Chapter IV: Part 4

This was food for thought. Wimperley, dismissing the idea of lunch, sat down. The group became universally reflective, and for a little while no one spoke. Stoughton threw away his cigar, rested his chin on his hand and stared at the model of the pulp mill on Wimperley's desk. Wimperley's eyes wandered to the big map and again he saw Clark's finger sliding over its glazed surface. Riggs twisted his handkerchief with a puzzled look in his bright eyes, and Birch leaned back, stretching his long legs, while his tremulous lids began to flicker and his lips moved inaudibly. To each man there seemed to come the rumble of the mills, the wet grind of the huge stones against the snowy billets of spruce, and behind it all the deep tones of the rapids. Presently the voicelessness of Birch found speech.

"As I said there's nothing to worry about--yet. Two of us might go up next week. I'll be one, if you like--and put the brakes on--but not so that he'll feel them. If we only get out of the coach and take the driver's seat the thing will be all right. Trouble is we've sat too long inside and wondered where we were. Wimperley is right. And don't forget that Clark has something at stake too."

It was all so even and sane that it acted like oil on troubled waters. Stoughton jumped up, remarking that now he could eat, while Riggs, remembering that six per cent. on seven millions of issued bonds was four hundred and twenty thousand, stared at Birch and marveled how he could have managed to put it away in the face of such expenditure. Just as he was reaching for his hat, the door opened and a telegram was brought in. Wimperley took it carelessly. He was too full of relief to be interested in anything else and experienced a gratified glow in that he had spoken what was in his mind and been upheld. Then, glancing at the telegram, his face changed and he felt his temples redden. The message was from Clark, who now asked that serious consideration be given to the building of blast furnaces at St. Marys. He stood for a moment while the others glanced at him curiously.

"What about that?" he jerked out, and gave the yellow sheet to Birch.

Birch read it aloud slowly, and, after an impressive pause read it again and still more slowly, the pink spots on his cheeks becoming brighter, his hard dry tones still more cold and mechanical. When he looked up Stoughton had turned his back and, with shoulders up, was staring out of the window. Riggs was red and flustered. After a moment the little man found breath.

"He's crazy, that's all."

"Well, Wimperley?" Birch had not moved.

"This is the last straw. It's a case of our getting rid of him before he gets rid of us, or the shareholders do."

Birch turned to the window. "Well, what about it?"

Stoughton hunched his shoulders still higher. "Fire him," he said stolidly, then puffed his cheeks and breathed on the widow pane. In the fog he wrote "Fire him" with his forefinger, taking particular care to make it legible with neatly formed letters. The next moment both fog and words evaporated. It flashed into Stoughton's mind that they had not lasted long. He swung round, "It's the only thing to do, but I don't want the job. You can have it, Birch."

The lean face changed not a whit. "I take my end of it. If I don't, Marsham will."

"Look here, this isn't a one man job." Wimperley's voice had barely regained its steadiness. "This message settles, as I take it, our views of Clark. God knows we don't question anything but his suitability for his position at the present stage of affairs. He's got to be told the inevitable and we've all got to go up. There's no other way out of it. We'll give him one or two of the smaller companies to run and the public needn't know anything about it. I remember the point you made, Stoughton. It's a good one and we've got to look out for it."

But Stoughton did not move. "I'll be damned," he said softly, still staring at the roof lines of Philadelphia. "Blast furnaces!"

"You will, if you don't come up with us," replied Birch acidly.

"I suppose I will. When do we go?"

"Will a week from to-day suit?"

They all made it suit. After a contemplative moment Riggs asked:

"Will you let him know, Wimperley, and just what do you propose to say? You'll remember there have been other times when we contemplated putting the brakes on, but we all got galvanized and the thing didn't work."

"I'd merely say that we four are coming up--that's all."

Stoughton grinned a formidable grin in which there was a show of teeth and an outthrust jaw.

"That's enough, he'll know."

They went off together, but rather silently, to lunch. On the way to the street Stoughton asserted several times aloud, and with complete conviction, that he would be damned, while the rest began to experience a carefully concealed regret for the victim of their mission. At the club they sat aimlessly and played with their food, conscious that they were observed and known by all as the insiders in one of Philadelphia's largest investments. Then, too, they learned that that morning the stock of the Consolidated companies had leaped forward in one of those unexpected boosts for which it was noted. Wimperley and the rest of them had never gambled in it, but time and time again it moved as though animated by the spread of secret and definite information. Just as they were about to rise Birch leaned forward and began to arrange pepper pots and salt cellars in a semi-symmetrical design.

"This," he said, "is all right and that, and that. These are out of the question. You get me?"

The others nodded.

"No blast furnaces," he went on almost inaudibly. "No railway--no further capital expenditure--and then we reach the melon of dividend," here he touched his untasted cantaloupe.

Now, just at this moment, Wimperley nodded energetically and laughed outright, whereupon a man whose name was Marsham, who sat at an adjoining table, turned--for Wimperley did not often laugh--and saw Birch's long finger resting on the melon, and, since Marsham was, without the knowledge of the others, one of the largest operators, in Consolidated stock, that stock took a further jump just half an hour later, and all through Pennsylvania there were farmers, mechanics, country doctors and storekeepers who read the news and rejoiced exceedingly thereat.

