"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.