alley is the favourite in Canada for Old Country people with capital
who are anxious to do fruit farming, and they are pouring in all the
time. I can see nothing but increases in values for some time to come,
Eileen."

"Well,--maybe I am wrong, but it looks to me as if the West were going
mad and that there will be one wild, hilarious fling and then--the
deluge.

"God help daddy, Brenchfield or anybody else who gets caught in the
maelstrom.

"Phil,--promise me one thing;--you won't get caught in this? Buy and
sell for others if you wish. Yes!--gamble with a little if you have it
to spare, but you won't,--promise me you won't get involved in this
awful business in such a way that a turn of the tide would leave you
broken and dishonoured."

"I never was lucky in mines, oils or land, Eilie, dear;--and you have
my promise. If ever I have anything to do with real estate, believe
me, it will be simply--as you suggest--in buying and selling for the
other fellow. That game has always had a great fascination for me."

"Why, yes!--you can get all the excitement without the far-reaching
consequences. But what worries me about daddy is that he has so many
unfinished ends lying everywhere. That was always his weakness; now it
seems to be his obsession. He has ranches stocked with the best
animals in the country. He has the best implements, but he has no real
record of them and they disappear all the time. Some of his foremen
are getting marvellously well-to-do suddenly. Why, the other day a man
brought in a herd of pigs and sold them to daddy for cash. The pigs
were daddy's own--stolen from one of his ranches the night before--and
daddy didn't know them. Last spring, one of his foremen told daddy,
just before the snow went, that they would require new machinery for
this particular ranch he was working; ploughs, reapers, binders, et
cetera. Dad ordered them for him and, when the snow went, he
discovered all kinds of the same machinery there which had been left
lying out all winter and simply ruined--really enough machinery to
work a dozen ranches."

"And didn't he fire the foreman?"

"Not he! He said he couldn't put a married man out in that way. And
that same married man came in here penniless four years ago, has been
working for dad all the time for wages; and he could retire to-morrow
and live on the interest of his invested capital.

"Daddy Royce Pederstone doesn't see it at all. He says some men are
lucky speculators.