jaw to the steady eyes that met her own. +Suddenly she began to tremble. It was not fear. Afterwards she knew +it to have been pride--pride in his great masterly manfulness; in a +judgment so sure of itself that it dallied not a moment in stating the +terms upon which all future happiness might hang. For if Dave had +misread Irene's heart he had deliberately closed the only door through +which he might hope to approach it. But Irene instinctively knew that +he had not misread her heart; it seemed that this bold, daring +manoeuvre had captured the citadel at a stroke. Had it not been for +some strange sense of shame--some fear that too ready capitulation +might be mistaken for weakness--she would have surrendered then. + +"I think that is best," she managed so say. "We will let our +acquaintanceship ripen." + +He rose and helped her with her light wrap. His fingers touched her +hand, and it seemed to him the battle was won. . . . But he had +promised not to re-open the subject. + +In the street he said, "If you will wait a moment I will take you home +in my car." Their eyes met, and each of them knew what it meant. It +meant announcement to her mother that she had met Dave down town. It +meant, perhaps, a supposition on her mother's part that she had gone +down town for that purpose. It was far-reaching. But she said simply, +"I should enjoy driving home with you." + +On the way they planned that the following Sunday they would drive into +the foothills together. Of course they would ask Mrs. Hardy to +accompany them. Of course. But it might happen that Mrs. Hardy would +be indisposed. She was tired with the numerous duties incident to +settling in a new home. Irene was of the opinion that what her mother +needed now was rest. + +As it happened, Mrs. Hardy was at the gate. She greeted Dave cordially +enough; it was not possible for Mrs. Hardy to quite forget her +conventional training, just as it was not possible for her to quite +forget that Dave was a one-time cow puncher. Encouraged by her mood +Irene determined to settle the Sunday programme at once. + +"Dave was good enough to bring me up in his car," she said. "And just +think! He invites us to drive into the foothills with him next Sunday. +Will you come? It will be delightful. Or are you feeling----" + +"Mr. Elden is very kind," said Mrs. Hardy, with dignity. "I have no +doubt Mr. Conward will accompany us. He is to call this evening, and I +will ask him. . . . Yes, I think it very likely we will go." + + + + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN + +The summer wore on, and autumn followed on its heels. The processes +which had been discerned by Conward and other astute operators were now +apparent to the mob which forever follows in the wake of the +successful, but usually at such a distance as to be overwhelmed in the +receding flood. The forces which had built up fabulous fortunes were +now in reverse gear, and the same mechanism that had built up was now +tearing down. As the boom had fed upon itself, carrying prices to +heights justifiable only to the most insane optimism, so did the +subsequent depression bear down upon values until they reached depths +justifiable only to the most abandoned despondency. Building +operations came to a standstill. Carpenters, masons, brick-layers, +painters, plumbers, labourers found themselves out of employment. As, +in most instances, they had lived to the extent of their income in the +prosperous period, or had invested their surpluses in the all-alluring +real estate, they were promptly confronted with the necessity of +finding work; if not at home, elsewhere. Their exodus left vacant +houses; the reduced volume of trade necessary for a smaller and more +frugal population was speedily reflected in empty shops and office +buildings. With houses, shops, and office buildings empty or rented at +prices which did not pay interest on the investment there was no +inducement to build more houses, shops, or office buildings. With no +inducement to build houses, shops, or office buildings there was no +demand for vacant lots. With no demand for vacant lots, no value +attached to them. The rosy bubble, inflated with the vapours of +irresponsible speculation, had dissolved in thin air. + +It could not be called a collapse. There was no panic, no crash. +There was no wild rush to sell. One cannot sell without buyers, and +there were no buyers. A certain latent optimism, justified in part by +the undeniable natural advantages of the city, kept the flame of hope +alive in the hearts of investors, or, perhaps, suffered it to be +gradually diminished rather than extinguished by one icy blast of +despair. + +Mrs. Hardy was among the last to admit that she had bought on an ebbing +tide. She contended that her house was well worth the price she had +paid; what if speculation had come to a stop? So much the better; her +house was still worth its price. She would stand firm. It was not +until the Metfords, whose ostentation had brought them before her +notice, attempted to sell their home at a tremendous sacrifice, and had +found it impossible to get an offer, that Mrs. Hardy began seriously to +consider her predicament. Mrs. Metford had sold the car and discharged +the "chiffonier," and Mr. Metford had returned to his ancient and +honourable calling of coal freighter. + +Mrs. Hardy consulted Conward. It had grown to be her habit to consult +Conward on all matters in which she found an interest. Conward had +gone out of his way to make himself agreeable to Mrs. Hardy and her +daughter, with, in the case of the former, considerable success. His +status with Irene was not so well defined, but the frequency of his +visits to the Hardy home afforded the opportunity for an attachment to +be developed by insensible degrees, and the day was nearing when +Conward would wish to trade upon that attachment. + +"How is it, Mr. Conward," Mrs. Hardy said to him one evening over her +fancy work, for she practised an indefatigable industry in matters of +no importance,--"How is it that there is no demand for property? You +are a real estate expert; you should be able to answer that." + +"It is simple enough," Conward answered. "It is all a matter of +confidence. So long as confidence was maintained, prices continued to +advance. When confidence began to be shaken, prices hesitated. If +confidence should disappear, values would follow suit." + +"But why should confidence disappear? Isn't this city as good to-day +as it was a year ago? Doesn't it occupy the same site? Are not the +farms still producing?" + +"That's just it, dear Mrs. Hardy. Why, indeed? Simply because the +booster has given way to the calamity howler. Its psychological +explanation is simple enough. The world lives by faith. Without faith +there would be neither seed-time nor harvest. That is true of raising +cities, as well as raising crops. But there are always those who +ridicule faith; always were, always will be. And as soon as faith +disappears, things begin to sink. Just like John, or whoever it was, +on the water----" + +"Peter, I think," corrected Mrs. Hardy. "Yes, yes, I begin to +understand." + +"Well, it's just like that. I may be a little off colour on my +scripture, but I have the principle of it, and that's the main thing. +And as soon as a city loses faith it begins to sink, just like Peter in +the Red Sea." + +"I don't think it was the Red Sea," said Mrs. Hardy gently. "But that +is a matter of detail. As you say, the principle is the main thing. +So we owe all this--these empty houses and shops, unsalable property, +and everything, to those who have lost faith--or never had it. To men +like Mr. Elden, for instance. You remember how he tried to discourage +me from the very first--tried to break down my faith--that was it, Mr. +Conward--I see it all very plainly now--and he and others like him have +brought things to their present pass. Well, they have a great +responsibility." + +Conward, practised though he was in the arts of simulation, found +difficulty in maintaining a serious appearance. It had not occurred to +him that when a woman conceives a dislike for a man, her mind may lend +itself to processes of deductions that will ultimately saddle the +unfortunate offender with the responsibility for circumstances with +which he is not in the most remote manner connected. It was the most +natural thing in the world for a mind like Mrs. Hardy's, quite without +premeditated injustice, to find in Dave Elden the cause of effects as +far removed as was the collapse of the boom from the good advice he had +given her that day in Conward's office. Conward found the experience +an illuminating one. It was rich with hints of the possibilities that +might arise from apparently innocent sentences dropped at opportune +moments. It was proof that the danger of consequences lies, not in +wronging your neighbour, but in allowing your neighbour to suspect that +you wrong him. + +As a result of this discussion, Dave found himself rather less popular +with Mrs. Hardy than before. She treated him with distant civility, +showing such courtesies as convention demanded as an honour, not to +Elden, but to herself. Dave accepted her displeasure with a +light-heartedness that was extremely trying to the good woman's temper. +Had it not been for his desire to spare Irene any unhappiness, he would +have treated it with open flippancy. He was engaged in a much more +serious business than the cajolery of an old woman's whims. He was +engaged in the serious business of capturing the heart of Irene +Hardy--a task made none the easier by the self-imposed condition that +he must conduct no offensive, but must await with such patience as he +could command the voluntary capitulation of the besieged. On the +whole, he told himself he had no reason to be dissatisfied with the +progress of events. He and Irene often motored together, frequently +accompanied by Mrs. Hardy, sometimes by Conward as well, but +occasionally alone. And Irene made no secret of the fact that she +preferred the trips in which only she and Dave participated. On such +occasions the warm summer afternoons found them wandering far over the +prairies, without thought of the homeward trail until the setting sun +poured its ribbon of gold along the crest of the Rockies. The country, +with its long, rolling sweeps of prairie, its clusters of dark green +poplars; its rugged foothills from which grey roots of rock protruded, +and the blue background of the mountains, afforded a scene to charm her +artist soul, and daring and more daring were the splashes of colour +which she committed to canvas in her attempt to catch the moods of +light and shade that played over such a landscape. And if she did not +speak of love with her lips, she had eyes. . . . + +The gradual shrinkage of values to the vanishing point imposed upon +Dave many business duties which he would very gladly have evaded. The +office of Conward & Elden, which had once been besieged by customers +eager to buy, was now a centre of groups no less eager to sell; and +when they could not sell they contrived to lay the blame upon the firm +which had originally sold to them. Although, for the most part, these +were men and women who had bought purely from the gambler's motive, +they behaved toward the real estate dealer as though he had done them +an injustice when the finger of fortune turned up a loss instead of a +profit. For such people Dave had little sympathy, and if they +persisted in their murmurings he told them so with becoming frankness. +But there were cases that could not be turned away with a sharp answer. +Bert Morrison, for instance. Bert had never mentioned her "investment" +since the occasion already recorded; she greeted Dave with the +sociability due to their long-standing friendship; and her calm +avoidance of the subject hurt him more than the abuse of all his irate +patrons. Then there was Merton, the widower with the sick lungs and +the motherless boy, who had brought his little savings to the West in +the hope of husbanding out his life in the dry, clear atmosphere, and +saving his son from the white death that had already invaded their +little family. With a cruelty almost unbelievable, Conward had talked +this man into the purchase of property so far removed from the city as +to possess no value except as farm land; and the little savings, which +were to ward off sickness and death, or, if that could not be, minister +modest comfort in the declining hours of life, had been exchanged for +property which, even at the time of the transaction, was valueless and +unsalable. + +Merton had called on Dave with respect to his investment. Dave had at +first been disposed to tell him frankly that the property, for which he +had paid twenty dollars a foot, was barely worth that much an acre. +But a second look at the man changed his purpose. + +"I know you were stung, Merton," he said, "shamelessly stung. You are +one of those unsuspecting fellows who think everybody is going to play +fair with them. You belong to the class who keep all kinds of rogues +and scoundrels in easy circumstances. You might almost be charged with +being accessories. Now, just to show how I feel about it--how much did +you pay for these lots?" + +"Three thousand dollars. It was all I had." + +"Of course it was. If you had had more you would have paid more. I +suppose Conward justified himself with the argument that if he didn't +take your easy money some one else would, which is doubtless true. But +just to show how I feel about it--I'll buy those lots from you, for +three thousand dollars." + +"I can't do it, Mr. Elden; I can't do it," said Merton, and there was +moisture on his cheeks. "That would be charity--and I can't take it. +But I'm much obliged. It shows you're square, Mr. Elden, and I hold no +illwill to _you_." + +"Well, can I help you in some way you _will_ accept? I'm afraid--I +don't mean to be unkind, but we may as well be frank--I'm afraid you +won't need help very long." + +Merton answered as one who has made up his mind to the inevitable, and +Dave thought better of him. This little wreck of a man--this child in +business matters--could look death in the face without a quiver. + +"Not so long," he said. "I felt ever so much better when I came here +first; I thought I was really going to be well again. But when I found +what a mistake I had made I began to worry, not for myself, you know, +but the boy, and worry is just what my trouble lives on. I have been +working a little, and boarding out, and the boy is going to school. +But I can't do heavy work, and work of any kind is hard to get. I find +I can't keep going that way." + +Merton looked with dreamy eyes through the office window, while Dave +was turning over the hopelessness of his position, and inwardly cursing +a system which made such conditions possible. Society protects the +physically weak from the physically strong; the physical highwayman +usually gets his deserts; but the mental highwayman preys upon the weak +and the inexperienced and the unorganized, and Society votes him a good +citizen and a success. + +"I had a plan," Merton continued, half-apologetically, as though his +plan did him little credit; "I had a plan, but it can't be worked out. +I have been trying to raise a little money on my lots, but the mortgage +people just look at me." + +"What is your plan?" said Dave, kindly. "Any plan, no matter how bad, +is always better than no plan." + +"I thought," said Merton, timidly,--"I thought if I could build a +little shack on the lots I could live there with the boy and we could +raise a very fine garden. The soil is very fertile, and at least we +should not starve. And the gardening would be good for me, and I could +perhaps keep some chickens, and work out at odd jobs as well. But it +takes money to build even a very small shack." + +"How much money?" demanded Dave. + +"If I had a hundred dollars----" + +"Bring your title to me to-morrow; to me, personally, you understand. +I'll advance you five hundred dollars." + +Merton sprang up, and there was more enthusiasm in his eyes than had +seemed possible "You will? But I don't need that much----" + +"Then use the surplus to live on." + +So the Merton affair was straightened away in a manner which left Dave +more at peace with his conscience. But another event, much more +dramatic and far-reaching in its effects upon his life, was already +ripe for the enacting. + +Business conditions had necessitated unwonted economy in the office +affairs of Conward & Elden, as a result of which many old employees had +been laid off, and others had been replaced by cheaper and less +experienced labour. Stenographers who had been receiving a hundred +dollars a month could not readily bring themselves to accept fifty, and +some of them had to make way for new girls, fresh from the business +colleges. Such a new girl was Gladys Wardin; pretty, likeable, +inexperienced. Her country home had offered no answer to her +ambitions, and