A year passed and the folk of St. Marys had not yet accustomed themselves to drawing water from a tap and turning on the light with a switch ere Clark began a frontal attack on the resources of the country to the north. It was typical of his methods that he invariably used new agencies by which to approach affairs which, in the main, differed from those already existing. Thus he called on many and widely separated individuals, who, answering his imperious summons, fell straightway under the spell of his remarkable personality, and found themselves shortly in positions of increasing responsibility. They became the heads of various activities, but, in a way, the secondary heads, for Clark retained all kingship for himself. So it came that as months passed he was surrounded by a constantly increasing band of active and loyal retainers.

Such was John Baudette, for whom Clark had sent to talk pulp wood, but, it is recorded, that Baudette’s manner and bearing changed not at all when Clark stared at him across the big flat topped desk and remarked evenly that he wanted pulp wood and was assured that there was an ample supply within fifty miles.

Baudette’s hard blue eyes met the stare placidly. “Yes, there is pulp wood north of here.”

“I know it, because I’ve had some,” said Clark, “but I want fifty thousand cords next May and seventy-five thousand the year after.”

Baudette felt in a way more at home, but he had never contemplated seventy-five thousand cords of wood. “Am I to go and take it?”

Clark laughed, then settled back with the shadow of a smile on his lips, and bent on the woodsman that swift inspection which discomforted so many. It embarrassed Baudette not at all. He was rather small and of slight build, but he was constructed in the manner of a bundle of steel wire that enfolds a heart of inflexible determination. On casual inspection he did not appear to be a strong man, but his body was a mass of tireless sinew. His eyes were of that cold, hard blue which is the color of fortitude, his face clean shaven and rather thin; his jaw slightly underhung, his lips narrow and tightly compressed. In demeanor he was quiet and almost shy, but it was the quietness of one who has spent his days in the open, and the shyness of a life which has dealt with simple things in a simple but efficient way. The longer Clark looked at him the more he liked this new discovery. Presently he began to talk.

“I want a man to take charge of my forest department, and one who has got his experience at the expense of some one else. We need pulp wood in larger quantities than have been required in this country before. Next year we begin to grind wood that you will cut this winter.”

The little man neither moved nor took his eyes from Clark’s face, and the latter, with the faintest twitch of his lip, went on.

“I’m satisfied that this wood exists in ample quantities and the rest is up to you. You can have any reasonable salary you ask for.”

“Where are the timber limits?” Baudette said quietly. He was, apparently, uninterested in the matter of salary.

Clark flattened out a big map of the district that obliterated the piles of letters and telegrams. Baudette’s eyes brightened. He loved maps, but never before had he seen one so minute and comprehensive.

“That’s compiled from all available surveys and records. It took three months to make it. I was getting ready for you.”

Baudette nodded. He was interested in how the thing was compiled, and his eyes traced the birth and flow of rivers and the great sweep of well remembered lakes. Presently Clark’s voice came in again.

“Where’s the best pulp wood? We’ve been getting it from everywhere.”

A lean brown forefinger slid slowly over the edge of the map. Clark noted its delicacy and strength. It halted a moment at St. Marys, then, as though Baudette counted the miles, traversed the shore of Superior and turned into a great bay to the westward. At the belly of the bay the finger struck inland following a wide river, and halted in a triangle of land where the river forked. Baudette looked up and nodded.

“Ah!” said Clark thoughtfully. “How much good wood is there?”

The forefinger commenced an irregular course during which it struck into salients that followed up lesser and tributary streams. It had enclosed perhaps five hundred square miles of Canadian territory when it reached its starting point.

“Four years’ wood.” Baudette’s voice was still impressive.

The other man smiled as though in subdued mirth, and with a red pencil outlined the area. Following this his eyes rested contemplatively on the lumberman who sat still focussed on the map.

“Come back in two weeks,” he said suddenly. “Good morning.”

Baudette glanced at him, and went out so quietly that there was not the sound of a footstep. Clark’s manner of speech and person had set him thinking as never before. Ten thousand cords of wood a year was the usual order of things, but of fifty thousand cords he had never dreamed.

He had a new set of sensations which filled him with a novel confidence in his own powers. He was reacting, like all the others, to the intimate touch of a communicative confidence. He passed thoughtfully through the general office, noting as he closed the door that on a bench near Clark’s door sat Fisette, a French halfbreed whom he knew. He remarked also that Fisette’s pockets were bulging, it seemed, with rocks.

A moment later Fisette was summoned. He went in, treading lightly on the balls of his feet, and leaning forward as though under a load on a portage. Clark’s office always frightened him a little. The rumble of the adjoining power house, the great bulk of the buildings just outside, the masses of documents, all of this spoke of an external power that puzzled and, in a way, worried him. He halted suddenly in front of the desk.

