The Riverman

S >> Stewart Edward White >> The Riverman

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"I want to give him all the chance there is," he explained to
Carroll. "A boy ought to start where his father left off, and not
have to do the same thing all over again. But being a rich man's
son isn't much of a job."

"Why don't you let him continue your business?" smiled Carroll,
secretly amused at the idea of the small person before them ever
doing anything.

"By the time Bobby's grown up this business will all be closed out,"
replied Orde seriously.

He continued to look at his minute son with puckered brow, until
Carroll smoothed out the wrinkles with the tips of her fingers.

"Of course, having only a few minutes to decide," she mocked,
"perhaps we'd better make up our minds right now to have him a
street-car driver."

"Yes!" agreed Bobby unexpectedly, and with emphasis.

Three years after this conversation, which would have made Bobby
just eight, Orde came back before six of a summer evening, his face
alight with satisfaction.

"Hullo, bub!" he cried to Bobby, tossing him to his shoulder.
"How's the kid?"

They went out together, while awaiting dinner, to see the new setter
puppy in the woodshed.

"Named him yet?" asked Orde.

"Duke," said Bobby.

Orde surveyed the animal gravely.

"Seems like a good name," said he.

After dinner the two adjourned to the library, where they sat
together in the "big chair," and Bobby, squirmed a little sidewise
in order the better to see, watched the smoke from his father's
cigar as it eddied and curled in the air.

"Tell a story," he commanded finally.

"Well," acquiesced Orde, "there was once a man who had a cow--"

"Once upon a time," corrected Bobby.

He listened for a moment or so.

"I don't like that story," he then announced. "Tell the story about
the bears."

"But this is a new story," protested Orde, "and you've heard about
the bears so many times."

"Bears," insisted Bobby.

"Well, once upon a time there were three bears--a big bear and a
middle-sized bear and a little bear--" began Orde obediently.

Bobby, with a sigh of rapture and content, curled up in a snug, warm
little ball. The twilight darkened.

"Blind-man's holiday!" warned Carroll behind them so suddenly that
they both jumped. "And the sand man's been at somebody, I know!"

She bore him away to bed. Orde sat smoking in the darkness, staring
straight ahead of him into the future. He believed he had found the
opportunity--twenty years distant--for which he had been looking so
long.

XXX

After a time Carroll descended the stairs, chuckling. "Jack," she
called into the sitting-room, "come out on the porch. What do you
suppose the young man did to-night?"

"Give it up," replied Orde promptly. "No good guessing when it's a
question of that youngster's performances. What was it?"

"He said his 'Now I lay me,' and asked blessings on you and me, and
the grandpas and grandmas, and Auntie Kate, as usual. Then he
stopped. 'What else?' I reminded him. 'And,' he finished with a
rush, 'make-Bobby-a-good-boy-and-give-him-plenty-of-bread-'n-butter-
'n-apple-sauce!'"

They laughed delightedly over this, clinging together like two
children. Then they stepped out on the little porch and looked into
the fathomless night. The sky was full of stars, aloof and calm,
but waiting breathless on the edge of action, attending the word of
command or the celestial vision, or whatever it is for which stars
seem to wait. Along the street the dense velvet shade of the maples
threw the sidewalks into impenetrable blackness. Sounds carried
clearly. From the Welton's, down the street, came the tinkle of a
mandolin and an occasional low laugh from the group of young people
that nightly frequented the front steps. Tree toads chirped in
unison or fell abruptly silent as though by signal. All up and down
the rows of houses whirred the low monotone of the lawn sprinklers,
and the aroma of their wetness was borne cool and refreshing through
the tepid air.

Orde and his wife sat together on the top step. He slipped his arm
about her. They said nothing, but breathed deep of the quiet
happiness that filled their lives.

The gate latch clicked and two shadowy figures defined themselves
approaching up the concrete walk.

"Hullo!" called Orde cheerfully into the darkness.

"Hullo!" a man's voice instantly responded.

"Taylor and Clara," said Orde to Carroll with satisfaction. "Just
the man I wanted to see."

The lawyer and his wife mounted the steps. He was a quick,
energetic, spare man, with lean cheeks, a bristling, clipped
moustache, and a slight stoop to his shoulders. She was small,
piquant, almost child-like, with a dainty up-turned nose, a large
and lustrous eye, a constant, bird-like animation of manner--the
Folly of artists, the adorable, lovable, harmless Folly standing
tiptoe on a complaisant world.

