Melville Davisson Post
I.
AFTER some thirty years, one begins to appreciate in a slight degree the mystery of things in counter-distinction to the mystery of men. He learns with dumb horror that startling and unforeseen events break into the shrewdest plans and dash them to pieces utterly, or with grim malice wrench them into engines of destruction, as though some mighty hand reached out from the darkness and shattered the sculptor’s marble, or caught the chisel in his fingers and drove it back into his heart.
As one grows older, he seeks to avoid, as far as may be, the effect of these unforeseen interpositions, by carrying in his plans a factor of safety, and, as what he is pleased to call his “worldly wisdom” grows, he increases this factor until it is a large constant running through all his equations dealing with probabilities of the future. Whether in the end it has availed anything, is still, after six thousand years, a mooted question. Nevertheless, it is the manner of men to calculate closely in their youth, disregarding the factor of safety, and ignoring utterly the element of Chance, Fortune, ar Providence, as it may please men to name this infinite meddling intelligence. Whether this arises from ignorance or some natural unconscious conviction that it is useless to strive against it, the race has so far been unable to determine. That it is useless to, the weight of authorities would seem to indicate, while, on the other hand, the fact that men are amazed and dumbfounded when they first realize the gigantic part played by this mysterious power in all human affairs, and immediately thereafter plan to evade it, would tend to the conviction that there might be some means by which these startling accidents could be guarded against, or at least their effect counteracted.
The laws, if in truth there be any, by which these so-called fortunes and misfortunes come to men, are as yet undetermined, except that they arise from the quarter of the unexpected, and by means oftentimes of the commonplace.
On a certain Friday evening in July, Carper Harris, confidential clerk of the great wholesale house of Beaumont, Milton, & Company of Baltimore, was suddenly prostrated under the horror of this great truth. For the first time in his life Fate had turned about and struck him, and the blow had been delivered with all her strength.
Up to this time he had been an exceedingly fortunate man. To begin with, he had been born of a good family, although, at the time of his father’s death, reduced in circumstances. While quite a small boy, he had been taken in as clerk through the influence of Mr. Milton, who had been a friend of his father. The good blood in the young man had told from the start. He had shown himself capable and unusually shrewd in business matters, and had risen rapidly to the position of chief confidential clerk. In this position he was intrusted with the most important matters of the firm, and was familiar with all its business relations. His abilities had expanded with the increasing duties of his successive positions. He had done the firm much service, and had shown himself to be a most valuable and trustworthy man. But, with it all, the eyes of old Silas Beaumont had followed his every act, in season and out of season, tirelessly. It was a favorite theory of old Beaumont, that the great knave was usually the man of irreproachable habits, and necessarily the man of powerful and unusual abilities, and that, instead of resorting to ordinary vices or slight acts of rascality, he was wont to bide his time until his reputation gained him opportunity for some gigantic act of dishonesty, whereby he could make a vast sum at one stroke.
Old Beaumont was accustomed to cite two scriptural passages as the basis of his theory, one being that oft-quoted remark of David in his haste, and the other explanatory of what the Lord saw when he repented that he had made man on the earth.
Like all those of his type, when this theory had once become fixed with him, he sought on all occasions for instances by which to demonstrate its truthfulness. Thus it happened that the honesty and industry of young Harris were the very grounds upon which Beaumont based his suspicions and his acts of vigilance.
When it was proposed that Carper Harris should go to Europe in order to buy certain grades of pottery which the firm imported, Beaumont grumbled and intimated that it was taking a large risk to intrust money to him. He said the sum was greater than the young man had been accustomed to handle, that big amounts of cash were dangerous baits, and then he switched over to his theory and hinted that just this kind of opportunity would be the one which a man would seize for his master act of dishonesty. The other members of the firm ridiculed the idea, and arranged the matter over Silas Beaumont’s protest.
Thus it happened that about seven o’clock on the eventful Friday, Carper Harris left Baltimore for New York. He carried a small hand-bag containing twenty thousand dollars, with which he was to buy foreign exchange. Arriving at the depot he had checked his luggage and had gone into the chair-car with only his overcoat and the little hand-bag. He laid his overcoat across the back of the seat and set the little satchel down in the seat beside him. He had been particularly careful that the money should be constantly guarded, and for that reason he had attempted to keep his hand on the handle of the bag during the entire trip, although he was convinced that there was no danger or risk of any consequence, for the reason that no one would suspect that the satchel contained cash. When he arrived in New York he had gone directly to his hotel and asked to be shown up to his room. It was his intention to look over the money carefully and see that it was all right, after which he would have it placed in one of the deposit boxes in the hotel safe until morning.
When Harris set the hand-bag down on the table under the light, after the servant had left the room, something about its general appearance struck his attention, and he bent down to examine it closely. As he did so his heart seemed to leap into his throat, and the cold perspiration burst out on his forehead and began to run down his face in streams. The satchel before him on the table was not the one in which he had placed the money in Baltimore, and with which he had left the counting-house of Beaumont, Milton, & Company. The young man attempted to insert the key in the lock of the satchel, but his hand trembled so that he could not do it, and in an agony of fear he threw down the keys and wrenched the satchel open. His great fear was only too well founded. The satchel contained a roll of newspapers. For a moment Carper Harris stood dazed and dumbfounded by his awful discovery; then he sank down in a heap on the floor and covered his face with his hands.