The others went their way, and Wimperley walked back to his office immersed in profound contemplation. Feelings of personal injury were mixed with those of apprehension. How would the affair proceed after Clark had taken with him his unrivaled and intimate knowledge of the works; for, and in spite of all the dictates of prudence, it seemed impossible to think of the vast enterprise at St. Marys without its central pivot.

X.--CUPIDITY VS. LOYALTY

And all this time the chief constable of St. Marys was speculating in property with steadily increasing success. So crafty was he that few people in the town knew it. When the fourth year of Clark's régime was completed, Manson had made profits that astonished him. His purchases covered both farm and town lands, and amongst the latter was a mortgage on the vine clad cottage of Fisette. But not a man in his circle would have guessed that what prompted the acquisition of the Fisette mortgage was Manson's remembrance of a friendly joke about a Unitarian wolf; a joke which still lived and set up a minute but unceasing irritation. Now, at any time, Manson might be in a position to teach the bishop a lesson.

It fell on a day that he was at the head of the old portage leading round the rapids. Here he had recently acquired an option on a considerable acreage, calculating that before long a new town would spring up in the shadow of the works, and, just as he pushed through the underbrush and came out on the gravel beach, he caught the flash of a paddle a mile away. He was hot and breathless and, lighting his big pipe, sat in the shade, his ruminative eye on the fast approaching canoe. Twenty minutes later it touched the shore, and Fisette, leaning forward on the thwarts, surveyed him with black and lustrous eyes.

Manson nodded. He did not speak at once. It was palpable that Fisette had been prospecting, and always in the north country the returning prospector brings with him a peculiar fascination. He is the herald of the hitherto unknown. It was also understood that Fisette was working for Clark.

The half breed brought the side of his canoe delicately against the sand and, stepping lightly out, began to unload, greeting Manson with a low-voiced "Good morning." Ax, paddles, dunnage bag, shed tent, these he laid neatly and, last of all, a small sack of samples, the weight of which, however he disguised it, swelled the veins in his temples. He was stooping to swing this on his shoulders when Manson spoke.

"Sit down a minute and have a smoke."

Fisette did not want to sit down. There was that in the sack and in his brain which he greatly desired to evacuate in the proper place and at the earliest possible moment. But a little reflection demonstrated that undue haste would be suspicious. Inwardly disturbed at the sight and manner of Manson, he laid the sack gently down. There came the slightest creak of metallic fragments.

"Had a good trip?" hazarded the big man carelessly.

"Pretty fair."

"Pretty rough country up there?" Manson waved his arm northwest.

Fisette grunted. "About the same over there."

He glanced into the northeast.

"Been rooting about for over a year now, haven't you?"

The halfbreed grinned. "Since I was so high." He indicated a stature of two feet.

"Come far this time?"

There was a little pause while Fisette sheared thin shavings of tobacco from a dog-eared plug. He rolled them into a ball between his tawny palms, thoughtfully unpicked the ball, re-rolled it more loosely, abstracted a match from the inside band of his tattered hat and began to suck wetly at a gurgling pipe. "What's that?" he said presently.

"I asked you did you come far?"

"Guess not so far as it seemed. Pretty bad bush."

Manson hesitated, then, in a flash, saw through the breed's assumption of indifference. Clark had been looking for iron for more than a year. All St. Marys knew that. Now, glancing covertly at the angular projectings of the bulging sack, the constable jumped to his conclusion. Fisette had found it and was on his way to report and prove the discovery.

"I often wonder," he remarked casually, "what keeps you fellows going. I never met a prospector yet who gave in that he was licked, and mighty few of them found anything. They always claim they would have had it if they could have stayed out a bit longer. Take iron, for instance. Fellows have gone out after iron for years right from here and they all thought they had it, but they didn't. There was Joe Lalonde and Pete Nanoosh and the rest of them. Same story over again. There's no iron here anyway. The country rock is wrong--a mining engineer told me that."

Fisette did not move nor did his expression change. His insides seemed on fire. He would have given much to be on his way to Clark's office, but something in his Indian blood whispered warningly. Moments passed. Presently he got up a little stiffly.

"I guess I'll go now."

Manson yawned. "All right, I'm going that way myself."

Sudden irresolution appeared on the brown face. "Oh, well, I guess there's no hurry." He sat down and took out his last match.

The big man chuckled. "Look here, Fisette, I suppose you know I've been buying property around town?"

"So?"

"Yes, and the other day I bought a thousand-dollar mortgage. It's the one on your land. I guess you remember it?"

A sense of uncertainty fell over the half-breed. He knew that he owed a thousand dollars and had owed it for years. Every six months he paid thirty dollars to a lawyer and forgot all about it for the next six. To his mind the document with the seals, beside one of which he had traced a painful signature, was a forbidding thing, typical of the authority of pale faces over brown. Then, quite suddenly, he remembered that next year he would have to pay off the whole thousand, and, moreover, pay it to Manson.

"Is that so? I guess you're quite a rich man?"

Manson smiled grimly. "No, not a rich man, but--" he paused, felt very deliberately in his coat and, taking out a fat pocketbook, slowly extracted a bill. It was for one hundred dollars. "I'll bet you this that there is no iron within seventy-five miles of St. Marys." He smoothed the bill on his broad knee.

