The Mistress of Bonaventure Part 36

"Hold fast by your blunt directness if you are wise," she said. "I was blinded by the critical faculty, and you rebuked me by clinging to your visionary ideal, while I--misjudged you. I do not mind admitting now that it hurt me, the more so when I found that Lucille, being--and there is truth in the phrase--unspotted by the world, believed in you implicitly. It was because of this I allowed you to speak as you have done. I felt that I must ask your forgiveness, because we shall probably never meet again."

Whether Beatrice Haldane was correct in her own estimate I do not know; but she was the most queenly woman I had ever met, and I lifted the rent hat as I said: "Circ.u.mstances betrayed me, and you could do no wrong.

Even if that had been possible, how far would one suspicion count against all that the girl in England has done for me? Now it only remains for us to part good friends--and with full sincerity I wish you every happiness."

"Thank you," said Beatrice quietly; and without another word we walked back towards the house together through the velvet dusk. I noticed that Lucille glanced at us sharply as we entered.

"You will not forget our appointment in Winnipeg," said Haldane, as they drove away; and I stood still long after the vehicle had melted into the prairie. What I thought I do not remember; but it was with a dreamy calmness that, now the worst had pa.s.sed, I returned to Crane Valley.

Reluctance mingled with my antic.i.p.ation when I proceeded to Winnipeg at the appointed time. The harvest was almost ready, and a brief holiday possibly justifiable in antic.i.p.ation of that time of effort; but the journey was long and expensive, while, after our severe economies, I had fallen into the habit of slow consideration each time I spent a dollar.

Steel laughed when I said so, and pointed to the grain. "It's easier to get used to prosperity than the other thing," he said. "There is plenty money yonder to start you again. If necessary you can remember you have earned a good time."

The sight of the long waves of deepening ochre that rolled before the warm breeze was very rea.s.suring, though belief came slowly, and for days I had feared some fresh disaster. Their rhythmical rustle, swelled by the murmur of the wheat heads and the patter of the oats, made sweet music, for their undertone was hope, while the flash and flicker of the bending blades presaged the glitter of hard-won gold--gold that would set me a free man again. Then I was ashamed, and my voice a trifle husky, as I said: "I am certainly going to Winnipeg, Steel. If it had not been for the others the harvest would have left me in the grip of Lane, and now that the time has come I mean to stand by them."

I boarded the cars the more contentedly that there was a note in my pocket from Lucille Haldane. "Father tells me the time is ripe for you and your friends to strike at last," it ran. "I want to ask you to a.s.sist him in every way you can; and I wait anxiously to hear of your success."

I did not understand the whole plan of campaign, but gathered that Haldane, with the support of our prairie committee, would make a "bear"

attack on the company--which, while Lane held stock in it, had largely financed him--and I looked forward with keen interest to the struggle.

We others had done our best with plow and bridle, not to mention birch staff and fork; but we had hitherto acted chiefly on the defensive, and now an attack was to be pushed home with the aid of money and a superior intellect.

Haldane was in excellent spirits when, accompanied by Boone, he greeted me in Winnipeg station. "I feel less rusty already, and you look several years younger than you did a few months ago," he said. "But we have breakfast ready, and can talk comfortably over it."

The meal was a luxurious one, and Haldane's explanations interesting.

"Mr. Boone has taken a great deal of trouble to inquire into Lane's affairs, with the a.s.sistance of a man Dixon recommended. Considering the difficulties, I hardly think I should have succeeded better myself," he said.

Boone said this was an unmerited compliment; and Haldane laughed. "Well, the result, as antic.i.p.ated, is this. Lane has most of his money locked up in mortgages which he does not wish to foreclose on immediately, while we conclude that the rest is represented by shares in the Territories Investment Company, which concern proposes to increase its capital, and, as somebody has been trying to sell that stock quietly in small lots, one may decide that he is short of money. We purpose to scare off buyers and depreciate his shares by selling them in handfuls as publicly as possible; or, in other words, to hammer the company."

"There are two points I am not clear about," I said. "We have not the stock to sell; and wouldn't it be a trifle hard on innocent shareholders?"

"We are finding out your capacities by degrees," said Haldane, with a quizzical glance at me. "In the first place, we take the risk of being able to procure the stock when frightened holders rush on the market. If they don't--well, there will be a difficulty. In the second place, there are no innocent holders, or only a very few. The corporation is a semi-private concern--combination of second-rate sharpers of your friend's own kidney; and the few outsiders are professional speculators who take such risks as they come--they are only now thinking of an appeal to the general public. Here is the latest balance sheet, and I presume you are not anxious to see a continuance of that dividend wrung out of your friends on the prairie."

