was born in him. He saw great engineers come and
go--men who were greater than presidents to him, and who sought out the
ends of the earth in the following of their vocation. He made a slave of
himself in the nurturing and strengthening of his ambition to become one
of them--to be a builder of railroads and bridges, a tunneler of
mountains, a creator of new things in new lands. His slavery had not
lessened as his years increased. Voluntarily he had kept himself in
bondage, fighting ceaselessly the obstacles in his way, triumphing over
his handicaps as few other men had triumphed, rising, slowly, steadily,
resistlessly, until now--. He flung back his head and the pulse of his
heart quickened as he heard again the words of Van Horn, president of
the greatest engineering company on the continent.

"Howland, we've decided to put you in charge Of the building of the
Hudson Bay Railroad. It's one of the wildest jobs we've ever had, and
Gregson and Thorne don't seem to catch on. They're bridge builders and
not wilderness men. We've got to lay a single line of steel through
three hundred miles of the wildest country in North America, and from
this hour your motto is 'Do it or bust!' You can report at Le Pas as
soon as you get your traps together."

Those words had broken the slavedom for Howland. He had been fighting
for an opportunity, and now that the opportunity had come he was sure
that he would succeed. Swiftly, with his hands thrust deep in his
pockets, he walked down the one main street of Prince Albert, puffing
out odorous clouds of smoke from his cigar, every fiber in him tingling
with the new joy that had come into his life. Another night would see
him in Le Pas, the little outpost sixty miles farther east on the
Saskatchewan. Then a hundred miles by dog-sledge and he would be in the
big wilderness camp where three hundred men were already at work
clearing a way to the great bay to the north. What a glorious
achievement that road would be! It would remain for all time as a
cenotaph to his ability, his courage and indomitable persistence.

It was past nine o'clock when Howland entered the little old Windsor
Hotel. The big room, through the windows of which he could look out on
the street and across the frozen Saskatchewan, was almost empty. The
clerk had locked his cigar-case and had gone to bed. In one corner,
partly shrouded in gloom, sat a half-breed trapper who had come in that
day from the Lac la Ronge country,