CHAPTER IX
Not until dinner was finished and father and son had repaired to thelibrary for their coffee and cigars did Bryce Cardigan advert to thesubject of his father's business affairs.
"Well, John Cardigan," he declared comfortably, "to-day is Friday.I'll spend Saturday and Sunday in sinful sloth and the renewal of oldacquaintance, and on Monday I'll sit in at your desk and give you along-deferred vacation. How about that programme, pard?"
"Our affairs are in such shape that they could not possibly be hurtor bettered, no matter who takes charge of them now," Cardigan repliedbitterly. "We're about through. I waited too long and trusted too far;and now--well, in a year we'll be out of business."
"Suppose you start at the beginning and tell me everything right to theend. George Sea Otter informed me that you've been having trouble withthis Johnny-come-lately, Colonel Pennington. Is he the man who has uswhere the hair is short?"
The old man nodded.
"The Squaw Creek timber deal, eh?" Bryce suggested.
Again the old man nodded. "You wrote me all about that," Brycecontinued. "You had him blocked whichever way he turned--so effectuallyblocked, in fact, that the only pleasure he has derived from hisinvestment since is the knowledge that he owns two thousand acres oftimber with the exclusive right to pay taxes on it, walk in it, lookat it and admire it--in fact, do everything except log it, mill it, andrealize on his investment. It must make him feel like a bally jackass."
"On the other hand," his father reminded him, "no matter what theColonel's feeling on that score may be, misery loves company, and notuntil I had pulled out of the Squaw Creek country and started logging inthe San Hedrin watershed, did I realize that I had been considerable ofa jackass myself."
"Yes," Bryce admitted, "there can be no doubt but that you cut off yournose to spite your face."
There was silence between them for several minutes. Bryce's thoughtsharked back to that first season of logging in the San Hedrin, when thecloud-burst had caught the river filled with Cardigan logs and whirledthem down to the bay, to crash through the log-boom at tidewater andcontinue out to the open sea. In his mind's eye he could still see thered-ink figures on the profit-and-loss statement Sinclair, his father'smanager, had presented at the end of that year.
The old man appeared to divine the trend of his son's thoughts. "Yes,Bryce, that was a disastrous year," he declared. "The mere loss of thelogs was a severe blow, but in addition I had to pay out quite a littlemoney to settle with my customers. I was loaded up with low-pricedorders that year, although I didn't expect to make any money. The orderswere merely taken to keep the men employed. You understand, Bryce! I hada good crew, the finest in the country; and if I had shut down, my menwould have scattered and--well, you know how hard it is to get that kindof a crew together again. Besides, I had never failed my boys before,and I couldn't bear the thought of failing them then. Half the mills inthe country were shut down at the time, and there was a lot of distressamong the unemployed. I couldn't do it, Bryce."
Bryce nodded. "And when you lost the logs, you couldn't fill thoselow-priced orders. Then the market commenced to jump and advanced threedollars in three months--"
"Exactly, my son. And my customers began to crowd me to fill thoseold orders. Praise be, my regular customers knew I wasn't the kind oflumberman who tries to crawl out of filling low-priced orders after themarket has gone up. Nevertheless I couldn't expect them to suffer withme; my failure to perform my contracts, while unavoidable, neverthelesswould have caused them a severe loss, and when they were forced to buyelsewhere, I paid them the difference between the price they paid mycompetitors and the price at which they originally placed their orderswith me. And the delay in delivery caused them further loss."
"How much?"
"Nearly a hundred thousand--to settle for losses to my local customersalone. Among my orders I had three million feet of clear lumber forshipment to the United Kingdom, and these foreign customers, thinkingI was trying to crawfish on my contracts, sued me and got judgmentfor actual and exemplary damages for my failure to perform, while thedemurrage on the ships they sent to freight the lumber sent me hustlingto the bank to borrow money."
