The apple blossoms fell like flakes of snow; the sunflowers faded and were no more; the sun blazed on in all its radiant glory; the lakes stood in a glassy calm;––and still the rush and scramble went on––buying at a price and selling for more––still came the cry for more money on mortgage to cover up and extend, pulling conservative men into the gamble––their money providing the stake with no chance for them to win more than their seven or eight per cent. Prices soared; everyone lived within a multi-coloured bubble of prosperity.

The Langford-Ralston Financial Corporation became a corporation indeed. To do business with them was the rage of the Valley, for their work from end to end was business-like and honest. And even the thief and the crook like to do business with honest men.

Then came the Valley’s harvest; the greatest harvest it had ever known; but, alas for the rancher, there was no market in which to place his produce. He was at the mercy of the jobber, the kerb-stone broker, the pedlar in fruit. He could not sell––he had to forward his merchandise on consignment to the nearest large centre and, in consequence, he often lost his entire shipment. Not only that, but at times was saddled with storage and freight charges to boot.

Little wonder he grew tired; little wonder he grumbled. Who, after all, could blame him for fathering thoughts that ranching was not all it was supposed to be?

Yet the land was the best in the country; the conditions for fruit growing––with a proper system of irrigation––unsurpassed in the Province; the climate, the surroundings for home-making, ideal.

It was simply the lull time in the era of progress; simply the time in between small things and things of magnitude; the time when the little man was liable to be forced to the wall and the big man would have to cling on despairingly; the time when organisation and brains would have to step in and take the reins.

Autumn faded and early winter promised with its damp fogs which, in the night time, froze quickly, covering houses, trees and fences with a white crystalline hoar which dropped like snow at the first faint blush of the next morning’s sun. But oblivious of winter and without forebodings, men continued to buy at a price and sell for more.

The winter came, with its snow fence-high, and its cold north wind compressing the thermometer to twenty below and binding the earth as with an iron crust; the winter came with its days of dazzling sunshine and its cloudless skies over a pall of white; with its nights when great fleecy clouds scudded across the face of a brilliant moon, causing long shadows and streaks of pale light to chase each other across the white, frozen fields and over the undulating ranges;––but the majority of the men who lived by buying and selling heeded it not nor did they admire its beauties. Some were browsing in the warmer clime of California and those who remained behind sat in the comfort of their clubs, still buying at a price and selling for more, or planning their early spring campaigns.

Graham Brenchfield was in Los Angeles. John Royce Pederstone held office in Victoria, and Eileen––but for an occasional flying visit––remained with her father.

Phil and Jim––no longer the Swede’s apprentice and the irresponsible, occasional drunk, but men whose opinions counted, whose lead was worth following, whose actions carried force––continued to paddle quietly and cautiously down the Stream of Conditions toward the Cataract of Consequences. Far away they could hear the roar of the rushing, falling waters which, so far, others failed or refused to hear.

With the first blink of spring, the old frenzy of the previous few years reasserted itself, and business in land and ranches and town property showed early signs of breaking all previous records.

The Langford-Ralston Company were in almost every transaction; but it was not until the blossoms were again on the trees that someone suddenly realised a strange fact.

The private-exchange girl in the L.-R. Company switched the call to Phil’s desk.

“Hullo! Brixton talking. That you, Jim?”

“No, Pete! Jim’s out. This is Ralston.”

“Well,––I guess you’ll do. Say!––what’s the matter with that outfit of yours, anyway?”

“Don’t know, Peter. Tell me, and I’ll try to fix it.”

“Oh, no, you won’t! But why the devil don’t you fellows buy some real-estate once in a while?”

“What have you got, Pete? Any snaps?”

“Come off the perch, Phil! You know what I’m gettin’ at. Are you fellows trying to create a slump or some such damned thing?”

“No,––certainly not! That would be poor business for a real-estate agent.”

