Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/286

  his self-control his voice shook. "I could not bear that."

"No, I could never think ill of you, Ranald, but I would be grieved to think that you should fail of becoming a noble man, strong and brave; strong enough to forgive and brave enough to serve."

Once more Ranald went to the woods, with earnest thoughts in his mind, hoping he should not meet LeNoir, and fighting out his battle to victory; and by the time the drive had reached the big water next spring, that battle was almost over. The days in the silent woods and the nights spent with his uncle in the camp, and afterward in his cabin on the raft, did their work with Ranald.

The timber cut that year was the largest that had ever been known on the Upper Ottawa. There was great crowding of rafts on the drive, and for weeks the chutes were full, and when the rafts were all brought together at Quebec, not only were the shores lined and Timber Cove packed, but the broad river was full from Quebec to Levis, except for the steamboat way which must be kept open.

For the firm of Raymond & St. Clair this meant enormous increase of business, and it was no small annoyance that at this crisis they should have detected their Quebec agent in fraud, and should have been forced to dismiss him. The situation was so critical that Mr. St. Clair himself, with Harry as his clerk, found it necessary to spend a month in Quebec. He took with him Maimie and her great friend Kate