“Bat—­Bat, old friend.  It isn’t I who lack imagination.  It’s you, with your bull-dog, fighting nature.  Years ago, way back there in my rooms at the university, I took up a study that interested me mightily.  It was when the European war was on, and was doing its best to unship the brains of half the world.  I took it up to relieve myself of the strain of things.  And it inspired me with a desire to achieve something that looked well-nigh impossible.  I was watching the Swedes, the Skandinavians generally, and I saw them getting fat and rich by holding the rest of the world to ransom for paper and wood pulp—­the stuff we call here groundwood.  It was then that my dream was born.  Oh, yes, it’s changed a bit since then.  But not so much.  All I learned at that time told me there was only one country in the world that was due to hold the world’s paper industry, and that country was yours—­Canada.  The illimitable forests of the country are one of the most amazing features of it.  The water power—­yes, and even the climate.  But I saw all Skandinavia’s advantage.  Hitherto they’ve had a complete monopoly.  Geographically they were in the thick of the world.  The whole darn thing was in their lap.  But they have a weakness which you could never find in this country.  Their forests are being eaten into.  Their lumber is receding farther and farther from their mills.  Their labour is difficult.  Well, I set to work with a map and those figures which you guess are my strong point.  I played around with all the information of Quebec and Labrador I could get hold of.  Then, after worrying around awhile, I realised that, with only eighteen hundred sea miles dividing Britain from Labrador, given the cheapness of power, sufficiently extensive plant and forest limits and adequate shipping, I could put groundwood on the European market in favourable competition with Skandinavia.  By this means I could build up an industry which means the wealth of Canada for the Canadians, and establish the paper industry of the world within the heart of our British Empire.  So it was Farewell Cove and Sachigo on the coast of Labrador for me.  And the locality had nothing to do with the man who guesses I robbed him.”

It was Bat who was held silent now.  He nodded his head at the narrow back that remained turned on him.

“Well, since then,” Standing went on, “seven years have passed.  Circumstances have forced modifications on my plans.  Hellbeam is the circumstance.  You say we are the gophers hunting our holes.  Maybe you’re right.  Anyway Hellbeam’s shadow is haunting me.  It’s haunting me in that I know—­I feel—­that the fulfilment of this dream is not for me.  Why?”

He turned abruptly from the window.  His pale face was even paler under the excitement burning in his dark eyes.  He thrust out a hand, a delicate, long-fingered hand pointing at his friend and faithful servant.