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

next pay day, but you say the firm must have nothing to do with it. And which is the more immoral—since you have spoken of morality—to accept labour from clerks whom you can't pay, or to sell property to women who say they want it and are satisfied with the price? We make our income by selling property. As soon as the sales stop, the income stops. Well, the sales have stopped. But the expense goes on. We have literally thousands of unsettled contracts. We must keep our staff together. We have debts to pay, and we owe it to our creditors to make collections so that we can pay those debts, and we can't make collections without staff. I sympathize with your feelings on this matter, Dave, but what's a man to do? It's like war; we must kill or be killed. Business is war, of a kind. Why, on the property we are now holding the taxes alone will amount to twenty thousand dollars a year. And I put it up to you; if we are going to stand on sentiment, who's going to pay the taxes?"

"I know; I know," said Dave, whose anger over the treatment of the Hardys was already subsiding. "We are in the grip of the System. As you have said, it is kill or be killed. Still—in war they don't usually kill women and non-combatants. That is the point I'm trying to make. I've no sentiment about others who are in the game as we are. If you limit your operations to them——"

"The trouble is, you can't. They're wise. They see the bottom going, and they quit. Most of them have already moved on. A few firms, like ourselves, will stay and try to fight it out; try, at least, to close up with a clean sheet, if we must close up. But we can't wind up a business without selling the stock on hand, and to whom are we to sell it, if not to people who want it? That is what you seem to object to."

"You place me in rather an unfair light," Dave protested. "What I object to is taking the life savings of people—people of moderate circumstances, mainly—in exchange for property which we know to be worth next to nothing."

"Yet you admit that we must clean up, don't you?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

"And there's no other way, Dave," said Conward, rising and placing an arm on his partner's shoulder, "I sympathize with your point of view, but, my boy, it's pure sentiment, and sentiment has no place in business. And you remember the terms of our partnership, don't you?"

Dave hesitated a few moments, as he threw his mind back over the years that had gone by since the day when Conward proposed a partnership to him. He saw again his little office where he ground out "stuff" for The Call, the littered desk and floor, the cartoons on the walls, the big shears, and the paste pot—yes, the paste pot, and the lock he had installed to protect it, and his select file of time copy, from depredation. And the smell of printer's ink; even yet, when business took Dave into a printing office, the smell of ink brought back those old, happy days. Happy days? When he worked more hours than a man should work, for less salary than a man should get; when the glorious out-of-doors called him and his soul rebelled against the despotism of fate! Yes, surely they were happy days. He smiled a moment as he thought of them; paused to dally with them on his way to an answer for Conward; then skimmed quickly down the surface of events to this present evening. More wonderful had the years been than any dream of fiction; no wizard's wand had ever worked richer magic.…

"You remember, don't you?" Conward repeated.

"Oh, about the coal?" Dave laughed. The moment of reminiscence had restored his good humour. "Yes, I suppose it was a bargain. You have held me to it pretty well."

"Let it remain a bargain to the end," said Conward. "It is the only way we can finish up."

Dave dropped the subject. There appeared to be nothing to gain from pursuing it further. They were in the grip of a System—a System which had found them poor, had suddenly made them wealthy, and now, with equal suddenness, threatened to make them poor again. It was like war—kill or be killed. It occurred to Dave that it was even worse than war. War has in it the qualities of the heroic; splendid bravery; immeasurable self-sacrifice; that broad spirit of devotion to a vague ideal which, for lack of a better name, is called patriotism. This System had none of that. It was more like assassination.…

Night had settled when Dave left the office. The champagne sky had deepened into a strip of copper; the silhouettes were soft and black; street lights studded the bank of foothills to the west like setting stars. Darkness had tucked the distance that lay between the city and the Rockies in the lap of night, and the great ridge stood up close and clear, prodding its jagged edge into the copper pennant of the day's farewell. A soft wind blew from the south-west; June was in the air. June, too, was in Dave's heart as he walked the few blocks to his bachelor quarters. What of the drab injustice of business? Let him forget that; now it was night … and she had called him Dave. He climbed the steps to his room with energy and life tingling in his limbs; then he stood in his window and for a long while watched the traffic in the street below. That is, his eyes were directed to the traffic, but what he saw was a merry girl in a brown sweater, showering her glances of admiration upon a raw youth of the ranges whose highest ambition was to break six bottles with six bullets. And she had even held that to be a worthy ambition. She had said, "Perhaps the day is coming when our country will want men who can shoot and ride more than it will want lawyers or professors." He smiled at the recollection of her words. The romantic days of youth! like the mirage of sunrise they fade and are lost in the morning of life.… And their young philosophies! The night they found the dead calf; he had propounded the wisdom that it is always the innocent thing that suffers; that the crittur that can't run gets caught. Well, that seemed to hold good. Wasn't that what Conward had argued to him this very afternoon, and he had found no answer? He wondered what Reenie's experience had been.… And then the compact under the spruce trees.… "Come to me—like that—" she had said, "and then—then we'll know." And to-day she had called him Dave.

