and stood at the window. The rapids sounded clearly, but
his mind was not on them. Looking to the west he saw the sky stabbed
with the red streaks of flame from converters that were yet to be, and
ranks of black steel stacks and the rounded shoulders of great furnaces
silhouetted against the horizon. He heard the rumble of a mill that
rolled out steel rails and, over it all, perceived a canopy of smoke
that drifted far out on the clear, cold waters of the lake. He
remembered with a smile that his directors would shortly arrive, and
worked out for their visit a program totally unlike that they had
mapped out for themselves. Last of all he went to the piano and played
to himself. At any rate, he reflected, he would be known as the man
who created the iron and steel industry in the district of Algoma. And
that was satisfying to Clark.

Still feeling strangely restless, he moved again to the window, and
just then Elsie and Belding walked slowly past the blockhouse toward
the tiny Hudson Bay lock. Involuntarily he tapped on the pane. They
both looked up and he beckoned. When they mounted to the living room,
he met them with a smile.

Elsie glanced about with intense interest. She had been there once
before, but with a group of visitors. This occasion seemed more
intimate. She surveyed Clark a little breathlessly and with an
overwhelming sensation that here was the nerve center of this whole
gigantic enterprise. Belding felt a shade awkward as he caught the
glance of the gray eyes.

"Sit down and have some coffee." Clark clapped his hands softly and
the Japanese cook emerged from below. Presently their host began to
talk with a certain comfortable ease that gave the girl a new glimpse
of what the man might really be.

"The directors are coming up this week--that means more work for you,
Belding."

The engineer nodded. Then the other man went on with the fluent
confidence of one who knows the world. Persia, India, Russia,--he had
been everywhere.

"But what brought you here, Mr. Clark?" put in the girl presently. Her
eyes were very bright.

He turned to her: "What would you say?"

"Was it destiny?" she answered slowly.

"Yes," he replied with sudden gravity and a strange look at her bright
eyes, "I think it was destiny."

Her heart beat more rapidly, and from Clark her glance moved to Belding
who sat a little awkwardly. There was not more than fifteen years
between them but Clark's face had t