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

saw in this splendid woman the girl who had stirred and returned his youthful passion! But Dave had poise. Upon a natural ability to take care of himself in a physical sense, environment and training had imposed a mental resourcefulness not easily taken at a disadvantage. He walked straight to Irene.

"I heard your voice," he said, in quiet tones that gave no hint of the emotion beneath. "I am very glad to see you again." He took the hand which she extended in a firm, warm grasp; there was nothing in it, as Irene protested to herself, that was more than firm and warm, but it set her finger-tips a-tingling.

"My mother, Mr. Elden," she managed to say, and she hoped her voice was as well controlled as his had been. Mrs. Hardy looked on the clean-built young man with the dark eyes and the brown, smooth face, but the name suggested nothing. "You remember," Irene went on. "I told you of Mr. Elden. It was at his ranch we stayed when father was hurt."

"But I thought he was a cow puncher," exclaimed Mrs. Hardy, with no abatement of the contempt which she always compressed into the one western term which had smuggled into her vocabulary.

"Times change quickly in the West, madam," said Dave. There was nothing in his voice to suggest that he had caught the note in hers. "Most of our business men—at least, those bred in the country—have thrown a lasso in their day. You should hear them brag of their steer-roping yet in the Ranchmen's Club." Irene's eyes danced. Dave had already turned the tables; where her mother had implied contempt he had set up a note of pride. It was a matter of pride among these square-built, daring Western men that they had graduated into their office chairs from the saddle and the out-of-doors.

"Oh, I suppose," said her mother, for lack of a better answer. "Everything is so absurd in the West. But you were good to my daughter, and to poor, dear Andrew. If only he had been spared. Women are so unused to these business responsibilities, Mr. Conward. It is fortunate there are a few reliable firms upon which we can lean in our inexperience."

"Mother has bought a house," Irene explained to Dave. "We thought this was a safe place to come——"

A look on Elden's face caused her to pause. "Why, what is wrong?" she said.

Dave looked at Conward, at Mrs. Hardy, and at Irene. He was instantly aware that Conward had "stung" them. It was common knowledge in inside circles that the bottom was going out. The firm of Conward & Elden had been scurrying for cover; as quietly and secretly as possible, to avoid alarming the public, but scurrying for cover nevertheless. And Dave had acquiesced in that policy. He had little stomach for it, but no other course seemed possible. Conward, he knew, had no scruples. Bert Morrison had been caught in his snare, and now this other and dearer friend had proved a ready victim. As Conward was wont to say, business is business. And he had acquiesced. His position was extremely difficult.

"I don't think I would be in a hurry to buy," he said, slowly turning his eyes on his partner. "You would perhaps be wiser to rent a home for awhile. Rents are becoming easier."

"But I have bought," said Mrs. Hardy, and there was triumph rather than regret in her voice. "I have paid my deposit."

"It is the policy of this firm," Elden continued, "not to force or take advantage of hurried decisions. The fact that you have already made a deposit does not alter that policy. I think I may speak for my partner and the firm when I say that your deposit will be held to your credit for thirty days, during which time it will constitute an option on the property which you have selected. If, at the end of that time, you are still of your present mind, the transaction can go through as now planned; and if you have changed your mind your deposit will be returned."

Conward shifted under Dave's direct eye. He preferred to look at Mrs. Hardy. "What Mr. Elden has told you about the policy of the firm is quite true," he managed to say. "But, as it happens, this transaction is not with Conward & Elden, but with me personally. I find it necessary to dispose of the property which I have just sold to you at such an exceptional price"—he was looking at Mrs. Hardy—"I find it necessary for financial reasons to dispose of it, and naturally I cannot run a chance of having my plans overturned by any possible change of mind on your part. Not that I think you will change your mind," he hurried to add. "I think you are already convinced that it is a very good buy indeed."

"I am entirely satisfied," said Mrs. Hardy. "The fact that Mr. Elden wants to get the property back makes me more satisfied," she added, with the peculiarly irritating laugh of a woman who thinks she is extraordinarily shrewd, and is only very silly.

"The agreement is signed?" said Dave. He walked to the desk and picked up the documents, and the cheque that lay upon them. His eye ran down the familiar contract. "This agreement is in the name of Conward & Elden," he said. "This cheque is payable to Conward & Elden."

He was addressing Conward. Conward's livid face had become white, and it was with difficulty he controlled his anger. "They are all printed that way," he explained. "I am going to have them endorsed over to me."

"You are not," said Dave. "You are charging this woman twenty-five thousand dollars for a house that won't bring twenty thousand on the open market to-day, and by Fall won't bring ten thousand. The firm of Conward & Elden will have nothing to do with that transaction. It won't even endorse it over."