she had come to the city with the most dangerous +equipment a young woman can carry--an attractive face and an +unsophisticated confidence in the goodness of humanity. Conward had +been responsible for her position in the office, and Dave had given +little thought to her, except to note that she was a willing worker and +of comely appearance. + +Returning to the office one Saturday evening Dave found Miss Wardin +making up a bundle of paper, pencils, and carbon paper. She was +evidently in high spirits, and he smilingly asked if she intended +working at home over Sunday. + +"Oh, didn't Mr. Conward tell you?" she answered, as though surprised +that the good news had been kept a secret. "He is going to spend a day +or two at one of the mountain hotels, and I am to go along to do his +correspondence. Isn't it just lovely? I have so wanted to go to the +mountains, but never felt that I could afford it. And now I can +combine business with pleasure." + +The smile died out of Dave's eyes, and his face became more set and +stern than she had ever seen it. "Why, what's the matter, Mr. Elden?" +she exclaimed. "Is anything wrong?" + +He found it hard to meet her frank, unsuspecting eyes; hard to draw +back the curtains of the world so much that those eyes would never +again be quite so frank and unsuspecting. . . . "Miss Wardin," he +said, "did Conward tell you that?" + +"What? About going to the mountains? Of course. He said he was +taking some work with him, and he wondered if I would mind going along +to do it, and he would pay the expenses, and--and----" + +There was a quick hard catch in her voice, and she seized Elden's arm +violently. Her eyes were big and round; her pretty face had gone +suddenly white. + +"Oh, Mr. Elden, you don't think--you don't think that I--that he--you +wouldn't believe _that_?" + +"I think you are absolutely innocent," he said, gravely, "but--it's the +innocent thing that gets caught." Suddenly, even in that tense moment, +his mind leaped over the gulf of years to the night when he had said to +Irene Hardy, "I don't know nothin' about the justice of God. All I +know is the crittur 'at can't run gets caught." It was so of Irene's +pet; it was so of poor, tubercular Merton; it was to be so of pretty +Gladys Wardin---- + +But the girl had broken into violent tears. "Whatever shall I do--what +can I do?" she moaned. "Oh, why didn't somebody tell me? What _can_ I +do----" + +He let her passion run on for a few minutes, and then he sought, as +gently as he could, to win her back to some composure. "Some one _has_ +told you," he said,--"in time. You don't have to go. Don't be afraid +of anything Conward may do. _I_ will settle this score with him." + +She controlled herself, but when she spoke again her voice had fear and +shame in it. "I--I hate to tell you, Mr. Elden, but I must tell +you--I--I took--I let him give me some money--to buy things--he said +maybe I was short of money, and I would want to buy some new +clothes--and he would pay me extra, in advance--and he gave me fifty +dollars--and--and--_I've spent it_!" + +Elden swung on his heel and paced the length of the office in quick, +sharp strides. When he returned to where Miss Wardin stood, wrapped +about in her misery, his fists were clenched and the veins stood out on +the back of his hands. "Scoundrel," he muttered, "scoundrel. And I +have been tied to him. I have let him blind me; I have let him set the +standards; I have let him _weigh the coal_. Well, now I know him." +There was a menace in his last words that frightened even Gladys +Wardin, well though she knew the menace was not to her, but ranged in +her defence. + +"Here," he said, taking some bills from his pocket. "You must tell him +you can't go--tell him you _won't_ go; you must return his money; I +will lend you what you need. Don't be afraid; I will go with you----" + +"But I can't take _your_ money, either, Mr. Elden," she protested. "I +can't stay here any longer; I will have no job, and I can't pay you +back. You see I can't take it even from you. What a fool I was! For +a few clothes----" + +"You will continue to work--for me," he said. + +She shook her head. "No. I can't. I can't work anywhere near him." + +"You won't need to. The firm of Conward & Elden will be dissolved at +once. I have always felt that there was something false in +Conward--something that wouldn't stand test. I thought it was in his +business life; and yet that didn't quite seem to give the answer. Now +I know." + +There was the sound of a key in the street door, and Conward entered. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN + +Conward paused as he entered the room. He had evidently not expected +to find Elden there, but after a moment of hesitation he nodded +cordially to his partner. + +"Almost ready, Miss Wardin?" he asked, cheerily. "Our train goes +in----" He took his watch from his pocket and consulted it. + +Dave's eyes were fixed on the girl. He wondered whether, in this +testing moment, she would fight for herself or lean weakly on him as +her protector. Her answer reassured him. + +"It makes no difference when it goes, Mr. Conward. I'm not going on +it." Her voice trembled nervously, but there was no weakness in it. + +The money which Dave had given her was still crumpled in her hand. She +advanced to where Conward stood vaguely trying to sense the situation, +and held the bills before him. "Here is your money, Mr. Conward," she +said. + +"Why, what does this mean?" + +"Here is your money. Will you take it please?" + +"No, I won't take it, until you explain----" + +She opened her fingers, and the bills fell to the floor. "All right," +she said. + +Conward's eyes had shifted to Dave. "You are at the bottom of this, +Elden," he said. "What does it mean?" + +"It means, Conward," Dave answered, and there was steel in his +voice--"it means that after all these years I have discovered what a +cur you are--just in time to baulk you, at least in this instance." + +Conward flushed, but he maintained an attitude of composure. "You've +been drinking, Dave," he said. "I meant no harm to Miss Wardin." + +"Don't make me call you a liar as well as a cur." + +The word cut through Conward's mask of composure. "Now by God I won't +take that from any man," he shouted, and with a swing of his arms threw +his coat over his shoulders. Dave made no motion, and Conward slowly +brought his coat back to position. + +"I was right," said Dave, calmly. "I knew you wouldn't fight. You +think more of your skin than you do of your honour. Well--it's better +worth protection." + +"If this girl were not here," Conward protested. "I will not fight----" + +"Oh, I will leave," said Miss Wardin, with alacrity. "And I hope he +soaks you well," she shot back, as the door closed behind her. But by +this time Conward had assumed a superior attitude. "Dave," he said, "I +won't fight over a quarrel of this kind. But remember, there are some +things in which no man allows another to interfere. Least of all such +a man as you. There are ways of getting back, and I'll get back." + +"Why such a man as me? I know I haven't been much of a moralist in +business matters--I've been in the wrong company for that--but I draw +the line----" + +"Oh, you're fine stuff, all right. What would your friend Miss Hardy +think if I told her all I know?" + +"You know nothing that could affect Miss Hardy's opinion----" + +"No?" + +"No, you don't. You're not bluffing a tenderfoot now. I call you. If +you've any cards--play them." + +"It's too bad your memory is so poor," Conward sneered. "Why were your +lights off that night I passed your car? Oh, I guess you remember. +What will Miss Hardy think of that?" + +For a moment Dave was unable to follow Conward's thought. Then his +mind reached back to that night he drove into the country with Bert +Morrison, when on the brow of a hill he switched off his lights that +they might the better admire the majesty of the heavens. That Conward +should place an evil interpretation upon that incident was a thing so +monstrous, so altogether beyond argument, that Dave fell back upon the +basic human method reserved for such occasions. His fist leapt +forward, and Conward crumpled up before it. + +Conward lay stunned for a few minutes; then with returning +consciousness, he tried to sit up. Dave helped him to a chair. Blood +flowed down his face, and, as he began to realize what had occurred, it +was joined with tears of pain, rage, humiliation. + +"You got that one on me, Elden," he said, after awhile. "But it was a +coward's blow. You hit me when I wasn't looking. Very well. Two can +play at that game. I'll hit you when you're not looking . . . where +you don't expect it . . . where you can't hit back. You interfere with +me--you strike me--you that I took out of a thirty-dollar-a-week job +and made you all you are. I did it, Dave; gave you the money to start +with, coached you all the way. And you hit me . . . when I wasn't +looking." He spoke disjointedly; his throat was choked with +mortification and self-pity. "Very well. I know the stake you're +playing for. And--I'm going to spoil it." + +He turned his swollen, bloody face to Dave's, and hatred stood up in +his eyes as he uttered the threat. "I'll hit you, Dave," he repeated, +"where you can't hit back." + +"Thanks for the warning," said Elden. "So Irene Hardy is to be the +stake. All right; I'll sit in. And I'll win." + +"You'll think you've won," returned Conward, leeringly. "And then +you'll find out that you didn't. I'll present her to you, Dave, like +that." He lifted a burnt match from an ash tray and held it before him. + +Dave's impulse was to seize the thick, flabby throat in his hands and +choke it lifeless. With a resolute effort he turned to the telephone +and lifted the receiver. + +"Send a car and a doctor to Conward & Elden's office," he said, when he +had got the desired number. "Mr. Conward has been hurt; fell against a +desk, or something. Nothing serious, but may need a stitch or two." +Then, turning to Conward, "It will depend on you whether this affair +gets to the public. On you, and Miss Wardin. Make your own +explanations. And as soon as you are able to be about our partnership +will be dissolved." + +Conward was ready enough to adopt Dave's suggestion that their quarrel +should not come to the notice of the public, and Gladys Wardin +apparently kept her own counsel in the matter. In a time when firms +were going out of business without even the formality of an assignment, +and others were being absorbed by their competitors, the dissolution of +the Conward & Elden establishment occasioned no more than passing +notice. The explanation, "for business reasons," given to the +newspapers, seemed sufficient. Some few may have had surmises, but +they said nothing openly. Bert Morrison, for example, meeting Dave in +the street, congratulated him upon the change. "I knew you would find +him out some day;" she said. "Find what out?" Dave questioned, with +feigned surprise. "Oh, nothing," was her enigmatic answer, as she +changed the subject. + +Irene Hardy found herself in a position of increasing delicacy. Since +the day of their conversation in the tea-room Dave had been constant in +his attentions, but, true to his ultimatum, had uttered no word that +could in any way be construed to be more or less than Platonic. His +attitude vexed and pleased her. She was vexed that he should leave her +in a position where she must humiliate herself by taking the +initiative; she was pleased with his strength, with his daring, with +the superb self-control with which he carried out a difficult purpose. +Just how difficult was that purpose Irene was now experiencing in her +own person. She had now no doubt that she felt for Dave that +attachment without which ceremonies are without avail, and with which +ceremonies are but ceremonies. And yet she shrank from +surrender. . . . And she knew that some day she must surrender. + +The situation was complicated by conditions which involved her +mother--and Conward. Mrs. Hardy had never allowed herself to become +reconciled to Dave Elden. She refused to abandon her preconceived +ideas of the vulgarity which through life must accompany one born to +the lowly status of cow puncher. The fact that Dave, neither in manner +nor mind, gave any hint of that vulgarity which she chose to associate +with his early occupation, did not in the least ameliorate her +aversion. Mrs. Hardy, without knowing it, was as much a devotee of +caste as any Oriental. And Dave was born out of the caste. Nothing +could alter that fact. His assumption of the manners of a gentleman +merely aggravated his offence. + +It was also apparent that Conward's friendship for Mrs. Hardy did not +react to Dave's advantage. Conward was careful to drop no word in +Irene's hearing that could be taken as a direct reflection upon Dave, +but she was conscious of an influence, a magnetism, it almost seemed, +the whole tendency of which was to pull her away from Elden. She knew +there had been trouble between the two men, and that their formal +courtesy, when they met at her mother's house, was formal only; but +neither admitted her into the secret. Dave did not venture to speak of +the quarrel and Conward's threat, partly from a sense of delicacy; +partly from a curiously strained point of honour that that would be +taking an unfair advantage of Conward; but most, perhaps, because of +his complete assurance that Conward would never be able to carry his +threat into effect. He had absolutely no misgivings on that score. +Conward, on the other hand, knew that his standing with Irene would +not, as yet, justify him in playing any trump card. He realized that +the girl's affections were placed on Elden, but he trusted, by winning +for himself an intimate position in the family, to grow gradually into +more favourable relationship with her. Conward had a manner, a +mildness of voice, a confidential note in his words, which had not +failed him on previous occasions, and although he now stalked bigger +game than ever before he had no serious doubt of ultimate success. As +for Irene, a certain aversion which she had felt for Conward at first +did disappear under the influence of his presence in the household and +the courteous attentions, which, although directed to her mother, were +in some degree reflected upon herself. + +It would not be true to say that Irene's acquaintance with Conward made +it more difficult for her to accept the terms of Dave's ultimatum. She +regarded the two men from a totally different point of view, and there +seemed no reason why her vision of one should in any way obscure her +vision of the other. One was merely a friend of the family, to be +treated on grounds of cordial good-fellowship; the other was her +prospective husband. It was no consideration for Conward that sealed +her lips. There was another matter, however, which bore heavily upon +her pride, and strewed her path with difficulties. + +Mrs. Hardy had invested practically all her little fortune in her +house. The small sum which had been saved from that unfortunate +investment had been eaten up in the cost of furnishing and maintaining +the home. Dr. Hardy, in addition to his good name, had left his +daughter some few thousand dollars of life insurance, and this was the +capital which was now supplying their daily needs. It, too, would soon +be exhausted, and Irene was confronted with the serious business of +finding a means of livelihood for herself and her mother. + +She discussed her problem with Bert Morrison, with whom she had formed +a considerable friendship. She wondered whether she might be able to +get a position on one of the newspapers. + +"Don't think of it," said Bert. "If you want to keep a sane, sweet +outlook on humanity, don't examine it too closely. That's what we have +to do in the newspaper game, and that's why we're all cynics. +Shakespeare said 'All the world's a stage,' and the same might have +been said of the press. The show looks pretty good from the pit, but +when you get behind the scenes and see the make-up, and all the strings +that are pulled--and who pulls them--well, it makes you suspicious of +everything. You no longer accept a surface view; you are always +looking for the hidden motive below. Keep out of it." + +"But I must earn a living," Irene protested, "and I'm not a +stenographer, nor much of anything else. I wasn't brought up to be +useful, except with a view to superintending a household--not +supporting it." + +"Ever contemplate marriage?" said Miss Morrison, with disconcerting +frankness. + +The colour rose in Irene's cheeks, but she knew that her friend was +discussing a serious matter seriously. "Why, yes," she admitted. "I +have contemplated it; in fact, I am contemplating it. That's one of +the reasons I want to start earning my living. When I marry I want to +marry as a matter of choice--not because it's the only way out." + +"Now you're talking," said Bert. "And most of us