e Jericho Roads of life as he was
himself. But Roderick had some difficulty in showing that he was quite
innocent.

He could not explain that this trip had been his probation time, and
that if he had done his work with a slack hand there would be no hope
of greater opportunities opening up before him. The big lumber firm of
Graham & Co., operating in the north, was really under Alexander
Graham's millionaire brother. And this man's lawyer from Montreal had
been there. He was a great man in Roderick's eyes, the head of a firm
of continental reputation. He had kept the young man at his side, and
had made known to him the significant fact that, one day, if he
transacted business with the keenness and faithfulness that seemed to
characterise all his actions now, there might be a bigger place
awaiting him. The man said very little that was definite, but the
Lad's sleep had been disturbed by waking dreams of a great future.
That his friend, Alexander Graham, was the mover in this he could not
but believe, but he determined to let the people in authority see that
he could depend on his own merits. So he had done his work with a
rigid adherence to law and rule that commanded the older man's
admiration. Roderick felt it was unfortunate that poor Billy should
have come under his disciplining hand at this time, but such cases as
his were of daily occurrence in the camp. There was no use trying to
carry on a successful business and at the same time coddle a lot of
drunks and unfits like Billy. He had been compelled to weed out a
dozen such during his stay in the north. Billy was only one of many,
but when he remembered that he must give a report of him to the two
people whose opinion he valued far more than the approval of even the
great firm of Elliot & Kent, or of William Graham of New York, he felt
that here surely was the irony of fate.

"I did my best, Dad," he said, his warm heart smitten by the eager look
in the old man's eyes. "But I had to protect my clients. There has
been so much of that sort of stealing up there lately that stern
measures had to be taken, and I was acting for the company." Old Angus
was puzzled. Evidently law was a machine which, if you once started
operating, you were no longer able to act as a responsible individual.
He could not understand any circumstances that would make it impossible
to help a man who had fallen by the way as Billy had, but then Roderick
knew about law, and Roderi