The half breed gulped. Only once before had he seen so much money in one note, and that was after he had signed the mortgage. Clark gave him fifty dollars a month and his grub, and had promised more if he succeeded. He had found iron ore. It was good enough to win the bet, but was it good enough for Clark? and if it was not good enough for Clark the mortgage would have to be met out of nothing.

"Well?" came Manson's deep voice.

Fine beads of sweat appeared on the dusky forehead. A sinewy hand crept toward the sack, but just as he touched it there arose within him something very old and vibrant and compelling. Slowly he yielded to it. He saw Clark's gray eyes and heard his magnetic voice. He distinguished his own voice given in promise, Clark had always encouraged him, no matter how often he returned empty handed, and now, looking broodingly at Manson, the half breed perceived the type that for centuries had defrauded his ancestors with poor bargains and glittering worthlessness. All that was good in Fisette, all the savage honor of that vanishing race whose blood flowed in his veins, all the unquestioning fidelity of his half naked forebears, rose in violent protest. He might be sold out, but not by any means would he sell out.

"Go to hell," he Said thickly.

Manson laughed awkwardly, slid the bill back into the fat pocketbook, and heaved up his great bulk.

"Come on, I haven't got a hundred dollars to throw away. I suppose you thought I was in earnest."

Fisette shook his head. Just at that moment he was harboring no suppositions, but had determined to go home without stopping at the works. He swung the sack over his shoulder.

"Go ahead."

Manson drew a long breath and stepped into the narrow trail. Behind him came the half breed, the neck of the sack drawn tight and its sharp contents drilling into his back. He was carrying two hundred pounds of freshly broken ore. He said nothing, but kept his black eyes fixed on the figure just in front of him. A little further on he stumbled over a root, recovered himself with a violent effort, and at that moment heard with dismay a ripping sound close behind his ear. In the next instant the load spilled on the soft earth.

Manson, twenty feet away, turned at the sound and stood staring until, his face lighting with a triumphant smile, he stepped back. He had recognized ore, and it looked like iron ore. Forgetting about Fisette, he moved nearer, his large dark eyes shining with excitement, and just then came a blinding slap. Fisette had swung the empty sack hard against his face.

"You don't come here. Stand still." The half-breed was crouching beside the ore like a bear on its hind legs.

"Won't I?" The constable smarted with pain and charged with sudden passion. He came on, leaning a little forward, his great knotted hands twitching, his shoulders curved in a slow segment of power. When he was within six feet, Fisette screamed like a cat and darted at his throat.

They fought silently with bare hands. Manson, heavier than the breed by fifty pounds, was reputed one of the strongest men in the district, but he was matched with an adversary who had drawn into himself the endurance of the wilderness and the quick resiliency of the young spruce tree. Were it only a contest of sheer force, Manson had won outright. Now, as his veins swelled and his arms stiffened around Fisette's pliant body, the latter seemed to convert itself into a mass of steel springs that somehow evaded compression. With feet sinking in the soft soil, crashing through the under-growth with no words but only the heart breaking gasp of supreme effort, they fought on. Once Manson thought he had conquered as his hands, closing behind the breed's back, locked in a deadly grip, with great muscles contracted, but just as it seemed the breed's ribs must crack there came an eel-like wriggle. The constable's arms were empty and again he felt the lean brown fingers at his bull-like neck. Once more he strove for that crushing clasp and, as Fisette darted in, opened his arms wide, took the punishment of a savage blow in the face, and closing his embrace, enwrapped his enemy in a suffocating hug. It was to the death, for a brown thumb was digging into his thorax and he felt sick and giddy.

Seconds passed. The violent expansion of Fisette's chest worked palpitating beneath the great arms, and, just ere endurance reached its limit and the trees began to swim before Manson's eyes, his little finger touched the haft of the sheath knife that hung at Fisette's back. The touch ran through Fisette's laboring frame like fire, for he had reached the point where the world seemed dipped in blood. Slowly Manson pushed down his hand, never relaxing his titanic embrace. But the instant his fingers closed on the knife the half breed's back curved like a mighty bow, the thick fingers creaked, cracked and yielded, the deadly grip was burst asunder, and Manson, sick and staggering, saw Fisette free and crouching in front of him, the knife in his hand and murder in his eyes. A moment later he looked up. Fisette was sitting on his chest, and running his thumb along the razor edge of the blade. There was a little blood at the corner of his mouth and his cheek was scratched. Otherwise he was undisturbed.

"Well?" he grunted presently, staring through half-closed lids.

Manson was pumping air into a laboring breast.

"I'm licked," he panted after a while.

"Say that again." The breed's eyes opened wider.

Manson said it while his soul revolted within him, but he would get Fisette later on. Then there gleamed in the breed's dark eyes a flicker of Indian fury, and Manson breathed an inarticulate prayer as the knife approached his throat, until as though from a great distance he heard a voice.

"You not going to tell any one I find iron. You swear that or I kill you here."

The constable's brain began to rock giddily. Fisette in his present condition would not hesitate to kill. He knew that. "I swear it," he panted unsteadily, "on my honor."

Fisette bared his white teeth. "Your honor no good. You swear by God and the Mother of God."

Manson repeated it, his breath coming more steadily. He had been near death, but as he stared at his conqueror he felt a contemptuous pity for him. Fisette had moved away and was fumbling in his pockets. Presently he looked up. "You got a match?"

