Jimmy made a sign of comprehension, and Jordan lighted another cigar before he opened the paper he had brought with him. "Now and then the little man gets a show, though it's usually when the big one isn't quite awake," he said. "You sit still there, and listen to this. 'The Provincial Legislature at length appears to recognize that its responsibilities are not confined to fostering the progress of the bush districts, and one contemplates with satisfaction a change in the policy which has hitherto incurred a heavy expenditure upon roads and bridges for the exclusive benefit of the ranchers. Now that retrenchment in this direction appears to be contemplated, there should be money to spare for equally desirable purposes.'"
He threw down the paper. "I guess that's going to cost Merril a pile, especially as the member for the district in which he is starting his wood-pulp mill shows signs of going back on him. From what the boys are saying, Merril has a pull on the man, but it seems his party has a stronger one."
"I don't quite understand," said Jimmy.
Jordan laughed softly. "It's interesting. Shows how things are run. Merril bought up a mortgage on a half-built wood-pulp mill which the men who began it couldn't finish, and fixed things so that by and by it belonged to him and two or three of his friends. Well, that mill was put where it is because they've a head of water that will give them power for nothing, and spruce fit for making high-grade pulp, but it's not on the railroad and not near the coast. The question is how to get their product out. There are big mills between them and the lake they could put a steamer on, and they'll have to lay down a wagon-road, underpinning a good deal of it on the mountain-side, and cutting odd half-miles of it out. That's going to cost them more than putting up their mill."
"Then how did they expect to hold their own with the mills now running?"
Jordan chuckled. "By getting the Province to make their road for them. Merril has influential friends, and one of them who went up not long ago discovered that there was a high-class ranching district behind the mill; it only wanted roads to bring the settlers in."
Then his face grew grave, and he sat silent a minute, or two before he spoke again.
"Jimmy," he said, with a very unusual diffidence, "there's a thing that is worrying me. It doesn't strike me as quite fitting that Eleanor should see so much of that blame Ontario man in Merril's office. He has been over twice in the last fortnight to Forster's ranch."
"Do you expect me to tell her so?"
"I do not. Guess she'd make you feel mean for a month after if you did. I want you to remember, all the time, that I'm sure of your sister—but I don't like the man. He had to get out of Toronto—and they're talking about him already in the saloons. Seems to me she's playing a dangerous game in fooling him."