Of all the dreaded calamities that Fate could have sent, this was the worst. All that he had hoped for and labored for was gone by a stroke,—wiped out ruthlessly, and by no act or wrong of his. The man sat on the floor like a child, and literally wrung his hands in anguish, and strove to realize all the terrible results that would follow in the wake of this unforeseen calamity.
First of all there was Beaumont’s theory, and the horror of the thought gripped his heart like a frozen hand. It stood like some grim demon barring the only truthful and honorable way out of the matter. How could he go back and say that he had been robbed. Beaumont would laugh the idea to scorn and gloat over the confirmation of his protest. Little would explanation avail. His friends would turn against him, and join with Beaumont, and seek to make the severity of their accusation against him atone for their previous trust and confidence, and their disregard of what they would now characterize as Mr. Beaumont’s unusual foresight. And then, if they would listen to explanation, what explanation was there to make? He had left their counting-house with the money in the afternoon, and now in New York in the evening he claimed to have been robbed. And how? That some one had substituted another hand-bag for the one with which he started, without attacking him and even without his slightest suspicion—a probable story indeed! Why, the hand-bag there on the table was almost exactly like the one he had taken with him to the company’s office. No one but himself could tell that it was not the same bag. The whole matter would be considered a shrewd trick on his part,—a cunningly arranged scheme to rob his employers of this large sum of money. In his heated fancy he could see the whole future as it would come. The hard smile of incredulity with which his story would be greeted,—the arrest that would follow,—the sensational newspaper reports of the defalcation of Carper Harris, confidential clerk of the great wholesale house of Beaumont, Milton, & Company. The newspapers would assume his guilt, as they always do when one is charged with crime; they would speak of him as a defaulter, and would comment on the story as an ingenious defence emanating from his shrewd counsel. Even the newsboys on the street would convict him with the cry of, “All about the trial of the great defaulter!” The jury its very self, when it went into the box, would be going there to try a man already convicted of crime. This conviction would have been forced upon them by the reports, and they could not entirely escape from it, no matter how hard they might try. Why, if one of them should be asked suddenly what he was doing, in all possibility, if he should reply without stopping to think, he would answer that he was trying the man who had robbed Beaumont, Milton, & Company. So that way was barred, and it was a demon with a flaming sword that kept it.
The man arose and began to pace the floor. He could not go back and tell the truth. What other thing could he do? It was useless to inform the police. That would simply precipitate the storm. It would be going by another path the same way which he had convinced himself was so effectually blocked. Nor did he dare to remain silent. The loss would soon be discovered, and then his silence would convict him, while flight was open confession of the crime.
Carper Harris had one brother living in New York,—a sort of black sheep of the family, who had left home when a child to hazard his fortunes with the cattle exporters. The family had attempted to control him, but without avail. He had shifted around the stock-yards in Baltimore, and had gone finally to New York, and was now a commission merchant, with an office in Jersey City. The relation between this man and the family had been somewhat strained, but now, in the face of this dreaded disaster, Harris felt that he was the only one to appeal to—not that he hoped that his brother could render him any assistance, but because he must consult with some one, and this man was after all the only human being whom he could trust.
He hastily scribbled a note, and, calling a messenger, sent it to his brother’s hotel. Then he threw himself down on the bed and covered his face with his hands. What diabolical patience and cunning Fate sometimes exhibits! All the good fortune which had come to young Harris seemed to have been only for the purpose of smoothing the way into this trap.
II.
What is wrong here, Carper?” said William Harris, as he shut the door behind him. “I expected to find a corpse from the tone of your note. What’s up?”
The commission merchant was a short heavy young man with a big square jaw and keen gray eyes. His face indicated bull-dog tenacity and unlimited courage of the sterner sort.
Carper Harris arose when his brother entered. He was as white as the dead. “William,” he said, “I wish I were a corpse!”
“Ho! ho!” cried the cattle-man, dropping into a chair. “There is a big smash-up on the track, that is evident. Which is gone, your girl or your job?”
“Brother,” continued Carper Harris, “I am in a more horrible position than you can imagine. I don’t know whether you will believe me or not, but if you don’t, no one will.”
“You may be a fool, Carper,” answered the commission merchant, closing his hands, on the arms of his chair, “but you are not a liar. Go on, tell me the whole thing.”
Carper Harris drew up a chair to the table and began to go over the whole affair from the beginning to the end. As he proceeded, the muscles of his brother’s face grew more and more rigid, until they looked as hard and as firm as a cast. When he finally finished and dropped back into his chair, the cattle-man arose and without a word went over to the window, and stood looking out over the city, with his hands behind his back. There was no indication by which one could have known of the bitter struggle going on in the man’s bosom, unless one could have looked deep into his eyes; there the danger and despair which he realized as attendant upon this matter shone through in a kind of fierce glare.