“Well,––why the devil are you the bear in every transaction you put through? It didn’t used to be that way. Every broker in town’s been buying from you fellows all this year.”

“Somebody’s got to sell, if there’s to be any buying. Now,––don’t get rattled, Pete. It is up to you. Sell if you want to. Nobody will stop you.”

Peter Brixton’s voice grew more conciliatory.

“What do you fellows know, anyway? You might let me in on it. We’ve done lots of business together.”

“We don’t know a thing, Peter; just surmise. And everyone knows it, for we haven’t hidden anything.”

“That there’s going to be a tightening up for a while?”

“Yes!”

“That it is coming soon?”

“No!”

“What then?”

“That it has come.”

Peter laughed a little hilariously, then his laugh ended with a touch of nervousness.

“Say!––is that straight goods, Phil?”

“Just our private opinion, Pete!”

“Well,––I think you’re about two years out in your guess, but I’m going to try a little selling just to be in the fashion. Thanks, old man!”

“You’d better hurry up then, Peter.”

Phil had hardly hung up the receiver, when Jim rushed in, his rugged face full of excitement.

“Read that!” he shouted, thrusting a cablegram under Phil’s nose. “By gad!––but we’ve been lucky; every client of ours has had a chance to sell. If he wouldn’t do it, he has only himself to blame now.”

The message was in code, with the interpretation scrawled underneath by Jim. It was from Jim’s father’s firm, Langford & Macdonald of Edinburgh.

“Extend no more loans in behalf this firm meantime. Informed Canadian Banks about to cease practice of extending credit on security of realty purchases. Letter follows.”

Phil rose slowly and extended his hand to his partner.

“Jim, you’re a wonder––a blooming wizard.”

Jim grinned, but he was well pleased.

“If it hadn’t been for your opinion, rammed well down my throat morning, noon and night, I guess the Langford-Ralston Financial Corporation would not be quite so well thought of after this comes out, as it will be in the light of the quiet but persistent advice it has given its clients. And to think of it––your father wires as if he were the absolute and only detector of this information, while it was your letter of six months ago that set him on the hunt for it and started him on his conservatism regarding loans in general.”

Jim laughed.

“That’s just my old dad’s way, Phil. He knows who put him on to it and what’s more, he knows we know. You never heard of a Scots business man admitting that his son knew anything he didn’t––at least, admitting it to his son.

“How much money have we in the bank?”

Phil beckoned the accountant, who brought the desired information.

“Two hundred and fifty thousand, six hundred and twenty dollars.”

“Great Scotland Yard! And all straight commissions on realty and loans. Isn’t it a corker though, how it grows?

“Well,––it represents a turn-over of over six million dollars one way and another. That’s something any two-year-old firm might be proud of.”

“And two years ago I was–––You know what, Jim!”

“And two years ago I was Captain Mayne Plunkett of dime novel repute––or disrepute––with glazed pants and a celluloid collar.”

“And Aunt Christina of ‘Love Notes’ fame,” Phil reminded.

Jim put up his hand. “Hush! Let the dead bury their dead.

“But it beats the Dutch all the same how offers keep coming in on a man when he doesn’t require them; yet, when he’s nearly down and out, he can’t even get a political speech to report.”

“That’s simple enough too, Jim. You know the reason; you have preached it in this business long enough.

“Think failure and you bring every brooding failure carrion-crow in the Universe to roost on the top rail of your iron bedstead. Think success, look success, live success,––and success walks in at your front door, while everyone helps you along the same way with each thought he gives your apparent success, even if his thought be simply one of envy.”

“Yes!––and as you are aware, my one object in life when I was slightly younger was to be a successful novelist. But no publisher would look at me. Then I got my nose in on this penny-a-line Deadwood Dick stuff––which I shall never despise, for many a square meal I have had to fill a round hole off the fifty dollars a book they netted me.

“To-day I have a letter from the publishers of these same paper ‘Horribles,’ enclosing six of my poor, starved, mental offsprings. They are the pick of fifty which they say I have written.”

