Alton had reached the limit of his surmises, and refilling his pipe again abandoned himself to more pleasant dreams.  He heard the whistle of the locomotive ringing among the pines, and the hum of the great mills that would grind out wealth for Somasco.  Then while the pungent smoke curled about him visions materialized out of its filmy wreaths, and he saw the lake at Carnaby shining amidst the woodlands of peaceful England, and the old grey hall.  In place of the sting of the resin he could smell the English roses, and when the next acrid wisp slid past him it seemed to change its form, and there grew out of it the gracious, alluring shape of a woman.  Costly fabrics floated about her, there was a flash of diamonds in the red-gold hair, a face that lost its patrician serenity as it smiled, and for a setting the glitter of light and silver in the great hall at Carnaby.  Alton, whose eyes were growing dim, stretched out his arms towards the darkness, and a chilling gust swept the smoke aside, while great drops of water fell splashing upon him.  He was back once more in the wilderness, a wet and very weary man, with thorn-rents in his deerskin jacket and the mire clinging about him, but he smiled as he rose stiffly and stretched his aching limbs.

“I figure there’s a good deal to be done before that time comes, and some of it can’t wait after sun up,” he said.

Then, having left the tent behind, he carried his blankets away from the fire, and rolled himself up in them between two great fir-roots that afforded concealment as well as shelter.  Though he had strewn them about the blaze the blankets were still clammy, but he drew the damp folds about him uncomplainingly, and lay down with the rifle at his side.  Ten minutes passed.  The fire snapped and crackled, the growl of the rapid rose and fell fitfully, but the worn-out man heard neither, for he was sleeping heavily.

There are many like him who dream great dreams scattered across the new lands by the Pacific from the snow of the Yukon to Mexico, but their visions are sacred and not expressed in speech, while a smile which is half ironical flickers in the steadfast eyes when they hear them caricatured by the platform Imperialist.  Their words are scanty, but their handiwork is plain; the gap hewn in the virgin forest, bridge flung over frothing river, and the raw rent of the giant powder amidst the lonely hills.  It is crude and unsightly often, the creosote-reeking railroad track, and the ugly humming mills, but it means food for the toilers, good wages and trade, and in place of a pleasance for the rich to seek diversion in, a new and rich dominion won, not for England, or the Republic, alone, but for humanity.