control of the commercial, industrial, transport and banking resources of
the junction city of Lebanon. In the days when vast markets would be
established for Canadian wheat in Shanghai and Tokio, then these two
towns of Manitou and Lebanon on the Sagalac would be like the swivel to
the organization of trade of a continent.

Ingolby had worked with this end in view. In doing so he had tried to
get what he wanted without trickery; to reach his goal by playing the
game according to the rules, and this policy nonplussed his rivals and
associates. They expected secret moves, and he laid his cards on the
table. Sharp, quick, resolute and ruthless he was, however, if he knew
that he was being tricked. Then he struck, and struck hard. The war of
business was war and not "gollyfoxing," as he said. Selfish, stubborn
and self-centred he was in much, but he had great joy in the natural and
sincere, and he had a passionate love of Nature. To him the flat prairie
was never ugly. Its very monotony had its own individuality. The
Sagalac, even when muddy, had its own deep interest, and when it was full
of logs drifting down to the sawmills, for which he had found the money
by interesting capitalists in the East, he sniffed the stinging smell of
the pines with elation. As the great saws in the mills, for which he had
secured the capital, throwing off the spray of mangled wood, hummed and
buzzed and sang, his mouth twisted in the droll smile it always wore when
he talked with such as Jowett and Osterhaut, whose idiosyncrasies were
like a meal to him; as he described it once to some of the big men from
the East who had been behind his schemes, yet who cavilled at his ways.
He was never diverted from his course by such men, and while he was loyal
to those who had backed him, he vowed that he would be independent of
these wooden souls in the end. They and the great bankers behind them
were for monopoly; he was for organization and for economic prudence. So
far they were necessary to all he did; but it was his intention to shake