girls who marry as a +matter of choice--don't marry. Perhaps I'm too cynical. I suppose +there are some men who would make good husbands--if you could find +them. But I've seen a few, the rough and the smooth, and I've only +known one man from whom a proposal would set me thinking. And he'll +never propose to me--not now. Not since Miss Hardy came west." + +"Oh," said Irene, slowly. "I'm--I'm so sorry." . . . + +"It's all right," said Bert, looking out of the window. "Just another +of life's little bumps. We get used to them--in time. But you want a +job. Let me see; you draw, don't you?" + +"Just for pastime. I can't earn a living that way." + +"I'm not so sure. Perhaps not with art in the abstract. You must +commercialize it. Don't shy at that word. Believe me, all art is +pretty well commercialized in these times. Our literary men are +writing advertisements instead of poetry and getting more for it. And +if you, on the one hand, can make a picture of the Rockies, which you +can't sell, and on the other can make a picture of a pair of shoes, +which you can sell, which, as a woman of good sense, in need of the +simoleons, are you going to do? You're going to draw the shoes--and +the pay cheque. Now I think I can get you started that way, on +catalogue work and ad. cuts. Try your pencil on something--anything at +all--and bring down a few samples." + +So Irene's little studio room began to take on a practical purpose. It +was work which called for form and proportion rather than colour, and +in these Irene excelled. She soon found herself with as much as she +could do, in addition to the duties of the household, as maids were +luxuries which could no longer be afforded, and her mother seemed +unable to realize that they were not still living in the affluence of +Dr. Hardy's income. To Irene, therefore, fell the work of the house, +as well as its support. But her success in earning a living did not +seem in the slightest degree to clear the way for marriage. She could +not ask Dave to assume the support of her mother; particularly in view +of Mrs. Hardy's behaviour toward him, she could not ask that. She +sometimes wondered if Conward-- For a long while she refused to +complete the thought, but at length, why not? Why shouldn't Conward +marry her mother? And what other purpose could he have in his +continuous visits to their home? Mrs. Hardy, although no longer young, +had by ho means surrendered all the attractions of her sex, and Conward +was slipping by the period where a young girl would be his natural +mate. If they should marry--Irene was no plotter, but it did seem that +such a match would clear the way for all concerned. She was surprised, +when she turned it over in her mind, to realize that Conward had won +for himself such a place in her regard that she could contemplate such +a consummation as very much to be desired. Subconsciously, rather than +from specific motive, she assumed a still more friendly attitude toward +him. + +Bert Morrison's confession had, however, set up another very insistent +train of thought in Irene's mind. She realized that Bert, with all her +show of cynicism and masculinity, was really a very womanly young +woman, with just the training and the insight into life that would make +her almost irresistible should she enter the matrimonial market. And +Bert and Dave were already good friends; very good friends indeed, as +Irene suspected from fragments of conversation which either of them +dropped from time to time. Although she never doubted the singleness +of Dave's devotion she sometimes suspected that in Bert Morrison's +presence he felt a more frank comradeship than in hers. And it was +preposterous that he should not know that Bert might be won for the +winning. And meantime. . . . + +Another winter wore away; another spring came rushing from the mountain +passes; another summer was upon them, and still Irene Hardy had not +surrendered. A thousand times she told herself it was impossible, with +her mother to think of-- And always she ended in indignation over her +treatment of Dave. It was outrageous to keep him waiting. And +somewhere back of her self-indignation flitted the form--the now +seductive form--of Bert Morrison. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN + +Irene Hardy chose to be frank with herself over the situation. She had +not doubted the sincerity of her attachment for Dave Elden; but, had +she experienced such a doubt, the entry of Bert Morrison into the drama +would have forever removed it. Indeed, now that she knew that Dave's +suit would be regarded with favour by another woman--an accomplished, +clever, experienced woman,--she was very much more eager to monopolize +it to herself. And in fairness she admitted that things could not +continue as they were. The menace of Bert Morrison was static, so to +speak. With fine self-abnegation Bert was standing aside. But how +long would she continue to stand aside? Irene was old enough to know +that the ramparts of friendship are a poor defence when the artillery +of passion is brought to bear; indeed, it is usually through those very +ramparts that the assault is effected. And if she continued to trifle +with Dave Elden-- + +Yes, _trifle_. She would be frank. She would not spare herself. She +had been trifling with him. Rather than accept the terms which her own +attitude had made necessary--rather than tell him with her lips what +she felt in her heart--she had trifled away all these months, almost +these years. . . . She would lay her false pride aside. In the purity +of her womanhood, which he could not misunderstand, she would divest +herself of all convention and tell him frankly that--that-- + +She was not sure what she would tell, or how she would tell it. She +was sure only that she would make him know. At the very next +opportunity. . . . + +It came on a fine summer's evening in late July, while Dave and Irene +drifted in his car over the rich ripening prairies. Everywhere were +fields of dark green wheat, already beginning to glimmer with the gold +of harvest; everywhere were herds of sleek cattle sighing and blowing +contentedly in the cool evening air. Away to the west lay the +mountains, blue and soft as a pillow of velvet for the head of the +dying day; overhead, inverted islands of brass and copper floated +lazily in an inverted sea of azure and opal; up from the southwest came +the breath of the far Pacific, mild, and soft, and gentle. + +"We started at the wrong end in our nation building," Dave was saying. +"We started to build cities, leaving the country to take care of +itself. We are finding out how wrong we were. Depend upon it, where +there is a prosperous country the cities will take care of themselves. +We have been putting the cart before the horse--" + +But Irene's eyes were on the sunset; on the slowly fading colours of +the cloudlands overhead. Something of that colour played across her +fine face, mellowing, softening, drawing as it seemed the very soul to +cheeks and lips and eyes. Dave paused in his speech to regard her, and +her beauty rushed upon him, engulfed him, overwhelmed him in such a +poignancy of tenderness that it seemed for a moment all his resolves +must be swept away and he must storm the citadel that would not +surrender to siege. . . . Only action could hold him resolute; he +pressed down the accelerator until the steel lungs of his motor were +drinking power to their utmost capacity and the car roared furiously +down the stretches of the country road. + +It was dusk when he had burnt out his violence, and, chastened and +spent, he turned the machine to hum back gently to the forgotten city. +Irene, by some fine telepathy, had followed vaguely the course of his +emotions; had followed them in delicious excitement, and fear, and +hope. She sensed in some subtle feminine way the impulse that had sent +him roaring into the distances; she watched his powerful hand on the +wheel; his clear, steady eye; the minute accuracy with which he +controlled his flying motor; and she prayed--and did not know what or +why she prayed. But a colour not all of the dying sunlight lit her +cheek as she guessed--she feared--she hoped--that she had prayed that +he might forget his fine resolves--that his heart might at last +out-rule his head-- + +In the deepening darkness her fingers found his arm. The motion of the +car masked the violence of her trembling, but for a time the pounding +of her heart would not allow her speech. + +"Dave," she said at length, "I want to tell you that I think you--that +we--that I--oh! I've been very selfish and proud--" + +Her fingers had followed his arm to the shoulder, and the car had idled +to a standstill. "I have fought as long as I can, Dave." She raised +her eyes full to his, and felt them glowing upon her in the dusk. "I +have fought as long as I can," she said, "and I--I always wanted to--to +lose, you know; and now--I surrender." . . . + + +Elden lost no time in facing the unpleasant task of an interview with +Mrs. Hardy. It was even less pleasant than he expected. + +"Irene is of age," said Mrs. Hardy, bluntly. "If she will she will. +But I must tell you plainly that I will do all I can to dissuade her. +Ungrateful child!" she exclaimed, in an outburst of temper, "after all +these years to throw herself away in an infatuation for a cow +_puncher_." + +The thorn of Mrs. Hardy's distress, revealed as it was in those last +contemptuous words, struck Dave as so ridiculous that he laughed +outright. It was the second occasion upon which his sense of humour +had suffered an inopportune reaction in her presence. + +"Yes, laugh at me," she said, bitterly. "Laugh at her mother, an old +woman now, alone in the world--the mother that risked her life for the +child you are taking with a laugh--" + +"I beg your pardon," said Dave. "I was not laughing at you, but at the +very great aversion in which you hold anyone who has at one time +followed the profession of a cowboy. As one who was born practically +with a lariat in his hand I claim the liberty of being amused at that +aversion. I've known many of the cow punching trade, and a good few +others, and while the boys are frequently rough they are generally +white--a great deal whiter than their critics--and with sounder respect +for a good woman than I have found in circles that consider themselves +superior. So if you ask me to apologize for the class from which I +come I have only a laugh for your answer. But when you say I have +taken your child thoughtlessly, there you do me an injustice. And when +you speak of being left alone in the world you do both Irene and me an +injustice. And when you call yourself an old woman you do us all an +injustice--" + +"You may spare your compliments," said Mrs. Hardy, tartly. "I have no +relish for them. And as for your defence of cow _punchers_, I prefer +gentlemen. Why Irene should wish to throw herself away when there are +men like Mr. Conward--" + +"Conward!" interrupted Dave. + +"He has the manners of a gentleman," she said, in a tone intended to be +crushing. + +"And the morals of a coyote," Dave returned, hotly. + +"O-o-o-h," said Mrs. Hardy, in a low, shocked cry. That Elden should +speak of Conward with such disdain seemed to her little less than +sacrilege. Then, gathering herself together with some dignity, "If you +cannot speak respectfully of Mr. Conward you will please leave the +house. I shall not forbid you to see Irene; I know that would be +useless. But please do not trouble me with your presence." + +When Dave had gone Mrs. Hardy, very angry with him, and almost equally +angry with herself owing to a vague conviction that she had had if +anything the worse of the interview, hurried to the telephone. She +rang up Conward's number. + +"Oh, Mr. Conward," she said. "You know who is speaking? Yes. You +must come up to-night. I do want to talk with you. I--I've been +insulted--in my own house. By that--that Elden. It's all very +terrible. I can't tell you over the telephone." + +Conward called early in the evening. Irene met him at the door. He +greeted her even more cordially than usual, dropping into that soft, +confidential note which he had found so potent in capturing such +affections as his heart, in a somewhat varied experience, had desired. +But there was no time for conversation. Mrs. Hardy had heard the bell, +and bustled into the room. She had not yet recovered from her +agitation, and made no effort to conceal it. + +"Come into my sitting-room, Mr. Conward. I am so glad you have come. +Really, I am so upset. It is such a comfort to have some one you can +depend on--some one whose advice one can seek, on occasions like this. +I never thought--" + +Mrs. Hardy had been fingering her handkerchief, which she now pressed +to her eyes. Conward laid a soothing hand on her shoulder. "There, +there," he said. "You must control yourself. Tell me. It will +relieve you, and perhaps I can help." + +"Oh, I'm sure you can," she returned. "It's all over Irene and +that--that--I _will_ say it--that cow _puncher_. To think it would +have come to this! Mr. Conward, you are not a mother, so you can't +understand. Ungrateful girl! But I blame _him_. And the Doctor. I +never wanted him to come west. It was that fool trip, in that fool +motor--" + +Conward smiled to himself over her unaccustomed violence. Mrs. Hardy +must be deeply moved when she forgot to be correct. He had readily +surmised the occasion of her distress. It needed no words from Mrs. +Hardy to tell him that Irene and Dave were engaged. He had expected it +for some time, and the information was not altogether distasteful to +him. He had come somewhat under the spell of Irene's attractiveness, +but he had no deep attachment for her. He was not aware that he had +ever had an abiding attachment for any woman. Attachments were things +which he put on and off as readily as a change of clothes. He planned +to hit Dave through Irene, but he planned that when he struck it should +be a death blow. Their engagement would lend a sharper edge to his +shaft. + +It may as well be set down that for Mrs. Hardy Conward had no regard +whatever. Even while he shaped soft words for her ear he held her in +contempt. To him she was merely a silly old woman. From the day he +had first seen Mrs. Hardy his attitude toward her had been one of +subtle flattery; partly because it pleased his whim, and partly because +on that same day he had seen Irene, and he was shrewd enough to know +that his approach to the girl's affections must be made by way of the +acquaintanceship which he would establish under the guise of friendship +for her mother. Since his trouble with Dave, Conward had a double +purpose in developing that acquaintanceship. He had no compunctions as +to his method of attack. While Dave was manfully laying siege to the +front gate, Conward proposed to burglarize the home through the back +door of family intimacy. And now that Dave seemed to have won the +prize, Conward realized that his own position was more secure than +ever. Had he not been called in consultation by the girl's mother? +Were not the inner affairs of the family now laid open before him? Did +not his position as her mother's advisor permit him to assume toward +Irene an attitude which, in a sense, was more intimate than even Dave's +could be? He turned these matters over quickly in his mind, and +congratulated himself upon the wisdom of his tactics. + +"It's very dreadful," Mrs. Hardy was saying, between dabbings of her +perfumed handkerchief on eyes that bore witness to the genuineness of +her distress. "Irene is not an ordinary girl. She has in her +qualities that justified me in hoping that--that she would do--very +differently from this. You have been a good friend, Mr. Conward. Need +I conceal from you, Mr. Conward, from you, of all men, what have been +my hopes for Irene?" + +Conward's heart leapt at the confession. He had secretly entertained +some doubt as to Mrs. Hardy's purpose in opening her home to him as she +had done; absurd as the hypothesis seemed, still there was the +hypothesis that Mrs. Hardy saw in Conward a possible comfort to her +declining days. He had no doubt that her vanity was equal to that +supposition, but he had done her less than justice in supposing that +she had had any directly personal ambitions. Her ambitions were for +Irene. From her point of view it seemed to Mrs. Hardy that almost +anything would be better than that Irene should marry a man who had +sprung from the low estate which Elden not only confessed, but boasted. +She had hoped that by bringing Conward into the house, by bringing +Irene under the influence of a close family acquaintanceship with him, +that that young lady might be led to see the folly of the road she was +choosing. But now her clever purpose had come to nought, and in her +vexation she did not hesitate to humble herself before Conward by +confessing, in words that he could not misunderstand, that she had +hoped that he would be the successful