Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/284

272 is difficult to see how the necessary chores would have been done. At every trip from the north the Santa Rosa brought a cargo of supplies that ought to have been provided at home. Prices naturally rose; but nobody cared. Ephraim Spinner was in the twentieth plane of bliss. He believed in it literally—the millions of future population and all the rest. When he sold a lot, he sold it sincerely. His optimism and his energy seemed to know no limits. Patrick Boyd rode the storm serenely. He was throughout one of the few who did not lose his head. From his additions he made a great sum of money; some of which he reinvested in other lots with which to gamble. But he knew he was gambling: and he estimated the chances very coolly. He recognized the immense value of Spinner's enthusiasm and energy; so he turned over to that young man the handling—but not the direction of the handling—of all his real estate ventures. Realizing that no mere commission basis would uphold any man's loyalty after the thing got going he gave Spinner an interest in the business. After that he paid no more attention to the selling end of it. Only when it came to buying did he interfere, with the insistence that Spinner should do exactly as he said. Often Spinner would tear his hair over what he stigmatized as over-caution when some tempting bait dangled in vain. But soon, of course, Spinner became a millionaire in his own right; and then, outside the partnership, he dealt at his own sweet will.

But Boyd's chief effort and influence were now otherwise directed. He was willing to gamble with his surplus, but he never lost his head. His experience showed him that the fundamental danger would not be that a certain number of people would go broke, or would not go broke, as the case might be; but in the undue expansion of credit. Sales were made, as has been explained, on the basis of a small down payment; men deep in the game would always desire to spread their money out as thin as possible; the actual cash brought in by the immigration amounted to a very large sum. There could be no doubt that the banks would have much idle money crying for investment; there was also no doubt that there would be a swarm of would-be borrowers. A bank lends on security. Much of