"I heard, all the same. You had afterwards some better furs than usual
brought in."

The agent looked surprised. "Some of these people are grateful, but
although I've been in the country twelve years I don't pretend to
understand them."

"They understand you. The proof of it is that you can keep your
factory open in a district where furs are rather scarce and have had
very few mishaps. You can take that as a compliment."

There was something significant in Clarke's tone which Blake remarked,
while Sedgwick, feeling that he was being left out, strolled on.

"Then you know the Jack-pine?" the agent asked.

"Pretty well, though it's not easy to reach. I came down it one winter
from the Wild-goose hills. I'd put in the winter with a band of
Stonies."

"The Northern Stonies? Did you find them easy to get on with?"

"They knew some interesting things," Clarke answered drily. "I went
there to study."

"Ah!" said the agent. "What plain folk, for want of a better name,
call the occult. But it's fortunate there's a barred door between
white men and the Indian's mysticism."

"It has been opened to a white man once or twice."

"Just so. He stepped through into the darkness and never came out
again. There was an instance I could mention."

"Civilized folk would have no use for him afterwards," Harding broke
in. "We want sane, normal men on this continent. Neurotics, hoodoos
and fakirs are worse than a plague; there's contagion in their fooling."

"How would you define them? Those who don't fit in with your ideas of
the normal?"

"I know a clean, straight man when I meet him and that's enough for me."

"I imagine that cleverer people are now and then deceived," said
Clarke, who moved away.

"That's a man I want to keep clear of," Harding remarked to Blake.
"There's something wrong about him; he's not wholesome." He rose.
"It's a fine night; let's walk up the mountain."

CHAPTER VI

HARDING GROWS CONFIDENTIAL

Next morning Blake and his partner breakfasted at Mrs. Keith's table,
and during the afternoon drove up the mountain with her and one or two
others. The city was unpleasantly hot and the breeze that swept its
streets blew clouds of sand and cement about, for Montreal is subject
to fits of feverish constructional activity and on every other block
buildings were being torn down and replaced by larger ones of concrete
and steel. Leaving its outskirts, the carriage climbed the road wh