"It isn't a case of your meeting her; it's the other way on. You may
never know it, but she will."
Belding glanced at him, puzzled. This was not the Clark he knew ten
minutes ago. And just then the other man pulled himself up.
"I think I'd move that mill about a hundred feet west," he went on,
bending over a drawing. "It will shorten the head race and save money."
The engineer nodded and drew a long breath. He had expected to get a
glimpse of the inner man, but the door was banged in his face.
That winter was, for him, an adventure in regions fascinating and
remote. It is probable that at the time there was not on the North
American continent a man more highly endowed than Clark with gifts of
sheer psychological power. Belding, young in his world, could not
recognize it as such, but he fell the more completely under the
wizard-like spell of his companion's imagination. The days, shortened
by late sun and long nights, passed with early journeys to the
temporary office which Clark had built at the canal, where they
compiled endless surveys and plans in which the scope of the future was
graphically depicted. On these miniature spaces factory shouldered
against factory and mill against mill. The canal doubled in size, and,
stupendous as it all seemed, Belding could see no reason why these
things should not shortly exist. It was vastly different from former
days.
As the weeks passed, he began to get Clark in clearer prospective. It
became forced on him that this hypnotic stranger had no desire except
that of creation. It seemed that his supreme determination was to win
from the earth that which he believed it offered, and express himself
in steel and stone and concrete, in the construction of great buildings
and in the impressive rumble of natural power under human control.
There was talk of many things, colored by keen, incisive comments from
this man of many parts, but never once did he put forward the subject
of wealth or the means of its amassing. The possession, or at least
the direction, of great sums was imperative to him, but he valued them
only for what they could achieve, and Belding always got the sensation
of his new approach to subjects hitherto deemed well worn, and that
remarkable mixture of impatience and intuitive power which
characterized his analysis. Again there were evenings when Clark did
not want to talk, but slipped off to the piano. Then the engineer saw
another man within the man, one who, plunged in profound meditation,
sat for hours, while his strong yet delicate fingers explored the keys,
interpreting the color of his mood and drawing, as it were, from some
mystical source that on which the subtle brain was nourished. And
these were periods which the other soon learned were not to be
interrupted.
They were constantly asked out and entertained with old time
hospitality, Clark being the object of supreme curiosity in St. Marys,
and more often than not he slipped away early, leaving Belding on duty.
It was on these occasions that the contrast between his chief and
others stood out most prominently, there being nothing, it seemed, that
any one could do for him. His principal desire was to be let alone.
It was one night at the Wordens' that Belding caught what he took to be
evidence of a heart that was fastidiously concealed. Clark, in front
of the fireplace, was listening to the judge dilate on the ancient
history of St. Marys, and that of lost and silent tribes who once
paddled along the shore and lifted their delicate bark canoes around
the tumbling rapids. Worden was a wise, old man with a certain gentle
dignity, and his wife, a dainty, middle-aged lady with slowly graying
hair and kindly eyes.
"There was a good deal of bloodshed about," ruminated the judge. "Of
course the Jesuit got here first and performed the mysteries of the
Host in front of the natives. There were Indian wars and a good deal
of torturing went on up on your property, Mr. Clark. Then the French
and English traders shot each other from behind trees, where I
understand you are going to build your pulp mill, and the survivors
took the furs and struck off for Montreal in canoes, a matter of some
six hundred miles. After that the Red River Company and the Hudson Bay
got at loggerheads."
"In short," put in Clark, "I've picked out a veritable battle ground.
By the way, who is this, if I may ask?" He lifted a photograph from
the mantel.
Mrs. Worden smiled proudly. "Our daughter, Elsie. She's seventeen now
and we won't see her for two years. She's in the West with her aunt."
"Oh!" said Clark. His brows pulled down and he scanned the print with
close attention. "She has imagination I take it."
"Too much for her own comfort," remarked the judge.
Clark did not answer but dropped into one of those thoughtful silences
which, while they did not seem to exclude, made it nevertheless appear
presumptuous to rouse him.
"Too much imagination," he repeated presently. "Is that possible?"
Then, after another long stare, "It's a very unusual face."
Mrs. Worden looked very happy. "We're going to take great care of
Elsie when we get her back. She had this long, delightful invitation
and we let her go because we thought she'd see more than she could in|
St. Marys, but she writes that it's even quieter."
"The old St. Marys is nearly at an end and your daughter will find food
for her imagination when she gets back. May I show this to Mr.
Belding?"
The young man took the photograph with a queer sense of participation
in something he did not understand. He saw a broad, low forehead,
masses of soft and slightly curly hair, eyes that looked beautifully
and wistfully, out from beneath finely arched brows and a mouth that
lacked nothing in humorous suggestion. Puzzling for an instant what it
was that had attracted his impersonal chief, he heard the latter saying
good night with customary abruptness.