“Well?” said Clark, without offering him a seat, for Fisette was more at ease when he stood.

The half breed felt in his pockets. The other unrolled a duplicate of the map he had shown Baudette and held out his hand, in which Fisette placed some pieces of rock.

At the weight and chill of them, Clark experienced a peculiar thrill, then, under a magnifying glass he examined each with extreme care, turning them so that the light fell fair on edge and fracture. One after another he scrutinized, while the breed stood motionless.

“Where do they come from?” he said shortly.

The breed made a little noise in his throat, and his dark eyes rested luminously on the keen face. After a little he gathered the samples and disposed them on the map, laying each in that corner of the wilderness from which it had been broken. He did this with the deliberation of one who knew beyond all question. He had brought months of hardship and exposure in his pocket. By swamp and hill, valley and lake and rapid he had journeyed alone in search of the gray, heavy, shiny rock of which Clark had, months before, given him a fragment, with curt orders to seek the like. The small, angular pieces were all arranged, and his chief stared at them with profound geological interest. Fisette did not move. He had looked forward to this moment.

“They’re no good,” came the level voice, after a pause, “but you’re in the right country. Go back for another two months. You’ll get it yet. It should be near this,” he picked up a sample. “Take what men you want, or no, don’t take any. I want you to do this yourself, and don’t talk. Good morning.”

Fisette nodded dumbly. The moment had come and gone and he felt a little paralyzed.

“Here, have a cigar.”

He took one, such a cigar as he had never seen, large, dark and fat with a golden band around its plump middle. He glanced at Clark, who apparently had forgotten him, and went silently out. On the doorstep he paused, slid off the golden band and put it in his pocketbook, cupped a lighted match between his polished palms, took one long luxurious breath and started thoughtfully to town with worship and determination in his breast.

Clark, from the office window, was looking down at his broad back in a moment of abstraction. At Fisette’s departure he had suddenly plunged into one of those moods so peculiar to his temperament. Beside the halfbreed he seemed to perceive Stoughton, and with Baudette he discerned the figure of Riggs, and so on till there were marshalled before him the whole battalion of those who were caught up in the onward march. He realized, without any hesitation, that should Baudette fail in his work, the magnificent bulk of the great pulp mill would be but a futile shell. And should the prospecting pick of the half-breed not uncover that which he sought, the entire enterprise would lack its basic security. But it was characteristic of the man that this vision brought with it no depression, but seemed rather to point to ultimate success in the very blending of diverse elements that strove together towards the same end.

Two weeks later, Baudette returned and looked questioningly at his chief. In very few words he explained that the fortnight had been spent in the woods and that what he had said was correct.

Clark listened silently. Here was a man to his liking. When the lumberman finished he again unrolled the big map, but this time instead of the wavering red pencil line, there was the bold demarcation of a much greater area, which Belding’s draughtsman had plotted in professional style. In the middle of it was the territory Baudette had previously indicated.

“I thought we’d better be safe, and got this from the Government. Go to the chief accountant in the outside office. Give him an estimate of what money you need for the next six months and get to work Good morning.”

Baudette merely nodded and disappeared. There was too much in his mind to admit of expressing it, but, even had he felt conversational, there was a finality about his dismissal that left no opening. He went away charged with a grim determination. Here was the chance he had been waiting for all his life.

And Clark had, by this time, labelled Baudette as a valuable and dependable man. He forthwith forgot all about him, and went back to the memory of Baudette’s forefinger as it pushed its way up to the Magwa River. It flashed upon him that, in the course of a vehemently active life, he had built practically all things save one. At that he fell into a reverie which ended with the pressing of a button that flashed a small red light on Belding’s desk. A moment later he glanced keenly at his chief engineer.

“Belding, you have done railway work. What does a standard gauge road cost in this country?”

“Where is the road to be built?” Belding displayed no surprise. The time for that had long passed, and, he silently concluded, the presidency of a railroad would suit Clark admirably.

“Up the Magwa River.”

“And the maximum grades?”

“Suitable for freight haulage to this point. We run with the water,” added Clark with one of his rare smiles, “you ought to know that.”

“About thirty thousand a mile,” answered Belding steadily, the trouble being that when his chief’s imagination took strong hold of him he was apt to diverge from the point.

“Then you will send out survey parties and get detailed estimates when the surveys are in.”

“How far is the road to run? The head waters of the Magwa are one hundred and fifty miles from its mouth.”

Clark’s lips tightened a little. “As far as the pulp wood is good. I don’t care how far that is and, Belding

“Yes, sir.”

