The gray eyes narrowed a little. "You have discovered that the rapids
talk back?"
"They have told me all kinds of things ever since I was a child. When
did you find it out?" Elsie's voice lifted a little.
"The very first day I reached St. Marys, almost the first hour." He
was wondering inwardly why he should talk thus to any one.
"I'm so glad," she answered contentedly, "because they must have told
you to do many things, and you've done them. But I can't half answer
what they say to me."
Clark studied her silently. Her face was not only beautiful but
supremely intelligent, and had, moreover, the signet of imagination.
She was, he concluded, utterly truthful and courageous.
"I wonder you get time to come here at all," she hazarded after a
thoughtful pause.
"It is time well spent." He pointed to the heaped crests in midstream.
"The solution of many a problem lies out there; I've got one to think
of now."
Had Elsie been an ordinary girl she would have disappeared forthwith,
but between them sped something that convinced her that he wanted her
to stay.
"Am I allowed to know what it is?"
"It's this." Clark took a fragment of rock from his pocket and laid it
in her palm.
"What is it?" she said curiously.
"Gold!"
"Oh!" The color flew to her cheeks and her eyes became very bright.
"Where did it come from and who found it?"
"About sixty miles from here, and Fisette found it--he's one of my
prospectors."
"He's the man who discovered iron for you?"
"Yes."
"How very extraordinary," she said under her breath.
"Why should it be?"
"The last time we talked you had just found iron, and now it's gold.
This is even more wonderful, isn't it?"
He shook his head. "It's pretty--but not nearly so important."
Something in the girl's manner attracted him strangely and he went on
talking as he seldom talked. Her eyes never left his face.
"Yes," she said presently, "I'm glad to understand. But the strange
thing to me is that all these people," here she pointed towards the
works, "are doing things they would not have done if you hadn't come.
Why is that?"
"Some people think that the most successful man is the one who gets
others to work the hardest for him," said Clark, smiling.