t lurched out of the forest behind it
were huger still. Wisbech could see them rock, and the roar which they
made and which the pines flung back grew deafening. Most of the cars
had been coupled up in the yards at Montreal, and were covered thick
with the dust that had whirled about them along two thousand four
hundred miles of track, and they were still speeding on through the
forests of the West, as they had done through those of far-off
Ontario.

It seemed to Wisbech as he gazed at the cars that they ran pigmy
freight trains in the land he came from, and he was conscious of
something that had a curious stirring effect on him in the clang and
clatter of that giant rolling stock, as the engineer hurled his great
train furiously down-grade. It was man's defiance of the wilderness, a
symbol of his domination over all the great material forces of the
world. The engineer, who glanced out once from his dust-swept cab,
held them bound and subject in the hollow of the grimy hand he
clenched upon the throttle. With a deafening roar, the great train
leapt across the trestle, which seemed to rock and reel under it, and
plunged once more into the forest. A whistle sounded--a greeting to
the men upon the bridge--and then the uproar died away in a long
diminuendo among the sombre pines.

It was in most respects a fortuitous moment for Wisbech's nephew to
meet him, and the older man smiled as Nasmyth strode along the track
to grasp his outstretched hand.

"I'm glad to see you, Derrick," said Wisbech, who drew back a pace and
looked at his nephew critically.

"You have changed since I last shook hands with you in London, my
lad," he continued. "You didn't wear blue duck, and you hadn't hands
of that kind then."

Nasmyth glanced at his scarred fingers and broken nails.

"I've been up against it, as they say here, since those days," he
replied.

"And it has done you a world of good!"

Nasmyth laughed. "Well," he said, "perhaps it has. Any way, that's not
a point we need worry over just now. Where have you sprung from?"

Wisbech told him, and added that there were many things he would like
to talk about, whereupon Nasmyth smiled in a deprecatory manner.

"I'm afraid you'll have to wait an hour or two," he said. "You see,
there are several more big logs ready for hauling down, and I have to
keep the boys supplied. I'll be at liberty after supper, and you can't
get back to-night. In the meanwhile you might like to walk along