suitor for Irene. And Conward's +heart leapt at the confession. He was sufficiently schooled in the +affairs of life to appreciate the advantage of open alliance with Mrs. +Hardy in the short, sharp battle that lay before him. + +"And I suppose I need not conceal from you," he answered, "what my +hopes have been. Those hopes have grown as my acquaintance with you +has grown. It is reasonably safe to judge a daughter by her mother, +and by that standard Irene is one of the most adorable of young women." + +"I _have_ been called attractive in my day," confessed Mrs. Hardy, +warming at once to his flattery. + +"Have been?" said Conward. "Say rather you are. If I had not been +rendered, perhaps, a little partial by my admiration of Irene, I--well, +one can scarcely give his heart in two places, you know. And my deep +regard for you, Mrs. Hardy--my desire that you shall be spared +this--ah--threatened humiliation, will justify me in using heroic +measures to bring this unfortunate affair to a close. You may trust +me, Mrs. Hardy." + +"I was sure of that," she returned, already much comforted. "I was +sure of your sympathy, and that you would find a way." + +"I shall need your co-operation," he warned her. "Irene is--you will +forgive me, Mrs. Hardy, but Irene is, if I may say it, somewhat +headstrong. She is--" + +"She is her father over again," Mrs. Hardy interrupted. "I told him he +should not attempt that crazy trip of his without me along, but he +would go. And this is what he has brought upon me, and he not here to +share it." Mrs. Hardy's tone conveyed very plainly her grievance over +the doctor's behaviour in evading the consequences of the situation +which his headstrong folly had created. + +"She is set in her own mind," Conward continued. "We must not openly +oppose her. You must appear to be resigned, even to the extent of +treating Elden with such consideration as you can. To argue with +Irene, to attempt to persuade her, or to order Elden off the place, +would only deepen their attachment. Lovers are that way, Mrs. Hardy. +We must adopt other tactics." + +"You are very clever," said Mrs. Hardy. "You have been a student of +human nature." + +Conward smiled pleasurably. Little as he valued Mrs. Hardy's opinion, +her words of praise fell very gratefully upon him. Flatterers are +seldom proof against their own poison. "Yes, I have studied human +nature," he admitted. "The most interesting--and the most +profitable--of all studies. And I know that young couples in love are +not governed by the ordinary laws of reason. That is why it is useless +to argue with Irene--sensible girl though she is--on a subject like +this. We must reach her some other way. + +"The way that occurs to me is to create distrust. Love is either +absurdly trustful or absurdly suspicious. There is no middle course, +no balanced judgment. Everything is in extremes. Everything is seen +through a magnifying lens, or missed altogether. In the trustfulness +of love little virtues are magnified to angelic qualities, and vices +are quite unseen. But change that trust to suspicion, and a hidden, +sinister meaning is found behind the simplest word or act." + +Conward had risen and was walking about the room. He was conscious of +being regarded as a man of very deep insight, and the consciousness +pleased him. + +"We must cause Irene to distrust Elden--to see him in his true light," +he continued. "That may be possible. But if it should fail we must +take another course, which I hesitate to mention to you, but which may +be necessary if we are to save her from this fatal infatuation. If our +efforts to cause Irene to see Elden in his true light were to fail, and +she were to discover those efforts, she would be more set in his favour +than ever. So we must plan two campaigns; one, which I have already +suggested, and one, if that should fail, to cause Elden to distrust +Irene. No, no," he said, raising his hand toward Mrs. Hardy, who had +started from her seat,--"there must be no vestige of reason, except +that the end justifies the means. It is a case of saving Irene, even +if we must pain her--and you--in the saving." + +"It's very dreadful," Mrs. Hardy repeated. "But you are very thorough; +you leave nothing to chance. I suppose that is the way with all big +business men." + +"You can trust me," Conward assured her. "There is no time to be lost, +and I must plan my campaigns at once." + + + + +CHAPTER NINETEEN + +Conward paused to speak to Irene before leaving the house. + +"I owe you my good wishes," he said. "And I give them most frankly, +although, perhaps, with more difficulty than you suppose." + +"You are very good, Mr. Conward," she acknowledged. + +"I could not wish you anything but happiness," he returned. "And had I +been so fortunate as Elden, in making your acquaintance first, I might +have hoped to contribute to your happiness more directly than I can +under the present circumstances." He was speaking in his low, sedulous +notes, and his words sent the girl's blood rushing in a strange mixture +of gratification and anger. The tribute he implied--that he himself +would have been glad to have been her suitor--was skilfully planned to +appeal to her vanity, and her anger was due to its success. She told +herself she should not listen to such words; she should hate to hear +such words. And yet she listened to them, and was not sure that she +hated them. She could only say, "You are very good, Mr. Conward." + +He pressed her hand at the door, and again that strange mixture of +emotions surged through her. + +Conward proceeded to the business section of the town, well pleased +with the evening's events. He found his way impeded by crowds in front +of the newspaper offices. He had paid little attention to the progress +of the war scare, attributing it to the skilful publicity of interests +connected with the manufacture of armaments. To the last he had not +believed that war was possible. "Nobody wants to fight," he had +assured his business acquaintances. "Even the armament people don't +want to fight. All they want is to frighten more money out of the +taxpayers of Europe." To Conward this explanation seemed very +complete. It covered the whole ground and left nothing to be said. + +But to-night he was aware of a keener tension in the crowd atmosphere. +They were good natured crowds, to be sure; laughing, and cheering, and +making sallies of heavy wit; but they were in some way more intense +than he had ever seen before. There was no fear of war; there was, +rather, an adventurous spirit which seemed to fear that the affair +would blow over, as had so many affairs in the past, and all the +excitement go for nothing. That war, if it came to war, could last, no +one dreamed; it would be a matter of a few weeks, a few months, at the +most, until a thoroughly whipped Germany would retire behind the Rhine +to plan ways of raising the indemnity which outraged civilization would +demand. Conward elbowed his way through the crowds, smiling, in his +superior knowledge, over their excitement. Newspapers must have +headlines. + +At his office he used a telephone. Then he walked to a restaurant, +where, after a few minutes, he was joined by a young woman. They took +a table in a box. Supper was disposed of, and the young woman began to +grow impatient. + +"Well, you brought me here," she said at last. "You've fed me, and you +don't feed anybody, Conward, without a purpose. What's the +consideration?" + +"Yes, I have a purpose," he admitted. "I'm pulling off a little joke, +and I want you to help me." + +"You're some joker," she returned. "Who have you got it in for?" + +"You know Elden--Dave Elden?" + +"Sure. I've known him ever since that jolt put him out of business up +in your rooms, ever so many years ago. He was too rural for that +mixture. Still, Elden has lots of friends--decent friends, I mean." + +"I'm rather sorry you know him," said Conward. "But--what's more to +the point--does he know you?" + +"Not he. I guess he had no memory the next morning, and would have +made a point of forgetting me, even if he had." + +"That's all right, then. Now I want you to get him down to your place +some night to be agreed upon--I'll fix the date later--and keep him +there until I call for him, with his _fiancee_." + +"Some joke," she said, and there was disgust in her voice. "Who is it +on: Elden, me, or the girl?" + +"Never mind who it's on," Conward returned. "I'm paying for it. +Here's something on account, and if you make a good job of it, I won't +be stingy." + +He handed her a bill, which she kissed and put in her purse. "I need +the money, Conward, or I wouldn't take it. Say, don't you know you're +wasting your time in this one-horse town? You ought to get into the +big league. Your jokes would sure make a hit." + +This part of his trap set, Conward awaited a suitable opportunity to +spring it. In the meantime he took Mrs. Hardy partially into his +confidence. He allowed her to believe, however, that Elden's habits +would stand correction, and he had merely arranged to trap him in one +of his favorite haunts. She was very much shocked, and thought it was +very dreadful, but of course we must save Irene. Mr. Conward was very +clever. That's what came of being a man of experience,--and judgment, +Mr. Conward, and some knowledge of the world. + +But concerning another part of his programme Conward was even less +frank with Mrs. Hardy. He was clever enough to know that he must +observe certain limitations. + +At length all his plans appeared to be complete. The city was in a +tumult of excitement over the war, but for Conward a deeper interest +centred in the plot he was hatching under the unsuspecting noses of +Irene and Elden. If he could trap Dave the rest would be easy. If he +failed in this he had another plan to give failure at least the +appearance of success. The fact that the nation was now at war +probably had an influence in speeding up the plot. Everything was +under high tension; powerful currents of thought were bearing the +masses along unaccustomed channels; society itself was in a state of +flux. If he were to strike at all let the blow fall at once. + +On this early August night he ascertained that Dave was working alone +in his office. Then he called a number on a telephone. + +"This is the night," he explained. "You will find him alone in his +office. I will be waiting to hear from you at----"--he quoted Mrs. +Hardy's telephone number. Then he drove his car to the Hardy home, +exchanged a few words with Irene, and sat down to a hand of cribbage +with her mother. + +Poring over his correspondence, Dave tried to abstract his mind from +the tumultuous doings of these last days. Office organization had been +paralyzed; stenographers and clerks were incapable with excitement. It +was as though some great excursion had been announced; something +wonderful and novel, which divorced the interest from the dull routine +of business. And Dave, with his ear cocked for the cry of the latest +extra, spent the evening hours in a valiant effort at concentration. + +Suddenly he heard a knock at the door; not a business man's knock; not +an office girl's knock; a hesitating, timid, apologetic knock. + +"Come in," he called. No one entered, but presently he heard the knock +again. He arose and walked to the door. Outside stood a young woman. +She looked up shyly, her face half concealed beneath a broad hat. + +"If you please," she said, "excuse me, but--you are Mr. Elden, aren't +you?" + +"Yes; can I help you in any way?" + +The woman tittered a moment, but resumed soberly, "You will wonder at +me coming to you, but I'm from the country. Did you think that?" + +"I suspected it," said Dave, with a smile. "You knocked----" He +paused. + +"Yes?" + +"Like a country girl," he said, boldly. + +She tittered again. "Well, I'm lost," she confessed. "I got off the +train a short time ago. My aunt was to meet me, but there are such +crowds in the street--I must have missed her. And I saw your name on +the window, and I had heard of you. So I just thought I'd ask--if you +wouldn't mind--showing me to this address." + +She fumbled in her pocket, and Dave invited her into the office. There +she produced a torn piece of paper with an address. + +"Why, that's just a few blocks," said Dave. "I'll walk around with +you." He turned for his hat, but at that moment there was another +timid knock on the door. He opened it. A boy of eight or ten years +stood outside. + +"Can I come in?" the lad ventured. + +"Why, of course you can. What is it, son?" + +"Are you Mr. Elden?" + +"Yes." + +The lad looked shyly about the office. It was evident he was impressed +with its magnificence. Suddenly he pulled off his hat, disclosing a +shock of brown hair. + +"Are you Mr. Elden that sells lots?" + +"Yes. Or, rather, I _did_ sell lots, but not many of late. Were you +thinking of buying a few lots?" + +"Did you sell lots to my father?" + +"Well, if I knew your father's name perhaps I could tell you. Who is +your father?" + +"He's Mr. Merton. I'm his son. And he said to me, before he got so +bad, he said, 'There's just one honest man in this city, and that's Mr. +Elden.' Is that you, Mr. Elden?" + +"Well, I hope it is, but I won't claim such a distinction. I remember +your father very well. Did he send you to me?" + +"No sir. He's too sick. He don't know anybody now. He didn't know me +to-night." The boy's voice went thick, and he stopped and swallowed. +"And then I remembered what he said about you, and I just came. Was +that all right, Mr. Elden?" + +"You say your father is very sick?" + +"He don't know anybody." + +"Have you help--a doctor--a nurse?" + +"No sir. We haven't any money. My father spent it all for the lots +that he bought from you." + +Dave winced. Then, turning to the young woman, "I'm afraid this is a +more urgent case than yours. I'll call a taxi to take you to your +address." + +To his surprise his visitor broke out in a ribald laugh. She had +seated herself on a desk, and was swinging one foot jauntily. + +"It's all off," she said. "Say, Dave, you couldn't lose me in this +burg. You don't remember me, do you? Well, all the better. I'm +rather glad I broke down on this job. I used to be something of an +actress, and I'd have put it over if it hadn't been for the kid. The +fact is, Dave," she continued, "I was sent up here to decoy you. It +wasn't fair fighting, and I didn't like it, but money has been mighty +slow of late. I wonder--how much you'd give to know who sent me?" + +Dave pulled some bills from his pocket and held them before her. She +took them from his hand. + +"Conward," she said. + +Dave's blood went to his head. "The scoundrel!" he cried. "The low +down dog! There's more in this than appears on the surface." + +"Sure there is," she said. "There's another woman. There always is." + +Elden walked to his desk. From a drawer he took a revolver; toyed with +it a moment in his hands; broke it open, crammed it full of cartridges +and thrust it in his pocket. + +The girl watched him with friendly interest. "Believe me, Dave," she +said, "if Conward turns up missing I won't know a thing--not a d---- +thing." + +For a moment he stood irresolute. He could only guess what Conward's +plan had been, but that it had been diabolical and cowardly, and that +it concerned Irene, he had no doubt. His impulse was to immediately +confront Conward, force a confession, and deal with him as the occasion +might seem to require. But his eye fell on the boy, with his shock of +brown hair and wistful, half-frightened face. + +"I'll go with you first," he said, with quick decision. Then to the +girl, "Sorry I must turn you out, but this case is urgent." + +"That's all right," she said. Suddenly there was a little catch in her +voice. "I'm used to being turned out." + +He shot a sharp glance at her. Her face was laughing. "You're too +decent for your job," he said, abruptly. + +"Thanks, Dave," she answered, and he saw her eyes glisten. "That +helps--some." And before he knew it she was into the street. + +"All right, son," said Dave, taking up the matter now in hand. "What's +your name--your first name?" + +"Charlie." + +"And your address?" + +The boy mentioned a distant subdivision. + +"That _is_ out, isn't it? Well, we'll take the car. We'll run right +out and see what is to be done. I guess I'd better call a doctor at +once." + +He went to the telephone and gave some directions. Then he and the boy +walked to a garage, and in a few moments were humming along the +by-streets into the country. Dave had already become engrossed in his +errand of mercy, and his rage at Conward, if not forgotten, was +temporarily dismissed from his mind. He chatted with the boy as he +drove. + +"You go to school?" + +"Not this year. Father has been too sick. Of course, this is +holidays, and he says he'll be all right before they're over." + +Dave smiled grimly. "The incurable optimism of it," he murmured to +himself. Then outwardly, "Of course he will. We'll