The sky was blue, frayed here and there into ends of white clouds--the glorious northern sky, matched only in the air of Naples or Touraine. But Mr. Babcock was not looking at the sky. His soul was tuned to lower things--to lumber, for instance, heaps of it, piles of it, rows of it, stretched for hundreds of yards along the river, and across the peninsula, and along the edge of the harbour. The mills were silent; the watchmen were not to be seen; the only sign of life was the smoke curling from the funnels of the _Number One_, where Robbie MacGregor was dozing on the engine-room bench and hourly growing fatter. Six million feet of lumber greeted the eye of the man from Chicago, as he looked--and looked. It was new lumber, bought by experts, every stick of it such as would command a good price when the owners should throw it on the market, as they certainly would sooner or later. He shook his head and hurried on. He found Halloran at the office and shook hands cordially. Crosman heard the name, looked blank, recollected himself, and slipped out. “Well, you've got a great lot of lumber here, Mr. Halloran,” Babcock began softly, glancing out the window. “Yes--a good deal.” “How much can you keep in the yards here?” “We have about twenty-five million feet in now.” “You don't say so! Your own cutting?” “Only part of it.” “You've been--er--buying in the market, eh?” “Yes, all we could get.” He could not resist adding, “It's been a good time to buy.” “Yes, so it has, so it has. I suppose you're holding this lot for a better price?” Halloran nodded. His eyes were searching the face of his caller. Babcock paused to gather his forces, then settled back in his chair. “I feel like telling you, Mr. Halloran, that you've done a mighty neat piece of work. To tell the truth, it's been a surprise to us to see how well you've carried this business. Your fame now”--he leaned forward and dropped his voice to a confidential pitch--“your fame now, however, rests even more on the way you've stuck to your employer's interests than on the cleverness of what you've done. There are clever men enough, but down in Chicago we don't see any too many honest ones.” “No, I suppose you don't.”