The Rapids Part 6

"Yes."

"Then I'll need some more missionaries. You're making a lot of work for me, but I like it."

His companion glanced up with sudden interest. They both liked work.

It had been evident for an hour past in the prelate's keen questions.

It occurred to Clark that the influence of his own pa.s.sion for creation promised to affect a large number of people. But he had never dreamed of missionaries, and now the thought amused him.

"I see young Belding over there," said the bishop as the engineer pa.s.sed with a transit over his shoulder. "Yes, my chief engineer."

"A good chap and I'm glad he has the opening. I don't know that he's got much imagination, but a valuable man as I see him. I have an idea," he added quizzically, "that you will supply all the imagination that is necessary."

Clark laughed. "I hope to."

"Had I not gone into the church I would have been a writer or an engineer," said the bishop slowly. "They have always seemed kindred pursuits, and I should have liked to be able to point to something physical and concrete and say 'I made it.'"

Clark was a little puzzled. He had it in mind that the bishop's achievements would be, perhaps, more enduring than his own. He tried to put this into words.

The big man shook his head. "I hope I am making my mark, but who can say? You affect the color of men's lives and I try to reach the complexion of their spirits." He paused for a moment, then added, "But between us we ought to do something. Good-by, and I hope you'll come to one of my garden parties. I hear you don't care for society, but you'll like my strawberries, and in the meantime I trust that all will prosper. Even if St. Marys does not realize all this, does it matter?"

"Not in the slightest."

The bishop strode off. A few paces away he halted. "I'm no Moslem but I'm very glad to meet Mahomet," he called back; "good-by."

In June the general manager, for as such Clark was now known, gave a luncheon at the works, which was to remain long in the mind of at least one of the partic.i.p.ants. By this time he himself was beginning to withdraw to that seclusion which added much to the fascination of his personality. When his guests arrived they were turned over to Belding for a tour of inspection, and then, filled with interest and surprise, sat down to the meal Clark had had prepared in the small marquee. Now he appeared himself, the genius of the place, and sat at the head of the table.

Looking back at the curious relationship in which this man stood to the people of St. Marys, it seems that he liked them more than he cared to express, for the expression of any sentiment was strange to his lips.

He could do much for them, and did it, while, at the same time, he asked nothing for himself. When not in action, Clark was particularly silent, but when really in action he approached his subject with obvious joy and interest, and coupled with this was his natural instinct for impressive and dramatic situations. Something of this had been recognized by Filmer and the others who came to lunch, so that, afterwards, when he threw out a hint, the only one on record, it met with immediate attention. He was talking to Worden when his eye drew Filmer into the conversation.

"I have been wondering whether any of you gentlemen have bought any land?"

The effect was that of a stone thrown into a pool, and one could see the ripples of interest spreading. But it was so unexpected that there followed a little silence, broken presently by a laugh from Filmer.

"What land?"

Clark waved a casual hand north and east. "Any land over there."

He got no immediate reply. The minds of his guests were traversing the flat fields in which cattle grazed, that lay between the rapids and the town.

"You have seen to-day something of what we propose to do, but only some of it," he went on. "What's the present population of St. Marys?"

"About sixteen hundred," said Filmer thoughtfully.

"Well, gentlemen, a.s.sume that what you have seen is but the beginning, only the breaking of the ground. You may take it from me, you are safe in that. The population of St. Marys, five years from to-day, should be,--" here he paused for an impressive moment--"sixteen thousand, and in ten years, twenty-six thousand. Now where are those people going to live? Mr. Manson, here, doesn't take me quite seriously, but you, Judge, can you answer me; or you, Mr. Filmer? A good deal of it will fall on your shoulders."

"I don't doubt you," answered the mayor, "but I can use all my money in my business."

"As for me, I'm a government official and haven't any," added Worden, with a tinge of regret.

"Money has been borrowed before this"--Clark's tones were distinctly impersonal--"the bank is good and so is the future of the town, as I see it."

"Why don't you buy some yourself?"

"I don't want any more money," said Clark very simply, "but, gentlemen, I don't a.s.sume that every one feels that way. From this window I can see farm lands that can be bought for forty dollars an acre on easy terms, and how would you feel if, after two or three years, it changed hands at a thousand? I merely mention this because I've seen it take place elsewhere. Now I'm not going to say that it's going to be worth a thousand, and I'm not persuading you. I never persuade any one, at least," he added with a little smile, "not in St. Marys. I only draw your attention to the circ.u.mstances and leave the rest of it, of course, to your own judgment."

