“Cheer up!” said John, with a laugh that sounded just a trifle hollow. “Cheer up, old man. I know all about this, and you’re not in the least to blame. You acted in good faith throughout.”
“It’s horrible, John, horrible; but still, you know, you have the land, and before long that will realise all you’ve put in.”
“Yes, Mr. Manson, I’ve got the land; that’s one consolation.”
But he knew perfectly well he hadn’t. He knew that when the sixty days were up the bank would foreclose, which was exactly what happened. There were practically no bidders for so large a plot, and Nicholson purchased the property for the exact amount owing to the bank.
The ruin of John Steele was complete.
CHAPTER XVI—THE RICHEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD
THE clearing in the primeval forest had been only partial, for several tall trees were left standing here and there, grouped around a log-house. The house itself, to a casual observer, resembled the dwelling of an ordinary pioneer, except that it was much larger than any residence a poor woodman ever erected. It was built of great pine logs, the ends roughly dovetailed together with a lumberman’s axe. Where log lay on log, the interstices were plastered with clay. A broad verandah ran completely round the oblong building, a luxury which the pioneer usually denied himself. A settler would also have been contented to cover his roof with split oak clapboards, but here the refinement of yellow pine shingles was used, which not only kept out the weather better than the pioneer’s economical device, but caused the tone of the broad roof to harmonise well with the hue of the bark on the logs; and as one approached the edifice from the forest, the whole structure standing out against the background of deep blue afforded by the lake and sky, formed a more pleasing colour scheme than might have been expected where contrasts were so vivid in that translucent air. Around the large log-house were grouped many other log-buildings, with no attempt at regulation and order. Each one appeared to have been put up as needed, and these ranged from an ordinary outhouse or shed to complete residences. A few hundred yards away from the verandah of the house, down a sloping lawn, lay sand of dazzling whiteness, and along these sands rippled the smallest waves of the largest lake in the world.
No such body of fresh water as Lake Superior exists anywhere else on earth. The water in bulk is blue; taken in detail, it is almost invisible; and this was strikingly illustrated by an adjunct of civilisation which no stretch of the imagination could attach to pioneer days. Anchored in the bay floated a large white steam-yacht, with two funnels and two slender, sloping masts. It seemed resting, not on the surface of the lake, but in mid-air, for the details of the twin screws, the long, level keel, and submerged part from prow to stern were as plain to the eye as the upper works or the funnels or the masts.