He smoked meditatively for a minute. "I've always been land-poor," heexplained apologetically. "Never kept much of a reserve working-capitalfor emergencies, you know. Whenever I had idle money, I put it intotimber in the San Hedrin watershed, because I realized that some day therailroad would build in from the south, tap that timber, and double itsvalue. I've not as yet found reason to doubt the wisdom of my course;but"--he sighed--"the railroad is a long time coming!"
John Cardigan here spoke of a most important factor in the situation.The crying need of the country was a feeder to some transcontinentalrailroad. By reason of natural barriers, Humboldt County was not easilyaccessible to the outside world except from the sea, and even thisavenue of ingress and egress would be closed for days at a stretchwhen the harbour bar was on a rampage. With the exception of a strip oflevel, fertile land, perhaps five miles wide and thirty miles long andcontiguous to the seacoast, the heavily timbered mountains to the north,east, and south rendered the building of a railroad that would connectHumboldt County with the outside world a profoundly difficult andexpensive task. The Northwestern Pacific, indeed, had been slowlybuilding from San Francisco Bay up through Marin and Sonoma countiesto Willits in Mendocino County. But there it had stuck to await thatindefinite day when its finances and the courage of its board ofdirectors should prove equal to the colossal task of continuing the roadtwo hundred miles through the mountains to Sequoia on Humboldt Bay.For twenty years the Humboldt pioneers had lived in hope of this; buteventually they had died in despair or were in process of doing so.
"Don't worry, Dad. It will come," Bryce assured his father. "It's boundto."
"Yes, but not in my day. And when it comes, a stranger may own your SanHedrin timber and reap the reward of my lifetime of labour."
Again a silence fell between them, broken presently by the old man."That was a mistake--logging in the San Hedrin," he observed. "I hadmy lesson that first year, but I didn't heed it. If I had abandoned mycamps there, pocketed my pride, paid Colonel Pennington two dollars forhis Squaw Creek timber, and rebuilt my old logging-road, I would havebeen safe to-day. But I was stubborn; I'd played the game so long, youknow--I didn't want to let that man Pennington outgame me. So I tackledthe San Hedrin again. We put thirty million feet of logs into the riverthat year, and when the freshet came, McTavish managed to make a fairlysuccessful drive. But he was all winter on the job, and when springcame and the men went into the woods again, they had to leave nearly amillion feet of heavy butt logs permanently stranded in the slack wateralong the banks, while perhaps another million feet of lighter logs hadbeen lifted out of the channel by the overflow and left high and drywhen the water receded. There they were, Bryce, scattered up and downthe river, far from the cables and logging-donkeys, the only power wecould use to get those monsters back into the river again, and I wasforced to decide whether they should be abandoned or split during thesummer into railroad ties, posts, pickets, and shakes--commodities forwhich there was very little call at the time and in which, evenwhen sold, there could be no profit after deducting the cost of thetwenty-mile wagon haul to Sequoia, and the water freight from Sequoia tomarket. So I abandoned them."
"I remember that phase of it, partner."
"To log it the third year only meant that more of those heavy logs wouldjam and spell more loss. Besides, there was always danger of anothercloud-burst which would put me out of business completely, and Icouldn't afford the risk."
"That was the time you should have offered Colonel Pennington a handsomeprofit on his Squaw Creek timber, pal."
"If my hindsight was as good as my foresight, and I had my eyesight, Iwouldn't be in this dilemma at all," the old man retorted briskly. "It'shard to teach an old dog new tricks, and besides, I was obsessed withthe need of protecting your heritage from attack in any direc
tion."
John Cardigan straightened up in his chair and laid the tip of his rightindex finger in the centre of the palm of his left hand. "Here was thesituation, Bryce: The centre of my palm represents Sequoia; the end ofmy fingers represents the San Hedrin timber twenty miles south. Now, ifthe railroad built in from the south, you would win. But if it built infrom Grant's Pass, Oregon, on the north from the base of my hand, theterminus of the line would be Sequoia, twenty miles from your timber inthe San Hedrin watershed!"
