ittle privilege of the occasional
deciding touch, the privilege of succor. It is all that weakness can do
for strength."

"And why," she went on after a moment, "why is not that, too, a part
of a man's success--the gathering about him of people who can and will
supplement his efforts. Who was it inspired Wallace Carpenter with
confidence in an unknown man? You. What did it? Those very qualities by
which you were building your success. Why did John Radway join forces
with you? How does it happen that your men are of so high a standard of
efficiency? Why am I willing to give you everything, EVERYTHING, to my
heart and soul? Because it is you who ask it. Because you, Harry Thorpe,
have woven us into your fortune, so that we have no choice. Depend upon
us in the crises of your work! Why, so are you dependent on your ten
fingers, your eyes, the fiber of your brain! Do you think the less of
your fulfillment for that?"

So it was that Hilda Farrand gave her lover confidence, brought him out
from his fanaticism, launched him afresh into the current of events. He
remained in Chicago all that summer, giving orders that all work at the
village of Carpenter should cease. With his affairs that summer we have
little to do. His common-sense treatment of the stock market, by which a
policy of quiescence following an outright buying of the stock which he
had previously held on margins, retrieved the losses already sustained,
and finally put both partners on a firm financial footing. That is
another story. So too is his reconciliation with and understanding
of his sister. It came about through Hilda, of course. Perhaps in the
inscrutable way of Providence the estrangement was of benefit,--even
necessary, for it had thrown him entirely within himself during his
militant years.

Let us rather look to the end of the summer. It now became a question
of re-opening the camps. Thorpe wrote to Shearer and Radway, whom he had
retained, that he would arrive on Saturday noon, and suggested that the
two begin to look about for men. Friday, himself, Wallace Carpenter,
Elizabeth Carpenter, Morton, Helen Thorpe, and Hilda Farrand boarded the
north-bound train.

Chapter LX

The train of the South Shore Railroad shot its way across the broad
reaches of the northern peninsula. On either side of the right-of-way
lay mystery in the shape of thickets so dense and overgrown that the
eye could penetrate them but a few feet at most. Beyond them stoo