The Rapids Part 25

The train stopped for a few moments and, jumping from the platform, he ran across to the nearest pile. Here he picked up several pieces of ore fresh from the mine, inhaling as he stood the sharp and killing fumes. At St. Marys he made but one kind of pulp--mechanical pulp--in which the soft wood was disintegrated by revolving stones against which it was thrust under great pressure. But he had always desired to make another kind of pulp, so now he thrust the ore samples in his pocket and climbed back into the private car.

Two days later the chief chemist of the works stood beside the general manager's desk looking from the nickel samples into Clark's animated face.

"These are from Sudbury," the latter was saying, "where they waste thousands of tons of sulphur a year, and it costs them a lot to waste it. I want the sulphur to make sulphite pulp."

"Yes?" The reply was a little uncertain.

"To buy what we want is out of the question at the present price. In Alabama and Sicily they are spending a lot of money to get sulphur; in Sudbury they're spending a lot of money to get rid of it. The thing is all wrong."

"Have we any nickel mine, sir?"

"No, but that's the small end of it. I want you to a.n.a.lyze this ore and see if you can devise a commercial process for the separation of nickel from sulphur and save both. If you can, I'll buy a mine.

Incidentally we'll produce some pretty cheap nickel. Get busy!"

The chemist nodded and went out, and Clark, glancing after him, fell into profound contemplation. He himself was neither engineer, chemist nor scientist, but had a natural instinct for the suitable uses of physical things. Thus, though without any advanced technical training, his brain was relieved from any consciousness of difficulties which might be encountered in the working out of the problems he set for others with such remarkable facility. He was, in truth, a practical idealist, who, ungrafted to any particular branch of effort, embarked on them all, radiating that magnetic confidence which is the chief incentive toward accomplishment.

The visit of the Toronto financiers had been a success. Clark went round with them, unfolding the history of the works. Nor was this by any means the first tour he had made with similar intent. It was now an old story with him to watch the faces of men reflect their gradual surrender to the spell of his mesmeric brain. What the Torontonians saw was physical and concrete, and, as their host talked, they perceived the promise of that still greater future which he had put before them. Here, they decided, was not a speculation, but an investment of growing proportions. Then from the works to the backwoods by the new railway, where was iron by millions of tons and pulp by millions of cords, the foundations on which were built the gigantic structures at St. Marys. So they had gone back in the glow of that sudden conversion which in its nature is more emotional than the slow march of a purely intellectual process, Clark smiled a little at the thought. He had seen it all so often before.

A little later a knock sounded at his door and Fisette entered, stepping up to the desk, one brown hand in his pocket. Clark glanced at him.

"Well, mon vieux?"

The half-breed laid on the desk half a dozen pieces of bluish gray rock. They were sharp, angular and freshly broken. Through them ran yellow threads, and floating in their semi-translucent depths were fine yellow flakes.

"Gold," said Fisette quietly.

XVI.--GOLD, ALSO CONCERNING A GIRL

Clark stared at the fragment of rock with a sudden and divine thrill.

Gold! the _ultima thule_ of the explorer. He had erected vast works to gain gold, not for himself for he desired no wealth, but for others, and here the precious thing lay in his hand. His heart leaped and the blood rushed to his temples while his eyes wandered to the impa.s.sive face of Fisette. Who and what was the breed that he could be so calm?

Out of a riot of sensations he gradually reestablished his customary clearness of vision. Here was additional evidence of the inherent wealth of the country. It was that for which men dared death and peril and hardship, and it struck him that it would be a dramatic thing to ship steel rails and pulp and gold bullion on the same day.

But for all of this he was not carried away. However great the thrill, his mind could not be diverted by the discovery of a quartz vein. He knew, too, that mining of this character was a tricky thing and that nature, as often as not, left the shelves of her storehouses empty when by all the rules of geology they ought to be laden. He would explore and develop the find, but its chief value, he ultimately decided, was psychological, and would be seen in the continued support of his followers. Presently he looked up and caught the disappointed eyes of Fisette.

"It's all right, mon vieux," he said with an encouraging smile, "and it's very good. How far from the railway?"

"About six mile." Fisette's voice was unusually dull.

"And you have it all staked and marked and dated?"

"Yes, I'm not one d.a.m.n fool."

Clark laughed outright. "Of course not--but listen--you remember when you found the iron last year what I told you?"

"You told me to keep my mouth shut. I keep it."

"That's right. And now I want you to keep your mouth open."

Fisette gasped. "What you mean?"

"I mean this. You told n.o.body about the iron, now you go and tell everybody about the gold. Shout about it. The more you tell the better. The whole town can prospect on our concession if they want to.

I hope every one of them will find gold. I'll come out myself next week and see what you've turned up, and of course you get for it what I gave you for the iron last year. Au revoir, mon vieux, and when you go to town, talk--talk--talk! But just wait a minute in the outside office."

Fisette backed silently out, his dark brow pinched into puzzled wrinkles. He had expected his patron to take the samples and stare at them and then at him with that wonderful look he remembered so well and could never forget; a look that had made the breed feel strangely proud and happy. He had often seen it since when, quite alone in the woods, he peered through the gray smoke of his camp fire and imagined his patron sitting just on the other side. And now he was to go into St.

Marys and do nothing but talk! He shook his head doubtfully.

No sooner had the door closed than Clark summoned the superintendent of his railway department.

"Fisette has found gold out near the line. There's going to be a rush, and you'd better get ready for it. Also you'd better run up some kind of an hotel at Mile 61,--it's the jumping off place. That's all--please send Pender here."

A moment later he turned to his secretary.

"Fisette is waiting outside. Talk to him, he's found gold. Get the story and give it to the local paper. Say that I've no objection to prospectors working on our concession, and that I'll guarantee t.i.tle to anything they find. Get in touch with the Toronto papers and let them have it too. That's all."

The door closed again and, with a strange feeling of restlessness, he walked over to the rapids, seating himself close to their thundering tumult. What message had the rapids for him now? And just as the voice of irresistible power began to bore into his brain he noticed a girl perched on a rock close by. Simultaneously she turned. It was Elsie Worden.

She waved a hand, and he moved carefully up stream over the slippery boulders. She looked at him with startled pleasure. It was unlike Clark to move near to any one.

"I hope I'm not trespa.s.sing."

"No," his voice came clearly through the roar of many waters; "do you often come here?"

She smiled. "It's the most conversational place I know."

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?"