Finally he turned round and looked down half smilingly at his brother. “Well, Carper,” he said, “is that all the trouble? We can fix that all right.”
“How?” almost screamed young Harris, bounding to his feet, “how?”
The commission merchant came back leisurely to his chair and sat down. His features were composed and wore an air of pleasant assurance. “My boy,” he began, “this is tough lines, to be sure, but you are worth a car-load of convicts yet. Sit down then, and I will straighten this thing out in a jiffy. I have been devilish lucky this season, and I now have about sixteen thousand dollars in bank. You have, I happen to know, some five thousand dollars in securities which came to you out of father’s estate when it was settled. Turn these securities over to me and go right on to Europe as you intended. I will realize on the securities, and with the money I now have will be enabled to purchase the exchange which you require, and will have it sent to you immediately, so there will be no delay. You can go right on with your business as you intended, and neither old Beaumont nor any other living skinflint will ever know of this robbery.”
Carper Harris could not speak. His emotion choked him. He seized his brother’s hand and wrung it in silence, while the tears streamed down his face.
“Come, come,” said the cattle-man, “this won’t do! Brace up! I am simply lending you the money. You can return it if you ever get able. If you don’t, why, it came easy, and I won’t ever miss the loss of it.”
“May God bless you, brother!” stammered Carper Harris. “You have saved me from the very grave, and what is more—from the stigma of a felon. You shall not lose this money by me. I will repay it if Heaven spares my life.”
“Don’t go on like a play-actor, Carper,” said the cattle-man, rising and turning to the door. “Pull yourself together, gather up your duds, and skip out to London. The stuff will be there by the time you are ready for it.” Then he went out and closed the door behind him.
III.
Ihad to lie to him,” said William Harris. “There was no other way out of it. I knew it was the only means by which I could get him out of the country. If he stayed here they would nab him and put him in the penitentiary in spite of the very devil himself. It is all very well to talk about even-eyed justice and all that rot, but a young man in that kind of a position would have about as much show as a snowball in Vesuvius. The best thing to do was to put him over the pond, and the next thing was to come here. I did both, now what is to be done?”
“It is evident,” said Randolph Mason, “that the young man is the victim of one of our numerous gangs of train robbers, and it is quite as evident that it is utterly impossible to recover the stolen money. The thing to be done is to shift the loss.”
“Shift the loss, sir,” echoed the cattle-man; “I don’t believe that I quite catch your meaning.”
“Sir,” said Mason, “the law of self-preservation is the great law governing the actions of men. All other considerations are of a secondary nature. The selfish interest is the great motive power. It is the natural instinct to seek vicarious atonement. Men do not bear a hurt if the hurt can be placed upon another. It is a bitter law, but it is, nevertheless, a law as fixed as gravity.”
“I see,” said the commission merchant; “but how is this loss to be shifted on any one? The money is gone for good; there is no way to get it back, and there is no means by which we can switch the responsibility to the shoulders of any other person. The money was placed in Carper Harris’s custody, he was instructed to use great care in order to prevent any possible loss. He left Baltimore with it. The story of his robbery would only render him ridiculous if it were urged in his behalf. He alone is responsible for the money; there is no way to shift it.”
“I said, sir,” growled Mason, “that the loss must be shifted. What does the responsibility matter, provided the burden of loss can be placed upon other shoulders? How much money have you?”
“Only the five thousand dollars which I received from the sale of his securities,” answered the man. “The story which I told him about the sixteen thousand was all a lie; I have scarcely a thousand dollars to my name, all told.”
Mason looked at the cattle-man and smiled grimly. “So far you have done well,” he said; “it seems that you must be the instrument through which this cunning game of Fate is to be blocked. You are the strong one; therefore the burden must fall on your shoulders. Are you ready to bear the brunt of this battle?”
“I am,” said the man, quietly; “the boy must be saved if I have to go to Sing Sing for the next twenty years.”
IV.
The traveller crossing the continent in a Pullman car is convinced that West Virginia is one continuous mountain. He has no desire to do other than to hurry past with all the rapidity of which the iron horse is capable. He can have no idea that in its central portion is a stretch of rolling blue-grass country, as fertile and as valuable as the stock-farm lands of Kentucky; with a civilization, too, distinctly its own, and not to be met with in any other country of the world. It seems to combine, queerly enough, certain of the elements of the Virginia planter, the western ranchman, and the feudal baron. Perhaps nowhere in any of the United States can be found such decided traces of the ancient feudal system as in this inland basin of West Virginia, surrounded by great mountain ranges, and for many generations cut off from active relations with the outside world. Nor is this civilization of any other than natural growth. In the beginning, those who came to this region were colonial families of degree,—many of them Tories, hating Washington and his government, and staunch lovers of the king at heart, for whom the more closely settled east and south were too unpleasant after the success of the Revolution. Many of them found in this fertile land lying against the foot-hills, and difficult of access from either the east or west, the seclusion and the utter absence of relations with their fellows which they so much desired. With them they brought certain feudal customs as a basis for the civilization which they builded. The nature of the country forced upon them others, and the desire for gain—ever large in the Anglo-Saxon heart—brought in still other customs, foreign and incongruous.
