IV
HALKET AND COMPANY
Floyd climbed to a point on the hillside above the last row of houses, and then turned to look down on what was to be the scene of his labors.
It was a hot July day, and as the climb had started the perspiration, he took off his hat and wiped his forehead, not reluctant to defer for a moment the view. Behind him rose a bare slope, with only a few weeds growing out of the gullied and stony soil; below him, its streets slanting up and along the hillside, was the town of New Rome. From the height Floyd looked over the tops of the houses, down upon his grandfather's mills, the steel works of Halket and Company, the enterprise that had built and made New Rome.
"What a huge great smirch it is!" he murmured.
The "works" filled the arc of a mile curve made by the Yolin River, of which Floyd could see only a narrow yellow strip. The mills, mostly corrugated iron sheds, with red sides and black, sloping roofs, and the machine-shops and mill offices, buildings of yellow fire-brick, were pitched together, lengthwise, sidewise; railroad tracks, congested with freight cars, subtended the river arc and formed the inner boundary; other tracks wove in among the mills. In the centre of all was the greatest of the open-hearth furnaces—a huge shed, bearing twenty-two high black chimneys, from each of which a purulent yellow smoke was issuing. Hundreds of chimneys, varying in height and size, broke and confused the vision; some of them stood silent and breathless, but from many smoke was pouring, smoke of all colors as it took the rays of the sun, smoke
