The Spoilers of the Valley Part 77

And as Jim went off, Phil sat for a while thinking--a dreamer and a visionary--until he was jolted out of his reverie by the pressing inquiries of his recently augmented staff.

One day the inevitable, according to Jim's notion of things, happened.

A letter arrived, bearing the heading of Langford & Macdonald, Solicitors and Attorneys, Princes Street, Edinburgh, making inquiry as to the possibility of placing trust funds on gild-edged first mortgage security, requesting bank references and inviting correspondence from the Langford-Ralston Financial Corporation.

The letter was straight business. There were no paternal greetings; not a word to suggest that either Langford had ever known of the other's existence.

Jim, with his usual long-headedness, insisted on Phil replying to it and signing it on behalf of the firm.

Phil demurred.

"Why, man alive!--give me credit for knowing my own father. Do you suppose he doesn't know all about us already?--more than we know ourselves. Just go ahead and answer that. Doing it that way will humour him.

"It is by far the biggest thing we have landed yet. Unlimited capital to lend on good security is a grand foundation for a Financial Corporation. But we have to see that everything is absolutely right--absolutely straight--absolutely secure. One mistake with Langford & Macdonald and that's the end of it."

And the banks knew of the stabilising of the Langford-Ralston Company almost before the L. R. Company realised it themselves, and they vied with one another for the privilege of handling their bank account, putting inquiring clients in touch with them direct as a sop for future business. What the banks did became the fashion in town. And in such days as the West was then pa.s.sing through, that meant much indeed, for everyone was thinking, talking, handling and dreaming Real Estate. Even Percival DeRue Hannington forgot his former hurt and gave them his business. All were making money--n.o.body lost. They bought at a price and sold for more, and the difference in value was debited and redebited to old Mother Earth. Prosperity vaunted itself in rolling wheels, cigar smoke, late orgies and rare wines; costly winter trips to the South; dress, diamonds, foolishness and mining and oil stocks.

Yet through that wildest year of all, Phil and Jim stood firm to the principles of their business--they bought and sold for their clients, they loaned on first-cla.s.s security--they paid as they went and they banked their commissions. Not once, but a hundred times, could they have doubled their savings by speculation with a quick turn-over, but they held fast; and their savings increased faster than their wildest dreams had ever pictured.

They did more advertising than all the others combined. Their staff of salesmen and stenographers increased in numbers by rapid jumps. They had correspondents in every city of importance in the Dominion and the United States. They had the best stand in town. Anyone coming in by train could not fail to see it and could not fail to be impressed by its importance and apparent prosperity, even when they had not been previously apprised of it.

When early June arrived with its continuous sunshine, when the older ranches revelled in miles of pink and white apple blossom, when the small, wild sunflowers spread themselves like a sea of gold over the hills and valleys bursting in fairy splendour even through the hard roads and the rock fissures; when the air was redolent with the hypnotising, cloying sweetness of Nature's perfume from a hundred million blossoms and charged with the melody of her gaily bedecked feathered choristers,--Eileen Pederstone came back to her beloved "Valley of Tempestuous Waters."

In the six short months she had been away, she had written only occasionally to Phil and then it had been superficially, for she was not one given to expressing her feelings in pen and ink.

And Phil, in the rush of the new enterprise, had been something of a desultory correspondent. He had refrained from mentioning business in any of his letters to her--despite her many questions to him regarding his endeavours and his progress--intending, thereby, to spring the greater surprise when she should return. But he might have saved himself such thoughts, for Eileen was fully posted on every move he and Jim had made.

She came in on them one day with the brightness and impetuosity of the June sun bursting through the early morning clouds over Blue Nose Mountain, causing everything but the sun she emulated to stand still for half an hour and breathe in the added sweetness in the atmosphere.

All the hunger in Phil's being welled up at the very sight of her; smart, neat, healthy, radiant, vivacious, and pretty as the bursting red roses on her bosom.

He caught her two hands in his and looked down at her; and as she gave a little pleasure-laugh far down in her throat, he almost drew her up to his breast, when a cough from Jim startled him back to the cold truth that he was in the open office of the Langford-Ralston Financial Corporation, among half a dozen salesmen and as many stenographers.

Jim and Phil escorted Eileen into their private office, and there they fired back their answers to her queries until she gasped in sheer bewilderment at the tremendous success of their daring enterprise.

"And, oh, boys!--you're making good. I knew you would. Glad!--I'm so glad, because you are just like two big brothers of mine."

"Now, Eileen," put in Jim, "kindly dispense with the 'brother' stuff.

You can't tell me that you are going to be a mere sister to both of us."

She blushed.

"Does he know?" she queried at Phil.

"He thinks he does," said Phil. "I haven't told him a thing."

"Oh, haven't you?" remarked Jim.

"Shall we tell him, Phil?"

"Doesn't look as if he required any telling,--but go on, fire away!"

"Well!" she commenced, nodding her head and putting out her lips, "some day--Phil and I--we two--both of us----"

"Yes! Yes! Go on!" hurried Jim in mock excitement.

She sighed and sat back.

"That's all! Just that, Jim!"

"Did you get it?" asked Phil, laughing.

Jim nodded quietly for a moment, then he bent over, with an expression of almost motherly softness in his big, rugged face. He got Eileen's hand in his left hand and Phil's in his right.

"The best of G.o.d's good luck!" he said quietly.

He looked at his watch. "I have an appointment at three o'clock.

"Why don't you take the lady for a spin, Phil?"

"Would you like to come, Eileen?" asked Phil.

"Would I? Oh, boy!"

Jim went over to her and put his hand on her shoulder as an older brother would do. He tilted up her chin, bent down and kissed her on the cheek.

"You don't mind, old Phil!" he said.

He left her and jumped over to Phil with a laugh and a shout.

"And you beat him to it, laddie:--money, duplicity, hum-bug and all!

You beat him! Man,--you're great!"

And he was into the outer office, out on the street and away in his car before they could properly grasp his meaning.

Phil and Eileen followed out shortly afterwards, out into the sunshine, and soon they were driving up the steep hill from the town, leading to the Kelowna highway. It was some time before either spoke.

"I wonder what Jim meant by the remark he made when he left us, Eileen?"

"Don't wonder about anything just now, boy,--excepting me. Don't let us think about a thing that isn't pleasant and in keeping with the glorious day. We can do our 'trouble talks' on the way back."

She snuggled up close to her big companion who, as they reached the top of the hill, opened up and sent the car speeding along. At one of the sharp turns, he slowed up and stopped to admire the ever-changing delight of the scenery.

"Did you ever see anything so beautiful?" exclaimed Eileen, "and yet some folks want to go away from here when they have a holiday."

They were on the thin line of roadway which was cut half-way on the face of the hillside. All the ranges were a spread of golden sunflowers; away below, sheer three hundred feet down, the blue waters of the Kalamalka Lake reflected the blue, cloudless sky, while here and there it seemed to throw back the sun's rays in a golden spray.

On the other side of the water, as far as the eye could scan--until it rested again on the background of hills of gold, purple and green--the long, regular lines of old orchard-land shone a riot of pink and white. The air was laden with the perfume of bursting flowers.