Jim took off his hat and passed his fingers through his hair.

“Lord! I didn’t know, Phil,––honest to goodness!––I didn’t know I had written so many.

“They say these six, with a little toning up in language, a little toning down in cold-blooded murder and exclamatory remarks, would make ideal, cloth-bound books for 361 boys, for Sunday School prizes and junior libraries. They offer me royalties on each if I execute the work for them under my real name.”

“Aren’t you going to take it on? I really think you should. It would give you a certain amount of literary permanency. I’ve told you all along that you ought to be doing nobler work in that line than ten-cent ‘hair-raisers.’”

“Me? No, thanks! Captain Mayne Plunkett is as dead a deader as Aunt Christina. Requiescat in pace.”

He waved his hand in dismissal of the subject.

“‘On with the dance––let joy be unconfined.’”

“Phil,” said Jim seriously, half an hour afterwards, “Royce Pederstone is going to come a terrible cropper over this business. He is mortgaged up to the neck and, singly or with some of the political gang, he is in almost every realty proposition we hear of.”

“I know it. I’ve tried my best to make him see it, but he says if he doesn’t have faith in the Valley, who will.”

“But this isn’t a question of faith;––it is a shortage of money and a tightening up of foreign capital chiefly.”

“I’ve told him. I am worried sick over it. But he refuses to move.”

“Let’s send him a wire now,” suggested Jim.

In five minutes the message in cipher was on the way.

“Definite information banks closing down immediately with loans on realty. Mortgagees not renewing. Advise prompt sale. Wire lowest prices.”

The reply came in an hour and a half.

“Think information canard. Sell Remington Ranch eighty thousand dollars, Pedloe Ranch fifty thousand dollars, Bonnington Ranch forty thousand dollars.”

Phil and Jim scoured the town, but there were no buyers at the figures, for they were rocket-high.

They wired again, quoting best offers, but no answer came that afternoon.

On the day following, Graham Brenchfield, stout and prosperous-looking as ever, stepped inside the office for the first time, as bold as brass too.

“Nice day, boys!” he shouted familiarly. “Would like to see you two for a minute.”

To Phil’s inquiring eyes, he appeared slightly flustered.

“Come in here!” said Jim, beckoning him to the inner office, where Phil followed, closing the door behind him.

“You fellows have a pretty fine lay-out here,” the Mayor began, chewing at his cigar.

“Pretty fine!”

“Guess you’ve got us all skinned now, Phil. Wouldn’t like to take me in on that old fifty-fifty proposition?” he inquired sarcastically.

“If you have come in on any funny stuff,” answered Phil, rising, “then you’d better get outside. We haven’t the time for it.”

“Shucks! Don’t get sore! I don’t want to make you mad to-day. I’ve had a scrap with the bank this morning and I’m going to make them sit up for a while and guess.”

“That is quite a big proposition.”

“All the better! I hear you folks have lots of money to loan?” he queried.

“Yes!––and what?” put in Jim.

“I wish to borrow some.”

“Yes!”

“I’m paying eight percent, with first-class security.”

“Ugh-huh!”

“I want forty thousand dollars for two years.”

“Ay!”

“Can I have it?”

“No!”

Brenchfield looked sidelong at Jim, then at Phil; and back again at Jim.

“Good Lord! You can have the best ranch in the country as security.”

“On second mortgage?”

“Sure! Why not? The first mortgage don’t amount to a hill of beans. You could buy it out any old time.”

“No, thanks! Not to-day! Man, but you’ve got your nerve! What do you think we are, anyway?––a charity institution?” growled Jim.

Brenchfield flushed, but he swallowed his anger.

“Would the bank loan you on second mortgage?” pursued Jim.

“No!––guess not!”

“Well,––neither will the Langford-Ralston Company.”

“I’ll give you ten percent.”

“Not if you made it twenty percent.”

