"We hiked into Monterey last winter, but we're ridin' out now, b 'gosh!" Billy said as the train pulled out and they leaned back in their seats.
They had decided against retracing their steps over the ground already traveled, and took the train to San Francisco. They had been warned by Mark Hall of the enervation of the south, and were bound north for their blanket climate. Their intention was to cross the Bay to Sausalito and wander up through the coast counties Here, Hall had told them, they would find the true home of the redwood. But Billy, in the smoking car for a cigarette, seated himself beside a man who was destined to deflect them from their course. He was a keen-faced, dark-eyed man, undoubtedly a Jew; and Billy, remembering Saxon's admonition always to ask questions, watched his opportunity and started a conversation. It took but a little while to learn that Gunston was a commission merchant, and to realize that the content of his talk was too valuable for Saxon to lose. Promptly, when he saw that the other's cigar was finished, Billy invited him into the next car to meet Saxon. Billy would have been incapable of such an act prior to his sojourn in Carmel. That much at least he had acquired of social facility.
"He's just teen tellin' me about the potato kings, and I wanted him to tell you," Billy explained to Saxon after the introduction. "Go on and tell her, Mr. Gunston, about that fan tan sucker that made nineteen thousan' last year in celery an' asparagus."
"I was just telling your husband about the way the Chinese make things go up the San Joaquin river. It would be worth your while to go up there and look around. It's the good season now--too early for mosquitoes. You can get off the train at Black Diamond or Antioch and travel around among the big farming islands on the steamers and launches. The fares are cheap, and you'll find some of those big gasoline boats, like the Duchess and Princess, more like big steamboats."
"Tell her about Chow Lam," Billy urged.
The commission merchant leaned back and laughed.
"Chow Lam, several years ago, was a broken-down fan tan player.
He hadn't a cent, and his health was going back on him. He had worn out his back with twenty years' work in the gold mines, washing over the tailings of the early miners. And whatever he'd made he'd lost at gambling. Also, he was in debt three hundred dollars to the Six Companies--you know, they're Chinese affairs.
And, remember, this was only seven years ago--health breaking down, three hundred in debt, and no trade. Chow Lam blew into Stockton and got a job on the peat lands at day's wages. It was a Chinese company, down on Middle River, that farmed celery and asparagus. This was when he got onto himself and took stock of himself. A quarter of a century in the United States, back not so strong as it used to was, and not a penny laid by for his return to China. He saw how the Chinese in the company had done it--saved their wages and bought a share.
"He saved his wages for two years, and bought one share in a thirty-share company. That was only five years ago. They leased three hundred acres of peat land from a white man who preferred traveling in Europe. Out of the profits of that one share in the first year, he bought two shares in another company. And in a year more, out of the three shares, he organized a company of his own. One year of this, with bad luck, and he just broke even.
That brings it up to three years ago. The following year, bumper crops, he netted four thousand. The next year it wan five thousand. And last year he cleaned up nineteen thousand dollars.
Pretty good, eh, for old broken-down Chow Lam?"
"My!" was all Saxon could say.
Her eager interest, however, incited the commission merchant to go on.
"Look at Sing Kee--the Potato King of Stockton. I know him well.
I've had more large deals with him and made less money than with any man I know. He was only a coolie, and he smuggled himself into the United States twenty years ago. Started at day's wages, then peddled vegetables in a couple of baskets slung on a stick, and after that opened up a store in Chinatown in San Francisco.
But he had a head on him, and he was soon onto the curves of the Chinese farmers that dealt at his store. The store couldn't make money fast enough to suit him. He headed up the San Joaquin.
Didn't do much for a couple of years except keep his eyes peeled.
Then he jumped in and leased twelve hundred acres at seven dollars an acre "
"My God!" Billy said in an awe-struck voice. "Eight thousan', four hundred dollars just for rent the first year. I know five hundred acres I can buy for three dollars an acre."
"Will it grow potatoes?" Gunston asked.
Billy shook his head. "Nor nothin' else, I guess."
All three laughed heartily and the commission merchant resumed:
"That seven dollars was only for the land. Possibly you know what it costs to plow twelve hundred acres?"
Billy nodded solemnly.
"And he got a hundred and sixty sacks to the acre that year,"
Gunston continued. "Potatoes were selling at fifty cents. My father was at the head of our concern at the time, so I know for a fact. And Sing Kee could have sold at fifty cents and made money. But did he? Trust a Chinaman to know the market. They can skin the commission merchants at it. Sing Kee held on. When 'most everybody else had sold, potatoes began to climb. He laughed at our buyers when we offered him sixty cents, seventy cents, a dollar. Do you want to know what he finally did sell for? One dollar and sixty-five a sack. Suppose they actually cost him forty cents. A hundred and sixty times twelve hundred . . . let me see . . . twelve times nought is nought and twelve times sixteen is a hundred and ninety-two . . . a hundred and ninety-two thousand sacks at a dollar and a quarter net...four into a hundred and ninety-two is forty-eight, plus, is two hundred and forty--there you are, two hundred and forty thousand dollars clear profit on that year's deal."
