Part 24

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?"