Manson searched, while his relaxing muscles trembled like quicksilver. He found a match and held it out.

"Now go to hell!" said the half-breed calmly, and recommenced the ritual of smoke.

XI.--CLARK EXPERIENCES A NEW SENSATION, ALSO HIS DIRECTORS

The Japanese cook pottered softly about in the square stone basement of the blockhouse, while, up above, his master sat at a table with his eyes fixed on a small mountain of blackish-gray rock. He had given orders to admit none. Fingering the pointed fragments he experienced more emotion than ever before in his kaleidoscopic life. He sat in profound contemplation of that which prehistoric and elemental fires had laid down for his use. There was in his mind no question of strangeness that it should be himself who had decided that the thing was there and must be unearthed. It was the turning of another page in the book of his own history, the beginning of that chapter which would be the most fascinating of all.

Methodically he searched his retentive brain for data about iron ore. It existed in Pennsylvania and Alabama and New York, and, nearer still, there was the great field of Northern Michigan. But in Canada there were only the distant mines of Nova Scotia. He unrolled a great geological map and pored over it, finding here, as always, the greatest fascination. Within two miles of St. Marys there was an inexhaustible supply of limestone. He stared at the map with a queer but quite inflexible consciousness that this moment was the one he had awaited for years and his faith had not betrayed him. He got up with sudden restlessness and stood at the window. The rapids sounded clearly, but his mind was not on them. Looking to the west he saw the sky stabbed with the red streaks of flame from converters that were yet to be, and ranks of black steel stacks and the rounded shoulders of great furnaces silhouetted against the horizon. He heard the rumble of a mill that rolled out steel rails and, over it all, perceived a canopy of smoke that drifted far out on the clear, cold waters of the lake. He remembered with a smile that his directors would shortly arrive, and worked out for their visit a program totally unlike that they had mapped out for themselves. Last of all he went to the piano and played to himself. At any rate, he reflected, he would be known as the man who created the iron and steel industry in the district of Algoma. And that was satisfying to Clark.

Still feeling strangely restless, he moved again to the window, and just then Elsie and Belding walked slowly past the blockhouse toward the tiny Hudson Bay lock. Involuntarily he tapped on the pane. They both looked up and he beckoned. When they mounted to the living room, he met them with a smile.

Elsie glanced about with intense interest. She had been there once before, but with a group of visitors. This occasion seemed more intimate. She surveyed Clark a little breathlessly and with an overwhelming sensation that here was the nerve center of this whole gigantic enterprise. Belding felt a shade awkward as he caught the glance of the gray eyes.

"Sit down and have some coffee." Clark clapped his hands softly and the Japanese cook emerged from below. Presently their host began to talk with a certain comfortable ease that gave the girl a new glimpse of what the man might really be.

"The directors are coming up this week--that means more work for you, Belding."

The engineer nodded. Then the other man went on with the fluent confidence of one who knows the world. Persia, India, Russia,--he had been everywhere.

"But what brought you here, Mr. Clark?" put in the girl presently. Her eyes were very bright.

He turned to her: "What would you say?"

"Was it destiny?" she answered slowly.

"Yes," he replied with sudden gravity and a strange look at her bright eyes, "I think it was destiny."

Her heart beat more rapidly, and from Clark her glance moved to Belding who sat a little awkwardly. There was not more than fifteen years between them but Clark's face had that peculiarly ageless appearance which characterizes some men and lends them additional interest.

"And now you'll stay?" added Elsie.

"Don't you think there's enough to keep me?"

Belding roused himself with a chuckle but Clark went on thoughtfully.

"Do you see much change in St. Marys in the last few years?"

"Before you came," she said slowly, "it was just--just Arcadia."

"Are you sorry to say good-by to Arcadia?"

She shook her head, smiling. "Not a bit; I am glad it's over, but I remember father often talking about the old days long before any of us were here. First there were just the Indians, and then the Jesuit priests. They used to paddle up the Ottawa River to Lake Nipissing and then down the French River to the Georgian Bay, and so up Lake Huron round the rapids and on into Lake Superior. After them came the traders and then the Hudson Bay Company, but," she concluded a little apologetically, "you know all about that."

"Yes, I know, and now what do the people of St. Marys think about the works? Eh, Belding, what do you say?"

"They don't think very much, sir--they've got into the way of taking them for granted."

Clark laughed. "I think I know that too. But you don't take me for granted?" Here he glanced provocatively at Elsie.

The girl recovered herself with difficulty. She was only twenty-one, but beside this wizard it struck her that Belding looked immature. Clark had seized on her imagination. He was the dreamer and the prophet and as well a great builder under whose hands marvelous things took shape. Now she was filled with a sudden and delightful confusion, and Belding, watching her, remembered the night they had floated opposite the blockhouse while Clark's music drifted across the unruffled water. He felt good for his own job, but very helpless against the mesmeric fascination that the older man might exert if he would. And behind all this moved his intense loyalty and great admiration for his chief.

"Then St. Marys has produced all you hoped for, Mr. Clark?" said Elsie.

"I not only hoped but believed and worked." The answer was vibrant and steady. "Hope doesn't do very much nowadays without belief and work." He glanced at the piano. "Won't you play something?"

She blushed and shook her head. "No, please do yourself."

"I don't play in public and I never had a lesson in my life."

