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

up was now tearing down. As the boom had fed upon itself, carrying prices to heights justifiable only to the most insane optimism, so did the subsequent depression bear down upon values until they reached depths justifiable only to the most abandoned despondency. Building operations came to a standstill. Carpenters, masons, brick-layers, painters, plumbers, labourers found themselves out of employment. As, in most instances, they had lived to the extent of their income in the prosperous period, or had invested their surpluses in the all-alluring real estate, they were promptly confronted with the necessity of finding work; if not at home, elsewhere. Their exodus left vacant houses; the reduced volume of trade necessary for a smaller and more frugal population was speedily reflected in empty shops and office buildings. With houses, shops, and office buildings empty or rented at prices which did not pay interest on the investment there was no inducement to build more houses, shops, or office buildings. With no inducement to build houses, shops, or office buildings there was no demand for vacant lots. With no demand for vacant lots, no value attached to them. The rosy bubble, inflated with the vapours of irresponsible speculation, had dissolved in thin air.

It could not be called a collapse. There was no panic, no crash. There was no wild rush to sell. One cannot sell without buyers, and there were no buyers. A certain latent optimism, justified in part by the undeniable natural advantages of the city, kept the flame of hope alive in the hearts of investors, or, perhaps, suffered it to be gradually diminished rather than extinguished by one icy blast of despair.

Mrs. Hardy was among the last to admit that she had bought on an ebbing tide. She contended that her house was well worth the price she had paid; what if speculation had come to a stop? So much the better; her house was still worth its price. She would stand firm. It was not until the Metfords, whose ostentation had brought them before her notice, attempted to sell their home at a tremendous sacrifice, and had found it impossible to get an offer, that Mrs. Hardy began seriously to consider her predicament. Mrs. Metford had sold the car and discharged the "chiffonier," and Mr. Metford had returned to his ancient and honourable calling of coal freighter.

Mrs. Hardy consulted Conward. It had grown to be her habit to consult Conward on all matters in which she found an interest. Conward had gone out of his way to make himself agreeable to Mrs. Hardy and her daughter, with, in the case of the former, considerable success. His status with Irene was not so well defined, but the frequency of his visits to the Hardy home afforded the opportunity for an attachment to be developed by insensible degrees, and the day was nearing when Conward would wish to trade upon that attachment.

"How is it, Mr. Conward," Mrs. Hardy said to him one evening over her fancy work, for she practised an indefatigable industry in matters of no importance,—"How is it that there is no demand for property? You are a real estate expert; you should be able to answer that."

"It is simple enough," Conward answered. "It is all a matter of confidence. So long as confidence was maintained, prices continued to advance. When confidence began to be shaken, prices hesitated. If confidence should disappear, values would follow suit."

"But why should confidence disappear? Isn't this city as good to-day as it was a year ago? Doesn't it occupy the same site? Are not the farms still producing?"

"That's just it, dear Mrs. Hardy. Why, indeed? Simply because the booster has given way to the calamity howler. Its psychological explanation is simple enough. The world lives by faith. Without faith there would be neither seed-time nor harvest. That is true of raising cities, as well as raising crops. But there are always those who ridicule faith; always were, always will be. And as soon as faith disappears, things begin to sink. Just like John, or whoever it was, on the water——"

"Peter, I think," corrected Mrs. Hardy. "Yes, yes, I begin to understand."

"Well, it's just like that. I may be a little off colour on my scripture, but I have the principle of it, and that's the main thing. And as soon as a city loses faith it begins to sink, just like Peter in the Red Sea."

"I don't think it was the Red Sea," said Mrs. Hardy gently. "But that is a matter of detail. As you say, the principle is the main thing. So we owe all this—these empty houses and shops, unsalable property, and everything, to those who have lost faith—or never had it. To men like Mr. Elden, for instance. You remember how he tried to discourage me from the very first—tried to break down my faith—that was it, Mr. Conward—I see it all very plainly now—and he and others like him have brought things to their present pass. Well, they have a great responsibility."

Conward, practised though he was in the arts of simulation, found difficulty in maintaining a serious appearance. It had not occurred to him that when a woman conceives a dislike for a man, her mind may lend itself to processes of deductions that will ultimately saddle the unfortunate offender with the responsibility for circumstances with which he is not in the most remote manner connected. It was the most natural thing in the world for a mind like Mrs. Hardy's, quite without premeditated injustice, to find in Dave Elden the cause of effects as far removed as was the collapse of the boom from the good advice he had given her that day in Conward's office. Conward found the experience an illuminating one. It was rich with hints of the possibilities that might arise from apparently innocent sentences dropped at opportune moments. It was proof that the danger of consequences lies, not in wronging your neighbour, but in allowing your neighbour to suspect that you wrong him.