Thus it happened that at an early day this country was divided into great tracts, containing thousands of acres of grass lands, owned by certain powerful families, who resided upon it, and, to a very large extent, preserved ancient customs and ancient ideas in relation to men. The idea of a centrally situated manor-house was one adhered to from the very first, and this differed from the Virginia manor in that it was more massive and seemed to be built with the desire of strength predominating, as though the builder had yet in mind a vague notion of baronial defences, and some half hope or half fear of grim fights, in which he and his henchmen would defend against the invader. Gradually, after the feudal custom, the owner of one of these great tracts gathered about him a colony of tenants and retainers, who looked after his stock and grew to be almost fixtures of the realty and partook in no degree of the shiftless qualities of the modern tenant. They were attached to the family of the master of the estate, and shared in his peculiarities and his prejudices. His quarrel became their own, and personal conflicts between the retainers of different landowners were not infrequent. At such times, if the breaches of the peace were of such a violent order as to attract the attention of the law, the master was in honor bound to shield his men as far as possible, and usually his influence was sufficient to preserve them from punishment.
Indeed it was the landowner and his people against the world. They were different from the Virginians in that they were more aggressive and powerful, and were of a more adventurous and hardy nature. They were never content to be mere farmers, or to depend upon the cultivation of the soil. Nor were they careful enough to become breeders of fine stock. For these reasons it came about that they adopted a certain kind of stock business, combining the qualities of the ranch and the farm. They bought in the autumn great herds of two-year-old cattle, picking them up along the borders of Virginia and Kentucky. These cattle they brought over the mountains in the fall, fed them through the winter, and turned them out in the spring to fatten on their great tracts of pasture land. In the summer this stock was shipped to the eastern market and sold in favorable competition with the corn-fed stock of the west, and the stable-fed cattle of Virginia and Pennsylvania. As this business grew, the little farmer along the border began to breed the finer grades of stock. This the great landowners encouraged, and as the breeds grew better, the stock put upon the market from this region became more valuable, until at length the blue-grass region of West Virginia has become famous for its beef cattle, and for many years its cattle have been almost entirely purchased by the exporters for the Liverpool market.
So famous have the cattle of certain of these great landowners become, that each season the exporters send men to buy the stock, and not infrequently contract for it from year to year. Often a landowner, in whom the speculative spirit is rife, will buy up the cattle and make great contracts with the exporter, or he will form a partnership with an eastern commission merchant and ship with the market. The risks taken in this business are great, and often vast sums of money are made or lost in a week. It is a hazardous kind of gambling for the reason that great amounts are involved, and the slightest fall in the market will often result in big loss. With the shipping feature of this business have grown certain customs. Sometimes partnerships will be formed to continue for one or more weeks, and for the purpose of shipping. One drove of cattle or a number of droves; and when the shippers are well known the cattle are not paid for until the shipper returns from the market, it being presumed that he would not carry in bank sufficient money to pay for a large drove.
It is a business containing all the peril and excitement of the stock exchange, and all its fascinating hope of gain, as well as its dreaded possibility of utter ruin. Often in a grimy caboose at the end of a slow freight train is as true and fearless a devotee of Fortune, and as reckless a plunger as one would find in the pit on Wall Street, and not infrequently one with as vast plans and as heavy a stake in the play as his brother of the city. Yet to look at him—big, muscular, and uncouth—one would scarcely suspect that every week he was juggling with values ranging from ten to sixty thousand dollars.
One Monday morning of July, William Harris, a passenger on the through St. Louis express of the Baltimore & Ohio, said to the conductor that he desired to get off at Bridgeport, a small shipping station in this blue-grass region of West Virginia. The conductor answered that his train did not stop at this station, but that as the town was on a grade at the mouth of a tunnel he would slow up sufficiently for Mr. Harris to jump off if he desired to assume the risk. This Harris concluded to do, and accordingly, as the train ran by the long open platform beside the cattle pens, he swung himself down from the steps of the car and jumped. The platform was wet, and as Harris struck the planks his feet slipped and he would have fallen forward directly under the wheels of the coach had it not been that a big man standing near by sprang forward and dragged him back.
“You had a damned close call there, my friend,” said the big man.
“Yes,” said Harris, picking himself up, “you cut the undertaker out of a slight fee by your quick work.”
The stranger turned sharply when he heard Harris’s voice and grasped him by the hand. “Why, Billy,” he said, “I did n’t know it was you. What are you doing out here?”
“Well, well!” said Harris, shaking the man’s hand vigorously, “there is a God in Israel sure. You are the very man I am looking for, Woodford.”
Thomas Woodford was a powerfully built man—big, and muscular as an ox. He was about forty, a man of property, and a cattle-shipper known through the whole country as a daring speculator of almost phenomenal success. His plans were often gigantic, and his very rashness seemed to be the means by which good fortune heaped its favors upon him. He was in good humor this morning. The reports from the foreign markets were favorable, and indications seemed to insure the probability of a decidedly substantial advance at home. He put his big hand upon Harris’s arm and fairly led him down the platform. “What is up, Billy?” he asked, lowering his voice.