A fire was burning in the grate. Dave walked to it, and very slowly and deliberately thrust the agreement and the cheque into the flame. For a moment the printed letters stood out after the body of the paper was consumed; then all fell to ashes.

"Well, if that doesn't beat all!" Mrs. Hardy ejaculated. "Are all cow punchers so discourteous?"

"I mean no discourtesy," said Dave. "And I hope you will let me say now, what I should have said before, that it was with the deepest regret I learned from your conversation of the death of Dr. Hardy. He was a gentleman who commanded my respect, as he must have commanded the respect of all who knew him. If my behaviour has seemed abrupt I assure you I have only sought to serve Dr. Hardy's widow—and his daughter."

"It is a peculiar service," Mrs. Hardy answered curtly. She felt she had a grievance against Dave. He had not lived down to her conception of what a raw Western youth should be. Even the act of burning the agreement and the cheque, dramatic though it was, had a poise to it that seemed inappropriate. Dave should have snatched the papers—it would have been better had the partners fought over them—he should have crumpled them in rage and consigned them to the fire with curses. Mrs. Hardy felt that in such conduct Dave would have been running true to form. His assumption of the manners of a gentleman annoyed her exceedingly.

"I can only apologize for my partner's behaviour," said Conward. "It need not, however, affect the transaction in the slightest degree. A new agreement will be drawn at once—an agreement in which the firm of Conward & Elden will not be concerned."

"That will be more satisfactory," said Mrs. Hardy. She intended the remark for Dave's ears, but he had moved to a corner of the room and was conversing in low tones with Irene.

"I am sorry I had to make your mother's acquaintance under circumstances which, I fear, she will not even try to understand," he had said to Irene. "I am sure she will not credit me with unselfish motives."

"Oh, Dave—Mr. Elden, I mean—that is—you don't know how proud—you don't know how much of a man you made me feel you are."

She was flushed and excited. "Perhaps I shouldn't talk like this. Perhaps——"

"It all depends on one thing," Dave interrupted.

"What is that?"

"It all depends on whether we are Miss Hardy and Mr. Elden, or whether we are still Reenie and Dave."

Her bright eyes had fallen to the floor, and he could see the tremor of her fingers as they rested on the back of a chair. She did not answer him directly. But in a moment she spoke.

"Mother will buy the house from Mr. Conward," she said. "She is like that. And when we are settled you will come and see me, won't you—Dave?"

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

When the Hardys had gone Conward turned to Elden. "We had better try and find out where we stand," he said, trying to speak dispassionately, but there was a tremor in his voice.

"I agree," returned Elden, who had no desire to evade the issue. "Do you consider it fair to select inexperienced women for your victims?"

Conward made a deprecating gesture. "There is nothing to be gained by quarreling, Dave," he said. "Let us face the situation fairly. Let us get at the facts. When we have agreed as to facts, then we may agree as to procedure."

"Shoot," said Dave. He stood with his shoulder toward Conward, watching the dusk settling about the foothill city. The streets led away into the gathering darkness, and the square brick blocks stood in blue silhouette against a champagne sky. He became conscious of a strange yearning for this young metropolis; a sort of parental brooding over a boisterous, lovable, wayward youth. It was his city; no one could claim it more than he. And it was a good city to look upon, and to mingle in, and to dream about.

"I think," said Conward, "we can agree that the boom is over. Booms feed upon themselves, and eventually they eat themselves up. We have done well, on paper. The thing now is to convert our paper into cash."

Dave turned about. "You know I don't claim to be any great moralist, Conward," he said, "and I have no pity for a gambler who deliberately sits in and gets stung. Consequently I am not troubled with any self-pity, nor any pity for you. And if you can get rid of our holdings to other gamblers I have nothing to say. But if it is to be loaded on to women who are investing the little savings of their lives—women like Bert Morrison and Mrs. Hardy—then I am going to have a good deal to say. And there is that man—what's his name?—Merton, I think; a lunger if there ever was one; tuberculosis written all over him; a widower, too, with a little boy, sent out here as his last chance—you loaded him with stuff where he can't see the smoke of the city, and you call it city property. That's what I want to talk about," said Dave, with rising heat. "If business has to be done that way, then I say, to hell with business!"

"I asked you not to quarrel," Conward returned, with remarkable composure. "I suggested that we get at the facts. That seems to be a business suggestion. I think we are agreed that the boom is over. Values are on the down grade. The boomsters are departing. They are moving on to new fields, as we should have done a year or two ago, but I confess I had a sort of sentiment for this place. Well—that is the price of sentiment. It won't mix with business. Now, granting that the boom is over, where do we stand?

"We are rated as millionaires, but we haven't a thousand dollars in the bank at this moment. This," he lifted Mrs. Hardy's cheque, "would have seen us over