"Then you suggest that we buy?" came in Dibbott.

"Nothing of the kind. It's a matter of indifference to me whether you gentlemen do the buying or some one else. All I can prophesy is, that it's going to be done, but not by me or my a.s.sociates. We have enough to occupy our attention for some time to come."

Manson edged a bit nearer. "The idea is that while you're investing millions, we take no risk in investing hundreds, eh?"

"I made no such inference. You will remember that so far as St. Marys is concerned I have depended on the town for nothing since my first proposal was accepted."

Dibbott nodded. "That's right. I reckon we're going to be a residential suburb to the works."

Clark smiled a little. "I lean on just four things, and St. Marys supplied none of them."

"What are they?"

"Natural laws, physical geography, ample financial backing, and the need of the world for certain manufactured products. And," he concluded quizzically, "you'd better forget that I said anything about land."

There was something suggestively final about this, and presently the group moved off, loitering across the flat, untenanted fields. Manson was in the rear, decapitating daisies with his heavy oak stick. A few minutes later Clark looked up and saw the chief constable's bulk filling the doorway. He waited placidly.

"Did you mean just what you said about that land?" Manson's voice sounded a little sheepish, "because I've got a bit saved up, and--"

"Mr. Manson," struck in Clark, "you may approve of me personally, but I know that you don't believe in my project. You've been at no pains to conceal that and I respect you for it, but that being the case why should you, of all men, be interested in land? No, no, don't protest.

I don't mind what you think and you've a perfect right to your own opinion. What did I say about land? Did I advise you to buy?"

"No, but you evidently wondered why we didn't."

Clark laughed outright. "I wonder at many things, that's my privilege, and anything I said just now is in contradiction to your judgment. You strike me as being a man of strong views, so by all means hold on to them."

But Manson's eyes were turned fixedly on the main chance and he could not look away. "Of course, I may be wrong," he began awkwardly, "but--"

"And, of course, I may be too, and now you'll excuse me, I've a good deal to attend to."

Very slowly the chief constable took his way to town. Like many who came in contact with Clark he had conceived the impression of a strong and piercing intelligence that, while it gave out much, withheld more; and it was what he imagined was withheld that now piqued and stimulated the austerely masked project he had had in view ever since Clark's directors had so breezily invaded his office months before. Manson was, in truth, an example of those who, externally impa.s.sive and unemotional, harbor at times a secret and consuming thought at variance with all outward semblance, and, keeping this remotely hidden, feed it with all the concentrated fire of an otherwise inactive imagination.

That afternoon he quietly secured an option on a portion of the fields across which he walked so stolidly, and, with this as a beginning, turned his thoughts to the acquisition of more and more land.

Simultaneously his expressed views on the outcome of Clark's activities became more pessimistic than ever.

Early that summer the streets of St. Marys were torn with trenches and the gla.s.s fronts of the wooden stores trembled with the vibration of blasting. The pipe lines followed exactly the route laid out by the blue prints Belding had long since deposited with the town council, and so well known was this route that the slightest variation would have been pounced upon instantly. Clark, it appeared, did not take much interest in the work, but turned it over entirely to the engineer, his own imagination having moved to other things.

New faces in the town ceased to create comment, and, what was more to the point, mention of St. Marys began to appear in metropolitan papers.

These were read with the peculiar thoroughness of those who, for the first time, found themselves of definite interest to the outside world.

Simultaneously the air became full of prophecy, rambling and inchoate.

The citizens had not yet come to regard developments as being in any particular their own. They had--for the best reasons--put no money in, but now began to profit by changed conditions. The works were still a thing apart, a new and somewhat romantic area from which anything, however startling, might any day materialize. Sometimes a few Indians paddled up to trade and, leaving Filmer's store, would slip silently up stream, and edging into the backwater at the foot of the rapids, lay their paddles across the thwarts and stare silently at the great structures that began to arise. And this, in a way, was the att.i.tude of most of the folk of St. Marys. They were in it but not of it, and the long somnolence of the past was too tranquil to be easily dispelled. But in spite of their indifference the masterful hand of Clark had set the town definitely on the industrial map. A little later, the water was turned on and rows and rows of electric lights glittered down the streets. It was just about this time that Clark summoned Belding and told him that he desired a house.

This command was, in a way, so intimate that Belding looked foolish.

"What kind of a house?" he said awkwardly.