“In my opinion,” answered Harris, “the big combine among the exporters is going to burst and go up higher than Gilderoy’s kite, and if we can get over to New York in time, we will have the world by the tail.”
“Holy-head-of-the-church!” exclaimed the cattle-shipper, dropping his hands. “It will be every man for himself, and they will have to pay whatever we ask. But we must get over there this week. Next week everything that wears hoofs will be dumped into Jersey City. Come over to the hotel and let us hold a council of war.”
The two men crossed the railroad track and entered the little eating-house which bore the high-sounding and euphonious title of “Hotel Holloway.” They went directly up the steps and into a small room in the front of the building overlooking the railroad. Here Woodford locked the door, pulled off his coat, and took a large chew of tobacco. It was his way of preparing to wrestle with an emergency—a kind of mechanical means of forcing his faculties to a focus.
“Now, Billy,” he said, “how is the best way to begin?”
Harris drew up his chair beside the bed on which his companion had seated himself.
“The situation is in this kind of shape,” he began.
“The exporters have all the ships chartered and expect Ball & Holstein to furnish the cattle for next week’s shipments. I believe that old Ball will kick out of the combine and tell the other exporters in the trust that they may go to the devil for their cattle. You know what kind of a panic this will cause. The space on the boats has been chartered and paid for, and it would be a great loss to let it stand empty. Nor could they ship the common stock on the market. All these men have foreign contracts, made in advance and calling for certain heavy grades of stock, and they are under contract to furnish a certain specified number of bullocks each week. They formed the combine in order to avoid difficulties, and have depended on a pool of all the stock contracted for by the several firms, out of which they could fill their boats when the supply should happen to be short or the market temporarily high. The foreign market is rising, and the old man is dead sure to hold on to the good thing in his clutches. I was so firmly convinced that the combine was going to pieces that I at once jumped on the first train west and hurried here to see you. The exporters must fill their contracts no matter what happens. If old Ball kicks over, as he is sure to do, the market will sail against the sky. We will have them on the hip if we can get the export cattle into New York, but we have no time to lose. These cattle must be bought to-day, and carred here to-morrow. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” said the cattle-shipper, striking his clenched right hand into the palm of his left. “It is going to be quick work, but we can do it or my name is not Woodford.”
“We must have at least twelve carloads of big export cattle,” continued Harris. “Not one to weigh less than sixteen hundred pounds. They must be good. Now, where can you get them quickest?”
“Well,” answered the shipper, thoughtfully, “old Ralph Izzard has the best drove, but he wants five cents for them, and that is steep, too steep.”
“No,” said Harris, “that is all right if they are good. We have no time to run over the country to hunt them up. If these are the right kind we will not stand on his price.”
“You can stake your soul on them being the right kind, Billy,” answered the cattle-shipper enthusiastically. “Izzard picked them out of a drove of at least a thousand last fall, and he has looked after the brutes and pampered them like pet cats. They will go over sixteen hundred, every one of them, and they are as fat as hogs and as broad on the backs as a bed. I could slip out to his place and buy them to-night and have them here in time to car to-morrow, if you think we can give the old man his price.”
“They will bring six and a half in New York, and go like hot cakes,” said Harris, “but you will have to get out of this quick or you may run into a crowd of buyers from Baltimore.”
“All right, Billy,” said the cattle-shipper, rising and pulling on his coat, “I will tackle the old man to-night. We had better go to Clarksburg, and there you can lay low, and can come up to-morrow on the freight that stops here for the cattle. I will go out to Izzard’s from there, and drive here by noon to-morrow. The accommodation will be along in about a half hour. I will go down and order the cars.”
“Wait a moment, Woodford,” said Harris, “we ought to have some written agreement about this business.”
“What is the use?” answered the shipper. “We will go in even on it, but if you want to fix up a little contract, go ahead, and I will sign it. By the way, old Izzard is a little closer than most anybody else; we may have to pay him something down.”
“I thought about that,” said Harris, “and I brought some money with me, but I did n’t have time to gather up much. I have about six thousand dollars here. Can you piece out with that?”
“Easy,” replied the shipper. “The old devil would not have the nerve to ask more than ten thousand down.”
William Harris seated himself at the table and drew up a memorandum of agreement between them, stating that they had formed a partnership for the purpose of dealing in stock, and had put into it ten thousand dollars as a partnership fund; that they were to share the profits or losses equally between them, and that the partnership was to continue for thirty days. This agreement both men signed, and Harris placed it in his pocket. Then the two men ordered the cattle cars for the following day and went to Clarksburg on the evening train.
Here Harris asked Woodford if he should pay over to him the five thousand dollars or put it in the bank. To this the cattle-shipper replied that he did not like to take the risk of carrying money over the country, and that it would be best to deposit it and check it out as it should be needed.
Woodford and Harris went to the bank. The shipper drew five thousand dollars from his own private account, put it with the five thousand which Harris handed him, and thrust the package of bills through the window to the teller.
“How do you wish to deposit this money, gentlemen?” asked the officer.