fix him up in no +time with a good doctor and a good nurse." + +They drove on through the calm night, leaving the city streets behind +and following what was little more than a country trail. This was +crossed in every direction, and at every possible angle, by just such +other country trails, unravelling themselves into the darkness. Here +and there they bumped over pieces of graded street, infinitely rougher +than the natural prairie; once Dave dropped his front wheels into a +collapsing water trench; once he just grazed an isolated hydrant. The +city lights were cut off by a shoulder of foothill; only their dull +glow hung in the distant sky. + +"And this is one of our 'choice residential subdivisions,'" said Dave +to himself, as with Charlie's guidance and his own in-born sense of +location he threaded his way through the maze of diverging trails. +"Fine business; fine business." + +As the journey continued the sense of self-reproach which had been +static in him for many months became more insistent, and he found +himself repeating the ironical phrase, "Fine business, fine business. +Yes, I let Conward 'weigh the coal' all right." The intrusion of +Conward into his mind sent the blood to his head, but at that moment +his reflections were cut short by the boy. + +"We will have to get out here," he said. "The bridge is down." + +Investigation proved him to be right. A bridge over a small stream had +collapsed, and was slowly disintegrating amid its own wreckage. Dave +explored the stream bottom, getting muddy boots for his pains. Then he +ran the car a little to one side of the road, locked the switch, and +walked on with the boy. + +"Pretty lonely out here, isn't it?" he ventured. + +"Oh, no. There is a street light we can see in a little while; it is +behind the hill now. We see it from the corner of our shack. It's +very cheery." + +"Fine business," Dave repeated to himself. "And this is how our big +success was made. Well, the 'success' has vanished as quickly as it +came. I suppose there is a Law somewhere that is not mocked." + +They were passing through a settlement of crude houses, dimly visible +in the starlight and by occasional yellow blurs from their windows. +Before one of the meanest of these the boy at last stopped. The upper +hinge of the door was broken, and a feeble light struggled through the +space where it gaped outward. Charlie pulled the door open, and Dave +entered. At first his eyes could not take in the dim outlines before +him; he was conscious of a very small and stuffy room, with a peculiar +odour which he attributed to an oil lamp burning on a box. He walked +over and turned the lamp up, but the oil was consumed; a red, sullen, +smoking wick was its only response. Then he felt in his pocket, and +struck a match. + +The light revealed the dinginess of the little room. There was a bed, +covered with musty, ragged clothing; a table, littered with broken and +dirty dishes and pieces of stale food; a stove, cracked and greasy, and +one or two bare boxes serving as articles of furniture. But it was to +the bed Dave turned, and, with another match, bent over the shrunken +form that lay almost concealed amid the coarse coverings. He brought +his face down close, then straightened up and steadied himself for a +moment. + +"He'll soon be well, don't you think, Mister? He said he would be well +when the holidays----" But Dave's expression stopped the boy, whose +own face went suddenly wild with fear. + +"He is well now, Charlie," he said, as steadily as he could. "It is +all holidays now for him." + +The match had burnt out, and the room was in utter darkness. Dave +heard the child drawing his feet slowly across the floor, then suddenly +whimpering like a thing that had been mortally hurt. He groped toward +him, and at length his fingers found his shock of hair. He drew the +boy slowly into his arms; then very, very tight. . . . After all, they +were orphans together. + +"You will come with me," he said, at length. "I will see that you are +provided for. The doctor will soon be here, or we will meet him on the +way, and he will make the arrangements for--the arrangements that have +to be made, you know." + +They retraced their steps toward the town, meeting the doctor at the +broken bridge. Dave exchanged a few words with him in low tones, and +they passed on. Soon they were swinging again through the city +streets, this time through the busy thoroughfares, which were almost +blocked with tense, excited crowds about the bulletin boards. Even +with the developments of the evening pressing heavily upon his mind, +Dave could not resist the temptation to stop and listen for a moment to +bulletins being read through a megaphone. + +"The Kaiser has stripped off his British regalia," said the announcer. +"He says he will never again wear a British uniform." + +A chuckle of derisive laughter ran through the mob; then some one +struck up a well-known refrain,--"What the hell do we care?" Up and +down the street voices caught up the chorus. . . . Within a year the +bones of many in that thoughtless crowd, bleaching on the fields of +Flanders, showed how much they cared. + +Dave literally pressed his machine through the throng, which opened +slowly to let it pass, and immediately filled up the wake behind. Then +he drove direct to the Hardy home. + +After some delay Irene met him at the door, and Dave explained the +situation in a few words. "We must take care of him, Reenie," he said. +"I feel a personal responsibility." + +"Of course we will take him," she answered. "He will live here until +we have a--some place of our own." Her face was bright with something +which must be tenderness. "Bring him upstairs. We will allot him a +room, and introduce him, first, to--the bath-room. And tomorrow we +shall have an excursion down town, and some new clothes for +Charlie--Elden." + +As they moved up the stairs Conward, who had been in another room in +conversation with Mrs. Hardy, followed them unseen. The evening had +been interminable for Conward. For three hours he had waited word that +his victim had been trapped, and for three hours no word had come. He +had smoked numberless cigarettes, and nibbled impatiently at his nails, +and tried to appear at ease before Mrs. Hardy. If his plans had +miscarried; if Dave had discovered the plot; well---- And here at +length was Dave, engrossed in a very different matter. Conward +followed them up the stairs. + +Irene and Dave chatted with the boy for a few moments, trying to make +him feel at home in his strange surroundings; then Irene turned to some +arrangements for his comfort, and Dave started down stairs. In the +passage he was met by Conward. Conward seemed at last to have dropped +the mask; he leered insolently, triumphantly, in Dave's face. + +"What are you doing here?" Dave demanded, as he felt his head beginning +to swim in anger. + +Conward leered only the more offensively, and walked down the stairs +beside him. At the foot he coolly lit another cigarette. If he was +conscious of the hate in Dave's eyes he hid his emotions under a mask +of insolence. He held the match before him and calmly watched it burn +out. Then he extended it toward Dave. + +"You remember our wager, Elden. I present you with--a burnt-out match." + +"You liar!" cried Dave. "You infamous liar!" + +"Ask _her_," Conward replied. "She will deny it, of course. All women +do." + +Dave felt his muscles tighten, and knew that in a moment he would tear +his victim to pieces. As his clenched fist came to the side of his +body it struck something hard. His revolver! He had forgotten; he was +not in the habit of carrying it. In an instant he had Conward covered. + +Dave did not press the trigger at once. He took a fierce delight in +torturing the man who had wrecked his life,--even while he told himself +he could not believe his boast. Now he watched the colour fade from +Conward's cheek; the eyes stand out in his face; the livid blotches +more livid still; the cigarette drop from his nerveless lips. + +"You are a brave man, Conward," he said, and there was the rasp of hate +and contempt in his voice. "You are a very brave man." + +Mrs. Hardy, sensing something wrong, came out from her sitting-room. +With a little cry she swooned away. + +Conward tried to speak, but words stuck in his throat. With a dry +tongue he licked his drier lips. + +"Do you believe in hell, Conward?" Dave continued. "I've always had +some doubt myself, but in thirty seconds--_you'll know_." + +Irene, attracted by her mother's cry, appeared on the stairway. For a +moment her eyes refused to grasp the scene before them; Conward +cowering, terror-stricken; Dave fierce, steely, implacable, with his +revolver lined on Conward's brain. Through some strange whim of her +mind her thought in that instant flew back to the bottles on the posts +of the Elden ranch, and Dave breaking five out of six on the gallop. +Then, suddenly, she became aware of one thing only. A tragedy was +being enacted before her eyes, and Dave would be held responsible. In +a moment every impulse within her beat forth in a wild frenzy to save +him from such a consequence. + +"Oh, don't, Dave, don't, don't shoot him," she cried, flying down the +remaining steps. Before Dave could grasp her purpose she was upon him; +had clutched his revolver; had wrapped her arms about his. "Don't, +don't, Dave," she pleaded. "For my sake, don't do--_that_." + +Her words were tragically unfortunate. For a moment Dave stood as one +paralyzed; then his heart dried up within him. + +"So that's the way of it," he said, as he broke her grip, and the +horror in his own eyes would not let him read the sudden horror in +hers. "All right; take it," and he placed the revolver in her hand. +"You should know what to do with it." And before she could stop him he +had walked out of the house. + +She rushed to the gate, but already the roar of his motor was lost in +the hum of the city's traffic. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY + +When Dave sprang into his car he gave the motor a full head and drove +through the city streets in a fury of recklessness. His mind was +numbed; it was incapable of assorting thoughts and placing them in +proper relationship to each other. His muscles guided the machine +apparently without any mental impulse. He rode it as he had ridden +unbroken bronchos in his far-away boyhood. Only this difference; then +he had no sense of danger; now he knew the danger, and defied it. If +he killed himself, so much the better; if he killed others, so much the +better still. The world was a place without purpose; a chaos of blind, +impotent, struggling creatures, who struggled only because they did not +know they were blind and impotent. Life was a farce and death a big +bluff set up that men might take the farce seriously. + +He was soon out of the city, roaring through the still Autumn night +with undiminished speed. Over tortuous country roads, across sudden +bridges, along slippery hillsides, through black bluffs of +scrub-land--in some strange way he tried to drown the uproar in his +soul in the frenzy of the steel that quivered beneath him. On and on, +into the night. Bright stars gleamed overhead; a soft breeze pressed +against his face; it was such a night as he had driven, a year ago, +with Bert Morrison. Was that only a year ago? And what had happened? +Where had he been? Oh, to bring the boy--Charlie, the boy. When was +that? Under the calm heaven his mind was already attempting to +establish a sequence; to set its outraged home again in order. + +Suddenly the car skidded on a slippery hillside, turned from the road, +plowed through a clump of scrub, ricochetted against a dark +obstruction, poised a moment on two wheels, turned around and stopped. +The shock brought Dave to his senses; he got out and walked about the +car, feeling the tires with his hands in the darkness. He could +appraise no serious damage. Then he sat on the running board and +stared for a long while into the darkness. "No use being a damned +fool, anyway, Dave," he said to himself, at length. "I got it--where I +didn't expect it--but I guess that's the way with every one. The +troubles we expect, don't happen, and then the trouble that we didn't +expect gets us when we're not watching." He tried to philosophize; to +get a fresh grip on himself. "Where are we, anyway?" he continued. +"This country looks familiar." He got up again and walked about, +finding his way back to the road. He went along it a little way. +Vague impressions suggested that he should know the spot, and yet he +could not identify it. Listen! There was a sound of water. There was +a sighing of the wind in trees; a very low sighing, rather a +whispering, of a gentle wind in trees. The place seemed alive with +spirits; spirits tapping on the door of some long sealed chamber of his +memory. + +Then, with a sudden shock, it came to him. It was the hillside on +which Dr. Hardy had come to grief; the hillside on which he had first +seen her bright face, her wonderful eyes---- A poignancy of grief +engulfed him, sweeping away his cheap philosophies. Here she stood, +young and clean and entrancing, thrust before him in an instant out of +the wonderful days of the past. And would she always follow him thus; +would she stand at every road corner, every street corner, on every +prairie hill, in every office hour; must he catch her fragrance in +every breeze; see the glint of her hair in every sunbeam; meet her eyes +for ever--soft eyes now veiled in tears and flashing glimpses of what +might have been? With an unutterable sinking he knew that that was so; +that the world was not big enough to hide him from Irene Hardy. There +was no way out. + +He started his motor and, even in his despair, felt a thrill of pride +as the faithful gears engaged, and the car climbed back to its place on +the trail. Was all faithfulness, then, in things of steel and iron, +and none in flesh and blood? He followed the trail. Why stop now? +The long-forgotten ranch buildings lay across the stream and behind the +tongue of spruce trees, unless some wandering foothill fire had +destroyed them. He forded the stream without difficulty. That was +where he had carried her out. . . . He felt his way slowly along the +old fence. That was where she had set up bottles for his marksmanship. +. . . He stopped where the straggling gate should be, and walked +carefully into the yard. That was where she had first called him Dave. +. . . Then he found the doorstep, and sat down to wait. + +When the sun was well up he rose and walked about. His lips were +parched; he found himself nibbling them with his teeth, so he went to +the stream. He was thirsty, but he drank only a mouthful; the water +was flat and insipid. . . . The old cabin was in better repair than he +would have thought. He sprung the door open. It was musty and strung +with cobwebs; that was the room she had occupied. He did not go in, +but sat down and tried to think. + +Later he walked up the canyon. He must have walked swiftly, for the +sun was not yet at the meridian when he found himself at the little +nook in the rock where he and Irene had sat that afternoon when they +had first laid their hearts open to each other. He tried to recall +that long-forgotten conversation, lacerating himself with the pain of +its tenderness. Suddenly one remark stood up in his memory. "The day +is coming," she had said, "when our country will want men who can shoot +and ride." And he had said, "Well, when it does, it can call on me." +And to-day the country did want men who could shoot and ride, and he +had flown into the foothills to nurse a broken heart. . . . Broken +hearts can fight as well as whole ones. Better, perhaps, because they +don't care. He felt his frame straighten as this thought sank home. +He could be of some use yet. At any rate, there was a way out. + +Some whim led him through the grove of spruce trees on his way back to +the ranch. Here, in an open space, he looked about, kicking in the dry +grass. At length his toe disturbed a few bleached bones, and he stood +and looked with unseeing eyes far across the shimmering valley. + +"Brownie," he said at length. "Brownie." The whole scene came back +upon him; the moonlight, and Irene's distress, and the little bleeding +body. And he had said he didn't know anything about the justice of +God; all he knew was the crittur that couldn't run was the one that got +caught. . . . And he had said that was life. . . . He had said it was +only nature. + +And then they had stood among the trees and beneath the white moon and +pledged their faith. . . . + +Again his head went up, and the old light flashed in his eyes. "The +first thing is to kill the wolf," he said aloud. "No other innocent +shall fall to his fangs. Then--my country." + +Darkness had again fallen before Dave found his car threading the +streets of the city, still feverish with its new-born excitement of +war. He returned his car to the