Brenchfield sat in silence for a moment. Suddenly he seemed to make a resolve.

“Will you lend me forty thousand dollars on first mortgage on my Redmans Ranch?”

Jim gasped, and Phil sucked with his lips, for the Redmans Ranch was Brenchfield’s one best bet; it was one of the finest and largest ranches on that side of the Okanagan Lake.

Jim winked to Phil.

“Would the bank lend you forty thousand dollars on it?” asked Phil.

“Sure!” braved the Mayor. “They’d be tickled to death to do it.”

Phil got up.

“I guess you’d better make friends with them and get their loan. We haven’t any desire for the name of Graham Brenchfield on our books;––it wouldn’t look good.”

The Mayor jumped up, his face livid.

“What’s that?” he cried. “You––you would say that to me who could squeeze you like this–––”

“No good! You tried hard to do it several times, but it wouldn’t work.”

“Haven’t you got a say in this, Langford?”

“Yes!––and my say’s the same as Phil’s.”

“By God! I’ll fix both of you good and plenty before I’m through. You––you pair of Real Estate sharks!”

Jim pounced on him and pinned him against the door before he could say another word. Brenchfield was impotent.

“Another word o’ that, and I’ll bang your heid through the panel,” exclaimed Jim, rising as usual in his anger to his beloved native tongue.

Brenchfield quieted down, lamblike, and Jim released him.

He spoke to Jim and pointed his finger at Phil.

“You wouldn’t feel so mighty bad about what I say, if you knew you had a ticket-of-leave jailbird for a partner.”

“Yes, you dirty, black-mailing thief!” answered Jim. “I know––and if you open your trap here or anywhere else, I’ll put you where you belong, whether Phil agrees to it or not,––see!

“You’re broke, Brenchfield. The bank has got you, and got you good. They’ll show you what squeezing is; damn you for what you are!

“Here’s your hat! Get out! And, by Heck!––as I open the door for you,––smile; for heaven’s sake, smile, and delude the staff that we’ve had a nice, genial, conversational love-feast.”

But Mayor Brenchfield’s jaunty air had departed. He tried hard to appear unconcerned as he hurried away, but the smile was frozen at the tap and refused to turn on.

“Things are getting lively,” remarked Jim. “Here are some more!”

The outer office was filled with inquirers.

All morning Phil and Jim were kept busy turning prospective money buyers down.

The news of the banks’ new attitude regarding the advancing of money on the security of realty had spread quickly. Property values flopped like a house of cards and interest rates soared sky-high.

At the end of the week, Eileen’s father telegraphed his acceptance of the offers made for his property the previous Monday. But these offers were already withdrawn, and even ridiculous prices were hard to get, as everyone was keen on selling and no one at all anxious to purchase.

It was the old story, which had repeated itself time and again in almost every new town and settlement on the American Continent. Someone had to bear the burden of it at the finish. No one was particularly anxious to be that one. All were scrambling to get out from under. Mother Earth and Father Money had put their feet down, as they always do, sooner or later.

In the midst of the excitement, Phil and Jim had a strange visitor. For the first time to their knowledge, he was Canadianised in appearance. His slippers were substituted for boots, his loose-fitting clothes were in the discard for a second-hand suit of European model, several sizes too big for him, and he was minus his pig-tail.

At first glance, Jim was unable to recognise him, then he laughed.

“Good land, Phil! See what the breeze has blown in. Ah Sing!

“How-do, Ah,––or is it, Sing!”

“Ya! You lemember me,––Ah Sing! Me allee same Canadian.”

The Chinaman was brazen as brass. But evidently he had something on his mind.

“Me no work any more lanch. Bossee man no likee Chinaman!”

“I don’t blame him!” answered Jim, across the polished counter.

“Me go back next week my old job. Me go back work in big bank. Me be janitor. Me washee window, washee floor; watchman allee night-time,––see!”

