lack of education it was impossible that he should be able to fathom a
nature so complex, so far removed from his sphere of culture.

His devotion to the ex-university professor was based on a splendid
gratitude such as only the native generosity of his temper could bestow.
The man had once served him in his extremity. Even to this day he never
quite realised how the thing had come about, and Leslie Standing refused
to talk of it. All he knew was that as mill-boss of an obscure mill, far
in the interior of Quebec, away down south of Sachigo, he had fought one
of those sudden battles with a lumber-jack which seem to spring up
without any apparent reason. And in the desperateness of it, in the
fierce height to which his battling temper had arisen, he had killed his
man. Even so, these things were sufficiently common for little notice of
the matter to have been taken. But it so happened that the dead man was
the hero of the workers of the mill, and Bat Harker was their well-hated
boss. Forthwith, in their numbers, the workers at once determined that
Bat should pay the penalty. They seized and imprisoned him, while they
sent down country to get him duly tried and condemned. It was then the
miracle happened.

It happened in the night, with the appearance of a lean, tall man, with
a high forehead, and smooth black hair, and the clothes of civilisation
to which Bat Harker was little enough accustomed. He entered his prison
room seemingly without question. He told Bat that if he cared to get
away he had the means awaiting him outside. And the prisoner who had
visions of hanging, or at best, a long term of imprisonment, snatched at
the helping hand held out. And Leslie Standing had brought him in safety
straight to Farewell Cove, where together, with the vast capital which
the former had wrung from the Swedish financier, Nathaniel Hellbeam,
they had undertaken the creation of the great mill of Sachigo.