"But this isn't public," she countered; "I think it's--well--rather private."

He laughed, went to the piano and his fingers began to explore the keys. The others sat motionless. Elsie's eyes were fixed, not on Clark but on Belding, and in them was an unanswered question. The music was not anything she knew but the chords were compelling and she perceived in them that which this strange personality could not or did not put into words--his hopes, his courage, his inflexible will and the deep note of his power. Suddenly she recognized in him a lonely man. Her heart went out and her eyes filled with tears. Presently he looked over his shoulder.

"The gods are good to me to-day."

"Yes?" Her voice was very uncertain.

"I've found something for which I've been looking for years past."

Belding's brows furrowed. There was that in Clark's manner which baffled him. Elsie seemed more than ever dainty and desirable in this unusual setting. Had Clark seen this too?

"I'm so glad." The girl's eyes were very soft.

The two went home rather silently. Elsie seemed to be in a dream, and Belding had no words for that which now worked poisonously in his brain, but just so often as he yielded to the sharp pang of jealousy just so often did his faith in his chief rise in protest.

The engineer had seen Clark in many moods and under many circumstances. There were times when only the driving force of the man had pulled things through, and he was transformed into an agency that worked its invincible will. There was another thing. So far as Belding knew, Clark had no links, sentimental or otherwise, with the rest of the world. No whisper had come from outside regarding his past, and it was only when he himself talked that any light was thrown upon his former years. He seemed, in consequence, to be enviably free and ready for anything. Unfettered by tradition or association, he was a pendulum, balanced to swing potently in either direction. And what darkened Belding's horizon was the thought that Clark, at any moment, might swing toward Elsie Worden.

Two miles away, Fisette was at home with his children. He was tired but in no way worn out, and in his pocket was one single piece of ore kept as a souvenir. Clark's check lay safely deposited in the bank and the halfbreed's teeth gleamed when he thought of the mortgage. It was only a thousand dollars. Therese, four years and three days old, was on his knee. They were all very happy, though only Fisette knew exactly why. With eyes half closed, he contentedly examined the cracks in the big iron box stove and, since the night was cool, stuffed in more wood. It was in the back of his head that he had done what so many men had failed to do, and soon, when Monsieur Clark gave the word, he would be known as the man who had found iron in Algoma.

At the big jail, halfway between Fisette and Clark, Manson sat at his desk in his little square office. He was very sore and very stiff, and however savage he might feel about his defeat he could not but admire the fierce loyalty of the halfbreed. It was what he would have liked one of his own men to do. Now, however he might ache, he had a glow in every strained joint. There was iron in Algoma and not far from St. Marys.

Deliberately he shut away all outside thoughts and put himself to this, perceiving what iron would mean to Clark, this new factor that might upset every pessimistic opinion which he himself had voiced. He sat biting at his big black mustache, till suddenly his imagination leaped clear of St. Marys and took flight to Philadelphia. What would the discovery of iron mean there? Instantly he saw a swift rise in Consolidated stock and neither Manson nor any man in St. Marys owned a share of that stock.

In two days he was on the train for Toronto, and, in three, was the owner, on margin, of two hundred thousand dollars' worth of Consolidated shares. The broker through whom he dealt looked curiously at this new customer, the only man from St. Marys who had evidenced any financial interest in Clark's enterprise, and, concluding that there was more in the transaction than met the eye, bought forthwith for himself. Then the two shook hands very cheerfully, the broker promising to watch Consolidated like a hawk, while Manson bulged with satisfaction. He would be known as the only man in St. Marys who had made a fortune out of Clark's undertakings and that was satisfying to Manson.

On the journey back he sat for hours staring out of the windows. He had shaken free from the drowsiness of a former existence. His eyes were open to the ease with which fortunes are made by those who do not hesitate but seize the opportunity. He thought rather compassionately of Worden, Dibbott and the rest, good natured but thick headed. What a surprise it would be for them. But not once did Manson imagine that he was trading peace for anxiety, and the even tenor of his former ways for the hectic restlessness of the speculator.

As he boarded the train he noticed that Clark's private car was at the end, and inside saw Riggs, Wimperley and the rest. They were talking very earnestly, oblivious to anything that went on outside. Manson, watching them from under the brim of his hat, felt a surge of satisfaction. He guessed the momentous news which brought them, and, late that night, as the train plunged through the wilderness, lay awake in his berth thinking of many things, while the occupants of the private car talked till they were weary and leaden-eyed of that which they must do at St. Marys. They were caught up, all of them, in something greater than they. Forces had been set in motion by the amazing brain of Clark which they might modulate, but could not, in any way, entirely control. The moving finger was writing, and they could, like him, only follow its mysterious command.

The private car swung along over the clicking rail joints and the directors glanced without interest at the country they traversed. The latter part of their journey was through a wilderness, wild and unpromising. At Sudbury they saw evidence of what science and energy could do in what was not long ago unbroken forest, and what wealth lay beneath the tangled roots of spruce and tamarac, but the scene did not impress them. It was a single undertaking with a single object and vitally different from their own ramified efforts, and the desolation of the country in which it flourished only accentuated their own misgivings. They were tired before the train drew in to St. Marys and decided to discuss nothing that evening. At the works station Clark met them. He was cheerful and debonair.

