In Brook and Bayou: Or Life in the Still Waters (1897)

Fresh out of college with no job prospects, Matt Wiley and Ray Hagan devise a unique plan. They toss a coin. The winner goes west, the loser east. The one who gets the best job wins the game. Wiley quickly finds work with a cement company and meets a girl. They marry and he eventually becomes an FBI special agent. Hagan helps a girl with car trouble and through her he gets a job with her father’s company. This company specializes in mergers, some of them questionable. Hagan is involved with one of these and is charged with a crime. A friendly game evolves into something quite different.