As a result of this discussion, Dave found himself rather less popular with Mrs. Hardy than before. She treated him with distant civility, showing such courtesies as convention demanded as an honour, not to Elden, but to herself. Dave accepted her displeasure with a light-heartedness that was extremely trying to the good woman's temper. Had it not been for his desire to spare Irene any unhappiness, he would have treated it with open flippancy. He was engaged in a much more serious business than the cajolery of an old woman's whims. He was engaged in the serious business of capturing the heart of Irene Hardy—a task made none the easier by the self-imposed condition that he must conduct no offensive, but must await with such patience as he could command the voluntary capitulation of the besieged. On the whole, he told himself he had no reason to be dissatisfied with the progress of events. He and Irene often motored together, frequently accompanied by Mrs. Hardy, sometimes by Conward as well, but occasionally alone. And Irene made no secret of the fact that she preferred the trips in which only she and Dave participated. On such occasions the warm summer afternoons found them wandering far over the prairies, without thought of the homeward trail until the setting sun poured its ribbon of gold along the crest of the Rockies. The country, with its long, rolling sweeps of prairie, its clusters of dark green poplars; its rugged foothills from which grey roots of rock protruded, and the blue background of the mountains, afforded a scene to charm her artist soul, and daring and more daring were the splashes of colour which she committed to canvas in her attempt to catch the moods of light and shade that played over such a landscape. And if she did not speak of love with her lips, she had eyes.…

The gradual shrinkage of values to the vanishing point imposed upon Dave many business duties which he would very gladly have evaded. The office of Conward & Elden, which had once been besieged by customers eager to buy, was now a centre of groups no less eager to sell; and when they could not sell they contrived to lay the blame upon the firm which had originally sold to them. Although, for the most part, these were men and women who had bought purely from the gambler's motive, they behaved toward the real estate dealer as though he had done them an injustice when the finger of fortune turned up a loss instead of a profit. For such people Dave had little sympathy, and if they persisted in their murmurings he told them so with becoming frankness. But there were cases that could not be turned away with a sharp answer. Bert Morrison, for instance. Bert had never mentioned her "investment" since the occasion already recorded; she greeted Dave with the sociability due to their long-standing friendship; and her calm avoidance of the subject hurt him more than the abuse of all his irate patrons. Then there was Merton, the widower with the sick lungs and the motherless boy, who had brought his little savings to the West in the hope of husbanding out his life in the dry, clear atmosphere, and saving his son from the white death that had already invaded their little family. With a cruelty almost unbelievable, Conward had talked this man into the purchase of property so far removed from the city as to possess no value except as farm land; and the little savings, which were to ward off sickness and death, or, if that could not be, minister modest comfort in the declining hours of life, had been exchanged for property which, even at the time of the transaction, was valueless and unsalable.

Merton had called on Dave with respect to his investment. Dave had at first been disposed to tell him frankly that the property, for which he had paid twenty dollars a foot, was barely worth that much an acre. But a second look at the man changed his purpose.

"I know you were stung, Merton," he said, "shamelessly stung. You are one of those unsuspecting fellows who think everybody is going to play fair with them. You belong to the class who keep all kinds of rogues and scoundrels in easy circumstances. You might almost be charged with being accessories. Now, just to show how I feel about it—how much did you pay for these lots?"

"Three thousand dollars. It was all I had."

"Of course it was. If you had had more you would have paid more. I suppose Conward justified himself with the argument that if he didn't take your easy money some one else would, which is doubtless true. But just to show how I feel about it—I'll buy those lots from you, for three thousand dollars."

"I can't do it, Mr. Elden; I can't do it," said Merton, and there was moisture on his cheeks. "That would be charity—and I can't take it. But I'm much obliged. It shows you're square, Mr. Elden, and I hold no illwill to you."

"Well, can I help you in some way you will accept? I'm afraid—I don't mean to be unkind, but we may as well be frank—I'm afraid you won't need help very long."

Merton answered as one who has made up his mind to the inevitable, and Dave thought better of him. This little wreck of a man—this child in business matters—could look death in the face without a quiver.

"Not so long," he said. "I felt ever so much better when I came here first; I thought I was really going to be well again. But when I found what a mistake I had made I began to worry, not for myself, you know, but the boy, and worry is just what my trouble lives on. I have been working a little, and boarding out, and the boy is going to school. But I can't do heavy work, and