Half an hour later Rod heard the Haida whistle far down channel. The tide had gone slack. He rowed back, a little keen to see Phil. And as he crossed he looked back at Oliver Thorn's timber and thought to himself that Thorn was doing precisely what the earlier Norquays had done. He had shrewdly based his material security on possession of a natural resource. There was no accident in Oliver Thorn's ownership. The man had a sound design that differed in scope but not in kind from the design whereby the Norquays had become what they were and held what they had.
This was the man Norquay senior had termed a dreamy-eyed incompetent.
Rod smiled. It wasn't like his father to make blunders in estimating men. Then he fell to thinking of Grove,—and he was not so sure of the paternal judgment. Or, was it that his own distaste for his elder brother blinded him to excellent qualities and abilities easily visible to a father's eye?
CHAPTER VI
"When I went away you were talking about going on your own," Rod said. "What kind of a twist have things taken here? You seem to be pretty much the whole works now."
"Only by proxy," Phil answered. "Somebody has to be on the job more or less. I don't mind so long as they give me a fairly free hand. Matters here have become secondary in the Norquay scheme of things, but they're still quite a handful for somebody."
"Loosen up," Rod commanded. "You weren't at all explicit in any of your letters, and the governor confined himself mostly to checks and a few casual admonitions. Has Grove quit Hawk's Nest for a career in business? What does this trust company thing amount to?"
"Lord knows. Did you go and see the plant?"
"I wasn't interested. Seeing the governor was away I only stayed in town overnight. I saw an electric sign in huge letters on a roof downtown."