The Money Gods Part 4

"I'll be here," Nolan agreed, "and now I must get back and see that those strikers don't put my car to the bad. If she don't run perfect, I'll get it from the old man. So good-by, Mr. Bellingham."

"Good-by," echoed the secretary, and descending as he had come, he walked quickly away up the street, greatly wondering what news Nolan would have for him on the morrow.

Promptly at half past two, that afternoon, Cyrus McKay's motor stopped at the gateway leading to the links, and as before McKay alighted, took his clubs from the machine, and said to the chauffeur, "Four thirty, Jim."

There was no sign of anything unusual in Nolan's manner. "Yes, sir, four thirty," he answered, and touching his cap, he turned his car and sped briskly away for the city. Yet no sooner had he turned the curve of which Bellingham had spoken, than he began swiftly to execute his plan. Drawing in to the side of the road, he shut off his power, extracted his employer's putter from under the seat, and tossing his cap, with its conspicuous black visor, into the car, he vaulted the wall and began to work back toward the path. Fortune favored him, for the underbrush had gained no hold upon the smooth masonry, and he was able to make rapid progress, so that only a short time elapsed before he regained the entrance to the links. His next task was to find some trace of his employer, but a quick glance down the path revealed nothing and Nolan, puzzled, walked straight ahead toward the links, casting quick glances to right and left of him as he advanced.

Presently, halfway down the trail, a twig snapped to his left, and quickly turning his head, he saw McKay slowly forcing his way through the bushes in the direction of a circle of huge firs. At the sight, Nolan's usual calm deserted him, and his pulse beat faster. "There _is_ something queer, then," he thought, and bending low he crept stealthily after his employer, like a hunter stalking his game.

Little by little, favored by his slighter build, he gained upon McKay until the distance between them had been decreased one-half, whereupon he tried to gain no more but was content simply to keep pace with the man whom he was trailing. Straight onward toward the firs McKay made his way, and when he reached them, instead of turning aside, he stooped and began to seek an entrance through their branches'

barricade.

Nolan felt his wonderment increase. "The Devil," he murmured, and fearful lest he might lose sight of his employer, he sacrificed safety to speed, and stole rapidly onward until he too had reached the border of the trees. Ahead of him, he could faintly discern his master's form, and the continual snapping of twigs made it evident that he was still advancing. For a moment Nolan stood motionless, uncertain what to do. His heart was beating violently. If he continued to follow, the pretext of the forgotten putter could hardly serve him as an excuse; if he went on from this point, it was at his own risk. And suddenly, for no apparent reason, fear seized him. In the shelter and silence of the forest, he seemed to himself to shrink and grow small; the solitude oppressed him; and he stood like a man in a dream, scarcely breathing and noting, subconsciously, the beauty of the rifts of sunlight which filtered through the trees. "I guess," he muttered, "I'll be getting back." But even as he spoke the words, there sounded behind him a faint tw.a.n.g, as of a cord released--

He was running, running and leaping magnificently, running as he had never run before. Whither he was going, he could not tell, for the power of sight had left him, but he felt that he was travelling through s.p.a.ce with incredible speed. A singular buoyancy had permeated his whole being, so that it seemed to him that he was no longer upon the earth, but was whirling over sea and land and sky. Onward he swept, still onward--

But now, little by little, he could feel that his speed diminished, and that he was struggling upward, like some submerged and drowning swimmer, from darkness toward the light. Slower and slower he ran, more slowly still--

His eyes opened. He was lying among the bushes, flat upon his face, and he realized that he was in frightful pain, and that he gasped painfully for breath; something was choking him; throat and lungs were filled with it. And as his brain cleared, suddenly he knew, although too far spent to conjecture what had befallen him, that he was very near to death. He tried to move--

There was a trampling in the bushes, and a man in faded green stood over him. Then he felt himself roughly seized by the chin, his head was bent back, further, further--something gleamed and glittered in the sunlight--

Calmly, and without emotion, the huntsman stood looking down upon the murdered man. "Only three," he murmured, "in all these years. One in my father's time; two in mine." And after a pause, he added, "How could this man have known? And is he the only one, or will others come to tempt their destiny?"

CHAPTER VI

Misery Meets Company

Daylight was fading; the shadows of the trees lengthened upon the gra.s.s; yet Atherton made no move to leave the park, but still sat motionless, oblivious to everything except the turmoil of his thoughts.

From the office of Holt and Henderson he had walked blindly along, heedless of his destination, until as he had neared the lake a sudden weariness had seized him and he had sunk down upon a bench to rest.

For a time, he could scarcely convince himself of the reality of what had occurred; seen in retrospect, it all appeared fantastic and of the texture of a dream. But at length, as the afternoon wore on, and the shrill clamor of the newsboys filled the park, he purchased a paper and when he read, in black and white, the story of the day's decline, his last hope vanished and he knew that this was no nightmare, but reality, and that financially he was a ruined man.

