The Rapids

by Alan Sullivan

Presently Fisette took out his compass, balanced it in the palm of his sinewy hand and glanced at the needle. As he glanced, this filament of soft iron began to tremble and swing. He stood fascinated. Slowly at first, but gradually with more active and jerky motions, the thing became possessed. It vibrated as though in doubt, then moved off in continued restlessness. Not by any means could Fisette end these vagaries. After a little, a slow light grew in his eyes, his strong face broadened into a smile and, snapping back the compass lid, he strode down hill.

A quarter of an hour later he was chipping the edges of a ridge of blackish-gray rock from which he had stripped great rolls of damp, green moss. The rock lay exposed and glistening, its polished surface scarred with the scratches of hard stones that once lay embedded in the feet of prehistoric glaciers, but Fisette, screwing his bushy brows over a tiny magnifying glass and peering at the sparkling fragments in his palm and balancing their weight, cared nothing for glaciers. He only knew he had found that which he had been seeking for more than a year.

There is no measuring device for joy, and no foot-rule one can lay on emotion, but it is questionable if to the heart of any man comes greater lightness than to that of the one who by stress and endurance in the wilderness, upturns the treasure he has so arduously sought. These moments are few and rapt and precious, and they glowed in the slow brain of the half-breed Fisette as nothing else had ever glowed. It was true that he stood to do well and earn independence out of this discovery, but he was conscious at the instant of a reward greater than ease and comfort and money to spend. He had backed himself, single-handed, against the wilderness, and he had won. Again he unrolled from a strip of caribou skin the fragment of ore Clark had given him—the fragment he was to match—and laid it amongst the fresh chippings at his feet. Only by size and shape could he distinguish it.

Now it may be assumed that Fisette forthwith threw his tattered hat into the air and gave way to noisy manifestations of joy. He did nothing of the kind, for in his hairy breast were combined the practical side of his French father and the noiseless secrecy of an Indian mother. There was much to be done, and he went about it with voiceless determination. First of all he blazed a jack pine whose knotted roots grasped nakedly at the ridge, and marked it boldly with his name and the number of his prospecting license and the date, which latter, he remembered contentedly, was the birthday of his youngest child.

This accomplished, he disappeared in the bush and two hours later reappeared bending forward under a pack strap whose broad center strained against his swarthy forehead. And in the pack were a small shed tent and his camping outfit. Making a tiny, smokeless fire of dry wood, he cooked and ate, stopping now and again to listen intently. But all he heard was the chuckle of a hidden spring and the insolent familiarity of a blue jay, which, perched in a branch immediately above, eyed the prospector's frying pan with a bright inquiring gaze.

By noon of the second day Fisette had blazed the enclosing boundaries of three claims, along the middle of which for three quarters of a mile he had traced the ridge of ore, and when corner posts were in, he shouldered his pack and, stepping quietly to the river where his canoe was hidden three miles away, began his homeward journey. He paddled easily, squatting in the middle like his ancestors, and feeling a new pleasure in the steady pressure of his noiseless blade. He did not experience any particular sense of triumph, but when, six hours afterward, he saw the glint of Lake Superior around a bend in the river he laughed softly to himself.

IX.—CONCERNING THE APPREHENSION OF CLARK'S DIRECTORS

Move now to Philadelphia, long since linked with St. Marys by a private wire, at either end of which sat the confidential operators of the Company. The seed sown by Clark a few years ago had flourished amazingly. Instead of the austerity of Wimperley's office there was now the quiet magnificence of the Consolidated Company's financial headquarters, tenanted by a small battalion of clerks and officials. These were the metropolitan evidence of the remote activities in St. Marys.

To thousands of Pennsylvanians this office was a focal point of extreme interest. From it emanated announcements of work by which they were vitally affected, for Clark had come to Philadelphia at the psychological moment and cast his influence on those who were accredited leaders in the community. He had said that millions waited investment and he was right, for once Wimperley, Stoughton and Riggs had satisfied themselves as to the project and announced their support, money began to come in, at first in a slow trickle, but soon in a steadily increasing flood.

It was recognized that time was required to bring to fruition the various undertakings so rapidly conceived, and Clark's shareholders had in them a certain stolid deliberation, aided, perhaps, by a strain of Dutch ancestry. This kept money moving in a steady stream and in the desired direction. From Philadelphia the attraction spread to outside points. It was noticeable that, with the exception of Pennsylvania, other States did not evidence any appreciable interest. The thing was a Philadelphia enterprise, and to this city from neighboring villages came a growing demand for stock.