the terminus of your five-hundred-mile railway. The land you run it over
is mostly lakes, rivers, and frozen swamps for three-quarters of the
year. The line is useless except for your own purpose--to carry wheat
for the Hudson Bay steamship route to England. You agree?"

"Agreed." Larssen was not the man to waste argument over minor points
when a vital matter was under discussion.

"Then the scheme centres on the practicability of making the arctic
Hudson Bay passage a commercial highway. It means the creating of a
modern port at Fanning. It means the lighting of a whole
coast-line"--his finger travelled to the north of Hudson Bay and the
northern coast of Labrador--"before a cargo of wheat leaves Port
Fanning."

"I'll build lighthouses myself by the dozen if the Canadian Government
won't. I'll equip every one with long-range wireless."

"The cost will be tremendous."

"There will be a differential of sixpence a bushel on wheat over my
route. That talks down fifty lighthouses."

"But it makes no allowance for rate-cutting by the big men on the
present routes. Further, if the Canadian Government are not with you on
this scheme, they'll be against you. There are a dozen ways in which you
might be frozen out. In that case the Hudson Bay Route will be the
biggest fiasco that ever happened."

"Nothing I've yet touched has been a fiasco," answered Lars Larssen with