Bucking the Tiger/Chapter 7

ITHIN twenty-four hours of his suicide compact having been made hard and fast by the writing of the insurance and its assignment (as "security for a loan" to the six) and the making over of the three thousand dollars at Old National Bank, Ritchie Macdonald struck the more unchecked components of the city and the society of Spokane with the strength and the enthusiasm of a flying blast. He made his former expeditions into the realm of gaiety, champagne, and over-manicured finger nails look like the tenth part of a silver dollar multiplied by three.

He took up quarters at a leading hotel, and once more his former friends of the respectably festive section gathered around him. They gathered with exuberance, mixed with thirst and expectation. For Macdonald, when in funds, had the well-deserved reputation of touching only the high spots.

He had also the gift of spreading about him a wave of quite inexplicable joy and happiness. And this time he was wallowing in a positive anarchy of joy, and he treated life as an obstacle race composed of hazardous, though pleasant obstacles.

He footed the bills in regal style, and the consequence was that credit was practically forced on him. He accepted it gratefully; for, knowing that in a year his race with life would be run out, he did not take the trouble, of taxing his brain with the financial problems of the future.

He seemed to bear no grudge against Marshall Houghton for having denied him both a small loan and a job, but this recollection was rather embarrassing to Marshall Houghton.

"Look here, Mac," he said, blushing. "Were you really broke when you came to my office a few days ago and—"

Macdonald interrupted him with a laugh.

"Forget it," he said; and then a spirit of mischief caused him to add: "Of course I wasn't broke. I was just play-acting. Trying to fool you."

Marshall Houghton grasped the opportunity of saving his face.

"You didn't fool me a bit, old man. I knew you weren't broke. Of course—" he coughed, "if you had been, you know I would have—"

"You bet," Macdonald broke in. "I know."

Marshall Houghton felt relieved. For he knew that Macdonald's father was a very wealthy Easterner. He also knew that father and son had parted financial company in consequence of the latter's repeated failures and general mode of life. But then, perhaps they had made up; and the thought had worried him a little.

For Marshall Houghton was a true son of his father. Jay W. Houghton. Jay was today a man of wealth and standing. But originally he had been a wild-catter of the most aggressive type who had made his first stake by squatting on somebody else's property with a persuasive Winchester in the crook of his arm, and who had gradually increased his fortune by selling whisky to the guileless Siwash, copper prospects to the guileless millionaires of Boston and London, and later on by making a specialty of the sale of town lots which had to be marked by a bobbing buoy when the tide was running high.

To-day most of his wealth was solid and gilt-edged, but he had still a constitutional aversion to see loose money jingling in somebody else's pockets, and his son ran true to type.

And it was evident that Macdonald had money to burn.

Marshall leaned forward in his chair.

"Look here, Mac," he said earnestly. Of course it isn't any of my business. But what exactly are you doing?"

"Just now I am making a scientific investigation."

Marshall Houghton caught his breath; mining or water-power, be thought, and most likely for his father! He must find out the details. So he dropped his voice to a confidential, caressing octave.

"Mind telling me what it is? Perhaps I can be of help to you."

Macdonald grinned.

"You are, old man, you are! For, you see, I am making an investigation of alcoholism in all its phases. And you must own up to the fact that here is a science which is still in its infancy."

The other forced himself to smile. Of course Macdonald was hedging, he said to himself. So he was convinced that something worth while was in the wind.

"You might tell me, Mac," he said. "If you're looking for investments, for your father perhaps—"

Macdonald tried to look mysterious and succeeded. He dropped his voice to a whisper.

"Marshall, my boy, I am not exactly looking for an investment. For I've got a cinch. I've a half-nelson on the infinite—and the infinite has a toe-hold on me." And he smiled grimly at the thought that he would be face to face with the infinite in a little less than a year's time.

The other rose to the bait.

"Talk sense. What d'you mean by the infinite? Some business deal?"

"You guessed it first time, old man. Business deal it is, and damned big business at that. Why, there's an initial payment of a hundred thousand dollars cash involved," he added casually.

"Handling it yourself?" Marshall Houghton's voice was eager.