"Just the man I wanted to see," repeated Orde, as the two
approached.

Clara Taylor stopped short and considered him for a moment.

"Let us away," she said seriously to Carroll. "My prophetic soul
tells me they are going to talk business, and if any more business
is talked in my presence, I shall EXPIRE!"

Both men laughed, but Orde explained apologetically:

"Well, you know, Mrs. Taylor, these are my especially busy days for
the firm, and I have to work my private affairs in when I can."

"I thought Frank was very solicitous about my getting out in the
air," cried Clara. "Come, Carroll, let's wander down the street and
see Mina Heinzman."

The two interlocked arms and sauntered along the walk. Both men lit
cigars and sat on the top step of the porch.

"Look here, Taylor," broke in Orde abruptly, "you told me the other
day you had fifteen or twenty thousand you wanted to place
somewhere."

"Yes," replied Taylor.

"Well, I believe I have just the proposition."

"What is it?"

"California pine," replied Orde.

"California pine?" repeated Taylor, after a slight pause. "Why
California? That's a long way off. And there's no market, is
there? Why way out there?"

"It's cheap," replied Orde succinctly. "I don't say it will be good
for immediate returns, nor even for returns in the near future, but
in twenty or thirty years it ought to pay big on a small investment
made now."

Taylor shook his head doubtfully.

"I don't see how you figure it," he objected. "We have more timber
than we can use in the East. Why should we go several thousand
miles west for the same thing?"

"When our timber gives out, then we'll HAVE to go west," said Orde.

Taylor laughed.

"Laugh all you please," rejoined Orde, "but I tell you Michigan and
Wisconsin pine is doomed. Twenty or thirty years from now there
won't be any white pine for sale."

"Nonsense!" objected Taylor. "You're talking wild. We haven't even
begun on the upper peninsula. After that there's Minnesota. And I
haven't observed that we're quite out of timber on the river, or the
Muskegon, or the Saginaw, or the Grand, or the Cheboygan--why, Great
Scott! man, our children's children's children may be thinking of
investing in California timber, but that's about soon enough."

"All tight," said Orde quietly. "Well, what do you think of Indiana
as a good field for timber investment?"

"Indiana!" cried Taylor, amazed. "Why, there's no timber there;
it's a prairie."

"There used to be. And all the southern Michigan farm belt was
timbered, and around here. We have our stumps to show for it, but
there are no evidences at all farther south. You'd have hard work,
for instance, to persuade a stranger that Van Buren County was once
forest."

"Was it?" asked Taylor doubtfully.

"It was. You take your map and see how much area has been cut
already, and how much remains. That'll open your eyes. And
remember all that has been done by crude methods for a relatively
small demand. The demand increases as the country grows and methods
improve. It would not surprise me if some day thirty or forty
millions would constitute an average cut.* 'Michigan pine
exhaustless!'--those fellows make me sick!"

* At the present day some firms cut as high as 150,000,000 feet.

"Sounds a little more reasonable," said Taylor slowly.

"It'll sound a lot more reasonable in five or ten years," insisted
Orde, "and then you'll see the big men rushing out into that Oregon
and California country. But now a man can get practically the pick
of the coast. There are only a few big concerns out there."

"Why is it that no one--"

"Because," Orde cut him short, "the big things are for the fellow
who can see far enough ahead."

"What kind of a proposition have you?" asked Taylor after a pause.

"I can get ten thousand acres at an average price of eight dollars
an acre," replied Orde.

"Acres? What does that mean in timber?"

"On this particular tract it means about four hundred million feet."

"That's about twenty cents a thousand."

Orde nodded.

"And of course you couldn't operate for a long time?"

"Not for twenty, maybe thirty, years," replied Orde calmly.

"There's your interest on your money, and taxes, and the risk of
fire and--"

"Of course, of course," agreed Orde impatiently, "but you're getting
your stumpage for twenty cents or a little more, and in thirty years
it will be worth as high as a dollar and a half." *

* At the present time (1908) sugar pine such as Orde described would
cost $3.50 to $4.

"What!" cried Taylor.

"That is my opinion," said Orde.

Taylor relapsed into thought.

"Look here, Orde," he broke cut finally, "how old are you?"

"Thirty-eight. Why?"

"How much timber have you in Michigan?"

"About ten million that we've picked up on the river since the Daly
purchase and three hundred million in the northern peninsula."

