s is not so much politics as economics--tell him
that. I'd go with you--but I must not leave St. Marys just now. Wire
me as soon as possible--you've just time to catch your train."

The color climbed into Semple's cheeks, and he went quickly out with
his head up. Clark glanced after him and his lips twisted into a smile.

"I give him forty-eight hours. If it doesn't come by that--we'll ring
down the curtain," he said to himself thoughtfully.

He went out and walked, for hours, through the deserted buildings.
They were full of hollow mockery. Watchmen, posted by Belding at
strategic points, glanced after him curiously. He seemed lonely and
diminutive in this mechanical wilderness of his own creation. They
wondered how a man felt in such a position as his at a time like this.
He dared not go to the rapids, lest he read in their uproar some new
and menacing note. He thought lingeringly of Elsie. She seemed far
from this crisis, and at the same time curiously a part of it. Never
did he feel more certain of the girl's affection than now, and it came
to him what a refuge a woman's breast might be for a man in such case
as himself. In the moment his forceful brain protested at the thought
of refuge.

He tramped on with a slow wonder at the magnitude of his own
activities. Here and there, individual buildings stimulated poignant
memories of the occasion that brought them forth. The sulphur plant
assumed an aspect of derision. Beneath the huge dimensions of the
head-race he seemed to discern the obliterated canal over which St.
Marys came to grief. Was he himself to be brought down by its titanic
successor? He stared up the lake, comparing himself with the voyageur
who had once floated out of this wide immensity to trade at St. Marys.
He, too, had been trading at St. Marys. "Big magic!" old Shingwauk had
said, when his dark eyes beheld the works. Was it, after all, barely
possible they were nothing but magic?

XXIII.--CONCERNING THE RIOT

Next morning came a rap at his office door and Baudette entered,
treading very lightly. Clark looked up and shook his head.

"I haven't got any money yet."

"I don't want any money."

The gray eyes softened a little. "You're the only man I've met who
doesn't. What is it?"

Baudette pointed out of the window.

Clark got up and glanced at the open space in front of the
administration building. There lounged some fifty men, the pick of
Baudette's crew, big