"Good Lord, no," Macdonald replied quite truthfully. "A syndicate is backing me up."

And he rose and left the room.

That evening, in his home on Seventh Avenue, Marshall Houghton communicated the news to his father. That conscientious financier smiled a heavily auriferous smile. Then he winked an elderly, steel-grey eye.

"I had an idea that young boob had something up his sleeve," he replied, chewing an unlit cigar. "By the way, you know that I had to take over control of the Western Crown, don't you?"

"Yes," Marshall replied sadly, for he believed that for once his father's astute brain had played him false when he had commenced meddling with the affairs of the local insurance concern.

"Well," the father continued, "I had a look at the books this morning, and I saw that Macdonald's taken out a hundred thousand dollars life insurance just a few days back."

"Paid in notes, I guess."

"Wrong! He paid spot cash."

"What d'you make of it, dad?"

"That ain't the question, my son. The real question before the house is what I am going to make of it."

Marshall suddenly jumped up. He spoke excitedly.

"By Jingo, I've got an idea. Mac told me a syndicate's backing him. But I lay you ten to one his father is the syndicate."

"Why?"

"Why? Why? Good Lord! Mac's father is the president of the Sun Life Insurance Company, the biggest concern of its kind in the country!"

Houghton Senior gasped with surprise. He had a rapid, pleasurable vision of pressing a lengthy contract—unread—and a fountain pen upon Macdonald, and of receiving from the latter a blank check signed by his father; and he smiled at the thought.

"My son," he said, "you must cultivate the friendship of that young man. Have him round to the house. Often. Has he a card for the club?"

"Yes."

"Plays poker, I suppose?"

"You bet. He's nuts on it."

"Good again. Ask him to come to the club next Saturday night. First we'll have a bang-up dinner, and then we'll have a little game."

Marshall looked up anxiously.

"You don't mean—to—to—"

Jay W. Houghton smiled genially.

"My son," he replied, "be frank with the only father you've got. Also, don't be a damned fool. I've no intention of doing young Mac out of a measly thousand bones over a poker game. On the contrary, I want that boy to be friendly with me. I want him to win. I'm going to ask old Pat Kenny to take a hand in the game," he added significantly.

Marshall burst out laughing.

"Poor Pat!" he said.

"Poor Pat—hell!" Jay W. replied, banging his hairy fist on the table. "He got me into that Western Crown deal! He's as rich as mud, and it'll do him good to lose a few thousand plunk to young Mac!"

Father and son looked at each other. Then the latter winked at the former.

"Sort of— eh—salting the mine, are you?" he asked.

"Right."

So it happened that on the following Saturday night the small poker room at the club was thick with the smoke of four fat cigars, and sickly-sweet with the exhalation of much assorted liquor. Four men were grouped around the poker table; the two Houghtons, Ritchie Macdonald, and Pat Kenny.

Kenny was one of the leading businessmen of the Northwest. Though the tang of the steerage had never left him, he handled all deals involving mines and contracts and real estate with a clear-eyed vision that was positively uncanny. He had become thoroughly Americanized in everything, being a good Irishman, except in poker. For he still believed it to be a logical and not a psychological game.

So he sat there losing pot after pot, with the air of a melancholy dropsical camel; and it was with deep, inward grief that at the end of the session, early Monday morning, he handed over a check of four figures to Macdonald.

Macdonald played cards two or three times a week after this, winning steadily; and so, in spite of the fact that he spent money like water, his account at the Old National Bank grew instead of decreasing.

He made a point of keeping away from Railroad Avenue. He had no desire to see the six broken men at the Eslick. He was not a coward; and he really believed that life was nothing but a rotten gamble with a stacked deck, and that suicide would he the cleanest end to the plague-spotted failure he had made of his life since he had left Princeton.

Also, in a way he liked at least two of the down-and-outers: the cowpuncher and the count. But the idea of the six men in that rickety dive on Railroad Avenue, waiting for him to die, struck him as disagreeable and slightly obscene.

They reminded him of six starved, black, red-necked vultures, sitting all in a row on a low wall and waiting for the death agony of the victim before swooping down on it and rending it to pieces.