“You be heap scared, Sing! Devil he get you in bank.”

“No,––me no scared! Me bling three, four black cat. Me losem pig-tail,––me Canadian,––me no scared no more.”

“Canadian,––but still hanging on to the black cat theory,––eh! That’s just typical of what we have to suffer, Phil, in this country.

“Well, the bank has a lot to answer for. Man, Phil, but it would serve them rightly if they got let in some day, employing that kind of labour when they could get decent white if only they cared to pay the price.

“Sing!––what you want? We heap busy.”

“I catchem letter my uncle,––see!”

He handed a paper to Jim which was brushed over with black Chinese characters.

“Maybe you are a Canuck, Sing, but I’m no blooming Chinaman. What does this say?”

“I catchem this letter from China to-day. He say allee place my wifee and my mama live, rain come down allee time. No come down water.”

Ah Sing’s face was solemn as a priest’s.

“It come down blood––pigs’ hair, too; one, two feet deep, all over. Heap bad! I want catchem money send my uncle so he, and my wifee, my mama, all go away other place.

“If I no send, they die,––see! I need one hundled dollar. I no have him. You give me one hundled dollar. I pay back one, two, thlee month after I work bank.”

Jim shook his head.

“Yes!––you givem me. I pay back, sure!”

“No, siree,––not a darned cent! Your uncle, he fool you, Sing.”

Sing paid no attention to the remark.

“You no givem?”

“No!”

“All lightee. I guess me tly Mayor Blenchfield. He know me heap good. Maybe he lendem.”

And off he went.

“A fat chance he has of getting a hundred dollars from Brenchfield at this stage of the game,” exclaimed Jim.

“But what’s the crazy lunatic’s idea, anyway?” asked Phil.

“Oh, this raining pigs’ hair and blood stuff is an old gag. Something like the Spanish prisoner business. It is just a put-up job by relatives in China to get money out of their superstitious friends over here. They play on one another’s credulity for a fare-you-well.

“And he fancies he is now a Canadian. Gee!––but we’re the easy marks in this country:––Chinks, Japs, Hindoos, Doukhobors, niggers and God only knows what else. It sure is the melting pot. But some of them will have a great time melting,––believe me!”

Phil went back to his desk and opened up the day’s mail. In it there was a letter from Eileen, full of love, but overloaded with sorrow, for it contained the disquieting news that her father had been taken suddenly ill in the House and had had to be conveyed home. The doctors at Victoria had recommended a speedy return 368 to the Valley, and Eileen and her father were taking that advice and following by the next day’s train.

Phil drove down to meet them on arrival, and he was terribly shocked to see the change that had come over the recently hale, hearty, healthy, ruddy-complexioned old rancher and politician. He seemed absolutely broken down and full of anxiety to be in his own home. He talked all the way there in a most disjointed manner regarding his property and his business affairs, which to Phil was anything but reassuring, for John Royce Pederstone, although careless in regard to many things, was for the most part shrewd and at all times polished, connected and logical in his speech and argument.

Poor little Eileen was broken-hearted. Phil tried hard to make light of her father’s condition, but she remained inconsolable; he endeavoured to convince her that business affairs might really not be half so bad as they seemed, but it was against his own personal opinion, consequently it was unconvincing, and Eileen was not deceived.

“It isn’t any good, boy!” she remarked sadly, as they sat together. “It is just as bad as it can be. Everything he has is held as security by the bank. He is in it also with property in Vancouver, Victoria, New Westminster and Prince Rupert. I have gone through it––and it is absolutely hopeless. There is nothing left for him in honour to do but to assign everything. This house and ranch is all that will be left, because it was made over to me over a year ago––but it will have to go, too.”

“Oh, no, it won’t! They can’t touch it if it is yours.”

“Phil, boy!––do you think I would hold it if daddy owed a cent? Shame for you!”

“But I tell you, dearie, it would be madness to throw this place in. It wouldn’t save your dad any, for it isn’t nearly enough.”

