Part 28

"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?"