She put her arms around his neck. "Then, Peter," she implored, "stop now. It's enough--it's marvelously more than I ever dreamed of. Oh! we can be so happy." He shook his head. "I've set my mind on the even hundred. Can't you stand another year of it?" "I can, but not you," she implored. "You don't know how you've changed. Peter, I beg you." "I've got to leave that fifty where it is to make the next," he said with slow stubbornness. "I'll be the only man in St. Marys who was wise enough to make hay when the sun shone. You needn't be frightened for me." "I'm frightened for myself," she answered shakily. "Won't you do what I ask? Sometimes," she ventured with delicate courage, "sometimes a woman can see furthest--though she doesn't know why." "A year from to-day you'll thank me for sticking it out," came back Manson stolidly. "And if it shouldn't turn out as you expect," she replied with a look that was at once sudden and profound, "you'll remember that I begged and you refused." The door closed noiselessly behind her and Manson stared at his desk with a queer sense of discomfort. Consolidated stock had moved up buoyantly on the news of the discovery of iron, and he had established for himself with his Toronto brokers the reputation of a shrewd operator who worked on the strength of inside information. In front of him were Toronto letters asking that his agent be kept informed of developments at St. Marys. It pleased him that this had been achieved outside his own town and without its knowledge, and he saw himself a man who was vastly underestimated by his fellow citizens. But in spite of it all he was daily more conscious of a worm of uncertainty that gnawed in his brain. The thing was safe, obviously and demonstrably safe. Against his thousands others had invested millions with which to buttress the whole gigantic concern. And yet--! XIV.--AN ANCIENT ARISTOCRAT VISITS THE WORKS On a sunshiny day twelve miles down the river at the Indian settlement, old Chief Shingwauk, known in English as the Pine Tree, put on his best beaded caribou-skin moccasins and, motioning to his wife, moved slowly toward the shore where a small bark canoe nestled in the long reeds. A few moments later they slid silently up stream, the aged crone kneeling in the bow, a red shawl enveloping head and shoulders, her thin and bony arms wielding a narrow paddle with smooth agility. In the stern squatted Shingwauk, his dark eyes deep in thought.