“I don’t know, hardly,” said the shipper, turning to his companion; “what do you think about it, Billy?”
“Well,” said the commission-merchant, thoughtfully, “I suppose we had better deposit it in the firm name of Woodford & Harris, then you can give your checks that way and they wont get mixed with your private matters.”
“That is right,” said the cattle-shipper, “put it under the firm name.” Whereupon the teller deposited the money subject to the check of Woodford & Harris.
“Now, Billy,” continued Woodford, as they passed out into the street, “I will buy these cattle and put them on the train to-morrow. You go down with them. I will stay here and look over the country for another drove, and, if you want more, telegraph me.”
“That suits me perfectly,” replied Harris. “I must get back to New York, and I can wire you just how matters stand the moment I see the market.” Then the two men shook hands and Harris returned to his hotel.
The following afternoon William Harris went to Bridgeport on the freight train. There he found twelve cars loaded with cattle, marked “Woodford & Harris.” At Grafton he hired a man to go through with the stock, and took the midnight express for New York.
The partnership formed to take advantage of the situation which Harris had so fluently described, had been brought about with ease and expedition. Woodford was well known to William Harris. He had met him first in Baltimore where young Harris was a mere underling of one of the great exporting firms. Afterwards he had seen him frequently in Jersey City, and of late had sold some stock for him. The whole transaction was in close keeping with the customs of men in this business.
The confidence of one average cattle-man in another is a matter of more than passing wonder. Yet almost from time immemorial it has been respected, and instances are rare indeed where this confidence has been betrayed to any degree. Perhaps after all the ancient theory that “trust reposed breeds honesty in men,” has in it a large measure of truthfulness, and if practised universally might result in huge elevation of the race. And it may be, indeed, that those who attempt to apply this principle to the business affairs of men are philanthropists of no little stature. But it is at best a dangerous experiment, wherein the safeguards of society are lowered, and whereby grievous wrongs break in and despoil the citizen.
To the view of one standing out from the circle of things, men often present queer contradictions. They call upon the state to protect them from the petty rogue and make no effort to protect themselves from the great one. They place themselves voluntarily in positions of peril, and then cry out bitterly if by any mishap they suffer hurt from it, and fume and rail at the law, when it is themselves they should rail at. The wonder is that the average business man is not ruined by the rogue. Surely the ignorance of the knave will not protect him always.
The situation would seem to arise from a false belief that the protection of the law is a great shield, covering at all points against the attacks of wrong.
V.
On Saturday afternoon about three o’clock, the cashier of the Fourth National Bank in the town of Clarksburg called Thomas Woodford as he was passing on the street, and requested him to come at once into the directors’ room. Woodford saw by the man’s face that there was something serious the matter and he hurried after him to the door of the private office. As he entered, Mr. Izzard arose and crossed the room to him. The old man held a check in his hand and was evidently laboring under great excitement.
“Woodford,” he cried, thrusting the check up into the cattle-shipper’s face, “this thing is not worth a damn! There is no money here to pay it.”
“No money to pay it!” echoed Woodford. “You must be crazy. We put the money in here Monday. There’s ten thousand dollars here to pay it.”
“Well,” said the old man, trembling with anger, “there is none here now. You gave me this check Tuesday on my cattle which you and Harris bought, and you told me there was money here to meet it. I thought you were all right, of course, and I did not come to town until to-day. Now the cashier says there is not a cursèd cent here to the credit of you and Harris.”
The blood faded out of the cattle-shipper’s face, leaving him as white as a sheet. He turned slowly to the cashier: “What became of that money?” he gasped.
“Why,” the officer replied, “it was drawn out on the check of yourself and Harris. Did n’t you know about it? The check was properly endorsed.”
“Show me the check,” said Thomas Woodford, striving hard to control the trembling of his voice. “There must be some mistake.”
The cashier went to his desk and returned with a check, which he spread out on the table before the cattle-shipper. The man seized it and carried it to the light, where he scrutinized it closely. It was in proper form and drawn in the firm name of “Woodford & Harris,” directing the Fourth National Bank to pay to William Harris ten thousand dollars. It was properly endorsed by William Harris and bore the stamp of the New York Clearing House.
“When was this check cashed?” asked Woodford.
“It was sent in yesterday,” answered the cashier. “Is there anything wrong with it?”
For a time Woodford did not speak. He stood with his back to the two men and was evidently attempting to arrive at some solution of the matter. Presently he turned and faced the angry land-owner.
“There has been a mistake here, Mr. Izzard,” he said, speaking slowly and calmly. “Suppose I give you my note for the money; the bank here will discount it, and you will not be put to any inconvenience.”
To this the old gentleman readily assented. “All I want,” he assured the shipper, “is to be safe. Your note, Woodford, is good for ten times the sum.”
Thomas Woodford turned to the desk and drew a negotiable note for the amount of the check. This he gave to Mr. Izzard, and then hurried to the telegraph office, where he wired Harris asking for an immediate explanation of the mysterious transaction.
He was a man accustomed to keep his own counsels, and he was not yet ready to abandon them. He gave directions where the answer was to be sent, then he went to the hotel, locked himself in his room, and began to pace the floor, striving to solve the enigma of this queer proceeding on the part of William Harris.