garage; an attendant looked up +curiously,--it was evident from his glance that Dave had already been +missed--but no words were exchanged. He stood for a moment in the +street collecting his thoughts and rehearsing his resolves. He was +amazed to find that, even in his bitterness, the city reached a +thousand hands to him--hands of habit, and association, and custom of +mind--all urging him back into the old groove; all saying, "The routine +is the thing; be a spoke in the wheel; go 'round with the rest of us." + +"No," he reminded himself. "No, I can't do that. I have business on +hand. First--to kill the wolf." + +He remembered that he had given his revolver to Irene. And suddenly +she sat with him again at the tea table. . . . Where was he? Yes, he +had given his revolver to Irene. Well, there was another in his rooms. +First to kill the wolf. + +In the hallway of the block in which he had his bachelor apartments +Dave almost collided with a woman. He drew back, and the light fell on +his face, but hers was in the shadow. And then he heard her voice. +"Oh, Dave, I'm so glad--why, what has happened?" The last words ran +into a little treble of pain as she noted his haggard face; he had not +eaten for twenty-four hours, nor slept for thirty-six. + +"You--Edith," he managed to say. "Whatever----" + +She came toward him and placed her hands on his. "I've been here a +hundred times--ever since morning--ever since Bert Morrison called up +to say you had disappeared--that there was some mystery. There isn't, +is there, Dave? You're all right, Dave, aren't you, Dave?" + +"I guess I'm all right," he managed to answer, "but I got a job on--an +important job on. I must get it done. There is not time----" + +But her woman's intuition had gone far below his idle words. "There is +something wrong, Dave," she said. "You never looked like this before. +Tell me what it is. Tell me, Dave; not that I want to know, for +knowing's sake, but just that I--perhaps I--can help." + +Dave was silent for a moment, watching her. She had changed her +position, and he could see her face. Suddenly it occurred to him that +Edith Duncan was beautiful. If she had not quite the fine features of +Irene, she had a certain softness of expression, a certain mellowness, +even tenderness, of lip and eye; a certain womanly delicacy---- + +"Edith," he said, "you're white. Why is it that the woman a man loves +will fail him, and the woman he only likes--stays true?" + +"Oh!" she cried, and he could not guess the depths from which her cry +was wrung. . . . "I should not have asked you, Dave," she said. "I'm +sorry." + +They stood a moment, neither wishing to move away. "You said you had +something must be done at once," she reminded him at length. + +"Yes," he answered. "I have to kill a man. Then I'm going to join up +with the army." + +Her hands were again upon him. "But you mustn't, Dave," she pleaded. +"No matter--no matter _what_--you mustn't do that. That is the one +thing you must not do." + +"Edith, you are not a man. You don't understand. That is the one +thing I must do." + +"But you can't fight for your country, then. You will only increase +its troubles in these troubled times. Don't think I'm pleading for +_him_, Dave, but for you, for the sake of us--for the sake of +those--who care." + +He took her hands in his and raised them to his shoulders and drew her +face close to his. Then, speaking very slowly, and with each word by +itself, "Do you really care?" he said. + +"Oh, Dave!" + +"Then come to my room and talk to me. Talk to me! Talk to me! For +God's sake talk to me. I must talk to some one." + +She followed him. Inside the room he had himself under control again. +The street lights flooded through the windows, so he did not press the +switch. He motioned her to a chair. + +And then he told her the story, all he knew. + +When he had finished she arose and walked to one of the windows and +stood looking with unseeing eyes upon the street. For the second time +in his life Dave Elden had laid his heart bare to her, and again after +all these years he still talked as friend to friend. That was it. She +was under no delusion. Dave's eyes were as blind to her love as they +had been that night when he had first told her of Irene Hardy. And she +could not tell him. Most of all, she could not tell him now. . . . +Yes, she was very sure of that. If she should tell him now--if she +should let him know--he would turn to her in his grief. He would be +clay in her hands. And afterwards he would despise her for having +taken advantage of his hour of weakness. She had waited all these +years, and still she must wait. + +Dave's eyes were upon her form, silhouetted against the window. It +occurred to him that in form Edith was very much like Irene. He +recalled that in those dead past days when they used to ride together +Edith had reminded him of Irene. When she stood silent so long he +spoke again. + +"I'm afraid I haven't played a very heroic part," he said, somewhat +shamefacedly. "I should have buried my secret in my heart; buried it +even from you; perhaps most of all from you. I should have faced the +world with a smile, as one who rises above the slings and arrows of +outrageous fortune. People do that kind of thing in books; perhaps +some do in real life. I suppose you can't tell from the outside what +may be carried within--even by your closest friend. But--you can +advise me, Edith. I will value whatever you say." + +She trembled until she thought he must see her, and she feared to trust +her voice, but she could delay a reply no longer. + +"You are right, Dave," she said at length. "You never can tell what +other people are carrying; perhaps, even, as you say, your closest +friends. The first thing is to get rid of the idea that your +experience is unique; that your lot is harder than that of other +people. It may be different, but it is not harder. When you get that +point of view you will be able to pass sane judgments. + +"'And when you can pass sane judgment you may see that the evidence is +not, even at the worst, very conclusive. Why should you take Conward's +word in such a matter as this?" + +"I didn't take Conward's word. That's why I didn't kill him at once. +It wasn't his word--it was the insult--that cut. But she tried to save +him. She threw herself upon me. She would have taken the bullet +herself rather than let it find him. That was what--that was what----" + +"I know, Dave." She had to hold herself in check lest the tenderness +that welled within her, and would shape words of endearing sympathy in +her mind, should find utterance in speech. "I know, Dave," she said. +"The next thing then is to make sure in your own mind whether you ever +really loved Irene Hardy." + +He sprang to his feet. "Loved Irene!" he exclaimed, and she was in a +turmoil of fear and hope that he would approach her. But he paced his +own side of the room. + +"Edith," he said, "there is no way of explaining this. You can't +understand. I know you have given yourself up to a life of service, +and I honour you very much, and all that, but there are some things you +won't be able to understand. You can't understand just how much I +loved Irene." + +"I think I can," she answered, quietly. "You have kept your love +faithful and single for a dozen years, and I--I think I can understand. +But that isn't why I asked. Because if you loved Irene a week ago you +love her to-night." + +"Have you never known of love being turned to hate?" + +"No. Other impulses may be, but not love. Love can no more turn to +hate than sunlight can turn to darkness. Believe me, Dave, if you hate +Irene now you never loved her. Listen: + +"'Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, +_endureth_ all things!'" + +"Not all things, Edith; not all things." + +"It says _all_ things." + +Dave was silent for some time. When he spoke again she caught a +different sound in his voice; a tone as though his soul in those few +moments had gone through a life-time of experience. + +"Edith," he said, "when you repeated those words I knew you had +something that I have not. I knew it, not by the words, but by the way +you said them. You made me feel that you were not setting a higher +standard for me than you would accept for yourself. You made me _know_ +that in your own life, if you loved, you would be ready to endure all +things. Tell me, Edith, how may this thing be done?" + +She trembled with delight at the new tone in his voice, for she knew +that in that hour Dave had crossed a boundary of his life and entered +into a new and richer field of existence. She knew that for him life +would never again be the empty, flippant, selfish, irresponsible thing +which in the past he had called life. He was already beginning to +taste of that wine of compensation provided for those who pass through +the valley of sorrow. + +"In your case," she said, "the course is simple. It is just a case of +forgiving." + +He gazed for a time into the street, while thoughts of bitterness and +revenge fought for domination of his mind. "Edith," he said at length, +"must I--forgive?" + +"I do not say you must," she answered. "I merely say if you are wise +you will. Forgiveness is the balm of our moral life, by which we keep +the wounds of the soul from festering and poisoning the spirit. +Nothing, it seems to me, is so much misunderstood as forgiveness. The +popular idea is that the whole benefit of forgiveness is to the person +who is forgiven. Really, there is a very much greater benefit to the +person who forgives. The one who is forgiven may merely escape +punishment, but the one who forgives experiences a positive spiritual +expansion. Believe me, Dave, it is the only philosophy which rings +true under the most critical tests; which is absolutely dependable in +every emergency." + +"Is that Christianity?" he ventured. + +"It is one side of Christianity. The other side is service. If you +are willing to forgive and ready to serve I don't think you need worry +much over the details of your creed. Creeds, after all, are not +expressed in words, but in lives. When you know how a man lives you +know what he believes--always." + +"Suppose I forgive--what then?" + +"Service. You are needed right now, Dave--forgive my frankness--your +country needs you right now. You have the qualities which make you +extremely valuable. You must dismiss this grievance from your mind, at +least dismiss your resentment over it, and then place yourself at the +disposal of your country. The way is so clear that it cannot be +misunderstood." + +"That is what I had been thinking of," he said. "At least that part +about serving my country, although I don't think my motives were as +high as you would make them. But the war can't last. It'll be all +over before I can take a hand. Civilization has gone too far for such +a thing as this to last. It is unbelievable." + +"I'm not so sure," she answered, gravely. "Of course, I know nothing +about Germany. But I do know something about our own people. I know +how selfish and individualistic and sordid and money-grabbing we have +been; how slothful and incompetent and self-satisfied we have been, and +I fear it will take a long war and sacrifices and tragedies altogether +beyond our present imagination to make us unselfish and public-spirited +and clean and generous; it will take the strain and emergency of war to +make us vigorous and efficient; it will take the sting of many defeats +to impose that humility which will be the beginning of our +regeneration. I am not worrying about the defeat of Germany. If our +civilization is better than that of Germany we shall win, ultimately, +and if our civilization is worse than that of Germany we shall be +defeated, ultimately,--and we shall deserve to be defeated. But I +rather think that neither of these alternatives will be the result. I +rather think that the test of war will show that there are elements in +German civilization which are better than ours, and elements in our +civilization which are better than theirs, and that the good elements +will survive and form the basis of a new civilization better than +either." + +"If that is so," Dave replied, "if this war is but the working out of +immutable law which proposes to put all the elements of civilization to +the supreme test and retain only those which are justifiable by that +test, why should I--or any one else--fight? And," he added as an +after-thought, "what about that principle of forgiveness?" + +"We must fight," she answered, "because it is the law that we must +fight; because it is only by fighting that we can justify the +principles for which we fight. If we hold our principles as being not +worth fighting for the new civilization will throw those principles in +the discard. And that, too, covers the question of forgiveness. +Forgiveness, in fact, does not enter into the consideration at all. We +must fight, not because we hate Germany, but because we love certain +principles which Germany is endeavouring to overthrow. The impulse +must be love, not hate." + +She had turned and faced him while she spoke, and he felt himself +strangely carried away by the earnestness and fervour of her argument. +What a wonderful woman she was! How she had stripped the issue of the +detail and circumstance which was confusing even statesmen, and laid it +before him in positive terms which he could find no argument to +dispute! And how in his hour of distress, when he stood on the verge +of utter recklessness and indifference, she had infused into him a +strange and new ambition--an ambition which deepened and enriched every +phase of life, and yet which held life itself less worthy than its own +attainment! And as he looked at her he again thought of Irene, and +suddenly he felt himself engulfed in a great tenderness, and he knew +that even yet---- + +"What am I to do?" he said. "I am willing to accept your philosophy. +I admit that mine has broken down, and I am willing to try yours. What +am I to do?" + +In the darkness of her own shadow she set her teeth for that answer. +It was to be the crowning act of her self-renunciation, and it strained +every fibre of her resolution. She could not allow him to stay where +he was, even in uniform. The danger was two-fold. In a moment of +weakness he would probably shoot Conward, and in a moment of weakness +she would probably disclose her love. And if Dave should ever marry +her he must win her first. + +"You had better go overseas and enlist in England," she told him +calmly, although her nails were biting her palms. "You will get +quicker action that way. And when you come back you must see Irene, +and you must learn from your own heart whether you really loved her or +not. And if you find you did not, then--then you will be free +to--to--to think of some other woman." + +"I am afraid I shall never care to think of any other woman," he +answered. "Except you. But some way you're different. I don't think +of you as a woman, you know; not really, in a way. I can't explain it, +Edith, but you're something more--something better than all that." + +"I assure you I am very much a woman--" + +But he had sprung to his feet. "Edith, I can never thank you enough +for what you have said to me to-night. You have put some spirit back +into my body. I am going to follow your advice. There's a train east +in two hours and I'm going on it. Fortunately my property, or most of +it, has dissolved the way it came. I must pack a few things, and have +a bath and shave and dress." + +She moved toward him with extended hand. "Good-bye, Dave," she said. + +He held her hand fast in his. "Good-bye, Edith. I can never forget--I +can never repay--all you have been. It may sound foolish to you after +all I have said, but I sometimes wonder if--if I had not met +Irene--if----" He paused and went hot with embarrassment. What would +she think of him? An hour ago he had been ready to kill or be killed +in grief over his frustrated love, and already he was practically +making love to her. Had he brought her to his rooms for this? What a +hypocrite he was! + +"Forgive me, Edith," he said, as he released her. "I am not quite +myself. . . . I hold you in very high respect as one of God's good +women. Good-bye." + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE + +When Irene Hardy pursued Dave from the house the roar of his motor car +was already drowned in the hum of the city streets. Hatless she ran +the length of a full block; then, realizing the futility of such a +chase, returned with almost equal haste to her home. She burst in and +discovered Conward holding a bottle of smelling salts to the nose of +her mother, who had sufficiently recovered to sit upright in her chair. + +"What is the meaning of this?" she demanded of Conward. "Why did he +threaten to shoot, and why did he leave as he did? You know; tell me." + +"I am sure I wish I could tell you," said Conward, with all his +accustomed suavity. In truth Conward, having somewhat recovered from +his