The Rapids

Produced by Al Haines
Copyright, Canada, 1922, by
The Copp Clark Press
Amongst the few who knew Robert Fisher Clark at all well, for there were not many of them, there was no question as to his beliefs. It was too obvious that his primary faith was in himself. Nor is it known whether, at any time, he gave any thought or study to the character of those with whom, in the course of his remarkably active life, he came into association. Always it appeared that there was laid upon him the responsibility of doing things which did not occur to the ordinary man, and he went about them with such supreme confidence and unremitting enthusiasm that he infused into his followers much of his communicable zeal. It appears now that Clark weighed a man by appraising the degree to which he contributed to the work in hand, and automatically set aside those whom he considered contributed nothing to his object. He was the most unattached personality it is possible to imagine. Whatever passion or reaction he may have experienced was always a matter for him alone, and something that he underwent in the remoteness of an astonishingly exclusive brain. That he experienced them is without doubt, but they were revealed in the intensity of action and the quick resiliency of renewed effort.
It was not known, either, whether he believed in chance, or in those tiny eventualities which so often impress a definite color on subsequent years. The trend of his mind was to move forward rather than back, and it is questionable if he gave much thought to second causes. The fruit dangled before his eye even as he planted the vine, and if this induced in him a certain ruthlessness it could only be because those who are caught up in high endeavor to reach the mountain tops must perforce trample many a lowland flower beneath their eager feet.
And yet it was chance that brought Clark to St. Marys, chance that he should be in a certain train at a given time, and above all it was chance that he should overhear a certain conversation, but it was not by any means chance that he should interpret the latter as he did.