At first, the burden of his calamity seemed too hard to bear. Fifty thousand dollars! While he had possessed it, never dreaming of its loss, he had not appreciated its magnitude, but now that it was gone, he realized what a sum of money it was. So marvellously easy to lose; so tremendously difficult to regain. But presently, since he was young, and by no means a coward, he managed to recover his courage. He had made a bad mistake, but so had other men; he had a difficult task before him, but others had faced problems still more difficult, and had triumphantly solved them. Therefore he resolved that beginning with to-morrow he would put the past behind him, and would think only of the future; but this afternoon he would not try to plan--his brain was weary and the tragedy of the day was still too recent and too deeply in his thoughts. And suddenly, as he lived over again the past few weeks, it dawned upon him that he had been quite mad, and not he alone, but all these other men who had sat and talked and laughed their futile laughter while the narrow ribbon of the tape spelled ruin for them before their very eyes. How had he dared, he wondered--how did any of them dare--to speculate in stocks? What did they know of real conditions throughout the world? In the papers they read bits of news, already stale and cold, and this news they swallowed and a.s.similated until at last they mistook its effect upon their minds for the process of original thought. So it had been with him. Over and over again, for days, he had read, first in one form, then in another, the news that Steel was going up; until he had ended by believing it with a fervor that nothing could shake; imagining, moreover, that he had shrewdly reasoned this out for himself, that he was a good judge of commerce, finance, trade--that because of his ability he could make a fortune in stocks--he laughed ironically; disillusionment had been absolute, complete, a hammer stroke--"The Boy Gambler," he murmured to himself, "A Story of Punctured Pride."

Twilight deepened; the night breeze, grateful and refreshing, swept across the water, and all at once Atherton remembered that he had not eaten since his ill-omened luncheon and that he was ravenously hungry.

"It's lucky," he reflected, "that I've enough left for a meal," and forthwith made his way toward the Sign of the Peac.o.c.k, a cafe where he knew that evening dress was not required, and where food, wines and music vied each with the other in excellence.

The head waiter greeted him with his customary smiling welcome. "All alone to-night, Mr. Atherton?" he inquired; and Atherton, answering mechanically, "Yes, for one, please," was shown to a table near the window, but no sooner had he seated himself than Henri, the second in command, came bustling up to him. "Ze zhentlemen," he explained, "across ze room--zey ask ze honnaire--" and he waved his hand with a gesture deprecatory but inviting.

Atherton glanced in the direction indicated, and immediately recognized the two men as friends and cla.s.smates of his college days.

Blagden, tall, dark, good-looking, had been one of those attractive but unreliable students who are more brilliant than successful, more admired than liked, so that on the whole his University course had been more spectacular than satisfying. But though open to plenty of criticism on other grounds, no one had ever denied him the qualities of courage, coolness and "nerve," and these had won for him outdoors the t.i.tle of tennis champion, indoors the still more valuable reputation of being the best poker player in college. The other man, thickset, solid, rosy, with the neck of a bull, was "Tubby" Mills, guard upon the eleven for three seasons; never quite of "All-America"

timber, but steady, dependable, and always managing to let the man opposed to him in the line realize, before the game was ended, that he had been through an afternoon of exercise perhaps more strenuous than beneficial. Stolid but likable, "Tubby" made up in genial good nature what he perhaps lacked in brains.

Atherton rose at once, crossed the room and took the vacant chair at their table.

"Well, well," Blagden greeted him, "how goes it, old scout?" And so strong is the force of habit that Atherton, despite the day's reverses, rejoined, "Oh, first-rate, thanks. How is it with you?"

"Fine," Blagden responded, "couldn't be better. Everything lovely."

"And you, Tubby," said Atherton, turning to Mills.

"Oh, pretty good," the chubby one answered, and pushing the bill of fare toward Atherton, he added, "Here, what will you have? This is on me. Better try a porterhouse with onions; we've ordered some fizz."

Atherton followed his advice, and the talk, running back to college days and college cla.s.smates, dealt for a time wholly with the past until at last, after a pause, Blagden asked the question that Atherton had been expecting, "And what are you doing with yourself now?"

Atherton hesitated; then, inspired perhaps by the comforting influence of the steak and the "fizz," he answered impulsively, "Oh, I might as well tell you the truth. I've been playing the market, and like a fool I got in so deep that this drop to-day wiped me out. So I'm practically busted, and wondering what I'm going to do next."

Having finished his disclosure, he awaited the conventional expressions of sympathy from his friends, but to his surprise neither of them spoke, and Blagden stared at Mills, and Mills at Blagden until presently, somewhat to Atherton's resentment, both of them began to grin broadly.

"Shall we tell him, Tubby?" asked Blagden at length. "Sure thing,"

responded Mills briefly. "He told _us_."

