mpecunious despair, Harry Waugh hangs himself. Charlie
Anderson, after squandering a fortune on a thankless wife, works for a
labourer's hire.

So I might go on and on. Their stories would fill volumes. And as I sat
on the quiet hillside, listening to the drowsy hum of the bees, the
inner meaning of it all came home to me. Once again the great lone land
was sifting out and choosing its own. Far-reaching was its vengeance,
and it worked in divers ways. It fell on them, even as it had fallen on
their brethren of the trail. In the guise of fortune it dealt their
ruin. From the austere silence of its snows it was mocking them,
beguiling them to their doom. Again it was the Land of the Strong.
Before all it demanded strength, moral and physical strength. I was
minded of the words of old Jim, "Where one wins ninety and nine will
fail"; and time had proved him true. The great, grim land was weeding
out the unfit, was rewarding those who could understand it, the faithful
brotherhood of the high North.

Full of such thoughts as these, I raised my eyes and looked down the
river towards the Moosehide Bluffs. Hullo! There, just below the town,
was a great sheet of water, and even as I watched I saw it spread and
spread. People were shouting, running from their houses, speeding to the
beach. I was conscious of a thrill of excitement. Ever widening was the
water, and now it stretched from bank to bank. It crept forward to the
solitary post. Now it was almost there. Suddenly the post started to
move. The vast ice-field was sliding forward. Slowly, serenely it went,
on, on.

Then, all at once, the steam-whistles shrilled out, the bells pealed,
and from the black mob of people that lined the banks there went up an
exultant cheer. "The ice is going out--the ice is going out!"

I looked at my watch. Could I believe my eyes? Seven seconds, seven
minutes past one--his "hunch" was right; his guardian angel had
intervened; the Jam-wagon had been given his chance to make a new start.

CHAPTER XIV

The waters were wild with joy. From the mountain snows the sun had set
them free. Down hill and dale they sparkled, trickling from boulders,
dripping from mossy crannies, rioting in narrow runlets. Then, leaping
and laughing in a mad ecstasy of freedom, they dashed into the dam.

Here was something they did not understand, some contrivance of the
tyrant Man to curb them, to harness them, to make them his slaves. The
waters were angry.