Chapter 3

There were a few added instructions after which Belding went downstairs in a somewhat dazed condition. Then, suddenly, he remembered that no mention had been made of salary. Turning back he rapped at Clark's door.

"There is one thing we did not discuss," he said a little awkwardly.

"What's that?"

"What are you willing to give me a month. I'm apparently engaged and I'd like to know where I stand."

Clark laughed shortly. "My invariable practice is to pay every cent my employees can earn; the more I pay the better I like it. Good evening."

Later that afternoon the engineer walked thoughtfully up to the power canal. It seemed incredible that it should no longer be abandoned. Staring at this uncompleted effort, he felt infused with a hot and overwhelming loyalty. Whatever was good in him he would put into the work. He did not dream of the magnitude of his coming trust, but had a sensation that the curtain was about to rise on a new scene. He was, perhaps, more than the rest impressed with the visitor's force and hypnotic power which seemed prophetic and almost mystical. Then his glance, wandering down stream, caught a trace of smoke where the afternoon steamer was disappearing round a bend.

Clark had gone off by the afternoon boat, explaining to Filmer that he desired to get a glimpse of some other parts of the country. Now he sat immovably in a corner of the deck, wrapped in a thick overcoat and speaking to none. In his hand was a copy of the town agreement. He ran over it musingly till he came to the clause which set forth his new obligations, and at this point his lips tightened a little. Had he at that moment been able to realize every worldly possession he had he might have cleared up twenty-five hundred dollars but certainly not five thousand. A glint came into his eyes as he read. The agreement set forth in Bowers' best phraseology that Robert Fisher Clark of Philadelphia, financier,--and at the sound of the last word Clark smiled a little,--hereby undertook to spend in various works not less than three million dollars in the next five years, failing which his title to the town's former holdings would automatically lapse.

The vessel moved smoothly on. Reviewing the last few days with perfect placidity, he sent his mind back to other notable occasions when success had been snatched from him, it seemed, at the very last moment. The review did not depress him. He was not of that kind, but was filled rather with a new and inflexible determination.

The dream and the vision broadened. As the vessel swung into the long turn that leads round the first big bend, he glanced back and caught the wide white line of foam below the spidery bridge. As he gazed the wooded ground to the north of the rapids seemed to be covered with great stone buildings whose walls lifted like mystic battlements in the green wilderness. He saw railways plunging into the forest and heard the rumble of trains that drew up to his phantom factories. He saw the river and the lakes furrowed with ships that came to St. Marys with foreign cargoes and, charged full with his products, turned their slim bows to distant lands. All this and much more passed in royal procession before his thoughtful eye. Then something seemed to leap through his brain and he stood erect, masterful and undaunted.

"And now," he said to himself with a touch of grim humor, "now perhaps I'd better find some money."

III.--PHILADELPHIA HEARS ABOUT ARCADIA

Follow Clark a little further, for he was making history. He did not think of this but had merely set a determined face toward his guiding star. The vision was still clear and sharp when he reached Philadelphia, reinspired by a series of swift calculations that were as swiftly stowed away for suitable use in his retentive brain. There were also three names--Wimperley, Riggs, and Stoughton.

The morning after he arrived he went to see the first of his prospects. Wimperley was the auditor of a great railway system, and when Clark's name was brought in he looked up from his desk and announced shortly: "Busy, can't see him," which was really what Clark expected.

Now the influence by which Clark forced and carried out this interview with Wimperley need not be succinctly described, nor the half amused, half resentful surrender with which Wimperley finally said, "Show him in," but it is indicative of that power of hypnosis which Clark could exert at will, and by means of which, time and time again, he dissolved antagonism into support and the murky solution of criticism into the clean precipitate of confident reassurance. Wimperley knew perfectly well that, once admitted, Clark would convert him to his own present belief, whatever that might be, and that under Clark's magnetic persuasion he would shortly find himself treading a totally unexpected path.

"Good morning. I'd like to have fifteen minutes." Clark was inwardly amused, but he spoke with perfect gravity.

Wimperley drew a long breath. He knew what could happen in fifteen minutes. "What's the scheme now?"

"Power and pulp," said Clark briefly, and, turning to a large railway map on the wall laid a finger on the point where Lake Superior falls into Lake Huron.

"Go ahead."

"I have acquired the right to develop any desired quantity of energy. This can be done for eighty dollars a horsepower. The country to the north is full of pulp wood, but the people up there don't know it."

Wimperley felt a throb of interest. The power question in Philadelphia was up at the moment, but it was power developed from coal and it came high.

"What else?" he said evenly, "and how do you know it?"

"Seven different lumbermen have offered to contract for ten thousand cords a year. That's all I had time to talk to. The point is that each has individual knowledge of good stands of timber in his own locality but the thing has never been collated. Now look here," went on Clark, with a new light in his gray eyes--"there's power and wood; excellent transportation; iron ore--without question--in the hills; limestone at hand; cheap labor; no local competition, and--"

"Wait a minute," struck in Wimperley hastily and pressed a bell.

"Telephone Mr. Riggs and Mr. Stoughton and see if they can come over for a moment," he said to his secretary, then, turning to Clark, "better wait for them."