My anger flamed up once more as I glanced at the figures. I had seen how that profit was earned--not by the company's agents, but by careworn men and suffering women, who toiled under a steadily increasing burden, which was crus.h.i.+ng the life out of them. I had also received a laconic message from a combination of such as these: "Have paid in ---- dollars to the B. O. M. We'll sell our boots to back you if Haldane's standing in. Do the best you can."

Then I brought my fist down on the table as I said: "I'd walk out a beggar to-morrow before that should happen. If this concern lives only by such plunder, for heaven's sake let us demolish it. I can't eat another morsel. Isn't it time to begin?"

Haldane smiled, and touched a bell. "My princ.i.p.al broker should be waiting."

A little, spectacled man, with a shrill voice and insignificant appearance, was ushered in, and, as I inspected him, Haldane's choice reminded me of the Hebrew shepherd's sling. He appeared a very feeble weapon to use against the giant who had oppressed us so grievously.

"Territories have been offering at several dollars' reduction," he said.

"Don't know why, unless it's the railroad uncertainty. You couldn't get hold of one under full premium until lately."

The speaker, in spite of his declared ignorance, answered Haldane's smile; and the latter said: "You can begin at a further five dollars down. Come round in the afternoon and tell us how you are progressing.

Isn't there a race meeting somewhere about this place to-day?"

The broker said there was; and I was astonished when Haldane suggested that we might as well attend it, for this part of the conflict was evidently to be fought on wholly novel lines. We drove to the meeting, and after the monotony of Crane Valley the sight of the light-hearted crowd, the hum of voices and laughter, the gay dresses, and, above all, the horses, was exhilarating. Nevertheless, it was some time before the scene compelled my whole attention, for the issues of the business which had brought me to Winnipeg appeared far too serious to justify such trifling. By degrees, however, I yielded to the influence of the stirring spectacle, and was at length amazed to find myself shouting wildly with the rest when a handsome chestnut broke out from the ruck of galloping horses a furlong from the post. Then, indeed, for a few seconds I was oblivious of everything but the silk-clad figure and the beautiful animal rus.h.i.+ng past the dim sea of faces in the blaze of suns.h.i.+ne behind, while the roar of hoofs and the human clamor set me quivering. It was all so different from anything I had heard or seen on the silent prairie. Boone returned presently, and I stared at the silver coins he placed in my palm.

"You don't look satisfied, Ormesby, with the result of your few dollars.

Are you sorry I did not lay a decent stake, or have you been infected by Lane?" he said; and I answered him dryly: "I'm sorry that, without telling me, you staked anything at all. It is so long since I had any money to risk on such amus.e.m.e.nts--and it does not seem fair to the anxious men waiting on the prairie."

Haldane laughed. "It is generally wise to make the most of a pleasant interlude, because the average man does not get too many of them. If this strikes you as trifling, Ormesby, you will find grim enough amus.e.m.e.nt before we are through."

It was afternoon when we returned to the city, and we recommenced the campaign by a sumptuous lunch, during which the broker came in. "I've been offering Territories until I'm hoa.r.s.e," he said. "There was some surprise and talking, but n.o.body wanted to buy; and, while it's an honor to serve you, I don't see much of a commission in this."

"You will, if I know my opponents," said Haldane significantly. "Take off two more dollars, and, if there are any buyers, don't let them think you're not in earnest. You can put another of your friends on."

The broker departed and left me wondering. It struck me that to reduce the value by open quotations should have been enough, without saddling ourselves with contracts when we did not hold the stock; but it seemed that cautious slowness was not Haldane's way. He next insisted on playing billiards with me, and he played as well as I did badly, for my fingers had grown stiff from the grip of the plow-stilts and bridle, and we had small opportunity for such amus.e.m.e.nts on the prairie. Nothing of importance happened during the remainder of the day, but I have a clear recollection of how the throb of life from the busy city reacted on me as we sat together on a balcony outside the smoking-room after dinner.

It was a hot night, and the streets were filled with citizens seeking coolness in the open air. The place seemed alive with moving figures that came and went endlessly under the glare of the great arc lights, while the stir and brilliancy appeared unreal to me. The air throbbed with voices, the clank of great freight trains in the station, and the hum of trolley cars; while only one narrow strip of sky appeared between the rows of stores, and that strip was barred by a maze of interlacing wires. I felt as though I had awakened from a century's sleep on the prairie.