"Come along, Belding; we've got a long day ahead of us. The directors
will be here to-morrow."
The judge was vastly interested. "So St. Marys is in actual touch with
Philadelphia?"
"Very much so, and in about two years St. Marys will loom very large in
Philadelphia. Good night and thank you."
The wind was stinging and they drove home rather silently. Arriving at
the big house, Clark went to the piano and played for a moment. The
music ceased as suddenly as it began and, warming himself at the great
stove in the hall, Belding heard a short laugh and an exclamation.
"Too much imagination," exploded Clark. The tone was one of utter
incredulity. At that the young man felt curiously truculent. Elsie
was only seventeen, while Clark was certainly not less than
thirty-five. Then the latter reappeared, rubbing his chilled fingers.
"The piano is too stiff with cold to talk. By the way, Worden was
talking about the bishop. What bishop?"
Belding told him what he knew. "He's an Irishman and a fine man. He
works this part of his diocese from St. Marys in the summer. One hears
all kinds of stories about him from the woods and the islands. He's
got a sense of humor and is a good sportsman, but I've only met him
once or twice. Just now he's over in England raising money to buy a
small yacht to navigate himself when he's traveling on duty, and
weather won't stop him if he gets it. You'll see him next spring."
Clark seemed interested. "I don't know many parsons but that doesn't
describe them to me. A sportsman and a sense of humor, eh? It sounds
like a hunting parson. I thought they were all dead."
"This one isn't."
"St. Marys begins to offer more than I expected," smiled his chief.
"Are you going to bed, or will you sit here and freeze to death?"
Riggs, Stoughton, and Wimperley came up next day. Clark met them at
the station, where a bitter wind was droning down from the north, and
Belding, by engineering of a high order, made room for them at his
quarters. Then they drove out to the canal, and with Clark climbed the
icy embankment while the latter expounded the situation.
"There," he said cheerfully, "will be the first power house, and there
mill number one."
Riggs, a small thin-blooded man, peered at the glassy landscape.
"Splendid," he chattered, while Stoughton pulled his fur collar over
his ears and set his back to the wind.
"Up at the north end,--you can see it better if you step a little this
way--will be the head gates. That railway trestle--you see that
trestle don't you, Wimperley?--"
Wimperley pulled himself together, but his feet had lost all feeling.
"Yes, any one could see that."
"Well, that will be replaced by a steel bridge at the railway's
expense. We propose to widen the canal at that point to one hundred
feet at the bottom, and now--" here he seized the unfortunate Stoughton
and swung him so that he faced into the chilling blast--"I want to
point out the booming ground for logs."
Stoughton muttered something that sounded like strong condemnation of
all logs, but Clark did not seem to hear him.
"They'll come round that point, swing into the bay and feed down this
way to the mill. You get that, don't you?"
They all got it, at least so they earnestly assured the speaker who
stood with his overcoat half unbuttoned, his cap on the back of his
head and apparently oblivious of the temperature. This frigid and
desolate scene had no terrors for him. Beneath the icy skin he
discovered its promise.
"There'll be two booms--one for pulp wood and the other for hard wood
for the veneer mills. You make hard wood float by driving plugs of
lighter wood into both ends of the log. And now, if you'll step down
this way, I'll show you where the dredges will start work."
"Look here," said Riggs in a quavering voice, "what's the matter with
my cheek? I can't feel it."
Clark glanced at him and shook with sudden laughter. "Only a bit of
frost bite,--perhaps we'd better go back to the office. It's a pity,
though,"--here he hesitated a little--"there's quite a lot more to see."
Whereupon Riggs and the other two at once assured him that unless they
sought shelter forthwith they would flatly refuse to authorize the
expenditure of any more money whatever in a country as blasted as this.
After which they repaired to the office, where Belding waited with his
blue prints and Clark outlined the possible future. As he put it,
these developments were only possible and depended on what that future
might bring forth. But as he talked, Belding, for one, knew that the
whole magnificent program had been definitely determined in that
astonishing brain.
They drove back in the open sleigh and the horses, chilled in the cold,
sent the snow flying about their ears. There was but little talk and
it was not until they drew abreast of a stone building that Stoughton
spoke.
"Nice jail you've got here," he remarked with a grin. "Looks as if
they had been expecting our crowd."
Clark laughed. "It's the home of the only pessimist I have found in
St. Marys."
"Then let's drop in and convert him." Stoughton was feeling warmer,
and the keen, dry air and brilliant sun affected him like wine.
There was an instantaneous shout of approval, and three school boys in
the shape of the three most influential men of Philadelphia rolled
happily out of the sleigh. Riggs turned with mischief in his eye and a
bright red patch on his cheek.
