"That's compiled from all available surveys and records. It took three months to make it. I was getting ready for you."
Baudette nodded. He was interested in how the thing was compiled, and his eyes traced the birth and flow of rivers and the great sweep of well remembered lakes. Presently Clark's voice came in again.
"Where's the best pulp wood? We've been getting it from everywhere."
A lean brown forefinger slid slowly over the edge of the map. Clark noted its delicacy and strength. It halted a moment at St. Marys, then, as though Baudette counted the miles, traversed the shore of Superior and turned into a great bay to the westward. At the belly of the bay the finger struck inland following a wide river, and halted in a triangle of land where the river forked. Baudette looked up and nodded.
"Ah!" said Clark thoughtfully. "How much good wood is there?"
The forefinger commenced an irregular course during which it struck into salients that followed up lesser and tributary streams. It had enclosed perhaps five hundred square miles of Canadian territory when it reached its starting point.
"Four years' wood." Baudette's voice was still impressive.
The other man smiled as though in subdued mirth, and with a red pencil outlined the area. Following this his eyes rested contemplatively on the lumberman who sat still focussed on the map.
"Come back in two weeks," he said suddenly. "Good morning."
Baudette glanced at him, and went out so quietly that there was not the sound of a footstep. Clark's manner of speech and person had set him thinking as never before. Ten thousand cords of wood a year was the usual order of things, but of fifty thousand cords he had never dreamed.