“I have decided to double the size of the mill. Let me have plans and estimates for that too.”

Belding went on, his head swimming, and walked slowly toward the head gates through which Lake Superior flowed obediently to do Clark’s will. It seemed now that his chief had reached the point where the god in the machine must make some grievous error. He was insatiable. Presently two figures approached. One was Judge Worden, the other a girl. The former waved his stick.

“We’re going to see Mr. Clark. Elsie, this is Mr. Belding.”

The girl smiled and put out a slim hand. “I’ve heard all about you did you make all this?” Her brown eyes roved, taking in the great sweep of rising structures.

“In a way, yes,” he laughed, “that is I did what I was told.”

“Mr. Belding is chief engineer,” put in the judge assuringly.

She nodded. “You told me. I I think it’s rather wonderful. If anything had to happen to the rapids, this is just right.”

Belding made no immediate answer. He was studying the girl’s face, her supple figure, and the intelligence that marked every expression. It struck him that she was meant to be some man’s comrade.

“I’m glad you like it,” he said a little awkwardly, “there’s lots more to come.”

The judge touched Elsie’s arm. “That’s what I want to hear about at the block house, and I hope you’ll have supper with us next Sunday, Mr. Belding. I hear you are too busy for a weekday diversion.”

Elsie smiled approval and they turned down the long embankment.

Belding looked after them with a shade of resentment. She was, he had decided, just like her photograph. In the distance he had seen Clark walking quickly towards his visitors. They met a hundred yards away and Clark’s eyes began to twinkle.

“How do you do. I seem to know you quite well already.”

Elsie flushed. She had pictured Clark in her romantic brain, but this trim figure resembled none of her expectations.

“I’m very sorry,” he went on quickly, “that urgent business will keep me in the office all afternoon. I’ve just a few minutes.”

“Then we’ll be off at once,” announced the judge.

“Not at all, if there’s anything here to interest you, the place is yours.”

Elsie glanced at him curiously. She was conscious both of disappointment and of a certain invitational thrill. His assurance was not just what she had looked for, but yet it stimulated her thought. He was very different from every one else. Decision marked him and a flash that was breathless seemed to reach her. Imagination lay in his quick change of expression and in the depths of the gray eyes. This was the man who dreamed great dreams.

“The next time you are up this way I hope you and your friends will come to the block house.” He was looking at her with evident interest. “You may not like it, but, I think you will, it makes a background for this”; he pointed to the works, “and I find it restful. I live quite alone except for a Japanese cook, and,” he added with a laugh, “he’s part of the background.”

Elsie accepted and, for an instant, caught Clark’s full glance. In a fraction of time there passed between them a swift and subconscious exchange of understanding that subsided almost ere it was born. Then he took off his hat and hastened towards his office.

For a little while she did not speak, for she was filled with the perception that between herself and this stranger lay something they held in common. Could it be imagination?

“What do you think of Mr. Belding?” asked the judge reflectively as he stepped round a shattered boulder.

Elsie started. “Why do you ask?”

The judge’s brows went up. “Why shouldn’t I?”

The girl pulled herself together with an effort. “I was thinking of something else when you spoke, he seems very nice indeed.”

“He has a good salary, a good position and a good future,” hazarded the judge. “I’m glad you like him.”

Later that evening, Belding turned homeward, his work finished, and, walking close to the shore, looked across the black river to the blaze of light at the works. On one side and low down he made out the glow from the block-house windows. He could imagine Clark at the piano.

But his chief had deserted the piano and given himself up to a rare hour of retrospect. He was under no misapprehension with regard to St. Marys. The town was growing in jerky spurts, as the old inhabitants took on new courage, or new blood came in from outside. Filmer, who with the exception of Bowers and Belding, was closer to Clark than any of the rest, enlarged his store, and new shops began to appear nearer the rapids. Manson’s premises were populated with an assortment from the small army of laborers at the works, and a new hotel was under construction. But, in the main, it was only by stress of business demands that any expansion was made. The strangers, who constantly appeared on the streets, ceased to be a cause of curiosity, and the folk of St. Marys left it to them to start new enterprises.

As to Clark, himself, he began to be almost invisible to the townspeople. There was nothing, after all, to bring him to town. Others came to him. And ever the call of the rapids grew louder and more dominant in his active brain. Others slept when he was awake, and his imagination, caught up in a tremendous belief in the future of the country, explored the horizon for new avenues and enterprises, while the conclusions of his prophetic mind filled him with unfailing confidence. He had now achieved the ability to arrive intuitively at results reached by others after long and arduous labor. This faculty was one of his outstanding gifts, no less than his mesmeric and communicative influence.