adventure called when
he was young. Well, he had got adventure, but perhaps not the kind
Lister seemed to enjoy. Anyhow, he had not started off with an empty
wallet to look about the world.

"How much does your roll amount to?" he asked with a bluntness he
sometimes used.

When Lister told him he laughed. The young fellow was good stuff;
Cartwright liked his rashness.

"Well," he said, "you have pluck, and if you're obstinate, pluck takes
you far. Have you got a promise from any of our shipping offices?"

Lister said he had not. There were some difficulties about certificates.
He had sailed on lake boats and made coasting voyages, but the English
Board of Trade rules were strict. Then he looked at the clock and
Cartwright gave him his hand.

"Come and see me at the office. We'll talk about this again."

Lister thanked him, and when he had gone Cartwright mused. The young
fellow was not an adventurer; anyhow not in the sense Shillito was an
adventurer. His honesty was obvious, it was plain he did not want
Barbara's money, and Cartwright thought he did not know she was rich. In
fact, he was Barbara's sort. There was the trouble. Cartwright weighed
this for a time and then went to sleep.

CHAPTER VI

A NASTY KNOCK

Frost sparkled on the office windows and Cartwright, with his feet on
the hearthrug studied an Atlantic weather chart. The temperature
reported by the liners' captains was low, and winter had begun unusually
soon. Since Cartwright had hoped for a mild November, this was unlucky.
As a rule, cargo is plentiful at Montreal shortly before the St.
Lawrence freezes and the last steamers to go down the river do so with
heavy loads. Cartwright's plan was to run a boat across at the last
moment and pick up goods the liners would not engage to carry, and he
had sent _Oreana_ because she was fast. When the drift ice began to
gather, speed was useful.

A cablegram two or three days since stated that she had sailed, and
Cartwright, who knew the St. Lawrence, calculated the progress she ought
to have made. Perhaps he had cut things rather fine, but Captain Davies
was a good navigator and would push on. Although the narrow waters below
Montreal, where the stream runs fast between the islands, would be open,
Lake St. Peter was freezing, and the liner _Parthian_ had some trouble
to get through. Still the channels were not yet blocked, and when Davies
had passed the Narrows he would get open water down the gorge