"Somewhat different from Crane Valley," said Haldane, pointing with his cigar towards the crowded wires. "I wonder how many of those are charged with our business--it is tolerably certain that some of them are. We have cheerfully thrown down the glove, and now the forces of fire and air and water are all pressed into the service of spreading our challenge across the continent. There's a mammoth printing machine in yonder building reeling it off by the thousands of copies every hour in its commercial reports, and those papers will be rushed east and west to warn holders in Quebec or Vancouver to-night. Also, by this time, Lane, wherever he is, will be spending money like water to keep the wires humming. Feel uneasy about the explosion now that you have helped to fire the train?"

"I feel curious both as to why you should take so much trouble to help us, sir, and as to the enemy's first move," I said.

"To keep myself from rusting, for one thing, and because Lane is one man too many down our way," was the careless answer. "If that does not appear a sufficient motive I may perhaps mention another when we have won. As to the other affair, Lane will, so long as his means hold out, buy--or urge his friends to--while we sell. Just how far can you and the men behind you go?"

I named a sum, which Haldane noted. "With what Boone and I have decided to put up it will be enough if all goes well. If not--but we will not trouble about that. This contract strikes me as a trifle too big for Lane," he said.

I retired early, but scarcely slept all night. I felt that the struggle would commence in earnest on the morrow, and Haldane's words had warned me that our nerve and treasury might be taxed to the utmost before we made good the challenge we had so lightly, it seemed to me, sent broadcast across the Dominion.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE TURNING OF THE TIDE

I rose early next morning, and a stroll through the awakening city, which was cool and fresh as yet, braced me for the stress of the day.

Haldane looked thoughtful at breakfast; Boone was silent and suspiciously stolid, for he betrayed himself by the very slowness with which he folded back the newspaper brought him to expose the commercial reports. He handed it to Haldane, who nodded, saying nothing. It was a relief to me, at least, when the meal was over, but afterwards the morning pa.s.sed very heavily, for I spent most of it haunting a dark telephone box, where Haldane received and dispatched cabalistic messages. I did not approve of conflict of this description, in which the uninitiated could neither follow the points lost or won nor see the enemy, and I should have preferred the hay-fork and a background of sunlit prairie.

Noon seemed a very long time coming, and the report of the broker who arrived with it far from rea.s.suring. "We have sold a fair block of stock, and I brought you the contracts to sign," he said. "Settlement and all conditions as usual. Each time that we offered a round lot Graham's salesman and another man took them up."

"Lane is taking hold. He has stirred up his allies," said Haldane. "I'll put my name to these papers, and you can call down another few dollars when you start again. I suppose there is no other person selling?"

"No," said the broker. "There were a good many other men curious about our game, and I fancy one or two of them had instructions; but they did nothing. We'll work up a sensation during the afternoon."

It would have greatly pleased me to hear of other persons parting with their shares; but Haldane still looked confident, and Boone appeared to place implicit faith in his generals.h.i.+p. I, however, grew more and more anxious as the afternoon dragged by, for my sense of responsibility to the men behind me increased when each tinkle of the telephone bell was followed by a message reporting further sales. Somebody was steadily taking up the stock we offered, and when, for the fourth time, Haldane had answered my question, "Any sign of weakness yet?" in the negative, I could stay indoors no longer, and found it a relief to stride briskly through the busy streets towards a grain buyer's offices.

My own personal risk was heavy enough, but I knew also what it had cost my prairie neighbors to raise the sum they had credited me with, and I felt that, if beaten, I dare not return and face them with the news that, losing all in an unsuccessful gamble, we had left them doubly helpless at the mercy of a triumphant enemy. The interview with the grain merchant was, however, in a measure comforting. He admitted that prices were improving, stated approximate figures which almost surprised me, and volunteered the information that when my crop should be gathered he would be glad to make me an offer. Although prospects were good in Western Canada, cereals were scarce everywhere else; and I returned so involved in mental calculations that I walked into several citizens, one of whom swore fluently. He wore toothpick-pointed shoes, and in my abstraction I had, it seemed, trodden cruelly on his toes.

Boone came up while I attempted to apologize, and tapped me on the shoulder. "What do you think of this amus.e.m.e.nt, Ormesby? It seems to have had the effect of dazing you," he said. "You were walking right past the hotel as though your eyes were shut."

"To be candid, I think very little of it," I said. "Still, I was puzzling over a slightly complicated sum to ascertain how much--counting every remaining beast, salable implement, and load of grain--would, when I have paid off Lane, remain my own."

"Planning your campaign for next year?" asked Boone, with a trace of dryness.

"No," I answered. "It will not be a great deal, but I'm open to stake the last cent on beating Lane."

"Good man!" said Boone. "We are going to beat him; and, to show that I am prepared to back my convictions, I may say that I have already hypothecated every pennyworth of my English property."