fight, for your finger at somebody's neck? That's what I felt when I was
your age, and I did it, and I'm doing it, but I can't do it as I used to.
My veins are leaking somewhere." A strange, sad, faded look came into
his eyes. "I don't want my business to be broken by Belloc," he added.
"Come and help me save it."

"By gosh, I will!" said the young man after a moment, with a sudden
thirst in his throat and bite to his teeth. "By gum, yes, I'll go with
you."




CHAPTER VII

"AT OUR PRICE?"

West of the city of Montreal were the works and the offices of John
Grier. Here it was that a thing was done without which there might have
been no real story to tell. It was a night which marked the close of the
financial year of the firm.

Upon John Grier had come Carnac. He had brought with him a small statue
of a riverman with flannel shirt, scarf about the waist, thick defiant
trousers and well-weaponed boots. It was a real figure of the river,
buoyant, daring, almost vicious. The head was bare; there were plain
gold rings in the ears; and the stark, half-malevolent eyes looked out,
as though searching for a jam of logs or some peril of the river. In the
horny right hand was a defiant pike-pole, its handle thrust forward, its
steel spike stabbing the ground.