fright, was in rather good spirits. Things had gone better than he +had dared to hope. Elden was eliminated, for the present at any rate, +and now was the time to win Irene. Not just now, perhaps, but soon, +when the shock of her interrupted passion turned her to him for +companionship. + +She stood before him, flushed and vibrating, and with flashing eyes. +"You're lying, Conward," she said, deliberately. "First you lied to +him and now you lie to me. There can be no other explanation. Where +is that gun? He said I would know what to do with it." + +"I have it," said Conward, partly carried off his feet by her violence. +"I will keep it until you are a little more reasonable, and, perhaps, a +little more respectful." + +"Irene," said Mrs. Hardy, sharply, "what way is that to speak to Mr. +Conward? You are out of your head, child. Such a scene, Mr. Conward. +Such a scene in my house! That cow _puncher_! I always knew it would +come out some time. It is breeding that tells, Mr. Conward. Oh, if +the papers should learn of this!" + +"That's all you think of," Irene retorted. "A scene, and the papers. +You don't trouble to even wonder what was the occasion of the scene. +You and this--this _biped_, are at the bottom of it. You have been +planning to force me along a course I will not go, and you have done +something, something horrible--I don't know what--to cause Dave to act +as he did. But I'm going to know. I'm going to find out. You're +afraid of the papers. I'm not. I'll give the whole story to them +to-morrow. I'll tell that you insulted him, Conward, and how you stood +there, a grinning, gaping coward under the muzzle of his gun. How I +wish I had a photograph of it," she exclaimed, with a little hysterical +laugh. "It would look fine on the front page." She broke into peals +of laughter and rushed up the stairs. + +In the morning she was very sober and pale, and marks of distress and +sleeplessness were furrowed in her face. She greeted her mother with +cold civility, and left her breakfast untouched. She gave part of her +morning to Charlie; it was saving balm to her to have some one upon +whom she could pour affection. Then she went to the telephone. She +called Dave's office; nothing was known of Mr. Elden; he had been +working there last night; he was not down yet. She called his +apartments; there was no answer. Then, with a bright thought, she +called the garage. Mr. Elden's car was out; had not been in at all +during the night. Then she tried a new number. + +"Hello, is that the office of _The Call_? Will you let me speak to----" + +Her mother interrupted almost frantically. "Irene, you are not going +to tell the papers? You mustn't do that. Think of what it means--the +disgrace--a shooting affair, almost, in our home. Think of me, your +mother----" + +"I'll think of you on one consideration--that you explain what happened +last night, and tell me where Dave Elden is." + +"I can't explain. I don't know. And I don't know----" + +"And you don't want to know. And you don't care, so long as you can +keep it out of the papers. I do. I'm going to find out the facts +about this, if every paper in the country should print them. Hello? +Yes, I want to speak to Miss Morrison." + +In a few words she explained Dave's sudden disappearance, stripping the +incident of all but vital facts. Bert Morrison was all sympathy. +"It's a big story, you know," she said, "but we won't think of it that +way. Not a line, so far as I am concerned. Edith Duncan is the girl +we need. A sort of adopted sister to Dave. She may know more than any +of us." + +But Edith knew absolutely nothing; nothing, except that her own heart +was thrown into a turmoil of emotions. She spent the day and the +evening down town, rotating about the points where Dave might likely be +found. And the next morning she called on Irene Hardy. + +In spite of all her efforts at self-control she trembled as she pressed +the bell; trembled violently as she waited for the door to open. She +had never met Irene Hardy; it was going to be a strange experience, +introducing herself to the woman who had been preferred over her, and +who had, apparently, proven so unworthy of that preference. She had +difficult things to say, and even while she said them she must fight a +battle to the death with the jealousy of her natural womanhood. And +she must be very, very careful that in saying things which were hard to +say she did not say hard things. And, most difficult of all, she must +try to pave the way to a reconciliation between Dave and the woman who +stood between her and happiness. + +Irene attended the door, as was her custom. Her eyes took in Edith's +face and figure with mild surprise; Edith was conscious of the process +of a quick intellect endeavouring to classify her;--solicitor, music +teacher, business girl? And in that moment of pause she saw Irene's +eyes, and a strange commotion of feeling surged through her. There was +something in those eyes that suggested to Edith a new side to Dave's +nature; it was as though the blind had suddenly been drawn from strange +chambers of his soul. So this was the woman Dave had chosen to love. +No; one does not choose whom one will love; one loves without choosing. +Edith was conscious of that; she knew that in her own life. And even +as she looked this first time upon Irene she became aware of a subtle +attraction gathering about her; she felt something of that power which +had held Dave to a single course through all these years. And suddenly +a great new truth was born in Edith Duncan. Suddenly she realized that +if the steel at any time prove unfaithful to the magnet the fault lies +not in the steel, but in the magnet. What a change of view, what a +reversion of all accepted things, came with the realization of that +truth which roots down into the bedrock of all nature! . . . + +"Won't you come in?" Irene was saying. Her voice was sweet and +musical, but there was a note of sadness in it which set responsive +chords atremble all through Edith's heart. Must she love this woman? +Must she, in spite of herself, love this, of all women? + +"I am Edith Duncan," she managed to say. "I--I think I have something +to say that may interest you." + +There was a quick leap in Irene's eyes; the leap of that intuitive +feminine sense of danger which so seldom errs in dealing with its own +sex, and is yet so unreliable a defence from the dangers of the other. +Mrs. Hardy was in the living-room. "Won't you come up to my work +shop?" Irene answered without change of voice, and they ascended the +stairs together. + +"I draw a little," Irene was saying, talking fast. "Oh yes, I have +quite commercialized my art, such as it is. I draw pictures of shoes, +and shirt waists, and other women's wear which really belong to the +field of a feminine artist. But I haven't lost my soul altogether. I +daub in colour a little--yes, daub, that's the word. But it keeps +one's soul alive. You will hardly recognize that," she said, +indicating an easel, "but here is the original." She ran up the blind +of the window which looked from the room out to the westward, and far +over the brown shoulders of the foothills rose the Rockies, majestic, +calm, imperturbable, their white summits flashing in the blaze of +autumn sunshine. "No warfare there," Irene went on. "No plotting, no +cruelty, no cowardice, no misunderstanding. And to think that they +will stand there forever; forever, as we know time; when our city, our +civilization, the very memory of our age shall have gone out. I never +look at them without feeling how--how--how----" + +She trembled, and her voice choked; she put out her arm to a chair. +When she turned her face there were tears on it. . . . "Tell +me,--Edith," she said. . . . "You know" . . . + +"I know some things," Edith managed to say. "I know, _now_, that I do +not know all. Dave and I are old friends--my father took a liking to +him and he used often to be in our house--he made him think of our own +boy that was killed and would have been just his age--and we got to +know each other very well and he told me about you, long ago. And last +night I found him at his rooms, almost mad, and swearing to shoot +Conward. And then he told me that--that----" + +"Yes? Yes? What did he tell you? I am not afraid----" + +Edith turned her eyes to where the white crests of the mountains cut +like a crumpled keel through a sea of infinite blue. "He told me he +saw Conward here . . . upstairs . . . and Conward made a boast . . . +and he would have shot him but you rushed upon him and begged him not +to. He said you would have taken the bullet yourself rather than it +should find Conward." + +"Oh, oh," the girl cried, in the pain of one mortally hurt. "How could +he think that? I didn't care for him--for Conward--but for Dave. I +knew there had been a quarrel--I didn't know why--and I knew if Dave +shot him--and he _can_ shoot--I've seen him break six bottles out of +six on the gallop--it wasn't self-defence--whatever it was he couldn't +plead that--and they'd hang him, and that was all I saw, Edith, that +was all I saw, and I would--yes I _would_ rather have taken the bullet +myself than that that should happen----" + +"You poor girl!" said Edith. "You poor girl," and her arms found the +other's neck. "You have been hurt, hurt." And then, under her breath, +"More than me." + +. . . "What has he done?" + +"He talked his problems over with me, and after he had talked awhile he +became more reasonable. He had already been convinced that he should +offer his services to his country, in these times. And I think I +persuaded him that it was better to leave vengeance where it belonged. +He said he couldn't remain here, and he has already left for England. +I am afraid I encouraged him to leave at once. You see, I didn't +understand." + +Irene had taken a chair, and for some minutes she sat in silence. "I +don't blame you," she said at length. "You gave him good advice. And +I don't blame him, although he might have been less ready to jump at +conclusions. There remains only one thing for me to do." + +"What?" said Edith, after a moment's hesitation. + +"Follow him! I shall follow him, and make him understand. If he must +go into battle--with all that that means--he must go in knowing the +truth. You have been very kind, Miss Duncan. You have gone out of +your way to do me a great service, and you have shown more kindness +than I have any right to claim from a stranger. . . . I feel, too, the +call for vengeance," she exclaimed, springing to her feet, "but first I +must find Dave. I shall follow him at once. I shall readily locate +him in some way through the military service. Everything is organized; +they will be able to find his name." + +She accompanied her visitor to the door. They shook hands and looked +for a moment in each other's eyes. And then Edith burst away and +hurried down the street. + + +Irene had searched London for two weeks. The confidence of her earlier +inquiries had diminished with each successive blind trail, which, +promising results at first, led her into a maze of confusion and +disappointment. The organization of the military service commanded +less enthusiasm than she had felt a month before. She saw it +struggling with the apparently impossible; it was as though she, in her +little studio, had been suddenly called upon to paint all the portraits +in the world . . . In some degree she understood the difficulties. In +equal degree she sympathized with those who were striving to overcome +them and she hung on from day to day in her search with a dogged +determination which set its teeth against admitting that the search was +hopeless. Her little store of money was fast dwindling away; she +looked into the face of every man in uniform with a pathetic +earnestness that more than once caused her to be misunderstood. + +At last one great fear had settled on her heart. It came upon her +first suddenly on shipboard; she had resolutely thrown it out of her +mind; but it had been knocking ever since for admittance, and more than +once she had almost let it in. Suppose Dave should not enlist under +his right name? In such a case her chance of finding him was the mere +freak of accidental meeting; a chance not to be banked upon in a +country already swarming with its citizen soldiery. . . . And yet +there was nothing to do but keep on. + +She had sought a park bench where groups of soldiers were continually +moving by. The lights shone on their faces, and her own tired eyes +followed them incessantly. Always her ear was alert for a voice that +should set her heart a-pounding, and more than once she had thought she +heard that, voice; more than a score of times she had thought she had +seen that figure with its stride of self-reliance, with strength +bulging in every muscle. And always it had been to learn that she had +been mistaken; always it had been to feel the heart sink just a little +lower than before. And still she kept on. There was nothing to do but +keep on. + +Often she wondered how he would receive her. That cold look which had +frozen his features when she seized the revolver in his hand; would it +still sit there, too distant and detached to be even scornful? Would +she have it to break down; must she, with the fire of her own +affection, thaw out an entrance through his icy aloofness? What cost +of humiliation would be the price, and would even any price be +accepted? She could not know; she could only hope and pray and go on. + +As she turned her eyes to follow a group of men in uniform she became +aware of a soldier sitting alone in the shadow a short distance away. +Some quality about him caught her attention; his face was not +discernible, and his figure was too much in the shadow to more than +suggest its outline, but she found herself regarding him with an +intentness that set her pulses racing. Some strange attraction raised +her from her seat; she took a step toward him, then steadied herself. +Should she dare risk it again? And yet there was something. . . . She +had a sudden plan. She would make no inquiry, no apology; she would +walk near by and call him by name. If that name meant nothing to him +he would not even notice her presence, but if it should be---- + +She was within three paces. Still she could discern nothing +definitely, but her pulses were raging more wildly than ever. They had +deceived her before; could it be that they were deceiving her again? + +"Dave," she said. + +He turned quickly in his seat; the light fell on her face and he saw +her; he was on his feet and had taken a step toward her. Then he +stopped, and she saw his features harden as they had on that dreadful +occasion which now seemed so long ago. Would he turn on his heel? If +he did she must rush upon him. She must tell him now, she must plead +with him, reason with him, prevail upon him at all costs. + +"Well?" he said. His voice was mechanical, but in it was something +which quickened her hope; something which suggested that he was making +it mechanical because he dared not let it express the human emotion +which was struggling for utterance. + +"Let me talk to you, Dave," she pleaded. "I have followed you around +the world for this. Let me talk. I can explain everything." + +He stood still so long that she wondered if he never would speak. She +dared not reach her hands to him, she could only stand and wait. + +"Irene," he said, "why did you follow me here?" + +"There is only one answer, Dave. Because I love you, and would follow +you anywhere. No one can stop me doing that; no one, Dave--except you." + +[Illustration: "There is only one answer, Dave. Because I love you."] + +And again he stood, and she knew that he was turning over in his mind +things weightier than life and death, and that when he spoke again his +course would be set. Then, in the partial shadow, she saw his arms +slowly extend; they rose, wide and strong, and extended toward her. +There was a quick step, and they met about her, and the world swooned +and went by. . . . + +"I can explain everything," she said, when she could talk. + +"You need explain nothing," he returned. "I have lived the torments of +the damned. Edith Duncan was right; she said if it were real love it +would never give up. 'Endureth all things,' she said. 