est to the outside world.
Simultaneously the air became full of prophecy, rambling and inchoate.
The citizens had not yet come to regard developments as being in any
particular their own. They had--for the best reasons--put no money in,
but now began to profit by changed conditions. The works were still a
thing apart, a new and somewhat romantic area from which anything,
however startling, might any day materialize. Sometimes a few Indians
paddled up to trade and, leaving Filmer's store, would slip silently up
stream, and edging into the backwater at the foot of the rapids, lay
their paddles across the thwarts and stare silently at the great
structures that began to arise. And this, in a way, was the attitude
of most of the folk of St. Marys. They were in it but not of it, and
the long somnolence of the past was too tranquil to be easily
dispelled. But in spite of their indifference the masterful hand of
Clark had set the town definitely on the industrial map. A little
later, the water was turned on and rows and rows of electric lights
glittered down the streets. It was just about this time that Clark
summoned Belding and told him that he desired a house.

This command was, in a way, so intimate that Belding looked foolish.
"What kind of a house?" he said awkwardly.

Clark leaned back in his chair. "You know how, years ago, the Hudson
Bay Company built block houses for their factors? Well, I want one
such as the company used to build, and I expect to be ready to occupy
it within six weeks."

Belding had learned not to ask too many questions, so, for a moment
thought hard. "Where?" he ventured.

"You remember where the old Hudson Bay lock is,--just a hundred feet
beyond that. By the way, do you know how to build a block house?"

Belding got a little red. He had designed power houses and pulp mills
and canals and head gates, but a block house baffled him.

"In those days," began Clark ruminatively, "they were places of
defense. Two stories, the bottom one of stone so that the Indians
couldn't set fire to it. That part is eight feet high and had
loopholes. On top is the other story built of logs, and, by the way, I
want my logs peeled and varnished, and with a pitched roof. That part
overhangs the other by about five feet all round, and that was to make
it possible to drop things on the Indians if they did get up to the
loopholes. Got the idea? And, by the way, I want the Hudson Bay lock
cleaned o