The transaction had an ugly appearance. The money had been placed in the bank by the two men for the express purpose of meeting this check, which he had given to Izzard as a part payment on his stock. Harris knew this perfectly, and had suggested it. Now, how should it happen that he had drawn the money in his own name almost immediately upon his arrival in New York?
Could it be that Harris had concluded to steal the money? This the cattle-shipper refused to believe. He had known Harris for years, and knew that he was considered honest, as the world goes. Besides, Harris would not dare to make such a bold move for the purpose of robbery. His name was on the back of the check; there was no apparent attempt to conceal it. No, there could be but one explanation, considered Woodford: Harris had found the market rising and a great opportunity to make a vast sum of money; consequently he had bought more stock and had been compelled to use this money for the purpose of payment. There could be no other explanation, so the cattle-shipper convinced himself.
Thomas Woodford was not a man of wavering decisions. When his conclusion was once formed, that was the end of it. He went over to the wash-stand, bathed his face, and turned to leave the room. As he did so, some one rapped on the door; when he opened it, a messenger boy handed him a telegram. He took the message, closed the door, and went over to the window. For a moment the dread of what the little yellow envelope might possibly contain, made the big rough cattle-shipper tremble. Then he dismissed the premonition as an unreasonable fear, and with calm finger opened the message. The telegram was from New York, and contained these few words: “Have been robbed. Everything is lost,” and was signed “William Harris.”
Thomas Woodford staggered as if some one had dealt him a terrible blow in the face. The paper fell from his fingers and fluttered down on the floor. The room appeared to swim round him; his heart thumped violently for a moment, and then seemed to die down in his breast and cease its beating. He sank down in his chair and fell forward on the table, his big body limp under the shock of this awful calamity. It was all perfectly plain to him now. The entire transaction from the beginning to the end had been a deep-laid, cunning plan to rob him. The checking out of the ten thousand dollars was but a small part of it Harris had sold the cattle, and, seeking to keep the money, had simply said that he had been robbed. The story about the probable dissolution of the exporters’ combine had been all a lie. He had been the dupe—the easy, willing dupe, of a cunning villain.
William Harris had come to West Virginia with the deliberate intention of inveigling him into this very trap. He had left New York with the entire scheme well planned. He had stopped at Bridgeport and told him the plausible story about what would happen to the combine, in order to arouse his interest and draw him into the plot and to account for his own presence in the cattle region. It was a shrewdly constructed tale, which, under the circumstances, the most cautious man in the business would have believed.
The man winced as he recalled how cunningly Harris had forced him to do the very things he desired done, without appearing to even suggest them. There was the deposit of the fund in the partnership name,—that seemed all reasonable enough. It had not occurred to him that this money would then be subject to Harris’s check as well as his own. Then, too, it was reasonable that he should go out and buy the cattle, and Harris ship them,—Harris was a commission-merchant by trade, and this division of the work was natural. Such a robbery had not occurred before in all the history of this business, and how fatally well all the circumstances and the customs of the trade fitted into the plan of this daring rascal!
Then, like a benumbing ache, came the gradual appreciation of the magnitude of this loss. The cattle were worth twenty thousand dollars. He had agreed to pay Izzard that sum for the drove, and then there was the five thousand of his own money. Twenty-five thousand dollars in all. It was no small sum for the wealthiest to lose, and to this man in his despair it loomed large indeed.
Financial ruin is an evil-featured demon at best. The grasp of his hand is blighting; the leer of his sunken face, maddening. It requires strong will to face the monster when one knows that he is coming, even after his shadow has been flitting across one’s path for years. When he leaps down suddenly from the dark upon the shoulders of the unsuspecting passer-by, that one must be strong indeed if all that he possesses of virtue and honesty and good motive be not driven out from him.
The old clock on the court-house struck five, its battered iron tongue crying out from above the place where men were accustomed to resort for Justice.
The sound startled Woodford and reminded him of something. He arose and went to the window and stood looking at the gaunt old building.
Yes, there was the Law. He had almost forgotten that, and the Law would not tolerate wrong. It hated the evil-doer, and hunted him down even to the death, and punished him. Men were often weak and half blind, but the Law was strong always, and its eyes were far-sighted. The world was not so large that the rogue could hide from it. In its strength it would seek him out and hold him responsible for the evil he had done. It stood ever in its majesty between the knave and those upon whom he sought to prey; its shadow, heavy with warning, lay always before the faces of vicious men.
In his bitterness, Woodford thanked Heaven that this was true. From the iron hand of the Law; William Harris should have vengeance visited upon him to the very rim of the measure.
VI.
Randolph Mason looked up from his desk as William Harris burst into his office. The commission-merchant’s face was red, and he was panting with excitement. “Mr. Mason,” he cried, “there is trouble on foot; you must help me out!”
“Trouble,” echoed Mason, “is it any new thing to meet? Why do you come back with your petty matters?”
“It is no petty matter, sir,” said Harris; “you planned the whole thing for me, and you said it was no crime. Now they are trying to put me in the penitentiary. You must have been wrong when you said it was no crime.”