"Come on, Clark; we need something like this after the dose you have
given us."
At the trampling of feet, Manson looked out of the window, then stepped
deliberately to the door. The next minute Clark was busy introducing.
"Mr. Manson, this is Mr. Wimperley, auditor of the Columbian Railway
Company; Mr. Riggs, president of the Philadelphia Bank, and Mr.
Stoughton, of the American Iron Works. We're all cold and cast
ourselves on your mercy. They've had enough power canal for to-day."
Manson waved them in with just the gesture with which he motioned a
prisoner into the dock. It was the only gesture he knew. His brain
was working with unwonted rapidity, and he glanced questioningly at
Clark, but the face of the latter was impassive. The visitors grouped
themselves round the big box stove that was stuffed with blazing
hardwood.
"Lived here long, Mr. Manson?" hazarded Riggs, stretching his thin
fingers to the heat.
"All my life, gentlemen, and I don't want anything else."
"You haven't been in jail for that time?" put in the irrepressible
Stoughton.
The big man relaxed to a smile. "I've been in charge here for the last
twenty-five years, and I like it."
The three glanced at him with a sudden and genuine interest. The man
was so massive; his hair so black, and, at the age of fifty, still
unstreaked with gray. His face was large and strong, with a certain
Jovian quality in cheek, ear, and chin. He suggested latent physical
powers that, if aroused, would be tremendous.
"Find it pretty quiet?" went on Stoughton.
"Yes, but that's what I like."
"Then you don't entirely approve of our plans up at the rapids? At
least, so Mr. Clark tells me."
Manson's glance lifted and went straight into Clark's gray eyes.
"No, I don't believe in them, if," he added, "I can say so without
offense."
Riggs stripped off his heavy fur coat, and turned his back to the stove.
"Just why, may I ask?"
"Well, I have a feeling you'll spoil St. Marys. It's just right as it
is. We haven't much excitement and I reckon we don't want it. We're
comfortable, so why can't you let us alone? I like the life as it is."
"You'll live faster after we get going," chuckled Wimperley.
"Perhaps, but we won't live so long. I've had a lot of men through my
hands who tried to live faster, and it didn't agree with them--not that
I'm meaning--" The rest was lost in a riot of laughter, out of which
Wimperley's voice became audible.
"If things go as we propose and expect, the people of St. Marys will
profit very considerably,--there will be remarkable opportunities."
"Meaning that,--" a new light flickered in Manson's black eyes for a
fraction of a second and disappeared.
"Meaning that during the transformation of a village into a city a
number of interesting changes take place."
"Maybe, but such things can't affect me very much."
"Well, possibly not, but I've an idea they will. I'm afraid we can't
let St. Marys alone, Mr. Manson, and a little later on you'll
understand why. This land, for instance, between us and the river, is
vacant."
Manson's eye slowly traversed the two hundred yard width of the open
field that lay just south of the road. It was perhaps half way between
the rapids and the center of the village.
"Yes, I think Worden owns it, but I know that no one wants it."
"Ah!" said Stoughton with a little laugh; "and now we must be getting
on. Good-by, and thank you for saving our lives, even if you have had
a crack at our project."
There was a sound of laughing voices on the porch and a jangle of
sleigh bells that dwindled toward the village, but Manson did not seem
to hear them. He stood blocking up the window, his hands thrust deep
in his pockets, staring at the vacant lot across the street.
Dinner that night cost Belding much searching of soul. "There'll be
three more," Clark had said, and forgotten all about it, but when the
Philadelphians sat down Belding's heart sank. On the table was a leg
of mutton, placed hastily by an agitated servant lest it freeze between
kitchen and dining room. Even while Belding carved it the gravy began
to stiffen. Behind Clark was a glowing fireplace, ineffectual against
the outside temperature, the windows were white with frost and the
whole house seemed to creak.
"Have some mutton," said the young man desperately.
Riggs rubbed his thin hands. "Thanks, I'm very fond of mutton. Do you
mind if I put on my overcoat? The floor seems a little cold." He
disappeared and returned muffled to the ears.
"You'd better hurry up with your food," said Clark soberly. "The human
stomach cannot digest frozen sheep." He glanced at Wimperley and
Stoughton. "What's the matter with you fellows?"
The two visitors coughed and apologized and went in search of their
overcoats. Clark began to laugh. "And to think that you three are
going back to furnaces and steam heat. Do you realize what Belding and
I are going through on your behalf?"
They got through the meal somehow, but Belding was utterly abashed.
The visitors played with the congealing mutton, poked at forbidding
potatoes, absorbed large quantities of scalding tea and then hastened
back to the big stove. Belding felt a hand on his shoulder.
"It's my fault. We should have let them go to the hotel. I suppose
we're used to it, they're not."