Eileen simply shook her head sadly.

“It is no good! If I let this go, it will mean so much less that poor daddy will owe. And that will be something, after all.

“Eileen Pederstone means to be able to hold her head up, and she could never do it if she clung on to this.”

“Have you any idea how much he would require to tide things over, Eileen?”

“I am not sure, but with this place sold even at a sacrifice, maybe a hundred thousand dollars more might stop the gap till the pendulum swings back a little. And––it might not! It might simply be throwing good money after bad.”

“Eileen,––Jim and I have made two hundred and fifty thousand dollars between us in cold cash. It is in the bank, thanks to you and the promise you got me to make when we started in. Half of that money is mine. I don’t require it. Won’t you let me come into this; it means you and me anyway in the finish. Your father can secure me in any way he likes. My money would satisfy the bank’s claim and steady his holdings. Won’t you let me do this for you and your father?”

“And leave you with a lot of unsaleable property instead of hard cash? No, Phil,––absolutely no! And if you make this offer to my dad, it will mean the end for you and me, for I could never feel otherwise towards you than that I had in some way been bought.”

“Eileen!” remonstrated Phil, hurt at her words.

She burst into tears and hid her face on his shoulder.

“Oh,––I just can’t bear it. I hardly know what I have been saying. I didn’t mean it quite that way, Phil. But you must not suggest putting your money into this. People would never finish talking over it.”

“Yet you were willing to take me, Eileen, when your father’s position looked secure as the country itself and I had hardly one nickel to rub against another.”

“But you had ambition. You were brimming over with it. Nothing could ever have stopped you from making progress sooner or later. And I knew that. Lack of money means nothing to a young man with the ambition which you had, and still have. As for me, I shall have nothing now but myself.”

“And me, Eileen, for I’ll never let you back out. Why,––if you wish it, I’ll leave everything here as it stands, or I’ll give it away,––and we can go somewhere else and start all over.”

“But that wouldn’t be fair, if I did agree.”

“Then, dearie, just let me help.”

“No,––no,––no!”

“But the land should be saved,––at least, as much of it as we can save. It is of the best, and when the real merits of the fruit of this Valley are known, when the markets are opened up for us and transportation facilities are improved, the land will be worth much more than it is now, for the younger orchards will be bearing heavier and heavier year by year. Eileen, we want to hold what we can of your father’s property, unhampered.”

“Oh, yes!––you are terribly logical and convincing, but I won’t love you any more if you get mixed up in this;––it is too, too hopeless.”

“Immovable as Vancouver Island! and yet they talk of frail femininity. Ah, Eileen! as difficult to understand as, as any other lady!”

Eileen sighed, went over to the window and parted the curtains, as she looked out over the peaceful Valley. Phil went to her side.

Up on the hill as they were, overlooking the surrounding country, they almost forgot their troubles under Nature’s hypnotism. The sky overhead was opalescent; the ranges, dotted with grazing cattle and unbroken horses, were bathed in sunshine. Away below them, the little 371 town, with its long Main Street of business houses and its stretch of regular shade trees, drowsed in an adolescent contentment. All around lay farm houses surrounded by fields in cultivation with parallel lines of fruit trees. In the distance, due west between the hills, the blue waters of the Okanagan Lake sparkled in a winding streak which melted into the sky.

Phil put his arm round Eileen and drew her to him.

“And we talked about leaving all this, dearie!”

She looked up at him with moist eyes, and her voice trembled.

“Oh, Phil!––I couldn’t––I just couldn’t! If I did, I should be leaving part of me behind.”

He stooped and kissed her.

“And you won’t, sweetheart;––not if I know it!”

A streak of dust rose from the roadway and an automobile turned quickly in to the avenue.

“Here comes the doctor, Phil, to see daddy.”

“I’ll be off then, girlie! I’ll ’phone later to find out how he is progressing.”