He could not banish the picture from his mind though he tried his best; and he wished that the end of it all would come sooner. Still, there was that suicide clause in the insurance policy. He would have to wait until the first of April of the next year.

So he drank and gambled harder than ever, and he won steadily.

It was natural that Ritter, the president of the Old National Bank, who saw his new client's account increase by leaps and bounds and who had received a tip from Jay Houghton, one of the bank's vice presidents, that Macdonald was in Spokane in the interest of a great Eastern Syndicate, should look at the young man with favour.

Also, since it is right to stuff a goose before you pluck and kill it, he gave him a little whispered advice once in a while about Cœur d'Alene and Kootenai mining stocks. Macdonald, with the recklessness of a man who knows that his days are counted, followed the advice, and everything he touched seemed to turn into gold.

By the end of May he had over thirty thousand dollars on account with the bank, not to mention various small blocks of stock.

When one day Marshall Houghton, with elaborate carelessness, asked him if he took any interest in the stock of the Western Crown, the idea of it struck Macdonald as deliciously funny; and he replied, quite truthfully:

"You bet I do. The Western Crown is a matter of life and death with me."

Marshall Houghton made a note of the remark. This was the first direct admission Macdonald had made about the matter, and that night he mentioned it to his father.

That gilt-edged old stock-bandit congratulated his son warmly on his acumen.

"Fine and dandy, Marshall," he said. "We'll have young Mac take an option on the Western Crown stock in no time. Lay low for a while. Meanwhile, let's investigate if the Western Crown has any assets that are any damned good at all."

He investigated.

Shortly afterward there was an informal little directors' meeting in Houghton's office in the Peyton Building. The two Houghtons were present, also Kenny and Ritter. There was a good deal of talking and figuring.

"You see, gentlemen," Jay W. said, "it's easy."

"It is that," Kenny agreed, and a beatific smile spread over the red, pulpy acreage of his face. "But we got to be quick and careful about it," he added with delicate restraint. "You see the fact of the matter is that there's a bunch of bran-new rube legislators up there at Olympia just now, and they're threatening to spring a new bunch of insurance laws on this commonwealth."

So the four directors were quick and careful; and inside of ten minutes a motion had been proposed, seconded, and unanimously carried which transferred certain of the Western Crown's holdings to a brand-new syndicate in consideration of a block of stock in the Red Cañon Copper Company.

It was of course only a coincidence that a good deal of the capital stock of this mining company had been owned heretofore by the two Houghtons, Kenny, and Ritter, and that the same four gentlemen composed the new syndicate.

On the evening of the same day Macdonald entered Benson's barber shop in search of a nail-polish. He walked straight through to the manicurist who had a little box-like room of her own, and opened the door.

A man was sitting opposite the manicurist, with his back to the door, and just at the moment of Macdonald's entering he made a remark to the girl which caused her to scream and which caused Macdonald to clear the width of the room at one jump and to strike the man in the face with the full force of his clenched fist.

The man fell like a log. Macdonald bent over him.

"Why, it's Graham," he shouted surprised.

A moment later Graham picked himself up.

"You'll pay for this," he mumbled thickly; he looked at Macdonald in a manner which made even that bland disdainer of life shudder the least little bit and he left the room without another word.

Macdonald dropped into the seat which the other had vacated. He looked at the girl who was breathing heavily. It was neither a handsome nor a pretty face, with its thin outline, its slow, silent eyes, and the lips curled a little in disdain. But there was a deep, fine sweetness in it, Macdonald thought, and also pluck, downright pluck. He wondered how she came to be working at this trade, and he put his wonder brusquely into words.

"What's the idea of your doing this sort of work? You know what to expect from half the men who come to have their nails manicured?"

The girl had regained her composure. She smiled.

"I've got to live," she replied. "And I've got to work for my living. It's right, isn't it? Everybody's got to do some sort of work, don't you think so?"

Macdonald looked up puzzled.

"Why?"

"I don't know why exactly. But I guess that's what we are sent into the world for, to work; don't you think so?"

Macdonald laughed.

Then he boomed out a sonorous, vibrating "No!" that wagged through the air like an undocked tail.