II
“I once contended with you,” continued the man to whom Josephine Stone listened as one in a dream, “that there is in all of us at least two personalities—the Man That Is and the Man That Might Have Been. The Man That Is is the man begot of environment and circumstances; the Man That Might Have Been is the ideal we cherished in hopeful youth. For it is circumstance that fashions our careers for us, no matter how cozy-corner philosophers may argue to the contrary, just as the hills and harder rock formations divert the courses of streams in their search for yonder lake and the ultimate sea. Oftentimes, an even-flowing, placid stream is thus suddenly transformed into a turbulent rapids, dealing destruction to all that enters the path of its fury. The analogy holds good with humankind.
“In this case, Alexander Carlstone, who had dreamed of becoming a famous actor in the world of the mimic drama, became Acey Smith the Timber Pirate, a protagonist in a drama of real life, always with a grim climax of revenge in view. As I see it now, I have always been acting a self-proscribed part, putting into it the same intensity I might have otherwise concentrated on the theatrical stage. Acey Smith is the man that was made by circumstances—the Man That Is. For, as you have no doubt surmised, Miss Stone, I was first Alexander Carlstone and afterwards Acey Smith.
“But all this is digression. I did not at once set out to accomplish the ambition that burned within me. Instead, I dreamed and planned and plotted while I studied in the library of Joseph Stone. Dimly, I believe, there was always a plan of action somewhere hidden in my back mind, but the road to its interpretation was continuous, concentrated mental drudgery. The element of accident has done more to solve men’s problems than so-called inspirations; it remained for subsequent circumstances to point the way to my goal for me.
“Joseph Stone told me of a simple tablet, that, dissolved in the mouth, would prevent the loon-cry that rose in my throat in moments of excitement, a remedy which I have since always kept by me. Meanwhile, in the rôle of a white trapper, I made frequent trips to Kam City, which had by then grown to the status of quite a thriving northern town, with a lake port whose future was unquestioned. It was to be the gateway between the East and the wheat-producing West just then opening up in full earnest. In bitterness I saw the opportunity and wealth that might have been mine; in double bitterness I discovered that the usurper, Gildersleeve, had become the leading man of the place and owned and controlled nearly all the important commercial undertakings in the town. One day I passed him on the street and was thrilled that he did not recognise me. I had no inclination to set upon him. My own calmness under the circumstances amazed me. I could wait, something within me seemed to whisper; my time would come.
“Joseph Stone was biding his time about giving his discovery to the world. I was living proof of its efficiency, but there was one other thing he wished for before he set out to make all the races of the world white, and that was independent financial means. For the accomplishment of this dream he depended on a rumour that came to him of indications of a rich gold mine far in the interior.
“It was in the late autumn of my twentieth year that Joseph Stone and I set out to locate the gold vein that he believed existed far up the Nannabijou River. We took no guides and travelled light, for to both of us the wilderness was an open book. To be brief, after a month of the pack-trail and patient prospecting, we did discover the gold vein, which gave indications far beyond the expectations of either.
“But winter came down with the sudden intensity which is often its wont in the North. We were awakened one night by the cold and the howling of a raging blizzard. We decided to set out on the return journey at once, particularly on account of a shortage of vegetables and flour.
“As the rivers and lakes were frozen over, we had to abandon our canoe, and, as we had brought no snowshoes with us, the going through the fine, loose snow was exceedingly hard on the old man. Joseph Stone, I could see, was gradually breaking down under the hardships of the gruelling journey and the assaults of the cold. A cough he had developed and the deepening shadows under his eyes were symptoms of the dreaded grippe. Day by day his inertia increased until he finally pitched over and begged me to let him go to his last sleep in the snow while I pushed on.
“I was carrying him on my back rolled up in blankets when I fortunately came upon a band of roving Indians, from whom I borrowed a string of dogs, a sled and a pair of snowshoes. Thus equipped, after I had gone back up the trail and secured the provisions and equipment we had cached when Stone broke down, I bundled the sick man up on the sled and made haste to reach the cabin in the Cup.
“Joseph Stone breathed his last one night on the trail within a day’s journey of home. Just before he died he cried out:—
“‘You won’t forget, the mine goes to—’
“Then his voice failed him, but what I caught when I bent near was a whispered, ‘to J— C— when twenty-one.’
“With his last breath he called upon the spirit of my father, ‘Black Jack’ Carlstone, to witness the injunction he had made to me.
“It was in my subsequent reflections standing there in the trail by the dead man that a mad inspiration as to the course of my future operations came to me in a flash. From Joseph Stone I had previously learned the story of his son’s leaving him in white anger years before. The father had never forgiven what he deemed ingratitude, and he apparently never heard from the younger Stone again until his widow wrote of his death and the subsequent birth of a daughter, who had been named in her grandfather’s honour, Josephine Stone. Joseph Stone never answered that letter, but he cherished the picture of the baby the mother had sent with it, and, as he always referred to the child as ‘Josie,’ there was never any doubt that his whispered ‘J— C—’ was meant to be Josie.
“It was like the eccentric old scientist to thus give out his last orders. His oral will that the property was not to go to his grand-daughter until she was twenty-one might ordinarily have presented legal difficulties; but to me that injunction presented the opportunity that comes to a man but once in a lifetime, if it comes at all.”