I
suppose, though, that that would have been the logical procedure."
Old John chuckled. "You're right, it would, with Fred Orcutt mixed up
in it. But they didn't catch me nappin', an' I slipped the word to the
city dads that I'd sell out to 'em, lock, stock, an' barrel, at a
figure that would have meant a loss to Orcutt's crowd to meet. So I'm
the one that busted the Nettle River bubble, an' seein' I knocked ye
out of a job, it's no more than fair I should offer ye another."
"Why, thank you----"
"Don't thank me yet," interrupted McNabb. "Ye may not care to tackle
it. It's a man's size job, in a man's country. Part of it's the same
kind of work you've been doin' here--locatin' a dam to furnish power to
run a pulp mill. Then you'll have to check up the land covered by that
batch of options, an' explore a couple of rivers, an' locate more
pulpwood, an' get options on it. An' lay out a road to the railway.
It's in Canada, in the Gods Lake Country, three hundred miles north of
the railhead."
"How soon would you expect me to start?"
"Monday wouldn't be none too soon; to-morrow would be better. It's
this way. I've got options on better than half a million acres of
pulpwood lyin' between Hayes River an' the Shamattawa. Ten years ago I
cut the last of my pine, an' I got out my pencil an' begun to figure
how I could keep in the woods. I pig-ironed a little--got out hardwood
for the wooden specialty factories to cut up into spools, an'
clothes-pins, an' oval dishes an' whatnot--an' then I turned my
attention to the pulpwood.
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