“It's no that bad the noo, but ye sud hae seen it afore Jem, there, took a hand o' it--a wheezin' rattlin' pechin thing that ye micht expect tae flee in bits for the noise in the wame o't. But Jemmie sorted it till it's nae despicable for its size. But it's no fit for the wark. Jemmie, lad, just gie't its fill an' we'll pit the saw until a log,” said Urquhart, as they went up into the sawing-room where, in a few minutes, the colonel had an exhibition of the saw sticking fast in a log for lack of power. “Man, yon's a lad that kens his trade. He's frae Gleska. He earns his money's warth.” “How did you come to get him?” said the colonel, moved to interest by Urquhart's unwonted praise. “Indeed, just the way we've got all our best men. It's the boss picked him oot o' the gutter, and there he is earnin' his twa and a half a day.” “The boss did that, eh?” said the colonel, with one of his swift glances at the speaker. “Aye, that he did, and he's only one o' many.” “He's good at that sort of business, I guess.” “Aye, he kens men as ye can see frae his gang.” “Doesn't seem to be able to make the company's business pay,” ventured the colonel. “D'ye think ye cud find one that cud?” pointing to the halting saw. “An that's the machine that turned oot thae piles yonder. Gie him a chance, though, an' when the stuff is deesposed of ye'll get y're profit.” Urquhart knew what he was about, and the colonel went back with Coley to his rooms convinced of two facts, that the company had a plant that might easily be improved, but a manager that, in the estimation of those who wrought with him, was easily first in his class. Ranald could have adopted no better plan for the enhancing of his reputation than by allowing Colonel Thorp to go in and out among the workmen and his friends. More and more the colonel became impressed with his manager's genius for the picking of his men and binding them to his interests, and as this impression deepened he became the more resolved that it was a waste of good material to retain a man in a country offering such a limited scope for his abilities. But after four weeks spent in exploring the interior, from Quesnelle to Okanagan, and in the following in and out the water-ways of the coast line, the colonel met Ranald at Yale with only a problem to be solved, and he lost no time in putting it to his manager. “How in thunder can I get those narrow-gauge, hidebound Easterners to launch out into business in this country?” “I can't help you there, Colonel. I've tried and failed.” “By the great Sam, so you have!” said the colonel, with a sudden conviction of his own limitations in the past. “No use tryin' to tell 'em of this,” swinging his long arm toward the great sweep of the Fraser Valley, clothed with a mighty forest. “It's only a question of holdin' on for a few years, the thing's dead sure.”