"What does my Eileen say to all this?" he asked, by way of answer.

"Eileen says, 'Ugh-huh!' daddy," she put in roguishly.

Royce Pederstone held out his hand and gripped Phil's, with a slightly tired smile.

"If my Eileen says, 'Ugh-huh!' my son, then 'Ugh-huh!' it is."

Eileen threw her arms round her father's neck and hugged him.

"I don't know anything much about you, Ralston, but your record is clean since you came here--despite some attempts to blacken it. I like your face--and if you can make my motherless girl happy when I'm gone, you'll have an old man's blessing.

"If you don't, though" (his blue eyes flashed temporary fire), "G.o.d help you! There have been more than one who wanted my Eileen, but I have told all of them that the choice of a man must be Eileen's.

"By the way, Phil,--is it true what they say,--that the Langford-Ralston Company buy and sell for everybody but themselves?"

"Yes,--quite true!" answered Phil.

The old man laughed. "Doesn't seem much like being very fond of their own cooking, Eileen."

"One doesn't have to eat what he cooks, daddy,--and somebody's got to cook."

"That's an old song of yours, girlie. But, seriously, Phil, you and Jim Langford could double and re-double your money if you only put it into some of the land you buy for others. You would save commission too, which is quite an item."

"Well, sir!--it is a policy we settled on when we started in, and it is a policy that has gained for us very many clients and has been the means of getting us considerable Old Country capital for investment in first mortgages. If we had not been on this conservative basis, we should never have received the agency for Langford & Macdonald's wealthy clientele."

"You would never have needed it, man."

"But we are doing pretty well, and at the finish we shall be on top.

That is more than every land speculator will be able to say when the finish comes."

"If we ever see it! But meantime, you could make your stake and be out of it. That's what I mean to do myself."

"Don't you think it is getting near to the time when one should start in unloading; at least when he should stop acquiring more? This has been a fairly long boom."

"Boom? Did you say boom? Man, alive!--this isn't a boom, it is the natural growth to real values. I saw this coming fifteen years ago.

And it is good for a long time yet. Why!--this is an investment in industry. This is a Fruit Valley;--the best fruit growing country in British Columbia. This isn't a mushroom townsite proposition. You can't compare this with ordinary realty wild-catting."

"I agree with you, sir, and I guess my puny opinion does not carry much weight, but the unfortunate thing is that we are beginning to produce the fruit here in the Valley and the harvest is becoming greater and greater every year, but Mr. Apple Grower has not created an outlet for his production; he has no great organisation to market for him; no central control for his prices;--and the result is that for years--unless he wakes up--he is going to get a miserable pittance for his crop from travelling jobbers, or it is going to rot on his hands. He is going to suffer loss and possible bankruptcy if we can't hold up until he co-operates, unionises, and makes his own market and prices from a central control."

"All in due season, son, when the time comes. But that is away from buying and selling of land. Personally, I raise cattle, pigs, horses;--I never have any trouble finding a market.

"And trust me, when you see _me_ getting quietly from under, follow suit and you won't go far wrong. I am not in Victoria with both eyes shut. The upgrade is absolutely good for three more years and the big prices will be next year. Get in when you can and make what you can.

It is a great life!

"However, this doesn't interest Eileen a bit."

"Oh, yes it does!" she put in quickly.

"Well,--it is business, and we fellows oughtn't to talk shop in a lady's company.

"Phil,--you won't rob me of my little girl for a while yet? I require her badly when the House is sitting at Victoria. I'd like to have her with me next session at any rate."

"We had thought of eighteen months from now, daddy dear. Will that do?" inquired Eileen.

The old man's eyes brightened up and his ruddy cheeks curved in a smile.

"That will be just fine! I'll have eighteen months of you in which to get used to doing without you. And, who knows, maybe that is all the time I shall want."

"Now, daddy, don't say that. Besides, you won't be losing me; you'll just be finding Phil."

John Royce Pederstone put one arm on Phil's shoulder and the other round his daughter's slight waist, as he turned with them toward the house.

"Well, we'll have dinner and a gla.s.s of wine over it, anyway."

CHAPTER XXIV

The Landslide

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 gla.s.sy 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--unsurpa.s.sed 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 h.o.a.r 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 rea.s.serted 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.