"Boozhoo!" he said slowly, with one long look at Clark.
"Good-by! Come again."
The penetrating gaze followed the pigmy vessel as it dipped to the larger stretch of the bay, dwindling with the glint of two blades that flashed with clock-like regularity in the afternoon sun. Soon it reduced to a speck and was out of sight. Clark turned to his office, still contemplating the dignity of his visitor, the stark simplicity of this archaean aristocrat. How soon, after all, he pondered, might not he himself and his works look aboriginal beside the achievements which science had yet to unfold to the world? Then, glancing across the river, he stepped down to the dock and struck over in a fast launch.
XV.—CLARK CONVERTS TORONTO
It is probable that Clark's invasion of the State of Michigan made more impression on the people of St. Marys than any other of his activities, even though it came in the midst of great undertakings. Here was the definite impression of a central power that stretched octopus arms from out of their own town. Even Manson, who was recognized as the champion pessimist, seemed impressed. But St. Marys remained for the most part still inactive. The people looked on, admired the works, discussed each new development, read much about their home town in outside papers, and that was in a general way about all. They saw in Clark a constantly more arresting and suggestive figure. They had nodded approvingly when he secured a private car for the use of himself, his directors and shareholders, and considered it a natural thing when it was announced that he was building upon the hill a large and expensive residence. The blockhouse, they pointed out, had long since become too small to accommodate his many and important visitors.
St. Marys had physically changed. Old streets were paved with asphalt and new ones opened. The car line that ran up to the works branched out across the railway into ground that a few years before was solid bush, but was now covered with substantial houses, occupied by a new population. Parts of old St. Marys were left in the lurch because the owners refused to sell, Dibbott amongst them, and Worden, whose broad river-fronting lawn was surrounded by the commercial section of the rejuvenated town. Filmer's store had been enlarged twice, and so complete was the popularity of the mayor that, with his sound business instinct, it still held place as the local emporium.
At the terminus of the car line a new town had sprung up. In Ironville dwelt the brawn and bone of the works. The place was not restful like St. Marys, but a heterogeneous collection of sprawling cabins, corner saloons and grocery stores where the food was piled on sidewalk stands and gathered to itself the smoke and grime of the works when the wind came up from the south. Here were the Poles and Hungarians and Swedes, with large and constantly increasing families, and to them the sun rose and set in pulp mills and machine shops, blast furnaces and the like. They were mostly big men and strong, who sweated all day and came back, grimy, to eat and then spend the long evenings at the corner saloons or fishing in the upper bay, or sometimes taking the car down to St. Marys, and walking about surveying the comfortable old houses and carefully kept lawns. And of Ironville, St. Marys did not think very much, save that it was dirty and unattractive and, unfortunately, quite a necessary evil.
Back in the country new farms were cleared on heavily timbered land and the farmers found instant market for all they could raise. But the bush still stretched unbroken a little further to the north, and while Clark's engineers spent millions to harness the mighty flow of Superior, the beaver were building their dams in a tamarac swamp not five miles from the works.
All this was indissolubly linked with Philadelphia. Parties of shareholders, large and small, came up in special cars to inspect the plant. These visits were well organized. They found everything going at full blast, everything was explained by the magnetic Clark and there followed banquets at the new hotel, when both shareholders and directors spoke and Filmer voiced the sentiments and pride of the town, and the shareholders went away a little staggered by the size and potentiality of their business but determined to back Clark to the limit and carrying away with them ineffaceable impressions of his strong and hypnotic personality. It was, after all, as they said, a one man show.
Interest grew in Philadelphia, and thousands, swayed as though by the compelling voice of the rapids, plunged deeper. The discovery of iron was but one of the inviting incentives which, from time to time, stimulated support. Million after million was subscribed and sent to this man who inspired such abounding faith in himself and his gigantic plans. It may be that in one of those moments of profound insight which Clark periodically experienced, he became finally convinced that life was short and there must be, in his case at any rate, compressed into it the maximum of human effort ere the day ran out. His brain oscillated between the actual work itself and those extraneous affairs which might at some time affect it.