h the children of hope and adventure.

With hands plunged deep in the capacious pockets of his grey jacket,
Ingolby walked on, seeing everything; yet with his mind occupied
intently, too, on the trouble which must be faced before Lebanon and
Manitou would be the reciprocating engines of his policy. Coming to a
spot where a great gap of vacant land showed in the street-land which
he had bought for the new offices of his railway combine--he stood
and looked at it abstractedly. Beyond it, a few blocks away, was the
Sagalac, and beyond the Sagalac was Manitou, and a little way to the
right was the bridge which was the symbol of his policy. His eyes gazed
almost unconsciously on the people and the horses and wagons coming and
going upon the bridge. Then they were lifted to the tall chimneys rising
at two or three points on the outskirts of Manitou.

"They don't know a good thing when they get it," he said to himself. "A
strike--why, wages are double what they are in Quebec, where most of 'em
come from! Marchand--"

A hand touched his arm. "Have you got a minute to spare, kind sir?" a
voice asked.

Ingolby turned and saw Nathan Rockwell, the doctor. "Ah, Rockwell," he
responded cheerfully, "two minutes and a half, if you like! What is it?"

The Boss Doctor, as he was familiarly called by every one, to identify
him from the newer importations of medical men, drew from his pocket a
newspaper.

"There's an infernal lie here about me," he replied. "They say that I--"

He proceeded to explain the misstatement, as Ingolby studied the paper
carefully, for Rockwell was a man worth any amount of friendship.

"It's a lie, of course," Ingolby said firmly as he finished the
paragraph. "Well?"

"Well, I've got to deal with it."

"You mean you're going to deny it in the papers?"

"Exactly."

"I wouldn't, Rockwell."

"You wouldn't?"

"No. You never can really overtake a newspaper lie. Lots of the people
who read the lie don't see the denial. Your truth doesn't overtake the
lie--it's a scarlet runner."

"I don't see that. When you're lied about, when a lie like that--"

"You can't overtake it, Boss. It's no use. It's sensational, it runs too
fast. Truth's slow-footed. When a newspaper tells a lie about you, don't
try to overtake it, tell another."

He blinked with quizzical good-humour. Rockwell could not resist the
audacity. "I don't believe you'd do it just the same," he retorted
decisively, and laughing.

"I don't