Move now to Philadelphia, long since linked with St. Marys by a private wire, at either end of which sat the confidential operators of the Company. The seed sown by Clark a few years ago had flourished amazingly. Instead of the austerity of Wimperley's office there was now the quiet magnificence of the Consolidated Company's financial headquarters, tenanted by a small battalion of clerks and officials. These were the metropolitan evidence of the remote activities in St. Marys.

To thousands of Pennsylvanians this office was a focal point of extreme interest. From it emanated announcements of work by which they were vitally affected, for Clark had come to Philadelphia at the psychological moment and cast his influence on those who were accredited leaders in the community. He had said that millions waited investment and he was right, for once Wimperley, Stoughton and Riggs had satisfied themselves as to the project and announced their support, money began to come in, at first in a slow trickle, but soon in a steadily increasing flood.

It was recognized that time was required to bring to fruition the various undertakings so rapidly conceived, and Clark's shareholders had in them a certain stolid deliberation, aided, perhaps, by a strain of Dutch ancestry. This kept money moving in a steady stream and in the desired direction. From Philadelphia the attraction spread to outside points. It was noticeable that, with the exception of Pennsylvania, other States did not evidence any appreciable interest. The thing was a Philadelphia enterprise, and to this city from neighboring villages came a growing demand for stock.

Four years before this, St. Marys was practically unknown in Philadelphia, but now at thousands of breakfast tables the morning papers were hurriedly turned over in search of the closing quotation of Clark's various companies. These began to increase in number, and there commenced that gigantic pyramid in which the various stories were interdependent and dovetailed with all the art of the financial expert. Daily, it might be said, the interest grew, until it seemed that the potent voice of the rapids had leaped the intervening leagues and its dull vibrations were booming in the ears of thousands.

Moving in the procession was one whose training did not permit of wholesale surrender to the cause. Wimperley was a railway man and had, in consequence, a keen eye for results. His normal condition of mind was one in which he balanced operating costs against traffic returns and analyzed the results. And Wimperley was getting anxious. The profits from the pulp mill, for there were profits, had gone straight into other undertakings, and the god of construction who reigned at St. Marys demanded still further offerings. This was why Wimperley had persuaded Birch, one of the keenest and most cold blooded financial men in the city, to come on the board. Birch, he reckoned, would be the necessary balance-wheel, and it was safe betting that he would not yield to the mesmeric influence of the man in St. Marys. Now Stoughton and Riggs and Birch had met him in the Consolidated office, and through a pale, gray haze of cigar smoke Wimperley spoke that which was in his mind.

"The thing is going too fast," he concluded. "My God! How much money has that man spent?"

Birch fingered a straggling gray beard. He was a tall man, lean and silent, with a tight mouth, sallow cheeks and cold eyes. It was said he had never been caught napping, and his was one of those fortunes which are acquired in secrecy. He was neither companionable nor magnetic but he was obviously shrewd and astute and created a sense of confidence which, though chilling, was none the less reassuring. Birch, like the rest, had met Clark, but now he put the vision of those remarkable eyes out of his head.

"Seven millions and a half up to last Saturday."

Stoughton made a thick little noise in his throat. He knew it was something over seven millions, but the figures sounded differently as Birch gave them. Then Wimperley's voice came in.

"Had a letter yesterday, Clark wants to build a railway."

"Why?" squeaked Riggs.

"To bring down pulp wood from new areas which are not on the river. He wants to open up the country generally—says it is full of natural resources."

"Is there any dividend in sight?" demanded Stoughton bluntly.

Followed a little silence and the long thin fingers of Birch began an intermittent tap on the polished table. Presently Wimperley glanced up and smiled dryly. He had not known that Birch understood the Morse code. "Birch has told you," he said.

Stoughton and the rest looked puzzled.

"We can't pay a dividend if we let Clark build this railway."

"Then why build it?"

"Clark claims it is necessary to secure a dependable supply of spruce for the pulp mills, and hard wood for the veneer works. He reckons it will cost two million, and says the Government will help—but perhaps they won't." He broke off, rather red in the face.

"Do any of you fellows remember Marsham?" put in Birch quietly.

Stoughton looked up. "Only too well, what about him?"

"Well, you know he's been gunning for me for years since that Alabama scrap in which he got knocked out. Now he's gunning for all of us."

"Why?" demanded Wimperley.

"Because I have the present privilege of being associated with you. I had it privately from perfectly reliable sources. Marsham's looking for a hole in the Consolidated, and if he finds one he's going to get busy and you know what that means. So far we're all right because we've got the Dutch farmer behind us and his money is coming in, in a good steady trickle. It's our job to keep it trickling till we get out of the woods into which our prophet has led us."

Wimperley nodded gravely. "That sounds good to me. But I've got something else in my mind."

"Well," snapped Birch, "spit it out."

"I've got to go back a bit to a day you'll all remember, except you,
Birch."

"The day of hypnosis?" suggested Stoughton.

"I guess it was, if you like to put it that way. We were satisfied with what Clark told us and what we afterwards saw for ourselves, and we found him three millions, then another and another and so on. Now, as it stands and as it goes, I don't see any end to this thing. It's like throwing money into the rapids at St. Marys—a fresh sweep of water comes and carries it away. You see it glint for a moment and there's apparently no bottom to the river. The trouble with Clark is that he is not equipped with brakes. He can't stop. He's always the roof on one station and, at the same time, contracting for another one still further on. We've got to do the braking, that's all." He turned to Riggs, "How about it?"

"Well," said the little man out of the corner of his mouth. "It's our funeral just as much as Clark's. Why didn't we apply the brakes long ago?"

"You know as well as I do."

"I'm damned if I do."

"It's just because we're better business men in Philadelphia than we are when we get to St. Marys," grunted Stoughton reflectively. "We're outside the charmed circle down here, but when we get up there," he waved his hand, while the end of his cigar glowed like a miniature volcano, "we get locoed, the whole bunch of us."

"And yet," said Birch reflectively, "there's nothing the matter."

Wimperley leaned forward. "Go on."

"It's simple enough, we're not using Clark properly."

"Isn't seven millions proper?" boomed Stoughton.

"You don't get me," Birch spoke in a thin dry voice totally devoid of any emphasis. "The proper use of a man like that is the purpose for which nature designed him. He's an originator—but not an executive. Dividends don't interest him half as much as the foundations of a new mill."

Wimperley shook his head. "That may be all right, but from my point of view he has become dangerous. He surmounts our resolutions, the ones we make when our pulse is normal. I have never seen him fail to carry his point. Take the matter of this railway. I don't mind betting that if we go up there to-morrow to kill that road we'll be committed to it in twenty-four hours."

"I'll take that for a thousand." There was a spot of faint color in
Birch's hollow cheeks.

Wimperley laughed. "I'm on. What about lunch and finish this afterwards?"

But Stoughton sat tight. "You'll go too far. Suppose that Clark gets on his ear and tells us to run the thing in our own way, and that he'll get out. As I see it, he holds the works together and represents the works in the mind of every one who knows him."

"Well, what if he does drop out? There's no living man who can't be replaced."

"Except one called Robert Fisher Clark. As a first consequence our stocks drop on the Philadelphia exchange like a wet sponge. You can imagine the rest—-you all know enough about the market, and, by the way, does any one happen to remember the various things we have publicly said about that same individual?"

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.