stunned by the knockout it had given me. It seemed, at first, as
though a gold-mine had walked up and laid itself down at my feet,
and I wondered how there could be so many silly fools in this
world of ours. Take a look at that map, Greggy. What do you see?"

Gregson had listened like one under a spell. It was one of his
careless boasts that situations could not faze him, that he was
immune to outward betrayals of sensation. This seeming
indifference--his light-toned attitude in the face of most serious
affairs would have made a failure of him in many things. But his
tense interest did not hide itself now. A cigarette remained
unlighted between his fingers. His eyes never took themselves for
an instant from his companion's face. Something that Whittemore
had not yet said thrilled him. He looked at the map.

"There's not much to see," he said, "but lakes and rivers."

"You're right," exclaimed Philip, jumping suddenly from his chair
and beginning to walk back and forth across the cabin. "Lakes and
rivers--hundreds of them--thousands of them! Greggy, there are
more than three thousand lakes between here and civilization and
within forty miles of the new railroad. And nine out of ten of
those lakes are so full of fish that the bears along 'em smell
fishy. Whitefish, Gregson--whitefish and trout. There is a fresh-
water area represented on that map three times as large as the
whole of the five Great Lakes, and yet the Canadians and the
government have never wakened up to what it means. There's a fish
supply in this northland large enough to feed the world, and that
little rim of lakes that I've mapped out along the edge of the
coming railroad represents a money value of millions. That was the