The Cow Puncher - Robert J. C. Stead (best reads .TXT) 📗

"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."

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