"Hullo, Wimperley, glad to see you. Had a good trip? You and Stoughton are coming to the blockhouse with me. The others are at the hotel. Sorry I can't put you all up."

Birch put down his bag and held out a clammy hand. "What about it?" He shot a quick glance at Wimperley.

The president of the Consolidated shook his head. "No, no, we're not going to put you out, and besides I can't trust these fellows alone. We'll all go to the hotel. See you first thing in the morning. Matter of fact, Birch talked business all the time and we're dog tired."

Clark's lips pressed a shade tighter, then his eyes twinkled. Riggs, observing him closely, wondered whether he had interpreted the expression which all four were stolidly endeavoring to mask. But so cheerful was he and so apparently unconcerned with anything but their comfort, that Riggs decided a difficult moment had been safely passed. Later at the hotel he asked the others.

"Knew," said Birch acidly, "of course he knew. The very fact that we hung together told him the whole thing. However, it might just as well begin that way."

Wimperley laughed, a foolish little laugh that drew the older man's puzzled glance. "There's something ridiculous about all this," he tittered suddenly. "We're like a flock of sheep afraid of a dog. We need a ram. You'd better be the ram, Stoughton, you're the bulkiest."

Stoughton grinned, but there was no humor in it. "It's going to take a composite ram. We've got to put down our heads and bunt together. Riggs, you can snap at his heels and distract him. Good night."

They met at the works after breakfast, and Clark, in a flood of confidence, announced the program.

"I want this to be a real visit," he said cheerfully; "it's some time since you were all here together and there's a good deal to see. When you get tired let me know. I've not forgotten the time I nearly froze Riggs to death."

As he turned to lead the way, Wimperley sent a swift signal to his companions, Clark was to have his head for the time being. Birch nodded approvingly. This was one method of finding out a good deal he wanted to know.

"Water lots," said Clark, waving a hand toward the bay that cut in below the rapids. On one side of it spread the works and on the other the town of St. Marys. "Channel dredged through, and docks, you see, are commenced."

"Why docks?" asked Stoughton patiently.

"We'll be shipping our own products in our own vessels before very long, I hope," came back the clear voice. "Save a lot that way,--I'll show you the figures. That's one thing I want to talk about later. Come on into the mill. Extensions are about completed."

They went through the great building whose floor seemed to palpitate delicately with hidden forces, and began to feel the slow fascination. They saw dripping logs snatched from the water by mechanical fingers that cut them to length and stripped the brown bark till the soft white wood lay round, naked and shining. They saw the wood ground implacably by giant stones and emerge from a milky bath in a thick wet sheet that slid on a hot drum and coiled itself in massive rolls. Power, controlled and manipulated, was the universal servant. The whole thing was punctuated by keen remarks from Clark, who shot out answers to every imaginable question with extraordinary facility. They walked up the swiftly flowing head race while the general manager pointed out its proposed expansion, and explained the pressing need for diverting more water from the rapids. As they progressed it seemed there was always more to discover. They inspected great rafts of logs, fresh from the waters of Lake Superior, then came to timber mills and machine shops. And with all Clark was supremely familiar. In the middle of it Riggs volunteered that he was tired, so they trailed back to the private office in the administration building, where Clark unrolled maps and pointed out colored areas of pulp wood which were tributary to the mills, and had been compiled from the reports of his explorers.

Suddenly Birch put out a long forefinger. "What's that?"

"That," said Clark cheerfully, "is a railway."

Birch looked puzzled. "I didn't know a road ran north from here."

"It doesn't--yet--but it's something we'll have to consider very soon to bring in pulp wood."

"Oh!" Wimperley's voice was a trifle indignant.

"It's another matter to discuss when you feel like it," went on Clark imperturbably. "The road won't cost us anything."

"Won't it? Then it will be the first thing we have touched of its kind." Wimperley tried to speak lightly.

"The Federal Government bonus will pay for one-third, the provincial bonus for another, which leaves us about seven hundred thousand to take care of. There should be no difficulty in getting that out of the sale of lands we will develop. However," he added evenly, "we needn't worry about it just now. And, by the way, I had an inquiry yesterday for forty thousand horse power. Of course we haven't got it to spare, at least not at the moment. Now will you excuse me for just a moment?"

He stepped into the general office and shut the door softly behind him. Wimperley glanced inquiringly at Stoughton.

"You haven't done much ramming this morning!"

"No, I'm not just in the mood. How about you?" Stoughton turned to Birch.

The latter did not reply. His cold eyes were taking in the severe fittings of the private office, whose walls were covered with maps and blue prints. The truth was that the spell of Clark's extraordinary intelligence was beginning to fall over them once more. It was so obvious that he was the center of the whole affair, and from him there seemed to spread out into the wilderness long filaments over which there trickled an unending stream of information.

"I didn't hear 'blast furnaces' mentioned either," piped Riggs.

"Cut it out for the present. The time hasn't come, but it will." Stoughton got up and began to walk up and down. "We've got to hear all he has to say. That's the wise thing. Let him talk himself out. He can't talk for ever."

Riggs shook his head. "Can't he?"

