Part 32 (1/2)

”It's not that, quite. I mean that people seem to think in a bigger way.

I suppose it comes from having so much s.p.a.ce around one.”

The train was now pa.s.sing through the endless miles of forest-land and tangled hills on the route to Fort William, with scarcely a sign of human habitation except by the occasional wayside stations. Now and again the train would thunder over a high trestle bridge above a leaping torrent-river. Dean waved his hand vaguely to include the primeval vastnesses around them.

”That's right,” answered the minister. ”There's no cramping here. Room for everyone. Room for spiritual growth as well as material growth. I know the feeling you have. When I was a young man about your age I came to Canada from the slums of Liverpool. I had been twice in jail in Liverpool. It was for theft. In England I should probably have developed into a chronic thief. There's little chance for a man who has once been in prison.... But Canada gave me my chance. Canada didn't bother about my past. Canada only wanted to know what I could do in the future.”

Dean's eyes widened at this frank avowal. He had never seen or heard of a man--and especially a man in the ministry--who would openly confess to a prison-brand upon him.

”No wonder you like Canada,” was his lame answer.

”Tell me, my friend, why you left my chapel so hurriedly last night.”

Dean flushed. ”I was feeling a bit faint,” he returned.

”That's conscience.”

”Oh, I don't know. The chapel was very packed and hot.”

”It was conscience. Why won't you be frank with me?”

”There's nothing to be frank about.”

The minister looked steadily at him, and Dean flushed still further and fidgetted uncomfortably.

”I must be getting back to my carriage,” he murmured.

”The Lord has brought you to me a second time. There may never be a third time. The Lord has----”

A sudden jerk of the car threw them both off their feet. They were pa.s.sing now over a high trestle bridge above a foaming torrent. There was a horrible grinding and jarring and cras.h.i.+ng. The tail-car of the train flicked out sideways and hung half over the river, dragging with it the cars in front. For an age-long second it seemed as if the whole train would be precipitated into the water.

Then the couplings parted.

The end car, turning over and over, struck the river a hundred feet below and impaled itself on a jagged spur of rock hidden under the swirl of waters.

Dean had been battered to insensibility before the car reached the rocks.

He awoke to consciousness through the agonized dream that fiends were staking him down under water and torturing him by letting the water rise higher and higher, until finally he would be drowned by inches.

He awoke, struggling frantically, to the reality which had dictated the dream.

Waters were swirling around him, and his legs were pinned fast in the wreckage of the car tilted up on end amongst the sunken rocks. Burning pains shot through him. Far up above on the bridge men were shouting and rus.h.i.+ng wildly.

He screamed out for help. A wave dashed at him and choked the scream on his lips. He struggled to free himself from the wreckage that pinned him fast, and blinding pain drove him to unconsciousness again.

As he awoke for the second time, a groan near by made him twist his head to see who it might come from. It was the minister, held fast amongst the splintered wreckage of the car, his face streaming red from a jagged gash in his grey head.

”I can't get to you! I'm helpless!” cried Dean.

The minister answered very simply: ”My friend, see to yourself. The Lord has called me to his side.”