"Which will take you twenty years to cut, and make you a million
dollars or so?"

"Hope
so."

"Then why this investment thirty years ahead?"

"It's for Bobby," explained Orde simply. "A man likes to have his
son continue on in his business. I can't do it here, but there I
can. It would take fifty years to cut that pine, and that will give
Bobby a steady income and a steady business."

"Bobby will be well enough off, anyway. He won't have to go into
business."

Orde's brow puckered.

"I know a man--Bobby is going to work. A man is not a success in
life unless he does something, and Bobby is going to be a success.
Why, Taylor," he chuckled, "the little rascal fills the wood-box for
a cent a time, and that's all the pocket-money he gets. He's saving
now to buy a thousand-dollar boat. I've agreed to pool in half. At
his present rate of income, I'm safe for about sixty years yet."

"How soon are you going to close this deal?" asked Taylor, rising as
he caught sight of two figures coming up the walk.

"I have an option until November 1," replied Orde. "If you can't
make it, I guess I can swing it myself. By the way, keep this
dark."

Taylor nodded, and the two turned to defend themselves as best they
could against Clara's laughing attack.

XXXI

Orde had said nothing to Newmark concerning this purposed new
investment, nor did he intend doing so.

"It is for Bobby," he told himself, "and I want Bobby, and no one
else, to run it. Joe would want to take charge, naturally. Taylor
won't. He knows nothing of the business."

He walked downtown next morning busily formulating his scheme. At
the office he found Newmark already seated at his desk, a pile of
letters in front of him. Upon Orde's boisterous greeting his nerves
crisped slightly, but of this there was no outward sign beyond a
tightening of his hands on the letter he was reading. Behind his
eye-glasses his blue, cynical eyes twinkled like frost crystals. As
always, he was immaculately dressed in neat gray clothes, and
carried in one corner of his mouth an unlighted cigar.

"Joe," said Orde, spinning a chair to Newmark's roll-top desk and
speaking in a low tone, "just how do we stand on that upper
peninsula stumpage?"

"What do you mean? How much of it is there? You know that as well
as I do--about three hundred million."

"No; I mean financially."

"We've made two payments of seventy-five thousand each, and have
still two to make of the same amount."

"What could we borrow on it?"

"We don't want to borrow anything on it," returned Newmark in a
flash.

"Perhaps not; but if we should?"

"We might raise fifty or seventy-five thousand, I suppose."

"Joe," said Orde, "I want to raise about seventy-five thousand
dollars on my share in this concern, if it can be done."

"What's up?" inquired Newmark keenly.

"It's a private matter."

Newmark said nothing, but for some time thought busily, his light
blue eyes narrowed to a slit.

"I'll have to figure on it a while," said he at last, and turned
back to his mail. All day he worked hard, with only a fifteen-
minute intermission for a lunch which was brought up from the hotel
below. At six o'clock he slammed shut the desk. He descended the
stairs with Orde, from whom he parted at their foot, and walked
precisely away, his tall, thin figure held rigid and slightly askew,
his pale eyes slitted behind his eye-glasses, the unlighted cigar in
one corner of his straight lips. To the occasional passerby he
bowed coldly and with formality. At the corner below he bore to the
left, and after a short walk entered the small one-story house set
well back from the sidewalk among the clumps of oleanders. Here he
turned into a study, quietly and richly furnished ten years in
advance of the taste then prevalent in Monrovia, where he sank into
a deep-cushioned chair and lit the much-chewed cigar. For some
moments he lay back with his eyes shut. Then he opened them to look
with approval on the dark walnut book-cases, the framed prints and
etchings, the bronzed student's lamp on the square table desk, the
rugs on the polished floor. He picked up a magazine, into which he
dipped for ten minutes.

The door opened noiselessly behind him.

"Mr. Newmark, sir," came a respectful voice, "it is just short of
seven."

"Very well," replied Newmark, without looking around.

The man withdrew as softly as he had come. After a moment, Newmark
replaced the magazine on the table, yawned, threw aside the cigar,
of which he had smoked but an inch, and passed from his study into
his bedroom across the hall. This contained an exquisite Colonial
four-poster, with a lowboy and dresser to match, and was papered and
carpeted in accordance with these, its chief ornaments. Newmark
bathed in the adjoining bathroom, shaved carefully between the two
wax lights which were his whim, and dressed in what were then known
as "swallow-tail" clothes. Probably he was the only man in Monrovia
at that moment so apparelled. Then calmly, and with all the
deliberation of one under fire of a hundred eyes, he proceeded to
the dining-room, where waited the man who had a short time before
reminded him of the hour. He was a solemn, dignified man, whose
like was not to be found elsewhere this side the city. He, too,
wore the "swallow-tail," but its buttons were of gilt.

