, but that it was a friend, stanch through centuries, rescuing
them now from the desecration that was to come; and for a moment he was
resistless to the spirit that moved him about and made him face that
sea with something that was almost a prayer in his heart.

As he turned he saw that a light had appeared in one of the low log
buildings which contained the two offices of the Keewatin Mines and
Lands Company. The light, and the bulky shadow of old Pearce, which
appeared for a moment on one of the drawn curtains, aroused Philip to
other thoughts. Since his arrival at Churchill he had made the
acquaintance of Pearce, and it struck him now that just such a man as
this might be Lord Fitzhugh Lee. The Keewatin Mines and Lands Company
had no mines and few lands, and yet Pearce had told him that they were
doing a hustling business down south, selling stock on mineral claims
that couldn't be worked for years. After all, was he any better than
Pearce?

The old bitterness rose in him. He was no better than Pearce, no better
than this Lord Fitzhugh himself, and it was fate--fate and people, that
had made him so. He walked swiftly now, following close along the shore
in the hard stretch kept bare by the tides, until he came to the red
coals of half a dozen Indian fires on the edge of the forest beyond the
company's buildings. A dog scented him and howled. He heard a guttural
voice break in a word of command from one of the tepees, and there was
silence again.

He turned to the right, burying himself deeper and deeper into the
great silence of the north, his quick steps keeping pace with the
thoughts that were passing through his brain. Fate, bad luck,
circumstance--they had been against him. He had told himself this a
hundred times, had laughed at them with the confidence of one who knew
that some day he would rise above these things in triumph. And yet what
were these elements of fortune, as he had called them, but people? A
feeling of personal resentment began to oppress him. People had downed
him, and not circumstance and bad luck. Men and women had made a
failure of him, and not fate. For the first time it occurred to him
that the very men and women whom Brokaw and his associates had duped,
whom Pearce was duping, would play the game in the same way if they had
the opportunity. What if he had played on the winning side, if he had
enlisted his fighting energies with men like Brokaw and Pearce, fought
for money and power in p