"No, nor any man, and be continuously to the point; and if you get a bit shaky and converted just think of dividends on seven millions. That's what we came here for. I don't care how much bluffing it costs or how many days it takes. We're here now and the only thing to do is to wait till Clark's well runs dry and then give our ultimatum. But up to that time we must do whatever he wants us to do. It's going to hurt him--that's unavoidable--it will hurt us a lot more if we don't carry our job through." All of which was a long speech for Stoughton, so he sat down and was looking defiantly truculent when Clark came in smiling.

"You fellows have had enough for to-day so I've arranged a fishing trip for this afternoon. It's a good river, only six miles out, and I own it. It's an easy drive. You leave right after lunch and won't see me again till to-morrow. Rods and things are ready, and there's a French halfbreed at the camp to cook for you. What do you say?"

The suggestion came like sudden balm in Gilead. Stoughton's face cleared. "What's your biggest fish--trout, aren't they?"

"Well," said Clark slowly, "I've never had time to fish myself, but people who come to see me like a day off. Four pounds and a half is the record so far."

It was a magic touch. Riggs and Wimperley were, like Stoughton, keen fishermen, and while Birch fished for only one prize, all felt alike that here was a surcease after a trying morning. They could pull themselves together.

With this reflection moving in his brain, Stoughton felt a stab of compunction.

"I wish you could come, old man," he jerked out to Clark.

"Thanks," said Clark with a curious light in his gray eyes, "but I think I'd better not."

Five hours later Wimperley sat under a spruce tree and gloated over his catch. Close by were the rest, each arranging a row of speckled beauties on the cool green moss. They had caught some forty trout, the biggest being a trifle over the record, and this was Wimperley's fish. He leaned back, feeling a long forgotten youth trickle into his veins. In front of him the stream dodged round great boulders and vanished into the woods, flecked with foam from the falls whose wash came tremulously through the wilderness. The sky overhead was translucent with the half light of sunset and he felt a delicious languor stealing over him. For three hours Stoughton, Riggs and he had fished to their hearts' content, while Birch climbed a ridge and speculated what such a forbidding country might reasonably be expected to bring forth. Close by the stream, Fisette bent beside a small fire from which came odors of fried bacon and fish that aroused in the Philadelphians a fierce and gnawing hunger. Presently they sat on a mattress of cedar and ate one of those suppers the memory of which passes not with the years. It was Riggs who spoke first, lying back on the boughs, his head on his arm, a new glow in his pale cheeks. He looked younger and rounder than he did six hours previously, and, stretching luxuriously, he experienced the sympathetic impulses that detach themselves from a full stomach.

"I suppose there's no way out of it?"

"None whatever," grunted Stoughton, who was lining his basket with moss and objected to being thus recalled. "What the devil has this to do with dividends?"

"Nothing, I admit, but why in thunder did we start this game anyway? Why couldn't we just take things easy and go fishing. We've all got enough."

Wimperley stretched his arms above his head in delicious fatigue. "Keep away from second causes; this is no place for them. Four years ago you were meant to go fishing to-day in this very stream. Why worry about it?"

"I'm thinking about one R.F.C.," came back Riggs reflectively, "just like the rest of you."

"Well," sounded the dry voice of Birch, "so am I. And all this is very apropos. It illustrates the general condition of affairs, especially that mess of trout you had on the moss a while ago. We're all trout, we and the shareholders. You, Wimperley, are that five pounder. We all rose to the fly of one R.F.C., and we were all landed in the back woods. There are more trout in that stream, and, if we stand for it, the fishing is still good, but I've got the sting of the fly still in my gills. Also I'm thinking about one Henry Marsham."

Stoughton nodded sagely. "That's right, but if you liked fishing, Birch, you wouldn't drag in shareholders in that churlish fashion. What about blast furnaces, Riggs? We haven't heard a whisper yet. Wonder what Clark is thinking of?"

"Oh Lord!" murmured the little man, "if we only had iron!"

Fisette, who was dipping his dishes in a pot of hot water, turned his head ever so slightly. The others had either forgotten about him or concluded that their conversation was beyond a half-breed. But not a word had escaped the sharp ears of the man who moved so silently beside the fire. 'Iron!' They had iron, but apparently did not know it. Fisette felt in his pocket for the small angular fragment he always carried, and was about to hand it to Wimperley, when again he remembered Clark's command. He was to say nothing to any one. So the half-breed, with wonder in his soul, laid more wood on the fire and, squatting in the shadow of a rock, stared at the stream now shrouded in the gloom, and waited for what might come.

"But there's none in this damned country," blurted Stoughton, "so get back to Birch's picture of the shareholders on the moss."

"Trouble is I can't get away from it." Riggs' small voice was so plaintive that the others laughed, then dropped into a reverie while there came the murmur of the hidden stream and the small unceasing voices of the dusk that blend into the note which men call silence. Very softly and out of the south drifted a melodious sound.

"Six o'clock at the works," drawled Birch, snapping his watch. "Does that suggest anything?"

An hour later two buckboards drew up in front of the hotel and the four stepped down, a little stiff, but utterly content. As Riggs took his basket from Fisette, he coughed a little awkwardly.

"Look here, you fellows, I'm going to send my fish to R.F.C. with our compliments. It's only decent."

"Well," remarked Birch reflectively, "you might as well. It's the only compliment we're paying this trip."

A profound sleep strengthened their resolution, and when next morning Clark announced that he had arranged a trip up the lake, they acceded at once. In half an hour the company's big tug steamed out into Lake Superior, and the four, wrapped in big coats, for the water was like ice and the air chill, waited for the hour when Clark should run dry.