Bryce nodded. "In which event," he replied, "we, would be in much thesame position with our San Hedrin timber as Colonel Pennington is withhis Squaw Creek timber. We would have the comforting knowledge that weowned it and paid taxes on it but couldn't do a dad-burned thing withit!"
"Right you are! The thing to do, then, as I viewed the situation, Bryce,was to acquire a body of timber NORTH of Sequoia and be prepared foreither eventuality. And this I did."
Silence again descended upon them; and Bryce, gazing into the openfireplace, recalled an event in that period of his father's activities:Old Bill Henderson had come up to their house to dinner one night, andquite suddenly, in the midst of his soup, the old fox had glared acrossat his host and bellowed:
"John, I hear you've bought six thousand acres up in Township Nine."
John Cardigan had merely nodded, and Henderson had continued:
"Going to log it or hold it for investment?"
"It was a good buy," Cardigan had replied enigmatically; "so I thoughtI'd better take it at the price. I suppose Bryce will log it some day."
"Then I wish Bryce wasn't such a boy, John. See here, now, neighbour.I'll 'fess up. I took that money Pennington gave me for my Squaw Creektimber and put it back into redwood in Township Nine, slam-bang upagainst your holdings there. John, I'd build a mill on tidewater ifyou'd sell me a site, and I'd log my timber if--"
"I'll sell you a mill-site, Bill, and I won't stab you to the heart,either. Consider that settled."
"That's bully, John; but still, you only dispose of part of my troubles.There's twelve miles of logging-road to build to get my logs to themill, and I haven't enough ready money to make the grade. Better throwin with me, John, and we'll build the road and operate it for our jointinterest."
"I'll not throw in with you, Bill, at my time of life, I don't want tohave the worry of building, maintaining, and operating twelve miles ofprivate railroad. But I'll loan you, without security--"
"You'll have to take an unsecured note, John. Everything I've got ishocked."
"--the money you need to build and equip the road," finished Cardigan."In return you are to shoulder all the grief and worry of the road andgive me a ten-year contract at a dollar and a half per thousand feet,to haul my logs down to tidewater with your own. My minimum haul will betwenty-five million feet annually, and my maximum fifty million--"
"Sold!" cried Henderson. And it was even so.
Bryce came out of his reverie. "And now?" he queried of his father.
"I mortgaged the San Hedrin timber in the south to buy the timber in thenorth, my son; then after I commenced logging in my new holdings, cameseveral long, lean years of famine. I stuck it out, hoping for a changefor the better; I couldn't bear to close down my mill and logging-camps,for the reason that I could stand the loss far more readily than the menwho worked for me and depended upon me. But the market dragged in thedoldrums, and Bill Henderson died, and his boys got discouraged, and--"
A sudden flash of inspiration illumined Bryce Cardigan's brain. "Andthey sold out to Colonel Pennington," he cried.
"Exactly. The Colonel took over my contract with Henderson's company,along with the other assets, and it was incumbent upon him, as assignee,to fulfill the contract. For the past two years the market for redwoodhas been most gratifying, and if I could only have gotten a maximumsupply of logs over Pennington's road, I'd have worked out of the hole,but--"
"He manages to hold you to a minimum annual haul of twenty-five millionfeet, eh?"
John Cardigan nodded. "He claims he's short of rolling-stock--thatwrecks and fires have embarrassed the road. He can always find excusesfor failing to spot in logging-trucks for Cardigan's logs. BillHenderson never played the game that way. He gave me what I wanted andnever held me to the minimum haulage when I was prepared to give him themaximum."
"What does Colonel Pennington want, pard?"
"He wants," said John Cardigan slowly, "my Valley of the Giants anda right of way through my land from the valley to a log-dump on deepwater."
"And you refused him?"
