_ CHAPTER XXV. THE UNCONQUERABLE SPIRIT
Two years later, Belding and Elsie were returning from Chicago, where the former had been purchasing machinery for the new company, of which he was chief engineer. Time had done well for them and for St. Marys. The six months' physical inactivity of the works were spent wisely, if ruthlessly, in weeding out unfertile growths and concentrating resources on those which were sound and promising. There was a sharp distinction between this deliberate policy and the restless activity that preceded it.
St. Marys, too, had caught its breath and taken on permanency. There were no more surprises. The works became a factory, instead of a Pandora's box, full of the unexpected. Property was stable, if lower than the high water mark, while Filmer and the rest settled down to steady business, somewhat forgetful of the man to whom were due the first tendrils of the tree of progress.
But Belding, growing constantly in mental stature, could never forget. His own position--his development--his authority, had come of the abiding faith bestowed on him nine years ago by one whom he had then seen but for ten minutes. And as often as he saw the works the realization came over him. How many others, he wondered, felt as he did?
They were approaching St. Marys, and, coming out of the dining car with Elsie, he steadied her to their seat. Night was drawing on, but the car remained unlighted, and simultaneously they noticed a man sitting across the aisle, staring intently out of the window. Something familiar in the figure caught their attention.
"It's Mr. Clark," he whispered to his wife.
She glanced across, and her fingers tightened on his arm.
"Don't speak to him, Jim."
"Why?"
"Look at him, can't you see?"
Belding looked, Clark was absolutely motionless, and had not changed a fraction in two years. The train moved on, till it halted for a few moments on the great bridge. The air was cool and full of the deep roar of the rapids, and the car vibrated delicately with the huge steel girders on which it rested. Two hundred feet away came the first, smooth dip that Belding would always remember. Immediately beneath, he had slid into the chaos further on.
The two young people did not stir, but watched the silent observer. Against the window they caught the dominant nose, the clean cut, powerful chin, the aggressive contour of head and shoulders. Clark was leaning forward, his gaze exploring the well remembered scene.
"Don't disturb him," whispered Elsie again.
Her husband pressed her hand, and they waited, wondering what thoughts were passing through that marvelous brain. He was staring at the works. It was all his--this dream come true; this vision portrayed in steel and stone. Out of nothing but water and wood and his own superb faith he had created it, only to see this exemplification of himself slip from his own hands into those of others, who had sponsored neither its birth nor its magnificent development. What portion of his leader, pondered the engineer, had been incorporated in those vast foundations--and what had life left in store to replace them for him?
The train was moving on, when Clark, turning suddenly, smiled and held out his hand.
"Glad to see you both, if only for a minute. I'm on my way back to Russia, where I'm carrying out large improvements for the government--been there for the last year. By the way, Belding, did you notice that old, crooked birch beside the rapids? A big, fat kingfisher used to live there--we knew each other well."
CONCLUSION
The sumac leaves, which through the summer months tapped delicately at my study window, have turned a vivid scarlet, and one by one have fluttered to the ground. Here, by the mysterious process of nature, they will be incorporated with the rich soil, to nourish some other life that will later climb sunward. But in that life no one shall recognize a sumac leaf.
So it seems are the efforts of men. A few years of growth and aspiration--then the fiery bourgeoning to a climax, and, after that, incorporation in the soil of a forgetfulness that seems indifferent alike to their exertions and their ambitions. But the end is not here. Somewhere, and most certainly in some other form, the effort achieves immortality and reasserts itself, indestructible and eternal. For such are the myriad filaments of existence, and so indissolubly are men linked with each other by invisible chains, that it is but seldom that impulse can be traced back to its birth, or courage to its starting point.
Who then shall determine what is success and what is failure? Does the grandeur of the reward establish the value of the service, or is it not true that, in the mysterious cycle of time, the richest field is not seldom sown by hands that have been without honor or recognition in their season? Does wealth or authority spell success, or is it the meed of those who have given rather than taken, who have toiled on the mountain side rather than sought the peaks of publicity? Clark came to St. Marys a poor man, and he left it no whit the richer. What he made, he spent. And when the day of his departure dawned, he went as one who had attempted and failed, carrying with him the resentment of those who lost, and few thanks from those who profited.
But did Clark actually fail?
To-day the mines of Algoma are supplying steel rails for Asiatic railways; the forests about St. Marys are yielding pulp for Australia, and the great power house is sending carbide to the mines of India. This and much more is the fruit of vision. What matter that Philadelphia stormed, and that the reins of government were snatched from those masterful hands? The dream has come true.
Consider for a moment this man, who is stranger to most. He desired neither wealth nor ease, being filled with a vast hunger for creation, and to forest, mountain and river he turned with confidence and abiding courage. It was as though nature herself had whispered misty secrets in his ear. Being a prophet, he suffered like a prophet, but the years, rolling on, have enabled him to look back on the later flower of his earlier days, for it was written that he should plow and others reap. And of necessity it was so. Like the prospector who finds gold in the wilderness and straightway shoulders his pack to seek for further treasure, his unwearying soul drove him on in steadfast pursuit of that which lay just over the hill. It was not the thing that lay at his feet which fascinated, but the promise of the morrow, whose dawn already gilded the horizon of his spirit.
Clark, with his impetuous energy, is typical of a country in which few achievements are impossible. He provided his own motive power and used his hypnotic influence only in one direction--that of progress. Ever faithful to his destiny, he was too busy to have time to suffer, too occupied to waste himself in regrets. Like the rapids themselves, his work moves on, and in its deep rumble may be distinguished the confused note of humanity, striving and ever striving.
[THE END]
Alan Sullivan's Novel: The Rapids
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