Newmark seated himself in a leather-upholstered mahogany chair
before a small, round, mahogany table. The room was illuminated
only by four wax candles with red shades. They threw into relief
the polish of mahogany, the glitter of glass, the shine of silver,
but into darkness the detail of massive sideboard, dull panelling,
and the two or three dark-toned sporting prints on the wall.

"You may serve dinner, Mallock," said Newmark.

He ate deliberately and with enjoyment the meal, exquisitely
prepared and exquisitely presented to him. With it he drank a
single glass of Burgundy--a deed that would, in the eyes of
Monrovia, have condemned him as certainly as driving a horse on
Sunday or playing cards for a stake. Afterward he returned to the
study, whither Mallock brought coffee. He lit another cigar, opened
a drawer in his desk, extracted therefrom some bank-books and small
personal account books. From these he figured all the evening. His
cigar went out, but he did not notice that, and chewed away quite
contentedly on the dead butt. When he had finished, his cold eye
exhibited a gleam of satisfaction. He had resolved on a course of
action. At ten o'clock he went to bed.

Next morning Mallock closed the door behind him promptly upon the
stroke of eight. It was strange that not one living soul but
Mallock had ever entered Newmark's abode. Curiosity had at first
brought a few callers; but these were always met by the
imperturbable servant with so plausible a reason for his master's
absence that the visitors had departed without a suspicion that they
had been deliberately excluded. And as Newmark made no friends and
excited little interest, the attempts to cultivate him gradually
ceased.

"Orde," said Newmark, as the former entered the office, "I think I
can arrange this matter."

Orde drew up a chair.

"I talked last evening with a man from Detroit named Thayer, who
thinks he may advance seventy-five thousand dollars on a mortgage on
our northern peninsula stumpage. For that, of course, we will give
the firm's note with interest at ten per cent. I will turn this
over to you."

"That's--" began Orde.

"Hold on," interrupted Newmark. "As collateral security you will
deposit for me your stock in the Boom Company, indorsed in blank.
If you do not pay the full amount of the firm's note to Thayer, then
the stock will be turned in to me."

"I see," said Orde.

"Now, don't misunderstand me," said Newmark drily. "This is your
own affair, and I do not urge it on you. If we raise as much as
seventy-five thousand dollars on that upper peninsula stumpage, it
will be all it can stand, for next year we must make a third payment
on it. If you take that money, it is of course proper that you pay
the interest on it."

"Certainly," said Orde.

"And if there's any possibility of the foreclosure of the mortgage,
it is only right that you run all the risk of loss--not myself."

"Certainly," repeated Orde.

"From another point of view," went on Newmark, "you are practically
mortgaging your interest in the Boom Company for seventy7five
thousand dollars. That would make, on the usual basis of a
mortgage, your share worth above two hundred thousand--and four
hundred thousand is a high valuation of our property."

"That looks more than decent on your part," said Orde.

"Of course, it's none of my business what you intend to do with
this," went on Newmark, "but unless you're SURE you can meet these
notes, I should strongly advise against it."

"The same remark applies to any mortgage," rejoined Orde.

"Exactly."

"For how long a time could I get this?" asked Orde at length.

"I couldn't promise it for longer than five years," replied Newmark.

"That would make about fifteen thousand a year?"

"And interest."

"Certainly--and interest. Well, I don't see why I can't carry that
easily on our present showing and prospects."

"If nothing untoward happens," insisted Newmark determined to put
forward all objections possible.

"It's not much risk," said Orde hopefully. "There's nothing surer
than lumber. We'll pay the notes easily enough as we cut, and the
Boom Company's on velvet now. What do our earnings figure, anyway?"

"We're driving one hundred and fifty million at a profit of about
sixty cents a thousand," said Newmark.

"That's ninety thousand dollars--in five years, four hundred and
fifty thousand," said Orde, sucking his pencil.

"We ought to clean up five dollars a thousand on our mill."

"That's about a hundred thousand on what we've got left."

