the office
on the hill. Here, without fear of interruption, in the soft lamplight,
lounging at their ease, they were free to talk of those things so dear
to them, and upon which hung the destiny of their enterprise.

Winter was more than half spent. Christmas and New Year were already
seasons which only helped to swell the store of memory. Labrador was
frozen to the bone, and would remain so. But there were still two months
and more of snow and ice, and storm, to be endured before the flies and
mosquitoes did their best to make life unendurable.

Bull's return home had been a time of great looking forward. Life to him
had become full of every alluring possibility. He saw the approaching
fulfilment of his hopes and aims. The contemplation of the pending war
with the Skandinavia only afforded his fighting instincts satisfaction.
Then there was that other. That great, new sensation which stirred him
so deeply--Nancy McDonald. So he had returned home full of enthusiasm
and ready to tackle any and every problem that presented itself.

He had just completed the telling of the story he had brought back with
him. It was a story of success that had stirred even the cast-iron
emotions of Bat Harker. Nor had it lost anything in the telling, for
Bull was more deeply moved than he knew.

The recounting of his dealings in London with the man, Sir Frank Leader,
had been coloured by the enthusiasm with which the Englishman had
inspired him. Sir Frank Leader was known as the uncrowned king of the
world's pulp-wood trade. But Bull felt, and declared, that the
appellation did not come within measurable distance of expressing the
man's real genius. Then there were those others: Stanton Brothers, and
Lord Downtree, and the virile, youthful creature, Ray Birchall. All of
them were strong pillars of support for the ruling genius of the house
of Leader & Company. But it was the man himself, the head of it, who
claimed all Bull's admiration for his intensity of national spirit, and
the wide generosity of his enterprise.

The story he had had to tell was simple in its completeness. Before
setting out on his journey he had spent months in preparation of the
ground by means of voluminous correspondence and documentary evidence.
It was a preparation that left it only necessary to convince through
personal appeal on his arrival in London. This had been achieved in the
broad fashion that appealed to the men he encountered. His "hand" had
been l