had looked forward, they said, to his coming as to morning after
the darkness of night. The reflection grew in his mind and brought
with it hope and renewed courage.

XIII.--THE VOICE OF THE RAPIDS

It fell on a morning that Clark, sitting at his desk, felt within him
that strange stirring to which he had long since learned to give heed,
it being his habit at such moments to leave the works and resign
himself completely to these subtle processes. He now walked slowly
across toward the river, and seated himself where, years before, he had
watched the triumphant kingfisher. The place had a peculiar
fascination for him, and had by his orders been kept in its pristine
wildness. Half a mile away the pulp mill was grinding dully, on the
upper reaches of the great bay circular saws were ripping into logs
fresh from Baudette's operations on the Magwa River, and seventy miles
up the river a large crew was shipping and excavating at the iron mine.
These things and many others being on foot, Clark had experienced that
intellectual restlessness which in him was the precursor of further
effort.

Listening to the boom of the river he reflected that the water he had
diverted to his own purposes was but a fraction of the whole mighty
torrent racing in front of him. Into the scant half mile between shore
and shore was forced the escaping flood of the mighty Superior, and
such was the compression that, midway, the torrent heaped itself up
into a low ridge of broken plunging crests. Just over the ridge he
could see the opposite shore line. It did not occur to him, as it
would to many, how puny were the greatest efforts of man beside this
prodigious mass. The manner of his mind was, too objective. The sight
of the United States so close at hand only suggested that in the
country from which he came he had as yet made no physical mark. There
was the town with the rapids close beside it, just as in Canada. More
and more the inward stirring captured him. Why should he not create in
his own land what he had already created in Canada?

The idea was stimulating, and very carefully he reviewed the situation
as it there existed. His supporters were keen men in Philadelphia and
the unexpected announcement of Fisette's discovery had electrified the
market. Shares in all the allied companies touched hitherto unreached
values. The more he thought the more he luxuriated in this new sweep
of imagination, while intermittently ther