Silence fell in the office. Both men were thinking hard. Wimperley, beginning to be resigned, had, in a burst of revolt, visualized Riggs and Stoughton as those most likely to help with the barricade which Clark was already beginning to shatter, and Clark, his face as imperturbable as ever, marveled not at all at his own influence, but was busy reviewing the strategic moves which were to convert the two for whom he waited. Presently they entered, shook hands with a certain stiffness and sat down. A glance at Clark revealed the reason for Wimperley's summons. They, too, had in former years come under the spell.

"Now," said Wimperley briefly.

Clark recapitulated, and the three listened, their faces devoid of expression save when their eyes involuntarily sought each other.

The voice went on vibrant and compelling. "We can turn out seventy-five thousand tons of pulp a year at a profit of six dollars a ton. There is an abundance of hard wood for veneer mills. I have five hundred acres of land adjoining the power canal; it is crossed by the Transcontinental Railway; I have been to Ottawa and am promised a bonus of ten thousand dollars a mile for such railways as we may build. The balance of the cost will be met by the sale of lands thus developed, and thus the railways will not mean any permanent investment on our part, but we will, nevertheless, own them. I am also authorized to divert from the rapids any water I may require for power. I have been to see the Provincial Government and am promised exclusive control of any mineral or lumber areas applied for. The market for pulp is very good and will shortly be better owing to the exhaustion of areas which have been cut over too long. I have virgin country which is practically inexhaustible. The town has transferred to me its entire rights and holdings. I have all the fundamentals for the making of a great industrial center. As to the money--"

"Yes," put in Riggs with a suggestion of breathlessness in his voice.

"Philadelphia has millions waiting for investment--you know it, I know it, and this is the opportunity. We will be dealing with natural products in a simple and natural way. The district supplies the power and the raw material; the outside and neighboring country, the market. We supply the brains."

"What does this cost you personally?" hazarded Stoughton a little uncertainly.

"A hundred dollars in traveling expenses, and I have assumed a hundred and thirty thousand of town debentures at six per cent. If you don't want it there are others who do."

Wimperley looked up. His face had taken on a new expression. He caught Riggs' eye and his lips formed the word "cheap."

The latter nodded. There was a slight flush in his otherwise sallow cheeks. Then he put a series of searching questions which were answered by Clark with a wealth of detailed information which it seemed was impossible to have been collected by one man in the course of a few days. After which the three went to the big map and, turning their backs on Clark, traced out railway lines and steamship routes and the general transportation situation, and all the while the latter sat quite motionless, while his eyes regarded the group across the room with a look at once hypnotic and profound. These were telling moments, during which unseen forces seemed to move and stretch themselves in hidden potency.

Presently came Wimperley's voice. "How much money would be necessary for the first year's operations?"

"About a million, possibly more."

"And how," demanded Stoughton, "do you propose to get it?"

"I am not going to get it," replied Clark with extreme placidity; "you are."

Came a joint laugh from the three at the map, not hearty or contagious, but burdened with that negative humor with which men sometimes accept a situation which holds them helpless and at the same time summons all their power to meet it.

Stoughton drew a long breath. "Well," he said slowly; "I suppose we are."

There followed an hour's conference. Clark did not display a trace of triumph but poured out the contents of his extraordinary brain. A million to start with and after that more millions as the occasion demanded. These were his requirements and the rest could be left to him. And it might be noted that the prospect did not cause the others much anxiety, for as the undertaking unfolded with communicable power, they perceived more fully than ever that he was in actuality dealing with fundamentals, and fundamentals were things they were not afraid to commend to financial circles. Thus was sown in this Philadelphia office the seed which was destined to propagate itself so amazingly.

When it was all over, Clark went back to his hotel, and wrote a short letter to a woman saying that he had interesting business on hand and hoped to see her soon. The letter was to his mother.

IV.--PRELIMINARIES IN ST. MARYS

Snow was on the ground and the river crisping with tinkling sheets of spreading ice when Clark again reached St. Marys and with characteristic energy laid his first plans. These were to supply the town with water and light, and the fact that the well remembered public promise was thus to be redeemed reassured the citizens as nothing else could have done. It was true that heavy work was impossible before spring, but Belding, on instructions, deposited with the town council an imposing set of blue prints which showed water pipes and electric circuits radiating through every part of the town.

It was a week or so later that one day in the office Belding looked up as though he had been called and caught his chief's penetrating gaze.

"Are you engaged, Belding; I mean to be married?" There was a twinkle in the gray eyes.

"No, sir."

"Want to be?"

"No, sir."

"Anything to think of except the work?"

Belding shook his head. He had already learned never to show surprise.

"Then suppose I share your quarters for the rest of the winter. I can't stand that hotel any longer."

The engineer flushed. Already he had put Clark away in the corner of his mind as one not comparable to any man he had ever met. His directness, his versatility, the suggestion of power that lay behind power,--all these Belding had found in him. And this was a little like being asked to share quarters with the Pope.

"I'm afraid you won't be very comfortable, sir." Belding had the use of a big house, but it was hard to heat.

"I'll be better off than where I am," said Clark, and that settled it. He had apparently conceived for the young man as much liking as he cared to show for any one. Presently he laughed.

"You're wondering why I asked whether you were going to be married."

"I am--rather."

"Well, it's only because I feel a bit superfluous to any one in that condition."

"Then you're not married yourself?" said Belding involuntarily.

Clark's eyes hardened. "No," he answered with extreme deliberation, "I am not, I am too busy." Presently his mood changed and he added provocatively, "But you're doomed, I see it in your face."

Belding smiled. "I haven't met her yet."

"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."