Blagden turned to Atherton. "Well, then," he observed, "to borrow a phrase from the unregenerate and indefensible game of poker, this appears to be a case of three of a kind. Last week, I was long of twelve thousand bales of January cotton, and they dropped the market on me one hundred and fifty points in two days, and beggared me to the tune of about ninety thousand dollars. To-day Tubby, who has been a terrible bear on wheat, and was short up to his eyebrows, got forced out on the rise, and was stung for--how much was it, Tubby?"

"Oh, about thirty-five thousand," answered Mills regretfully, "between thirty-five and forty. I bit off more than I could chew."

In spite of himself, Atherton smiled in his turn. "Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned," was his first rejoinder, and then, as the real significance of the coincidence dawned upon him, he cried, "What's the trouble with this speculative game, anyway? Why on earth can't anyone beat it?

We're not all fools. Suppose a hundred men start speculating on the same day? You'd naturally suppose, on some kind of law of averages, that half of them would win and half would lose. But what's the answer? The answer is that the whole darned hundred lose. I never knew it to fail. And I'd like to know why. It can't be true that everybody who invests money in cotton and grain and stocks is stark, staring crazy. There must be some men who understand conditions, who possess ability enough to calculate and plan; there must be some winners. But if they are, I never heard of 'em. It's a mighty funny game."

"You're right," Blagden a.s.sented. "I've been doing some thinking myself since last week; I've been asking the very questions you're asking now. I can't find the answer, but I've got this far; I know why poor idiots like you and me and Tubby get it in the neck. It's because we play the game single-handed. And look at what we're up against.

This is an age of consolidation and co-operation. It's so in business and it's so in the markets. Pools--that's all you hear nowadays--pools in leather, copper, oil, cotton, corn. And we're fools enough, with a few thousand dollars, to go into a game where you need millions. And as for talking about understanding conditions, and calculating what the market ought to do, why good Lord, Atherton, you ought to know better than that. Speculation is only another way of spelling manipulation. Prices don't _go_ up--they're forced up; they don't _go_ down--they're jammed down, and sometimes most curiously far, too. But as for planning, calculating, reading, studying conditions--good night!" And he refilled his gla.s.s.

There was a thoughtful silence. Atherton, pondering on what Blagden had said, and remembering, also, what the trader at Holt and Henderson's had told him, felt that his ideas of speculation had undergone a violent change. So that at length he answered reluctantly, "Well, it looks as though you were right. But I wish we'd thought of this before. Now it's a case of 'They've got the money and we've got the experience.'"

Mills leaned forward, planting his elbows comfortably upon the table.

"That's so," he agreed, "I never could see much sense in this _post mortem_ business. The point is: What are we going to do next? And I for one wish it distinctly understood that I refuse to be licked. I started out to make a million dollars, and I'm not going to quit until I'm put away in a box underground. You two fellows were considered rather clever when you were in college, so instead of all this sob stuff why don't you furnish some practical wisdom? What are we going to do? How are we going to get our money back?"

Atherton gazed at his stocky friend, not without admiration for his grit. "Blagden," he answered, "has made one mighty good suggestion.

Whatever we do, let's not continue this 'lone hand' business; let's take his tip that this is an age of consolidation, and let's pool our resources, such as they are, and see if we can't manage to do a little better."

Mills grunted approval. "Good scheme," he a.s.sented. "We'll be a regular trust. But when you say, 'resources, _such as they are_,'

you've put your finger on our weakest spot. If we have resources, they're not in cash. What shall we call ourselves? 'The United Brotherhood of Down and Outs'? Or is that too severe?"

But Blagden, the imaginative, suddenly caught fire at the idea. "No, no," he objected, "nothing as crude as that. Give a dog a bad name and hang him. I'll tell you what we'll call ourselves. 'Gentlemen Adventurers.' That has the proper ring. Every morning we'll start forth on a tour of discovery; then we'll meet and compare notes and see if we can't combine our experiences to our mutual advantage."

"That sounds fine," Mills agreed, "but what kind of adventures are we going to have?"

"Oh, Tubby, Tubby," cried Blagden. "If there's a more prosaic man in the world than you are, I'd like to see him. Why, you miss the point of the whole thing. If we knew just what was going to happen to us, every day of our lives, where would the fun be? Where would be the romance, the thrill? If you could see an adventure coming half a mile down the road, then it wouldn't _be_ an adventure; it has to b.u.mp into you from right around the corner. Do you get the idea?"

"Oh, sure," retorted Mills. "At least, I get what you think is the idea. But that is the trouble with you poetical chaps; you can't understand that this is a practical world, especially the dollars and cents part of it. And if you're proposing that we leave here to-night and start looking for adventure, why we'd better raise an emergency fund at once. Because instead of finding money, we'll be losing it.

I've started looking for adventure lots of times in my life, and I always bring up in one of two places--the police station or the hospital."

"Oh, I don't mean that kind of adventure," Blagden hastened to explain. "I mean the 'New Arabian Nights' sort of thing. We'll meet princesses and potentates and you may take my word for it that it won't be long before we're on the trail of some real money. We'll get back all we've lost and more too."