'All things,' +she said. . . . There is no limit." + +She caressed his cheeks with her fingers, and knew by the touch that +they were brown again as they had been in those great days of the +foothills. "But I must tell you, dear," she said, "so that you may +understand." And then she patched together the story, from what she +knew, and from what Edith Duncan had told her, and Dave filled in what +neither had known, including the incident earlier on that fateful +evening. She could see his jaws harden as they pieced the plot +together, and she knew what he was thinking. + +"Your country needs you more," she whispered. "It is better that way. +And what a man you are in uniform! I think I see you smashing heads +instead of bottles. Six out of six, Dave! It's awful, but you must do +it. Already we know what has happened in Belgium. You will forget +your own wrongs in the greater wrongs of others. . . . And I shall +join the service as a nurse. My father was a doctor, and I can soon +pick it up." + +She chatted on, but he had become suddenly grave. "I don't think that +is your course, Irene," he said. "This is going to be a bigger job +than it looked. The Government will get soldiers and nurses; the +popular imagination turns to such things. But it will be neither +soldiers nor nurses that will win the war. I feel sure of that now. +It has come to me, perhaps as a kind of presentiment, but I feel +absolutely sure. The determining factor will be food. The world's +margin is narrow enough in normal times, and now we are plunged into +the abnormal. Millions of men will be taken from production and turned +to purposes of destruction. They will be taken from offices, where +they need little food, and put in the trenches, where they need much +food. Countries will be devastated; armies will retreat, destroying +all food as they go. Ships will go down with cargoes of wheat; +incendiary fires will swallow warehouses of food. I do not regret my +decision, I believe my place is in the trenches; but those less fit for +the fight than I must, in some form or other, produce food. That +includes the women; it includes you." + +"Me? But what can I do?" + +"Since I left home I've thought a good deal of the old ranch. I +despised it in those prosperous days--those days we thought we were +prosperous--but the prosperity is gone and the ranch remains. It still +lies out there, just as it did when you and your father motored down +that afternoon a dozen years ago. I think you'll have to go back +there, Reenie. I think you'll have to take the boy Charlie, and what +other help you can get, and go back to the old ranch and raise +something for the soldiers to eat. You can do it. There are good men +to be had; men who can't very well carry a rifle, but can drive a plow. +And believe me, Reenie, it's the plow that's going to win. Go back and +put them at it. Think of every furrow as another trench in the +defences which shall save your home from the fate of Belgium's homes. +It's not as easy as going to the front; it hasn't got the heroic ring +to it, and I suppose there are many who will commercialize it. Let +them. We shall need their profits after the war to pay our debts. But +it's the thing that must be done. And you'll do it, won't you?" + +"I'll do what ever needs to be done, Dave. I'd rather be by your side, +or as near as may be, but if you say that my duty lies back on the old +ranch I shall go back to the old ranch and raise food for my soldier. +And when it's all over we shall ride those old hillsides again. . . . +Up the canyon, you remember, Dave? The little niche in the wall of the +canyon, and all the silence and the sunlight? . . . Forever. . . ." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +Any philosophy which accepts the principle that the great, +over-shadowing events of life are subject to an intelligent controlling +influence must of necessity grant that the same principle applies to +the most commonplace and every-day experiences. It is impossible to +believe that the World War, for example, has a definite place in the +eternal scheme of the universe without believing the same of the +apparently most trivial incident in the life of Kaiser Wilhelm, Lloyd +George, or Woodrow Wilson, or, for that matter, of the humblest soldier +in the ranks. The course of the greatest stream of events may well be +deflected by incidents so commonplace as to quite escape the notice of +the casual observer. + +Some such thought as this comforted me--or, at least, would have +comforted me, had I thought it--when a leaking gasoline tank left me, +literally as well as figuratively, high and dry in the foothills. The +sun of an August afternoon blazed its glory from a cloudless sky; far +across the shimmering hills copper-colored patches of ripening wheat +stood out ruddy and glowing like twentieth century armour on the brown +breast of the prairie; low in a valley to the left a ribbon of +silver-green mountain water threaded its way through fringes of spruce +and cottonwood, while on the uplands beyond sleek steers drowsed in the +sunshine, and far to the westward the Rockies slept unconcerned in +their draperies of afternoon purple. All these scenes the eye took in +without enthusiasm, almost without approval; and then fell on the +whitewashed ranch buildings almost in the shadow underneath. And in +these days a ranch--almost any ranch--means gasoline. + +I soon was at the door. The walls had been recently white-washed; +there were new shingles of red cedar on the roof; flowers bloomed by +the path that led down to the corrals. My knock attracted a little +chap of two-and-a-half or three years; his stout hands shoved the +screen back, and I found myself ushered into his company. There +evidently was no one else about, so I visited, and we talked on those +things which are of importance in the world of three-year-olds. + +"Muvver's don to the wiver," he confided. "She tum back pwetty soon." + +"And Father?" I asked. "Where is he?" + +Into the dark eyes came a deeper look; they suddenly shone with the +spirituality of a life only three years removed from the infinite. By +what instruction, I afterwards wondered, by what almost divine charm +had she been able to instil into his young mind the honour and the +glory and the pride of it? For there was pride, and something more +than pride; adoration, perhaps, in his words as he straightened up and +said in perfect English, "My father was a soldier. He was killed at +Courcelette." + +I looked in his little, sunburned face; in his dark, proud eyes; and +presently a strange mist enveloped the room. How many little faces, +how many pairs of eyes! It was just fading away when a step sounded on +the walk, and I arose as she reached the door. + +"The Man of the House has made me at home," I managed to say. "I am +shipwrecked on the hill, for a little gasoline." + +"There is plenty out in the field, where the tractor is," she replied. +"You will find it without difficulty. Or if you care to wait here, +Charlie may be along presently." + +Her voice had sweet, modulated tones, with just that touch of pathos +which only the Angel of Suffering knows how to add. And her face was +fair, and gentle, and a little sad, and very sweet. + +"He has told me," I said. There seemed no reason why I should not say +it. She had entered into the sisterhood--that universal sisterhood of +suffering which the world has known in these long, lonely years. . . . +And it was between us, for we were all in the family. There was no +occasion to scrape acquaintance by slow, conventional thrust and parry. + +"Yes," she said, sitting down, and motioning me to a chair. "I was +bitter at first. I was dreadfully bitter at first. But gradually I +got a different view of it. Gradually I came to feel and know that all +we can feel and know here is on the surface; on the outside, as you +might say, and we can't know the purpose until we are inside. It is as +though life were a riddle, and the key is hidden, and the door behind +which the key is hidden is called Death. And I don't believe it's all +for nothing; I won't believe it's all for nothing. If I believed it +was all for nothing I would quit; we would all quit. + +"Then there is the suffering," she continued, after a pause. "I don't +know why there should be suffering, but I know if there were no +suffering there would be no kindness. It is not until you are +hit--hard hit--that you begin to think of other people. Until then all +is selfishness. But we women--we women of the war--we have nothing +left to be selfish for. But we have the whole world to be unselfish +for. It's all different, and it can never go back. We won't let it go +back. We've paid too much to let it go back." + +It was hard to find a reply. "I think I knew your husband, a little," +I ventured. "He was a--a man." + +"He was all that," she said. She arose and stood for a moment in an +attitude of hesitation; her fingers went to her lips as though +enjoining caution. Then, with quick decision, she went into an inner +room, from which she returned with a letter. + +"If you knew him you may care to read this," she said. "It's very +personal, and yet, some way, everything is impersonal now, in a sense. +There has been such a common cause, and such a wave of common +suffering, that it seems to flood out over the individual and embrace +us all. Individualism is gone. It's the community now; the state; +mankind, if you like, above everything. I suppose, so far as German +kultur stands for that, it has been imposed upon the world. . . . So +this is really, in a sense, your letter as well as mine." + +I took it and read: + + +I have had many letters to write since my service began as a nurse in +the war, but never have I approached the task with such mixed emotions. +The pain I must give you I would gladly bear myself if I could; but it +is not all pain; underneath it, running through it in some way I cannot +explain, is a note so much deeper than pain that it must be joy. + +You will already have been advised that David Elden was among those who +fell at Courcelette. It is trite to say that you have the sympathy of +a grateful nation. How grateful the nation really is we shall know by +its treatment of the heroes who survive the war, and of the dependents +of those who have crossed over. But nothing can rob you of the +knowledge that he played a man's part. Nothing can debar you from that +universal fellowship of sympathy which is springing up wherever manhood +is valued at its worth. + +A new Order has been born into the world; the Order of Suffering. Not +that it is new, either; it has been with us since the first mother went +into the shadow for her first child; but always suffering has been +incidental; a matter of the individual; a thing to be escaped if +possible. But now it is universal, a thing not to be escaped, but to +be accepted, readily, bravely, even gladly. And all who so accept it +enter into the new Order, and wear its insignia, which is unselfishness +and sympathy and service. And in that Order you shall not be least, +measured by either your sacrifice or the spirit in which you accept it. + +But you are yearning for his last word; for some voice that will seem +to you now almost a voice out of the grave, and I am happy to be able +to bring you that word. It was something more than chance that guided +me that night, as it is every night. + +We were well behind the line of actual fighting, but still in the +danger zone of artillery fire. Night had settled in; all was darkness +save for occasional distant flares. I had become detached from my +party in moving to another station; lost, if you like, yet not lost; +never have I gone so directly to so great a destination. While trying +to get my location I became aware of a presence; it will sound strange +to you, but I became intensely aware of _your_ presence. Of course I +knew it could not be you, in the flesh, but you it seemed to be, +nevertheless. I moved as though led by an invisible hand, and +presently I found a bit of shattered wall. In the gloom I could just +discern the form of a man lying in the shelter of the wall--if you +could call it shelter--it rose scarce a foot above the ground. + +I knelt beside him and turned my torch on to his face. It was pale +even through the brown skin; the eyes were closed; the hair was wet and +plastered on the forehead; there were smears of blood in it and on his +cheeks. As my light fell on his lips they framed a smile. + +"Reenie," he said. "It was good of you to come. I knew you would +come." + +"I am here, Dave," I answered, and I think you will forgive me the +impersonation. "Now let me find out where you are hurt, and we'll fix +you up, and get you moved presently." + +He opened his eyes and looked at me with the strange look of a man +whose thread of consciousness is half unravelled. "Oh, it's you, +Edith," he said, when he had taken me in. "Funny, I thought it was +Irene. I must have been dreaming." + +I questioned him again about his wound, and began feeling his hair. +"It's not there," he said. "Guess I got it all over my hands. They +got me this time. Shrapnel, in the body. Don't waste time on me. +Some other fellow may have a chance." + +I found, with a little examination, that the case was as bad as he +supposed. Fortunately, the wound had induced a local paralysis, and he +was not suffering to any great degree. I placed my hand in his and +felt his grip tighten on it. + +"I'm going to stay till it's over, Dave. We'll see it out together." + +"That's decent," he answered, and then was still for quite a time. + +"I've often wondered what was on the other side," he said at length. +"I shall know presently." + +"You are not afraid?" I whispered. + +"No. Only sort of--curious. And--reverent. I guess it's +reverent. . . You know I haven't been much on religion. Never seemed +to get the formula. What is the formula? I mean the key--the thing +that gives it all in one word?" + +"In one word--sacrifice." + +"I walked out of church once because of some doctrine about sacrifice," +he continued. "I couldn't go it. . . And yet--there may be something +in it. It's sacrifice here, Edith. War is sacrifice. Sacrifice for +other people. It's not all on the surface. There's something deeper +than we know." + +"'He that loseth his life shall find it,'" I quoted. + +He did not answer, but I could see his lips smiling again. His breath +was more labored. A few drops of rain fell, and some of them spattered +on his face. + +Presently he chuckled. It was an eerie sensation, out on that broad +plain of death, alone by the side of this man who was already far into +the shadow,--to hear him chuckle. + +"That splash of water--you remember--it made me think of the time we +pulled the old car into the stream, and the harness broke, or +something, and I had to carry you. You remember that, Reenie?" I +could only say "Yes," and press his hand. His mind was back on the +old, old trails. + +He became suddenly sober. "And when Brownie was killed," he went on, +"I said it was the innocent thing that got caught. Perhaps I was +right. But perhaps it's best to get caught. Not for the getting +caught, but for the--the compensations. It's the innocent men that are +getting killed. And perhaps it's best. Perhaps there are +compensations worth while." + +His voice was weaker, and I had to lean close to catch his words. + +"I'm going--out," he said. "Kiss me, Reenie." + +And then I kissed him--for you. + +Suddenly he sat up. + +"The mountains!" he exclaimed, and his voice was a-thrill with the +pride of his old hills. "See, the moonlight--on the mountains!" + +Then his strength, which seemed to have gathered itself for this one +last vision of the place of his boyhood, gave way, and he fell back. +And he did not speak any more. + +And what can I add? Dear, it is not defeat. It is promise. It is +hope. + +Some day we shall know. But until then we shall go on. It is woman's +bit to carry on. But not in despondency; not in bitterness; not in +anger or despair. _He_ didn't go out that way. He was reverent--and a +little curious, and he went out with a smile. And we shall go on, and +carry his smile and his confidence through the valley of our sacrifice. +What am I doing, speaking of _our_ sacrifice? + +I salute you, sister in the Order of Suffering--and of hope. + +EDITH DUNCAN. + + +I handed the letter back to her, and for a time I had no words. "Won't +you let me tell the story?" I said at length. "The world is full of +sorrow, and it needs voices to give that sorrow words, and perhaps turn +it into hope--as this letter does." + +She hesitated, and I realized then how much I had asked. "It is the +story of my life--my soul," she said. "Yet, if it would help----" + +"Without names," I hastened to explain. "Without real names of places +or people." + + +And so, in that little white-washed home, where the brown hills rise +around and the placid mountains look down from the distance, and a +tongue of spruce trees beyond the stream stands sentinel against the +open prairie, she is carrying on, not in despondency and bitterness, +but in service and in hope. And so her sisters, all this world over, +must carry on, until their sweetness and their sacrifice shall fill up +and flood over all the valleys of hate. . . . And if you should chance +that way, and if you should win the confidence of young Three-year-old, +he may stand for you and say, with his voice filled with the honour and +the glory and the pride of it, + +"My father was a soldier. He was killed at Courcelette." + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cow Puncher, by Robert J. C. 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