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."