"Naturally. You know my ideas on that big timber." His old head sank lowon his breast. "Folks call them Cardigan's Redwoods now," he murmured."Cardigan's Redwoods--and Pennington would cut them! Oh, Bryce, the manhasn't a soul!"
"But I fail to see what the loss of Cardigan's Redwoods has to do withthe impending ruin of the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company," his sonreminded him. "We have all the timber we want."
"My ten-year contract has but one more year to run, and recently I triedto get Pennington to renew it. He was very nice and sociable, but--henamed me a freight-rate, for a renewal of the contract for five years,of three dollars per thousand feet. That rate is prohibitive and puts usout of business."
"Not necessarily," Bryce returned evenly. "How about the State railroadcommission? Hasn't it got something to say about rates?"
"Yes--on common carriers. But Pennington's load is a privatelogging-road; my contract will expire next year, and it is not incumbentupon Pennington to renew it. And one can't operate a sawmill withoutlogs, you know."
"Then," said Bryce calmly, "we'll shut the mill down when thelog-hauling contract expires, hold our timber as an investment, and livethe simple life until we can sell it or a transcontinental road buildsinto Humboldt County and enables us to start up the mill again."
John Cardigan shook his head. "I'm mortgaged to the last penny," heconfessed, "and Pennington has been buying Cardigan Redwood LumberCompany first-mortgage bonds until he is in control of the issue. He'llbuy in the San Hedrin timber at the foreclosure sale, and in order toget it back and save something for you out of the wreckage, I'll haveto make an unprofitable trade with him. I'll have to give him my timberadjoining his north of Sequoia, together with my Valley of the Giants,in return for the San Hedrin timber, to which he'll have a sheriff'sdeed. But the mill, all my old employees, with their numerousdependents--gone, with you left land-poor and without a dollar to payyour taxes. Smashed--like that!" And he drove his fist into the palm ofhis hand.
"Perhaps--but not without a fight," Bryce answered, although he knewtheir plight was well-nigh hopeless. "I'll give that man Pennington arun for his money, or I'll know the reason."
The telephone on the table beside him tinkled, and he took down thereceiver and said "Hello!"
"Mercy!" came the clear, sweet voice of Shirley Sumner over the wire."Do you feel as savage as all that, Mr. Cardigan?"
For the second time in his life the thrill that was akin to pain cameto Bryce Cardigan. He laughed. "If I had known you were calling, MissSumner," he said, "I shouldn't have growled so."
"Well, you're forgiven--for several reasons, but principally for sendingme that delicious blackberry pie. Of course, it discoloured my teethtemporarily, but I don't care. The pie was worth it, and you wereawfully dear to think of sending it. Thank you so much."
"Glad you liked it, Miss Sumner. I dare to hope that I may have theprivilege of seeing you soon again."
"Of course. One good pie deserves another. Some evening next week, whenthat dear old daddy of yours can spare his boy, you might be interestedto see our burl-redwood-panelled dining room Uncle Seth is so proud of.I'm too recent an arrival to know the hour at which Uncle Seth dines,but I'll let you know later and name a definite date. Would Thursdaynight be convenient?"
"Perfectly. Thank you a thousand times."
She bade him good-night. As he turned from the telephone, his fatherlooked up. "What are you going to do to-morrow, la
d?" he queried.
"I have to do some thinking to-morrow," Bryce answered. "So I'm going upinto Cardigan's Redwoods to do it. Up there a fellow can get set, as itwere, to put over a thought with a punch in it."
"The dogwoods and rhododendron are blooming now," the old man murmuredwistfully. Bryce knew what he was thinking of. "I'll attend to theflowers for Mother," he assured Cardigan, and he added fiercely:"And I'll attend to the battle for Father. We may lose, but that manPennington will know he's been in a fight before we fin---"
He broke off abruptly, for he had just remembered that he was to dine atthe Pennington house the following Thursday--and he was not the sort ofman who smilingly breaks bread with his enemy.