I

FEATHERSTONE CHANGES HIS PLANS

It was getting dark, and a keen wind blew across the ragged pines
beside the track, when Jake Foster walked up and down the station at
Gardner's Crossing in North Ontario. Winter was moving southwards fast
across the wilderness that rolled back to Hudson's Bay, silencing the
brawling rivers and calming the stormy lakes, but the frost had
scarcely touched the sheltered valley yet and the roar of a rapid
throbbed among the trees. The sky had the crystal clearness that is
often seen in northern Canada, but a long trail of smoke stretched
above the town, and the fumes of soft coal mingled with the aromatic
smell of the pines. Gardner's Crossing stood, an outpost of advancing
industry, on the edge of the lonely woods.

The blue reflections of big arc-lamps quivered between the foam-flakes
on the river, a line of bright spots, stretching back along the bank,
marked new avenues of wooden houses, and, across the bridge, the tops
of tall buildings cut against the glow that shimmered about the town.
At one end rose the great block of the Hulton factory, which lost
something of its utilitarian ugliness at night. Its harsh, rectangular
outline faded into the background of forest, and the rows of glimmering
windows gave it a curious transparent look. It seemed to overflow with
radiance and filled the air with rumbling sound.

In a large measure, Gardner's Crossing owed its rapid development to
the enterprise of the Hulton Manufacturing Company. Hulton was ready