Harold Edward Bindloss

“ One can, in case of stern necessity, put one's pride in one's pocket, though the operation is occasionally painful, but one cannot dispense with food and shelter, and the latter are not, as a rule, to be obtained in a Canadian city except in exchange for money. Weston, who had had no lunch that day, took out the little roll of bills still left in his wallet, and, when he had flicked them over, it became unpleasantly clear that he could not prosecute the campaign more than a very few days longer. ”

“ After all," and Weston laughed softly, "the thing looks uncommonly crazy. Later on, we got a pass to do some track-grading back east, on one of the prairie lines, and when we'd saved a few dollars I started to try my luck in Montreal."
Ida said nothing for a few moments. She could fill in most of what he left untold, and it seemed to her that one who knew how men lived in the lonely logging camps through the iron winter, or drove the new track across the prairie through the thaw slush in spring, could make an epic of such a theme. ”

“ Stirling laughed.
"That's quite right," he said. "We call it supper, and that's how I dress. I don't worry about the little men when I bring them along, and the big ones don't mind."
Weston glanced at Ida, and when he saw that she seconded the invitation, he said that he would run around to his boarding-house first to see whether there were any letters or messages for him. Stirling made a sign of comprehension, for this was a thing he could understand. ”

“ It's a little difficult, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes," said Weston, laughing, "as I'm situated, it certainly is. Of course, a good deal depends on how you set about this kind of thing, and the correct way would have been to come in on a Pullman instead of a cattle-car, and then engage a suite of rooms at the biggest hotel. Financiers and company jobbers seem rather shy of a man who gives Lemoine's boarding-house as his address, and some of them are not quite civil when they hear what he has to say to them. ”

“ It is not very much of a mountain, though it forms a remarkably fine natural park, and from where Weston lay he could look down upon a vast sweep of country and the city clustering round the towers of Notre Dame. It is, from almost any point of view, a beautiful city, for its merchants and financiers of English and Scottish extraction have emulated the love of artistic symmetry displayed by the old French Canadian religious orders, as well as their lavish expenditure, in the buildings they have raised. ”

“ The thing has become an obsession."
Ida fancied that she understood. He had on several occasions revealed to her his stubborn pride, and she knew that, whatever he thought of her, he would keep it to himself unless he found that mine. She also had some idea of what one would have to face floundering over the snow-barred passes into the great desolation in winter time.
"Well," she asked quietly, "what did you do then?"
"We worked in a logging camp until spring, and then I went down to Vancouver to raise money for the next campaign. ”

“ Stirling quietly turned the conversation into another channel, but when Western took his departure he called up his secretary on the telephone.
"I want you to write Norris & Lander, Vancouver, the first thing in the morning, and get it off by the Pacific express," he said. "Tell them they can let a young man named Weston, with whom they've been in communication, have the money he asks for, to count as stock when he starts his company, at the biggest discount they can get. ”

“ The secretary said it should be done, and Stirling sat down to his cigar with a smile. He was inclined to fancy that Weston would find Norris & Lander much more amenable after that. It was an hour later when Ida came into the room, and he looked at her thoughtfully.
"There's some grit in that young man, and I guess it's just as well," he observed. "He's up against quite a big proposition." ”