But despite the shipper's opposition, Alec had persevered. Summer found him with an empty pocket, but full of hope. And it found him well toward his twenty-first birthday. But what a different lad he was from the high school boy who had landed at Bivalve only a little less than two years previously. Hard physical labor had broadened and built him up. He was close to the six feet Captain Bagley had predicted for him. He was as powerful as an ox. His courage had grown. His mind had expanded with his body. His determination to climb up had become stronger and stronger. The friendship between Elsa and himself was as solid as a rock. It was founded on mutual respect and confidence. Trust was its corner-stone.
Nor was Elsa the only one who trusted Alec, nor yet the shipper and Alec's immediate friends. Everybody at the oyster wharves had confidence in him. They knew his ambitions. They also knew he would achieve them. Many a man among them would have risked his money on Alec as confidently as Alec had done himself and would have done so gladly. For all money and wealth in the world is won through the efforts of human beings. And far-seeing business men are ever looking for dependable lads to invest in, just as much as they are on the watch for other good bargains to buy. But of all this Alec as yet had little realization. All he understood was that he was keeping faith with himself and other men and that he was slowly but surely forging ahead.
CHAPTER XXV THE CRISIS
During the two years that followed, matters went from bad to worse for the shipper. Even as Captain Hawley had predicted, the dearth of oysters continued. Day after day the fleet came back from the oyster grounds with the lightest of loads. But expenses were as heavy as ever. Gloomy, indeed, were these days at Bivalve. Credit was strained to the utmost. Ship-chandlers, merchants, supply houses, and banks were carrying accounts long overdue, and lending still more money to men unable to pay what they already owed. The lenders' only hope of getting out what they had already put into the oyster business lay in putting in still more, in carrying the shippers until the oyster business became prosperous again. Yet there was a limit even here, and now one, and then another shipper went to the wall.
Though nobody guessed it, Captain Rumford was in worse shape than any other planter in the business. His loans were so widely scattered, however, that not even the bankers suspected his actual condition. Bravely he fought to stave off a smash. Finally he came to the point where he had to sacrifice something or lose all. He sold a large oyster-bed. Three years previously it would have brought him double the price he now got for it. But now the oyster business was in the worst sort of a depression. Nobody wanted oyster-beds at any price. Shippers could not work what they already had. So for a time the captain's offer went begging. Then finally some one who had money picked up the bargain.
Alec alone of the shipper's forces saw the oyster ground change hands without sorrow. It was one of the beds that Alec had condemned. He believed the shipper had benefited rather than harmed himself by the sale. In his opinion Captain Rumford would have been wise to sell his poor beds and work his good beds more intensively. He tried to tell the shipper something of this, but it was cold comfort to the captain.
Weeks passed. Things grew steadily worse in the oyster business. Yet there were exceptions to the general rule. More than one shipper was making money. Anybody who had oysters would have made money, for as oysters became scarcer the price rose higher. And some shippers had them. Day after day their boats came in well laden. Day after day their slips were occupied by well filled oyster scows, their piers encumbered with long rows of bulging oyster sacks waiting to be trundled aboard the trains. With his eyes open to all that was doing, Alec noted who these fortunate shippers were. He was much about the piers now, for sometimes for days on end the shipper kept him in the office to look after things, while the shipper himself was absent on business. Daily Alec made it a point to note who was shipping oysters in quantity. Now he dropped a casual question here, now a joking inquiry there, until he amassed an amount of information that was amazing. For he was finding out far more than the mere matter of what planters had oysters. He was ascertaining where each man's oysters came from, and whether they were principally planted oysters or oysters that had set themselves in the various beds. Alec even tabulated the information he got, and when his table was complete, he examined his charts of the oyster-beds in the light of it.
He now possessed the most complete data about the oyster grounds that any one had probably ever collected. For his chart showed him, not only the contour of the Bay and the location and ownership of the various oyster-beds, but to a large extent the contour of the bottom of the Bay, the depth of water at different points, the nature of the bottom, whether muddy or sandy, while every principal slick and swirl and eddy was plainly indicated. Now, as he studied these data, he wanted to shout for very joy; for again and again he found proof of his own beliefs about oysters, and confirmation of the facts he had gotten from his little book. Here were planters with beds located much like the deep water beds of Captain Rumford, who were getting next to nothing. Here were others, with beds bordering a slick, like Captain Hardy's, who were bringing in good catches of oysters, while still others whose grounds lay in some great eddy, like Captain Rumford's inshore beds, were coining money through their good hauls. Only where heavy plantings had been made were there good crops in those areas that Alec considered poor locations. Here was confirmation, indeed, here was proof, in very truth, of the convictions that had formed in Alec's mind. He believed that the truth about oyster grounds could be learned by any one who would study diligently, as he had, and with an open mind. For Alec never doubted that to him the truth was now an open secret.