"And that little barge business nets us about twelve or fifteen
thousand a year."

"For the five years about sixty thousand more. Let's see--that's a
total of say six hundred thousand dollars in five years."

"We will have to take up in that time," said Newmark, who seemed to
have the statistics at his finger-tips, "the two payments on our
timber, the note on the First National, the Commercial note, the
remaining liabilities on the Boom Company--about three hundred
thousand all told, counting the interest."

Orde crumpled the paper and threw it into the waste basket.

"Correct," said he. "Good enough. I ought to get along on a margin
like that."

He went over to his own desk, where he again set to figuring on his
pad. The results he eyed a little doubtfully. Each year he must
pay in interest the sum of seven thousand five hundred dollars.
Each year he would have to count on a proportionate saving of
fifteen thousand dollars toward payment of the notes. In addition,
he must live.

"The Orde family is going to be mighty hard up," said he, whistling
humorously.

But Orde was by nature and training sanguine and fond of big risks.

"Never mind; it's for Bobby," said he to himself. "And maybe the
rate of interest will go down. And I'll be able to borrow on the
California tract if anything does go wrong."

He put on his hat, thrust a bundle of papers into his pocket, and
stepped across the hall into Taylor's office.

The lawyer he found tipped back in his revolving chair, reading a
printed brief.

"Frank," began Orde immediately, "I came to see you about that
California timber matter."

Taylor laid down the brief and removed his eye-glasses, with which
he began immediately to tap the fingers of his left hand.

"Sit down, Jack," said he. "I'm glad you came in. I was going to
try to see you some time to-day. I've been thinking the matter over
very carefully since the other day, and I've come to the conclusion
that it is too steep for me. I don't doubt the investment a bit,
but the returns are too far off. Fifteen thousand means a lot more
to me than it does to you, and I've got to think of the immediate
future. I hope you weren't counting on me--"

"Oh, that's all right," broke in Orde. "As I told you, I can swing
the thing myself, and only mentioned it to you on the off chance you
might want to invest. Now, what I want is this--" he proceeded to
outline carefully the agreement between himself and Newmark while
the lawyer took notes and occasionally interjected a question.

"All right," said the latter, when the details had been mastered.
"I'll draw the necessary notes and papers."

"Now," went on Orde, producing the bundle of papers from his pocket,
"here's the abstract of title. I wish you'd look it over. It's a
long one, but not complicated, as near as I can make out. Trace
seems to have acquired this tract mostly from the original
homesteaders and the like, who, of course, take title direct from
the government. But naturally there are a heap of them, and I want
you to look it over to be sure everything's shipshape."

"All right," agreed Taylor, reaching for the papers.

"One other thing," concluded Orde, uncrossing his legs. "I want
this investment to get no further than the office door. You see,
this is for Bobby, and I've given a lot of thought to that sort of
thing; and nothing spoils a man sooner than to imagine the thing's
all cut and dried for him, and nothing keeps him going like the
thought that he's got to rustle his own opportunities. You and I
know that. Bobby's going to have the best education possible; he's
going to learn to be a lumberman by practical experience, and that
practical experience he'll get with other people. No working for
his dad in Bobby's, I can tell you. When he gets through college,
I'll get him a little job clerking with some good firm, and he'll
have a chance to show what is in him and to learn the business from
the ground up, the way a man ought to. Of course, I'll make
arrangements that he has a real chance. Then, when he's worked into
the harness a little, the old man will take him out and show him the
fine big sugar pine and say to him, 'There, my boy, there's your
opportunity, and you've earned it. How does ORDE AND SON sound to
you?' What do you think of it, Frank?"

Taylor nodded several times.

"I believe you're on the right track, and I'll help you all I can,"
said he briefly.

"So, of course, I want to keep the thing dead secret," continued
Orde. "You're the only man who knows anything about it. I'm not
even going to buy directly under my own name. I'm going to
incorporate myself," he said, with a grin. "You know how those
things will get out, and how they always get back to the wrong
people."

"Count on me," Taylor assured him.

As Orde walked home that evening, after a hot day, his mind was full
of speculation as to the immediate future. He had a local
reputation for wealth, and no one knew better than himself how
important it is for a man in debt to keep up appearances.
Nevertheless, decided retrenchtnent would be necessary. After Bobby
had gone to bed, he explained this to his wife.

"What's the matter?" she asked quickly. "Is the firm losing money?"

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