He dressed with care. The Chinese boy was never more obsequious in his attentions, and Dave never presented a more manly appearance. It was not until he was about to leave his rooms that he remembered he must dine alone; he had been dressing for her, unconsciously. The realization brought him up with something of a shock. "This will never do," he said, "I can't eat alone to-night. And I can't ask Reenie, so soon after the incident with her mother. I know—Bert Morrison." He reached for the telephone and rang her number. Had anyone charged Dave with fickleness in his affections he would have laughed at the absurdity. Had he not remained true to one great passion through the dangerous decade of his life? A man always thinks of the decade just ended as the dangerous decade. And Bert Morrison was a good friend. As he waited at the telephone he recalled the impulse which had seized him when they had last parted. But the recollection brought only a glow of friendship for Bert. There was no hint of danger in it.

Her number did not answer. He thought of Edith Duncan. But Edith lived at home, and it was much too late to extend a formal dinner invitation. There was nothing for it but to eat alone. He suddenly became conscious of the great loneliness of his bachelor life. After all, he was quite as much alone in the city as he had been in his boyhood in the hills. He began to moralize on this subject of loneliness. It was very evident to him now that his life had been empty and shallow. It was rather evident that any single life is empty and shallow. Nature had made no mistake in decreeing that humans should live in pairs. Dave had never thought much on that point before, but now it struck him as so obvious that none could fail to see its logic. The charm of bachelorhood was a myth which only needed contact with the gentle atmosphere of feminine affection to be exposed.

The Chinese boy coughed deferentially, and Dave was recalled from his reverie. He took his hat and coat and went into the street. It was his custom to take his meals at a modest eating-place on a side avenue, but to-night he directed his steps to the best hotel the city afforded. There was no wisdom in dressing for an event unless he were going to deflect his course somewhat from the daily routine.

The dining hall was a blaze of light; the odour of early roses blended with imported perfumes, and strains of sweet, subdued music trembled through the room in accompaniment to the merry-making of the diners. Dave paused for a moment, awaiting the beck of a waiter, but in that moment his eye fell on Conward, seated at a table with Mrs. Hardy and Irene. Conward had seen him, and was motioning to him to join them. The situation was embarrassing, and yet delightful. He was glad he had dressed for dinner.

"Join us, Elden," Conward said, as he reached their table. "Just a little dinner to celebrate to-day's transaction. You will not refuse to share to that extent?"

Dave looked at Mrs. Hardy. Had he been dealing with Conward and Mrs. Hardy alone he would have excused himself, but he had to think of Irene. That is, he had to justify her by being correct in his manners. And as he looked from mother to daughter he realized that Irene had not inherited all her beauty from her father. In their dinner gowns Mrs. Hardy was sedate and even beautiful, and her daughter ravishing. Dave thought he had not before seen so much womanly charm in any figure.

"Do join us," said Mrs. Hardy. It was evident to Mrs. Hardy that it would be correct for her to support Mr. Conward's invitation.

"You are very kind," said Dave, as he seated himself. "I had not hoped for this pleasure." And yet the pleasure was not unmixed. He felt that Conward had out-played him. It was Conward who had done the gracious thing. And Dave could not prevent Conward doing the gracious thing without himself being ungracious.

He was aware of being under the close scrutiny of Mrs. Hardy. True, Conward sought to monopolize her attention. He had an ingratiating way with strangers; he struck a confidential note that quickly called forth confidence in return, and Dave was chagrined to see that not only was his partner creating the intended impression upon Mrs. Hardy, but his sallies and witticisms were gradually winning response from Irene. And the more he was annoyed at this turn of affairs the less was he able to arrest it. As Conward's guest he could not quarrel, and his fear of over-stepping the mark if he engaged in discussion induced a silence which might easily have been mistaken for mental inanition. He contented himself with being punctiliously correct in his table etiquette.

Perhaps he could have followed no wiser course, Dave's manners had an effect upon Mrs. Hardy similar to that which she had experienced