“Wrong?” said Mason, sharply. “What fool says I am wrong?”
“Why, sir,” continued Harris, rapidly, “Thomas Woodford has applied to the Governor for an extradition, asking that I be turned over to the authorities of West Virginia on the charge of having committed a felony. You said I could draw out the partnership fund and keep it, and that I could sell the cattle and buy foreign exchange with the money, and it would be no crime. Now they are after me, and you must go to Albany and see about it.”
“I shall not go to Albany,” said Mason. “You have committed no crime and cannot be punished.”
“But,” said Harris, anxiously, “won’t they take me down there? Won’t the Governor turn me over to them?”
“The Governor,” continued Mason, “is no fool. The affidavit stating the facts, which must accompany the application, will show on its face that no crime has been committed. You were a partner, with a partner’s control of the funds. The taking of partnership property by one partner is no crime. Neither did you steal the cattle. They were sold to you. Your partner trusted you. If you do not pay, it is his misfortune. It was all a business affair, and by no possible construction can be twisted into a crime. Nor does it matter how the partnership was formed, so that it existed. It is no crime to lie in regard to an opinion. You have violated no law,—you have simply taken advantage of its weak places to your own gain and to the hurt of certain stupid fools. The Attorney General will never permit an extradition in this case while the world stands. Go home, man, and sleep,—you are as safe from the law as though you were in the grave.”
With that, Randolph Mason arose and opened the office door. “I bid you good-morning, sir,” he said curtly.
The Governor of New York pushed the papers across the table to the Attorney General. “I would like you to look at this application for the extradition of one Harris, charged with committing a felony in the State of West Virginia,” he said. “The paper seems to be regular, but I am somewhat in doubt as to the proper construction to be placed upon the affidavit stating the facts alleged to constitute this crime.”
VII.
The Attorney General took the papers and went over them rapidly. “Well,” he said, “there is nothing wrong with the application. Everything is regular except the affidavit, and it is quite clear that it fails to support this charge of felony.”
“I was inclined to that opinion,” said the Governor, “and I thought best to submit the matter to you.”
“It is usual,” continued the Attorney General, “to grant the application without question, where the papers are regular and the crime is charged, and it is not required that the crime be charged with the legal exactness necessary in an indictment. The Governor is not permitted to try the question whether the accused is guilty or not guilty. Nor is he to be controlled by the question whether the offence is or is not a crime in his own State, the question before him being whether the act is punishable as a crime in the demanding State. The Governor cannot go behind the face of the papers nor behind the facts alleged to constitute a crime, and if these facts, by any reasonable construction, support the charge of crime, the extradition will usually be granted. But it is a solemn proceeding, and one not to be trifled with, and not to be invoked without good cause, nor to be used for the purpose of redressing civil injuries, or for the purpose of harassing the citizens; and where on the face of the affidavit it is plainly evident that no crime has been committed, and that by no possible construction of the facts stated could the matter be punishable as a crime, then it is the duty of the Governor to refuse the extradition.
“In this case the authorities in the demanding State have filed an affidavit setting forth at length the facts alleged to constitute a felony. This paper shows substantially that a general partnership was formed by William Harris and Thomas Woodford, and that pursuant to such business relations certain partnership property came into the possession of Harris; this property he converted to his own use. It is clear that this act constituted no crime under the statutes of West Virginia or the common law there obtaining. The property was general partnership property; the money taken was a general partnership fund, subject to the check of either partner. The partner Harris was properly in possession of the cattle as a part owner. He was also lawfully entitled to the possession of the partnership fund if he saw fit to draw it out and use it. If it be presumed that his story of the robbery is false, and that he deliberately planned to secure possession of the property and money, and did so secure possession of it, and converted it to his own use, yet he has committed no crime. He has simply taken advantage of the trust reposed in him by his partner Woodford, and has done none of those acts essential to a felony. The application must be refused.”
“That was my opinion,” said the Governor, “but such a great wrong had been done that I hesitated to refuse the extradition.”
“Yes,” answered the Attorney General, “all the wrong of a serious felony has been done, but no crime has been committed. The machinery of criminal jurisprudence cannot be used for the purpose of redressing civil wrong, the distinction being that, by a fiction of law, crimes are wrongs against the State, and in order to be a crime the offence must be one of those wrongs described by the law as being against the peace and dignity of the State. If, on the other hand, the act be simply a wrong to the citizen and not of the class described as being offences against the State, it is no crime, no matter how injurious it may be or how wrongful to the individual. The entire transaction was a civil matter resulting in injury to the citizen, Woodford, but it is no crime, and is not the proper subject of an extradition.”
The Governor turned around in his chair. “James,” he said to his private secretary, “return the application for the extradition of William Harris, and say that upon the face of the papers it is plainly evident that no crime has been committed.”
The blow which Fate had sought to deliver with such malicious cunning against the confidential clerk of Beaumont, Milton, & Company had been turned aside, and had fallen with all its crushing weight upon the shoulders of another man, five hundred miles to westward, within the jurisdiction of a distant commonwealth.