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."

"The long and the short of it is that we've had enough."

"Of me?" The voice was very quiet.

"Yes, damn it, of you; that is, in your present position of general manager. You can have one or two of the subsidiary companies but not the whole darn thing, and—"

"The point is," cut in Wimperley, "that we're afraid of you. We've not paid a dividend and, as things go, there's not any likelihood that we ever will. It's not easy to talk like this, and don't think we under-estimate what you've done. No other man I know of could have done it, but there's a limit to the money available in the State of Pennsylvania for this business—and we've reached it—that's all."

"And if you want to know what's upset the apple-cart," chirped Riggs with a little shiver—for they were all taking turns by now—"it's that fool proposal to build a railway through this ungodly wilderness." The little man glanced about him with visible abhorrence.

"And a blast furnace without any ore," concluded Stoughton heavily.

Clark's eyes wandered round the group while through his whole body ran a divine thrill. He had very swiftly interpreted the purpose of this official visit. The directors wanted to get rid of him but funked the job, and now he experienced a certain contempt for their helplessness. He had a vivid sense of the dramatic and this tramp had been carefully thought out. The opportunity was made and it was for them to use it. He drew a long breath, conscious that here was the moment which comes but seldom in the lives of men. It was only five years ago that, practically penniless, he had overheard a conversation in a train.

"Ore?" he said coolly without changing a muscle. "Why, you're sitting on five million tons of the best ore I ever saw."

A blue jay lit on a branch over his head and looked impudently down. No one spoke. Presently Wimperley scratched at the moss with his heel, bared a strip of rock and stared at it as though he had hurt it. Stoughton rolled over and shot side glances at Clark, whose eyes were fixed on the jagged horizon.

"What?" whispered Riggs.

"The discovery was made some days ago by one of our own prospectors, but I could not speak definitely until the various analyses were completed. It is excellent ore and will smelt well. There is limestone within two miles of the works. The coke, of course, will have to be brought up.'"

"I'll be damned!" murmured Stoughton in a voice husky with reverence.

The others spoke not at all, but peered blinkingly at Clark as though his recumbent body were hiding more wonders from them. Presently Wimperley, who knew something of ore, bent stiffly forward, picked up a fragment of rock and, after a long scrutiny, nodded slowly.

"This exposure is about half a mile long," said the quiet voice. "It crops out there and there," he pointed to neighboring ridges, "and there's more beyond that, if you'd care to walk over."

But no one cared. The Philadelphians were too lost in fatigue and astonishment. After a little Riggs commandeered the rest and the four began to roll back great blankets of moss, just as Fisette had done the week before, and everywhere beneath lay iron ore. Clark watched them with a suggestive smile till, after a little, Birch sat down panting, his hands stained with soil.

"Well?" he demanded, "how about it?"

"It was something more than three years ago that the first prospector went in," commenced Clark thoughtfully, "and I reported at the time that it was definitely stated by those who ought to know that there was no iron in the country. Geological maps showed the same thing, but it struck me there was too much guess work about them, so we began to make maps of our own. A month ago we got into iron formation and soon after came the discovery. I felt all along that the stuff was there, but could not say anything officially till the analyses were completed. We can lay this ore down at the workers for two dollars a ton. And now," he added in a voice that suddenly changed into sharp and rising tones, "do I get my blast furnace?"

The effect on the group was extraordinary. They had sat motionless, oblivious to fatigue and mosquitoes, while Clark spoke. Their brains were flooded with the knowledge that this meant ultimate permanence to the works. It meant rails and plates and all iron and steel products, and these were made doubly possible by the enormous reserve of power still available in the rapids at St. Marys. They glanced into the woods as though there were still mysterious treasures waiting to be revealed at a wave of the hand of this magician.

Presently Wimperley straightened up. He had been going through a strange searching of soul while his gaze wandered from the glistening rock at his feet to Clark's keen face. He began to perceive clearly for the first time the prodigious potentiality of this man who was equally masterful in Philadelphia and the back woods. He saw to what wide scope this enterprise could expand if only this restless and prophetic spirit might be wisely steered by men of colder brains and more deliberate resolution. But Clark, after all, was the creator.

"Yes," he said half aloud, "you get your blast furnace."

The Philadelphians took to the homeward trail with backward glances and something of regret lest the archaean foundations of that mountain of ore might shift over night. There was no sense of fatigue now. Birch skipped over logs in wayward abandon and laughed like a schoolboy when Clark picked a heavy gold watch chain that dangled from an overhanging bush. Riggs' thin legs were being scratched by the sharp samples with which he had stuffed his trouser pockets, but he felt them not, and Stoughton's choler had given way to a profound contemplation out of which he periodically breathed the conviction that he would be damned. Wimperley was already organizing a new company—an iron corporation—and hazarding shrewd guesses as to the effect this discovery would have on the outstanding stock. The result, he concluded, would be most inspiring.

They lunched on the tug, an admirable meal, while the vessel vibrated gently and through the open portholes came the swish of bubbling water and a flood of sunlight. Then Riggs made a little speech and they all drank Clark's health, promising him continued support and such money as he needed to make steel rails. The threatening specter of Marsham had vanished utterly.

The answer was characteristic. There was no mention of anything the speaker had contributed, but just the voicing of his unalterable faith in a country which so far had never failed to produce whatever the industry required. It was a pleasure for him to work for directors and shareholders who had so practically demonstrated their confidence. He said this with a smile which was absolutely undecipherable, then drank their health in water which was his only drink—-declined one of Wimperley's cigars, for he did not smoke—and inquired quietly if he was to get his railway as well. Whereupon he was immediately assured that he would get anything he asked for.

That evening the Philadelphians left in the private car. They were rather quiet, being caught up in contemplation of a new vision. As the train pulled out Clark waved a hand to the group on the rear platform and returned thoughtfully to the blockhouse where he began to write. The letter was to his mother. He told her that he had been too busy for correspondence of late, and had just concluded a very satisfactory and official visit from his directors. In consequence, he would now be busier than ever. He stared at his own signature for a moment, then opened a window and stood peering out toward the river. The moon was up, and he caught the snowy gleam of foam at the foot of the rapids. Their voice seemed very clear and very triumphant that night. They sang of providence—or was it destiny?

His mind turned reflectively to Elsie Worden, experiencing as yet no thrill but just a growing and satisfying attraction. All things seemed possible tonight. He had never given much thought to women, being impatient with what seemed to him their artifice and slight power of insight. So often the women who were esteemed most praiseworthy, were also the least intelligent, and lacked that spark which to him signified vision. In past years he had had a rooted belief that the standard wife was a burden who not only robbed one of mobility, but also demanded her portion of all moments, however individual, absorbed or tense they might be. In such circumstances there was nothing around which he could build a mental fence and call it his own.

It is possible that in such periods as these, when Clark gave himself up to taking soundings, as it were, in the sea of his destiny, he distinguished in his own nature that curious duality of sex which makes it possible for certain rare individuals to self satisfy their emotional appetites, and that it was this which had kept him single and unfettered. If he had a craving he could forthwith produce that which appeased it. He luxuriated in the revelations of his own perception. To him the inarticulate thing became vocal with possibilities. He was conscious of no unsatisfied need. And yet, for all of this, the vision of the girl, Elsie, began to blend with his thoughts.