"You're going back this evening?" he said as the vessel rounded the long pine covered point that screened the rapids from the open lake.

Birch nodded.

"We'll get through by this afternoon. There isn't any more to show you." Clark spoke with a certain quick incisiveness and his eyes seemed unusually keen and bright.

"We've seen all we want to see."

The other man glanced at him sharply and said nothing. Then, as the big tug plowed on, the great expanse of Superior opened before them, a gigantic sheet of burnished glass edged with shadowy shores, and a long island whose soft outline seemed to float indistinctly on the unruffled water. As they steamed, Clark told them of the giant bark canoes that once came down from the lake heavy with fur, to unload at the Hudson Bay store at St. Marys, and disappear as silently as they came laden with colored cotton and Crimea muskets and lead and powder. He told of lonely voyageurs and the Jesuit priests who, traveling utterly alone, penetrated these wilds with sacrificial courage, carrying the blessed Sacrament to the scattered lodges of Sioux and Huron. Then, shifting abruptly, he talked of his own coming to St. Marys and the chance talk on a train that turned his attention to that Arcadia till, as the moments passed, he himself began to take on romantic proportions and appear in the imagination of his hearers as a sort of modern voyageur, who had discovered a new commercial kingdom.

"These logs," he said abruptly, "are from our limits."

The others glanced over the tug's high bows and saw nearing them a great brown raft towed by a small puffing vessel.

"Pulp wood,--ten thousand cords there. It doesn't take long to chew it up at the rate we're going. I want to speak to Baudette."

He motioned to the bridge and the big tug drew in slowly beside its smaller brother, while he talked to a brown-faced man who leaned over the rail and answered in monosyllables, his sharp eyes taking in the group behind the general manager. The tug sheered off and put on speed, while Wimperley and the rest held their breath as they skirted the straining boom that inclosed the raft. Presently the high, sharp bow turned shoreward, steam was cut off and the tug made fast to the sheer side of a little bluff that rose steeply out of deep water.

Clark stepped out on a narrow gang plank that just reached the land. "You fellows haven't seen this north country yet, and I'd like you to get something of it on foot. This is part of our concession secured from the provincial government and I want you to walk over just a little of it. As directors you ought to."

"Come on," said Wimperley under his breath. "It's the last chapter, he's nearly dry."

The trail was narrow and newly cut. Treading at first on smooth rock, the Philadelphians took it briskly, jumping over stones and logs and pausing now and then at vistas of the lake. They were a little short of breath when the path dipped to low ground and struck straight across a tangled ravine. Here the bush was thicker, and the air warm and moist. Gradually the four coats came off.

"Hold on a minute, Clark," panted Stoughton who was beginning to sweat.

"It's better over here, come along."

But if it was better they did not notice it. Wimperley stumbled over a root and plunged one hand up to the wrist in slimy mud. Riggs was breathing hard and his nostrils dilated, but he plugged doggedly on. Birch, now very red in the face, stepped close behind Stoughton, his cheeks stinging from the swish of branches released by the man just ahead. Stoughton, his heart pumping, was in the lead, and desperately trying to catch the steadily progressing figure of Clark. He felt almost like murder. Ten minutes more and the Philadelphians had lost all traces of refinement. Wimperley's trousers were torn at the knee and his white, scratched skin showed through. Riggs had dropped coat and waistcoat beside the trail, his collar was off, his small body tired and twisted, and from his lips streamed language to which he had long been a stranger. Birch had lagged far behind but plowed on with a cold determination. He was breathing audibly through his nose, his watch chain was dangling on a cedar branch a quarter of a mile back, a sharp pain throbbed in a barked shin and his boots were full of water. Still in the lead was Stoughton, who, regardless of all else, had put down his head and was crashing heavily through the underbrush like a young bull moose answering the call of his distant and amorous mate. Clark was quite invisible. Presently the four halted. Humanity had gone its limit. Birch dragged himself up and they stared at each other with furious eyes.

"Lend me a handkerchief," panted Riggs.

Stoughton felt in his pocket, pulling one out with a cascade of pine needles, when from three hundred feet ahead came a voice:

"I'm where we stop, you fellows, come on up."

"That's just where he is." Birch's difficult speech had something in it that was almost deadly. "He's asked for it and he's going to get it right here. Come on."

They trailed slowly up, a small, bedraggled, indecent procession, lost to everything except utter weariness and a spirit of cold revenge. In Stoughton's heavy heart was the thought that Clark had unexpectedly made their job vastly easier than they anticipated. The latter was on a little knoll that rose roundly from the encircling bush. He seemed cool and comfortable, and this stirred them to deeper anger. His features were expressionless, save that his lips twitched ever so slightly. The Philadelphians dropped and lay limply, and there was silence for perhaps five minutes when Birch lifted a haggard face and spoke.

"Look here, Clark, I don't know the reason for this fool expedition, none of us do, but it serves well enough to lead up to the point of other fool expeditions on a larger scale."

"Yes?" said Clark with a lift in his voice.

"It does. Now I'd like to go back about four years when you said that three millions would do you. In between now and then is a long story and I haven't got breath to tell it, but to-day you've had seven and we're deeper in the woods than ever we were."

"Go ahead, I'm following you."