"He's got as much in his ten years in the business as we've got out
of half a life-time," said the chief of his admirers. This was the
President who had first welcomed him into business, and introduced him to
his colleagues in enterprise.

"I shouldn't be surprised if the belt flew off the wheel some day,"
savagely said Ingolby's snub-souled critic, whose enmity was held in
check by the fact that on Ingolby, for the moment, depended the safety
of the hard cash he had invested.

But the qualities which alienated an expert here and there caught the
imagination of the pioneer spirits of Lebanon. Except those who, for
financial reasons, were opposed to him, and must therefore pit themselves
against him, as the representatives of bigger forces behind them, he was
a leader of whom Lebanon was combatively proud. At last he came to the
point where his merger was practically accomplished, and a problem
arising out of it had to be solved. It was a problem which taxed every
quality of an able mind. The situation had at last become acute, and
Time, the solvent of most complications, had not quite eased the strain.
Indeed, on the day that Fleda Druse had made her journey down the
Carillon Rapids, Time's influence had not availed. So he had gone
fishing, with millions at stake--to the despair of those who were risking
all on his skill and judgment.

But that was Ingolby. Thinking was the essence of his business, not
Time. As fishing was the friend of thinking, therefore he fished in
Seely's Eddy, saw Fleda Druse run the Carillon Rapids, saved her from
drowning, and would have brought her in pride and peace to her own home,
but that she decreed otherwise.